Week 9, Thing #23 - Summary

I had never heard of Creative Commons before, so I watched several of the videos to see what it was all about and how it worked. It is the type of thing that you want to be aware of so that you can recommend it to others who may be searching for an answer to their personal copyright concerns. I would like to explore copyright with my elementary students next year and Creative Commons would certainly be a part of that.

Now, on to the summary of this wonderful class.

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I have to admit that I was interested in almost everything I learned. My favorites were blogs, RSS feeds, del.icio.us, LibraryThing, and wikis.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

I have always been very excited to learn new things, esp. in technology.
In the past 3 years, it has seemed that I've become stagnant because budget cuts have taken away all my staff. To get through each day, I've been doing what is necessary and cutting out experimenting with new things, because the time just isn't there. The joy in the job used to be trying to figure out new and creative ways to have students engage in research and that has taken a back seat to all the other tasks. With this class, I have given myself myself a chance to be excited about something again. Even if I can't implement it all, at least I have my old enthusiasm back again. I feel so much better.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I have been surprised at how many of the new technologies I have comfortably adopted and now use every day. Of course, I enjoy the blog and will start another one after this about my travels this spring. That will free me up from feeling like I have to write to everyone while I'm away. Every morning, the first thing I check on my computer is Google Reader. The RSS feeds save me the trouble of checking out my favorite sites. Now, they come to me. I have the "subscribe" tab on my toolbar, so I can easily add others. I also now add websites to del.icio.us rather than bookmarking them to my favorites. I like being able to tag them, thus enabling me to find them more easily. Nine weeks ago, none of this was on my mind. In addition, my husband has gotten interested in what we learn each week and he has investigated several of these Web2.0 technologies and adopted them also.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

I think that there was a lot crammed into 9 weeks. It might have been good to spread it out a bit more. At one point, I felt like I was getting mixed up about all the new things I'd learned. Also, I often felt like I wanted to explore even more of the recommended sites, and ones that others in the class had mentioned, but at some point had to stop because the hours were just slipping away so quickly. I enjoyed reading everyone's posts through Google Reader. If it hadn't been for that, it would have been tough to keep up with all the posts every day. I liked commenting on others' posts, and wished that we could have had more of that kind of dialogue. I think that with so many people in the class, it was hard to comment on more than a handful of posts. Perhaps a smaller group would have been better. On the other hand, as a late enrollee, I wouldn't have wanted to have been left out.

5. If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
Absolutely! I hope that it will happen. I'm sure there's plenty more to learn and even more still on its way. I just learned to use Skype this past week and love that.

6. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or in ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote CSLA learning activities?
INVIGORATING

Many thanks to the people who set this class up and who advertised it. It's been a lot of fun to get to know classmates through their blogs. I think that we are a highly motivated, interesting and adventurous group of people. Maybe we can have a reunion at the next MSLA Conference!

Week 9, Thing #22 - Zoho

I will try Zoho writer again in writing this post.  Maybe this time I'll figure out how to have the emoticons upload along with the text.

I looked over the Project Gutenberg site and was taken with the idea that it was just 100 years ago that the hottest item was libraries with books that could be borrowed and read for free.  Now, 100 years later, there is this effort to provide free audio access to books for patrons to download.  I looked at the free children's literature in audio and of course, found that most of the audio books are quite old, and I'd never heard of many of them.  I assume that they can be recorded and offered online because the copyright on them has expired.  That will be the big difference between libraries offering free books and the Gutenberg offered free audios; books can be current and free to lend, audios most likely can't.  Nevertheless, it's a tremendous and valuable project and seems like a logical next step.

While at the Project Gutenberg site, I saw links to the Kindle, Amazon's new reading device.  I spent a tremendous amount of time really learning about Kindle.  I read about it and all it offers, I read customer reactions and watched the 3 videos that they have: Jeff Bezos talking about Kindle; Jeff Bezos being interviewed by Charlie Rose; and Toni Morrison telling of her experiences with Kindle.  I was pretty taken with Kindle.  Here are some of the things I liked about it: you can download a book anywhere because it uses cell phone technology, not the Internet; best sellers are $9.99; you can read the first few chapters for free, the high resolution screen looks like the pages of a book; it will keep your place when you turn it off; it only weighs 10 oz.; it holds 200 books; and there are 100,000 books available.   There are many other features that will appeal to people.  In listening to Bezos, he expects that in about 10 years, all books in all languages will be available on Kindle.  He feels that printing books "on dead trees" is in our future.  He is able to offer some features that books can't (e.g. linking vocabulary to a dictionary, having reviews available) and says that you have to play to the strengths of the new technology.  The interview is very interesting and I encourage you to watch it.  He doesn't discuss what will happen to libraries.  It still seems to me, that even at the low price of $9.99, many patrons still couldn't afford to buy all the books they might want to read, so there could still be a place for libraries providing free reading material.  But will we be lending out Kindles? 

