By George, I think I've got it (for the most part...)

Spent the day putting my money where my mouth is....reminds me of a joke about the big-mouthed momma frog and alligator...never mind. I was so excited to find out that I had to work through Photo Story, Audacity, Flickr, Irfan View, Power Point, Incompetech, TeacherTube, MovieMaker and a plethera of image generators. Overall, I worked fast and furiously to try to complete SOMETHING, ANYTHING that I could share. Must get rid of this perfectionist thing I have going on...anyways, I did try to post my audio file on the Learning 2.0 wiki and was unsuccesful....s-l-o-wwwwwwwwwww. Just shoot me. SO I gave up. Here is something though...just to prove that I really did something. OK. Never mind. Error in uploading. We have not had much success in uploading today :(

I started my Freshman Orientation presentation by gathering a few photos to construct a flipchart. That took a while because I wanted a mixture of backgrounds. I did find a good reggae mp3 to play in the background. So I really spent my my finding all of the components and didn't come up with a finished product. There's a partial movie, partial powerpoint, partial photostory - all saved in one file so I can pull from it to make a smashing orientation presentation.

WHEN I finish the flipchart, I'll post it here. Wish me luck.....
Toodles!

Yes, I'm still alive and well

Have you missed me? I can't believe my last post was in MARCH. It's like I finished my 23 things and just disappeared, eh? Truthfully, I didn't abandon USING the cool toys I picked up in 23 Things - I just haven't blogged about it. AND I've been reading. Actually READING. Those of you that know me well know that I'm always whining about how little time I have to read. Well, let me tell you. I've been working on that...I just finished Eaters of the Dead by my boy Michael Crichton. It was enlightening and disturbing at the same time. I read it in a day and find it so interesting that it all started on an argument that Beowulf could be interesting if the story was told in an interesting way. I agree. Something else I learned is that the Antonio Banderas movie The 13th Warrior was based on Crichton's Eaters of the Dead. Now I have to go rent it..TTFN

THING 23 - Good Night, Gracie

It's not the end - it's the beginning, right? I learned SO MUCH. I'm slowly but surely getting over the overwhelmed feeling. I don't have to do it all! I just need to be open to doing it all. It won't all work for me but I have to remember our students are living it. Right now. Social networking is EVERYTHING to them and we had better jump in or we're going to miss the chance to make an impact. I am walking away (see me? My Avatar does have on sensible heels, even though they are cute) with a considerable amount of new info to process. I need to figure out how to weave these tools into my life. I'm optimistic. But I have to give myself a break if I don't take to some of these environments immediately or easily like I'm used to doing. I have to remember way back to Super Mario Brothers. I could not get past that stupid 2nd level but my 1st grader could. That really still drives me insane. I'm not good at most video games - only the racing games. But I still want a wii...

And at least I know how to hook up a data projector...so there! HA!!

Thing 22 - Ninging it

Ninging it. MUCH better than that atrocious MySpace thing I got sucked into by my college-aged children who insisted I have a page of my own. NEVER got into that scene. But I did get to peek in on their pages so it wasn't a total loss. Found out that my daughter liked to quote me on her MySpace page. Cute, you say?? Nope. She wasn't citing my quips of maternal knowledge and wisdom. Noooooo. She was telling the bajillion people that visit her page about the FUNNY things Mom said and DID - in detail. And NO I'm not going to tell you how to get to her page. But back to the task at hand. Ning. Like I said, MUCH better. Very low CREEPY factor. I hadn't set paramters on my now-removed MySpace page so I regularly got, shall we say, invitations to share my space. No thank you. But with a ning - I'm in a specific circle of "friends" - explored the Librarian nings and then a golf ning and now I'm thinking I'll start a ning of my own. Subject to be determined at a later date. I could see using a ning for a specific school project - like an inter-disciplinary project. It's a bit more cool than just a wiki or a blog, you know? :)

