What are you reading?

Here are the NTB books I've been reading.

Thing 23 - I made it!

I wasn't sure at times if I would make it through everything, but I was determined to finish and when I became frustrated I stepped away and came back to it with a clearer head for learning!

There were many things I enjoyed learning about: I was thrilled when I added my avatar, something from Teachertube and the podcast. I liked learning about Flickr and Del.icio.us and the options that are available through Google. Now my blog will be more interesting and draw in the students and staff.

It has helped me with developing another way for me to communicate with my book competition team and other students about books I am reading and books they are reading. It offers a 24 hr way to share our information with each other. I am also hopeful that this will get more students involved with sharing and pull in reluctant readers to share also. I see the blog expanding to meet the needs of the team and others.

The unexpected outcomes for me was to complete everything. I'm still working on adding speech to my podcast and when I accomplish that I will post the updated version. I will then feel that I have completed everything. I was excited when I was able to add my avatar and then deflated when I removed it and had to go back and refresh how to put it back in. I know that I will continue to review the 23 Things so it will come easily to me. I must remind myself to not give up, just step back, take a break and then try again. I would have never finished otherwise.

The main thing I would change is perhaps breaking up the 23 Things in half as it is time consuming. It might not seem overwhelming if it was divided up so that if one became discouraged we would be more likely to go back and try again if we knew there wasn't so much to do. Once half is completed then folks might be more likely to go on and finish the final part of the 23 Things.

Yes, I would like to participate in more activities like this program. I would like to see how others are using their blogs in their libraries and classrooms, plus what else I can do to make it more inviting so more will participate in my blog.

My learning for the course I would say is - Hang in there, the results are rewarding!

I am glad this was opened up to others outside of Spring Branch. Thanks!

Thing 21

Here is Thing 21. I did not have a microphone on the computer I have been using. I used Photo Story 3 to do my creating. Now that I know the basics, I can do more for my next podcast. Photo Story 3 was very easy to use and I will try using a microphone on my next project.

Thing 22

I've skipped number Thing 21 for abit as I'm having a hard time getting signed up to Switchpod. I'll try again later.

Nings, I like them. I signed up for middle school librarians and YA lit in teacher librarian and middle school in Texas librarians. I can discuss with peers problems or successes I am having with my age group, discuss books which may or may not be appropriate for our age group. I like being able to discuss with librarians in our state and across the country. It nice to hear the positive and negative and read that others are having the same problems as me! They will definately be used,as I have put them in my del.icio.us list so I can access them anywhere, anytime!

Now back to Thing 21! Wish me luck!

Thing 20

I did it!! It wasn't as complicated as I was making it. It does work for me to back away for it for awhile and then come back and look at it again!

Thing 20 - Life As We Knew It

I have been exploring Youtube and Teachertube. I had fun looking up to see if my school was on either and then I looked at different subject areas. I did find our drumline and karate group on Youtube! On Teachertube, I looked up various subject areas and found some fun things for history and math. I also looked at book promotions and found the video I hope I will get on my blog. I've been having difficulties doing that. First, I lost my avatar! I had to go back to Thing 3 and review how to save it again on my blog. I obviously need to practice adding video, pictures, and slide shows more so that it will be second nature to me! Since I know I am making progess I haven't given up. I know I can do it, so I take a breather and then come back and it falls into place.

Thing 19

Two sites I liked with Awards 2.0 were Mango languages and Farecast. Mango helps a person to learn and language and has ESL programs which could be used with students. I played with learning Spanish. It will say the words outloud and give explanations as to tenses. I only did the first lesson, you have to log in to receive more. I needed to pay attention as it would give you a sentence in English and Spanish and then only give you one English word and ask for the Spanish counterpart. This program would be useful for me and others who would like to learn a language and also for students who are learning English.

Farecast was interesting as I put in two cities and it will search several sites, Expedia, Hotwire and others to look for cheap flights. It came up with some very expensive flights for these times. I could use this personally, but students can use this as we have a group who prepare a presentation on visiting another place in the world. This gives them the ability to see how expensive it is to fly to various places by having the obtion of Farecast looking at several sites to get the best deal.

Both will be sites I will be using in the future, personally and professionaly.