So, will Kindle make it big - it just could happen.  But what about children's books with their many colorful illustrations (Bezos says color is coming to Kindle in about 3 years.)  Will book lovers be happy having their whole collection on Kindle - maybe.  On Tuesday, I'm leaving for a 2 month stay in Switzerland and the books I want to take are taking up quite a bit of room in my suitcase and I may have to leave some behind.  Right about now, I could go for a Kindle - but they're all sold out!

Week 9, Thing #21 - Podcasts

Like YouTube, I am amazed at the number of people out there posting podcasts. I listened to podcast tutorial for La Leche League, a group I belonged to many years ago. It came up when I did a search on podcast tutorials and it explained podcasts very well. The speaker talked about listening to podcasts while cooking and doing other home chores or driving (if you put it on your ipod, which I don't have). I had been wondering when I would ever find time to listen to podcasts but there are those times when it could fit in.

I tried podcast.net to look but the link doesn't seem to work. I tried yahoo podcasts but those seemed to be mostly music. So, I just went to google and typed in podcasts in conjunction with other search terms, such as elementary school libraries, knitting, and gardening, just to see what's out there. I listened to a knitting podcast, Knitting News Cast, that a woman in Texas puts out and signed up for it. I was happy to find the School Library Journal podcast and signed up for that. They discuss various topics that I'm interested in and if I can squeeze them in when I'm doing dishes or straightening up,then that would be great. It's hard keeping up on professional materials and so this would be a great help. I usually read right before going to bed, but with podcasts, I could just listen. So many choices, so little time.

Week 9, Thing #20 - YouTube

This YouTube, that I have embedded, is called "Thank You Note" and it's only 2:00 long. It's definitely worth watching. It is a very creatively done story of a young girl who discovers the author, Zilpha Keatly Snyder in her library and the impact the the author and the library has on her life and career. I chose it because it was so well done, had a good message and was inspirational for librarians. I found it by doing a search on "elementary school library" and then looked at the listings, looking for one with some stars which wouldn't be too long. I had previously searched under "Dewey Decimal" and found some very amusing, but way too long, videos. There are a number of library videos that were entered in contests, which are certainly amateurish but fun to watch.

I am amazed at how many people put videos on YouTube. I think the sight is very user-friendly, which explains its huge popularity. It is not overwhelming because you only see what it is you are searching. I was amused by the "Videos Being Watched Right Now" which changes every few seconds. There were some good selection there. Some of the snapshots looked X-rated. I'm not sure of the YouTube policy. I held my breath and tried clicking on one to see what would happen and was relieved to see that it said it was a violation and wouldn't show it. Of course, it seems that it got posted in the first place. Perhaps they get weeded out after they are posted.

You can really spend a lot of time on YouTube. My daughter has posted a little video of my granddaughter and we all enjoyed that. YouTube is certainly a fun aspect of Web 2.0

Week 8, Thing #18 - Zoho

I started looking at Zoho two days ago and mentioned it to my husband, who became very interested because he has been working on finding the best way to teach his physics class at UMass remotely to students at other schools. He quickly learned how to set up a Zoho meeting which allows others to view his computer desktop (he has a tablet PC).  He can then teach his class, drawing equations in Powerpoint and the students at the remote locations can watch this on their computers.  He had to combine this with Skype because Zoho doesn't provide audio with their Zoho meeting.  He wrote to them and learned that they are working on doing this, which will be a great addition.  My husband said he'd become their tester.  So now, he'll be able to teach his remote students live with visual and sound.  By using a webcam everyone can view one another also.

Last evening we tried out Zoho meeting between our two computers and it is interesting.  I "initiated the meeting" and "invited" my husband as a "participant".  So, his desktop became the mirror image of mine.  Everything I did on my computer appeared on his but I was in control of the mouse.  I could also allow him rights to control the mouse, and so he could go into my documents on his computer and view what was there and make changes if he wanted.    I didn't allow that for very long.  