Thing 21 - Podcasting

In case you've been in a coma for last year, I guess you know how HOT vampire books are with the teens and adults alike. Steph Meyer started it - and now girl-falls-for-werewolf, boy-gets-the-vampire genre is exploding. We can't forget Buffy, though - she did for TV what Bella has done for reading. Anyways, there are so many people out there wanting to tell a story and I ran across it looking for new vampire writers. The author reads it herself - and for free. Smart marketing move? But BEWARE - it's a tad bit on the adult side. OK, more than a tad. But perhaps this will be one you could recommend to the older students and not necessarily put it on the shelf? We'll see...it's Forever Fifteen by Kimberley Steele

http://www.mediafly.com/Podcasts/Episodes/Chapter_1_Lucy_Gets_a_Detention

I've done a couple of podcasts of my own but I still can't get past hearing my own voice. It's creepy. Next move will be to coax a student into doing one for me...

Thing 20 - YouTube

The YT video I decided to embed is hilarious - it's about the perils of powerpointing your audience to death....I wish I had his speaking skills..AND his powerpoint skills...LOL OK, maybe not so much. I found TeacherTube to have TONS more than the first time I played with it. I can't wait until You Tube is unblocked!

Thing 19 - Web 2.0 Awards

It's stuff like this that freaks me out and makes me crazy because I feel like I'll never catch up: "There are about 500 2.0 tools on the web. You have explored just a few so far thorough this series of activities. "
Anywho, I explored LuLu and shared it with a budding teen author that hangs in the library with me every chance he gets. Everyone has a book in them, as far as I'm concerned. Whether or not anyone else would want to read it...different story, but at least we know that self-publishing is an option, right? I also looked at WriteBoard - I could see using this and I could see kids using it for group projects.

Thing 18 - Open source stuff

Love the free part. Love the Google part. Love that I can just hop on and not worry about version this or that of popular Microsoft software. Like the powerpoint knock-off but had problems importing clips but I'll deal and learn to love it. Did I mention it's FREE??

Thing 17 - sandbox

Now "sandbox" is the perfect descriptor for these wikis. I play in a couple of sandboxes - one that is professional and one that is a creative outlet. Both are equally gratifying and easy to get to. Sometimes I forget to make my way there but once I'm reminded, it's always a good feeling to connect.

Thing 16 - wikis

I've been a big fan of wikipedia since way back. From a professional point of view, I've suggested to students that it's a great place for ideas, keywords, concepts when starting a new research project. I do not however, suggest that they use it as an official cited source (yet) but that's only to keep my teachers happy. They STILL think wikipedia is the devil even though I've pointed shown them how useful it can be and that it is monitored more closely now. And besides....you can find just about ANYTHING on wikipedia. Love it. By the way, pbwiki.com looks like a great place to easily start up an educational wiki...

Thing 15 - David Warlick

Now. If we were going to use "authority" correctly...it would be to label David Warlick apparently. What a find! Could you imagine having him on your faculty? He's probably inspired me the most out of any of the blogs I've sampled recently. He's not preachy and his ideas are do-able but just far-fetched enough to challenge me. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do…” Christopher Morley

Thing 14

Who knew that there are two faces to tagging? Technorati's philosophy and Joshua Schachter's philosphy of the purpose of tagging is polar different. I also learned what "authority" is...I personally think it should be called something else...like "connections" or "taps" because it's the number of times your blog is linked. I just think "authority" lends a false air....of well....authority. Maybe I'm being too literal again....

Thing 13 - del.icio.us

When pronouncing the name of this bookmarking site - do y'all just say "delicious" - don't want to sound foolish...ok, kidding aside. What a great tool. My literature students can bookmark literary criticism sites! I can bookmark my recipe sites! And I do enjoy browsing other people's tagged sites. Great ideas are swirling around out there!

Thing 12 - Rollyo, HO!!!!