This week, the librarians in my district will have such a meeting with the Destiny (Follett) software representative to show us the program.  We are trying to decide if we want to make the change from Infocentre.  I guess that he will use a program similar to Zoho meeting to allow each of us, in our libraries, to participate in the meeting.  So it's been interesting to see how we ourselves can do this through Zoho Meeting.

I'm using Zoho writer to create my blog entry and am curious to see how easily it will export to my blog.  upload. I plan on exploring some of the other features of Zoho as time allows. 

P.S. So, after many trials, I've now managed to upload my blog entry from Zoho Writer. I have deleted my first bad attempt but if you are getting it as an RSS feed you will see both attempts. At any rate, the emoticons didn't come out as images. Maybe I'll figure this out later.

Week 8, Thing #19 - LibraryThing

I've had a good time using Library Thing. I enjoyed seeing the lists of others who had read the same books that I had. I can see that this could become quite addictive. I was amazed to see how many groups there are associated with Library Thing. I joined the Children's Fiction group. I also invited my daughter to join Library Thing. She often is looking for recommendations for her book group.

I'm thinking of also starting a library that lists the childrens' books that I always recommend - or should I do that in a blog, or a wiki, or which of the many tools we've looked at in the past few weeks?!?!? I really have to start thinking about the right tool for the information that I want to put out there.

Week 7, Thing #16 - Wikis

I've spent quite a bit of time looking at wikis, and then reading the blogs of those who have already done this. I appreciated the suggestions that many of you made as to how to use a wiki in a library setting. It seems like most librarians who have started wikis are in secondary schools. I would like to see more from elementary schools.

I think that until I try starting a wiki, I won't really know how much I like it and what the advantages and disadvantages are. I do like the idea of a book lovers wiki. I'd love to start one for students to add their summer reading selections to, along with their reviews and recommendations. I'm not sure how this would work out for elementary students. A few people suggested starting a wiki for library staff or volunteers and this sounds intriguing to me. I don't know how comfortable volunteers would feel adding to it.

I enjoyed the article, "Using Wikis to Create Online Communities" with all its excellent suggestions. Recently the librarians in my district have been working on long range planning documents as well as plans for the "Optimum School Library" (requested by the superintendent). We had several meetings and I see that we could have set this up as a wiki and worked on it collaboratively. I will be on the look-out for other opportunities to use this technology. I will be on leave for 2 months soon and perhaps I can use some of that time to start a wiki. As I said, until I use it myself, I won't really be able to evaluate its usefulness for me.

Week 6, Thing #15 The Future of Libraries

I decided to take this class because I felt like I had fallen behind in the technology world. I didn't know what RSS or del.icio.us were referring to, when I came upon them. I was afraid that if I didn't catch up, in 20 or 30 years I'd be like my mother who can't figure out how to reset her microwave clock when the power goes off. I figured it was too early to start falling behind.

When I read the article from OCLC, it confirmed what I'd been thinking, you really can't afford to fall behind in something that is affecting so many parts of our lives. Web 2.0 is the center of a new digital lifestyle that changes our culture and touches every aspect of our lives. It drives everything we do. I actually knew that - I keep my laptop on the kitchen table and whenever I need to know anything, a substitution for buttermilk, or what time the movie starts, or how to get somewhere, I find it readily. I just hadn't quite put it into those words for myself.

The concept of the Icebergs definitely raised some interesting points. I was especially interested in the just in case library collection. Luckily, I work in an elementary school library and it is still very necessary to have books on anything and everything because you can never anticipate what budding young learners will need a book about. I very much enjoy buying just in case books and I'm always thrilled when someone is excited by them. However, I can see that secondary school librarians aren't compelled today to have something about everything.

Another iceberg of interest was the idea that the services need to be fixed, not our patrons. I often am frustrated with our online catalog that requires students to spell authors or tiles or subject correctly, otherwise it looks like we don't have what they are looking for. One could say that perhaps they will learn to spell better this way, but in fact, they just assume we don't have it. I think in this case the service needs to be fixed. Couldn't there be a message, Google does it, saying Did you mean ...

I was wondering how Library 2.0 would affect elementary school libraries, other than in research, since in the younger grades, the book is really the attraction. In Christopher Harris's article in SLJ ( May 2006), Say good-bye to your mother's library, he makes a number of suggestions, such as using LibraryThing.com, blogs and podcasts to facilitate book discussions and booktalks. I was glad when he said,
the heart of the concept, though, is not about the tools, but rather the communities and the conversations that they make possible. He also feels that the flexible vs. fixed schedule debate will come to an end in Library 2.0 as services extend beyond the walls (if you have them, I don't) of the library. He has a number of great ideas and I highly recommend his article.

Week 6, Thing #14 Technorati

I would have to say that Technorati has been my least favorite site to explore thus far. I have really taken to Del.icio.us and have cleaned up by bookmarks, added tags and made them uniform to avoid duplication, observed others' tags, and made decisions on what to share. When I looked at Technorati, it just seemed like overload. The advertising on the page and the numerous links on topics I wasn't interested in, turned me off. I did do some searches on blog posts, tags and the blog directory and much preferred the results in the latter two. Without them, Technorati would be totally impossible. I'm glad I know it exists but I suspect that at this time, I will not be spending much time there. I think that by using Del.icio.us for my own bookmarks, I learned much more about the need for effective tagging.

At this time, with this blog, I do not think that anyone outside of this class would be interested in reading it. It's possible that in the future as I create another blog, I would consider wanting it to be part of a Technorati tag search. Right now, there is way too much to read out there.

Week 6, Thing #13

I began my del.icio.us investigation by trying to watch the video but that link didn't seem to work, so I decided to take the plunge and open an account. This was easy to do, though the home page did look intimidating at first with all those tags. After I opened an account, I did a search on Google and found some others had posted tutorials, but I'd already figured out what they had to say.

I imported the del.icio.us button and tag icon onto my desktop. I use Firefox so I used their method, it's a bit different for Explorer, I think. Now I was all set, except I didn't have any bookmarks, so I imported the bookmarks that I have stored on my computer. This was easy but did take a long time for the import. I thought I was just importing one folder's worth, just to see how it would go, but it turns out that I imported all of them. This amounted to 56 pages of bookmarks (10 per page). I would recommend weeding your bookmarks before you do this import.

When you import them, it uses the name of the folder you have them stored in for the tag. I realized that I'd like additional tags and started editing each one, adding tags and choosing whether I want to share my bookmarks. Sometimes it was difficult to decide on a good tag. If others had bookmarked that site, I could see what they had chosen for tags. This really helped. Another thing to get used to is moving through your pages of bookmarks. They are arranged in the order they were added so to go backwards, you click on "earlier" and to go forwards, you click on "later". Somehow, this was counter-intuitive for me.

As you can imagine, it would take some time to edit 560 of these, so I abandoned editing quickly and started weeding my bookmarks. Many of the links no longer existed and I didn't care about others so I got it way down, but I'm nowhere near finished. It is kind of addictive to organize these, add tags, see what others are using for tags, see what other bookmarks they have, and then you get distracted by the other great websites you're finding. Clearly, this will be an ongoing process, since I have been saving bookmarks for years. Happy is the person who is just starting out with fresh bookmarking! By the way, bookmarking new sites is a snap - when you want to bookmark a site, you just click on the Tag icon and a box pops up and you put in the tags you want.

Right now, I'm happy to have my bookmarks online because I will be in Zurich for 2 months this spring and now will have access to my bookmarks on whatever computer I use there. I haven't had time to think of library applications yet, but I'm sure I will. I'm anxious to see how you plan to use this in your libraries. I had fun with del.icio.us (though I do have to think about how to spell it and put the periods in, every time I type it - thank goodness for the icon on my toolbar). Next I have to learn how to bundle the tags. So much to learn, so little time.

Week 5, Thing #12 Rollyo

I had not been aware of Rollyo before, but now I'm sure I'll make great use of it. For starters, I made a Searchroll called Zurich Travel. This is because my husband will be on sabbatical in Zurich for 2 months this spring and I will be joining him. I will want to do some searching on various aspects of life there and this will make it easier. I found out that I should only add sites very specific to Zurich. For example, I tried adding a Fodors.com search on Zurich but only the general Fodors.com site came through. That happened with several of my original search sites so I had to delete them . I still managed to find several I wanted to add. Rollyo has been a great find.
I found the site a bit awkward at first. Once I registered it became easier to work with my searchroll. I enjoyed looking at the searchrolls that others have made also.

I can imagine using Rollyo in setting up search sites for students involved in research projects. This will limit their searching to useful sites that I can preselect. I'm looking forward to using it in this way.

Week 5, Thing #11 Exploring Web 2.0

I went to the Web 2.0 Awards list to look at some award-winning sites. There were enough there to keep me fascinated. I tried to limit myself to just a few but will come back and explore even more as time allows.

Medstory, a health site, was very comprehensive and allowed you to drill into specific sites having to do with the health topic you were looking for. You could keep refining your search. Right off the bat, if you typed in a condition, you were given drugs used to treat it, procedures, clinical trials, articles from news media as well as research articles, people involved in research, etc. I wished that in the research articles, my keywords would have been highlighted in order to find them easily. I think students researching health topics would find excellent sources here.

I tried out Kayak for awhile, looking for some cheap flights and I thought that the site was easy to use. I liked being able to zoom in on flight times, layover duration and trip duration. I thought it was good being able to see all the comparison of prices of other sites. It seemed very user-friendly. In the end, the flights weren't cheap enough for what I was planning to do, but that's not kayak's fault. One annoyance was that every time I went back to try another set of dates, it would wipe out my destination airport. The application here is purely a personal one, not for a library setting.

I also tried out Guess-the-Google and found it to be a very clever and addictive game. It moves very quickly. It's a little frustrating because, if you don't guess the answer, they don't give it to you. They only give you the starting letter It's fun to see the top scores of day and you can enter your's, if you want. It might be stretching it, but it would be a fun way for students to practicing keyword identification and making connections.

I went to Ning and looked at the various social networks. Some just have a couple of people, some haven't really gotten off the ground. I searched on some topics that I could be interested in and found some groups but at this time, I just don't have the time to join one of them. However, it is good to know how to track them down.

I played the Traveler IQ Challenge and thought it was fun and let you practice your geography skills. This would be great for the students in my school since they are very into the National Geography Bee each year. As a part of this exercise, I practiced adding this widget to my blog. They say you can add it to your website if you copy their html code, which I did. The problem is that their text color is pale yellow and doesn't show up well. Their widget conditions say you can't alter their test. Any ideas on how to fix this? I also don't know how to change the color in their html code.

IQ Traveler Challenge is brought to you by TravelPod, the Web's Original Travel Blog ( part of the TripAdvisor Media Network )

Week 5, Thing #10 Image Generators

I had a great time with the Lederhosen Dance Generator. The directions are in German, which makes it challenging. There was something similar going around before Christmas, with dancing elves. I had made those for friends, using their pictures, and they all enjoyed them. This one was more fun because you could mix together various dances. I made one of my son, and my granddaughter loved seeing her uncle dancing. She watched it over and over. If you want to watch it, click HERE, then just wait for him to start.

I also tried out the Chinese Name Generator. We have a Chinese language program in my school, starting with kindergarten. I think this would be fun for the students and teachers.

I briefly looked a few others but these are all time-consuming distractions, so I decided to move on to other things. I hadn't known how to add links to these posts so I'm glad to have gotten that down. That's the thing I really learned.

Week 4, Thing #8 & #9 RSS

I started out by exploring Google Reader and setting that up and then I checked out Bloglines and created an account there. For some reason, the Google Reader appeals to me more. Perhaps it's because it appears on my Google Home Page and so it is readily available.

It has been more difficult for me to come up with a good use of RSS. I presently use the Google Toolbar to sort sites that I like to visit into folders. This system of visiting my favorite sites every day seems to work well so I'm not sure that RSS will make it easier. I did subscribe to several more sites to put into my Google Reader, just to try them out, but then was unhappy with the volume of reading I'd have to deal with, so I deleted some of them. I really don't want more to read, I barely keep up with my favorites now. So, I've put the subscribe button up on my Google Toolbar and then when I'm visiting a site that I know I'll want to return to, I can just add it to my Google Reader and see how that works out.

Then, this morning I had a brainstorm that will really help me out. Since I've started this class, I have enjoyed reading everyone's blogs, but it is really time consuming to click through everyone's name on the list to see if they've added anything to their blog. So.... now I've added everyone's blog site to my Google Reader and put them all in a folder. As I read through them, I can mark what I've read. Then, at a glance I can see any updates you all have posted and just read those. I thought about linking my Google Reader to my blog so that others can take advantage of that, but I am not sure that would work out.

I'm looking forward to reading everyone's blog on RSS to see what use they have made of it.

Week 3, Thing #7 Technology Thoughts

While I sometimes feel that technology is getting overwhelming, I admit to using and enjoying much of it. It's a matter of finding what is useful to you, in your personal and professional life, and using it to make your leisure time and work experience better. ing It's alright not to use everything. While exploring Flickr and all the adjunct sites, I had this feeling that I'd have to quit my day job just to find the time to use all of it. As with our jobs, there is always so much more that we could be doing than we have time for. The trick is not to get so overwhelmed that you freeze and don't do anything.

Since our family is scattered all over the U.S. (California, North Carolina, Arizona & Florida - yes, we stayed in the frozen north while the kids left), the use of e-mail, webcams, skype, smugmug (Flickr-like photo posting site) and even You-Tube have made it easier for all of us to feel more in touch.

In the library, of course technology is now a given. While making a magazine cover today, I realized that could make use of that idea with my 6th grade students. We just started a new research project on inventors & inventions. Those who finish early could make a magazine cover with their inventor's photo and feature headlines pertaining to his/her inventions or discoveries. It would be a good incentive to keep everyone working at a good pace. I can also imagine them creating a blog for their inventor.

Right now my biggest problem is that I've lost my staff due to budget cuts , so implementing new and ambitious projects is difficult. I could possibly collaborate with the computer lab and thus get some added time and assistance. I've felt a great deal of frustration in the past few years as I've had to downsize my research projects, especially the technology aspects, just to get the basic job of running the library done. At this time of expanding technology and emphasis on literacy, cutting back on library services is counterproductive. I suspect many of you have experienced the same.

Week 3, Thing #6 Mashups & 3rd Party Sites

I've just spent hours (while half-watching football games) exploring the unbelievable number of mashups and 3rd party sites. There were so many fascinating ideas. Internet Inferno was very entertaining.

For my grand finale, I made a magazine cover featuring my granddaughter. It was fun, but time consuming.

I can imagine using a number of the sites and toys, while some are just interesting but I don't see a use for them. I guess there is something for everyone. I loved the Trip Planner because we often travel. It was good to see photos of places we're planning on going this year and to read travelers' tips on places to stay, eat and sights to see. I know I'll be going back to that one. I thought that Mosaickr was preferable to Montagr, much easier to see the featured photo in the mosaic.
I decided to bookmark several of the sites. I wandered around the sites so much I was afraid I'd never find them again.

Week 3, Thing #5 Flickr

I have been using Smugmug for some time for posting photos for family and friends to share. I think it is very similar to Flickr. I just opened a Flickr account and uploaded a photo. I wanted to export it to the blog but I couldn't figure out how that works. So, I uploaded it from my computer. It's a picture of the students who participated in our summer Read-a-thon, along with me and the organizer of the event.
I'm going to continue exploring Flickr to see if I prefer it to Smugmug.
After reading many of your posts, I figured I'd better get back to exploring Flickr. I enjoyed the map photos, all the items you can make with your pictures and just looking at various posted photos. I went to my town in Places and was surprised at how many photos had been posted. At this time, I have all my photos in Smugmug and have them organized. Even though I like Flickr, I don't think I'll be taking the time to switch them all over. That sounds like a summer activity. Though I might advise friends and colleagues just starting out to go with Flickr.
Oh, I did find the directions on Flickr on how to upload to your blog. Somehow I missed it the first time. It just goes to show that these sights need more than one look.

Week 2, Thing #3 Blog , Thing #4 Avatar

It took a few steps to set up the blog. First, setting up a gmail account, making an avatar (That was fun - though there were no grey hair color options. Maybe they think that grey haired people don't make Avatars), making the decisions on setting up the blog, and then figuring out how to post.

At first I didn't see how to export the Avatar. Once I found those directions, it was simple. I already had a gmail account but wanted a separate one for this. Posting is very easy and comes out looking professional with the templates. I'm looking forward to reading everyone's and making mine more individual over time.

At school, I've fallen behind on keeping up the library website, but I see that perhaps a blog would be a much easier way to go. I'm thinking that I could link a blog to the school website. Has anyone does this, rather than maintaining a website?

Week 1, Thing #2 7 Effective Habits

I've recently been feeling like the new technology is passing me by. I used to keep up with the latest until, due to budget cuts at school , I lost all my staff and had to make new priorities. Now I have this fear that if I don't stay current, years from now I'll be totally lost. This program seems like a good way to take care of my concerns. So, my GOAL is simply to catch up with the latest technology. Time could be an OBSTACLE but I'll just have to use my evenings and weekends. Since I think I will enjoy it, it should work out. Now that the holidays are over, hopefully extra time will open up. At any rate, it's a good way to start out the new year.
It's not yet clear to me what I'll need in my TOOLBOX. I assume that will become clearer along the way. I think that all the others participating will be my RESOURCES. I'm already looking forward to the next step.

Week 1, Thing #1 The Beginning

I enjoyed starting by reading about the program and looking at some of the blogs of previous participants. It was good to read about others' experiences. I think if I take this step by step, I'll be able to do it too.