OK - this was entirely new for me - had no idea this was an option. WAY helpful. I'm rolling in about 20 categories now. I've been counting on Yahoo to roll for me up to this point, sad but true. When I go to Yahoo - I read their news and entertainment suggestions. Now I have to organize all of these tools. I'll probably add it all to my Yahoo home page since that's the place I start every time. There goes more of my social life...good-bye city life! Being tech savvy is a double-edged sword....

Thing 11 -LibraryThing

New toy. Something else bright and shiny to distract me. I can see it now...my social life is going to waste away because I'm going to be glued to my laptop. Hold up - that's just crazy talk....anyways, I started my LibraryThing catalog. It made me think about those particular titles for a little bit and remember back to how they made me feel. It's also made me think of that slogan "so many books, too little time.." I did like the "top" lists ...very interesting. If you look at the top authors, it's a great mix of classic and contemporary. I'm still a little miffed that Steph Meyer's not there...YET.

Thing 10 - Proud momma

The trading card generator, really, is very easy. I can totally see how students would love this. For instance, when I taught middle school science, we could've made trading cards for scientists, the elements, plants, animals...endless possibilities. I decided to make a trading card for my daughter...a sophomore Architecture major at LSU...GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!!! Ok, I'm better now...

Thing 10, part 1

Before I forget - here's a link to make your own custom RSS feed button - just in case you want to confuse everyone and make your RSS feed button unique. http://www.rssbuttons.com/ - more later.

Thing 9

And so I finally set up RSS feeds for some grown-up topics like my work and our government. It was time. I've procrastinated long enough. I am totally on board for the whole thing - but quite honestly, I tend to bite off more than I can chew so I have avoided "signing up" for too many RSS feeds. So the beginning of my "circle" was well chosen I think. So with Thing 9, I learned how to search blogs to find the ones I want to take the time to read. I'm so glad that the orange feedicon is usually present - it makes it so much easier to find the orange box and click it. Sidenote: I still am a terrible commentator - I think that's the term - or would it be commentor? Whatever. In other words, I'm bad about commenting on other people's blogs. And I know everyone wants feedback. I'm working on it. I'm just overwhelmed I think. OK, back to the task at hand. I think the easiest search tool for me is feedster. It's more of a one-stop shop for me and that tickles me pink. The categories save me time - when I want news, I want news and not someone's thoughts on the news.

Thing 8, RSS feeds

Since I already subscribe to a few RSS feeds for entertainment purposes, I was already familiar with the lingo. But this did make me think about it. Sometimes, I just can't be bothered to read a movie blogger's comments but I almost always find something interesting in an educational blog.

Thing 7 - whoa

I was supposed to choose 2 projects after exploring Google. I thought I knew Google. After all, I had Google Earth WAY before my contemporaries. Boy, was I naive. OMG. OK, it all started when I decided on the notebook module - tres cool - I could organize my thoughts, no? Naturally I got distracted by the other pretty buttons so I was in calendar and there were more pretty buttons especially the DOCUMENTS button where I've started a spreadsheet and then I clicked "more" and there's even more under "even more" (KISS) and then I found the best thing EVER near the bottom of the list. BOOK SEARCH. We're talking full-text, table of contents, classics and LITERARY CRITICISM books are there, too! And you can click on "about this book" and OMG again. There are WEB references, related books, and a MAP with cute red push pins showing all of the PLACES MENTIONED IN THE BOOK. Ok, that's just scary. WHO ARE THESE GOOGLE PEOPLE? I'm so glad they don't have a life and they are busy putting this GENIUS package together for me. I wonder how much the ads cost? How do they keep ADDING products for free? I want to kiss them.

Thing 6 cont.

OMG - I just found the Wacky Packages site because I found krazydad's site because he does the colr flckr site...it's a long story. Wacky Packages were like gold to my generation - it explains why we're a tad warped and here's how I'm making library connections...ready? Wacky Packages were featured in Mad Magazine when I was a kid. So naturally, I provide it to my students. It is so irreverent...I LOVE it. They know how to go just far enough to make us laugh and think but not too far.

Wacky Packages...classic.

Thing 6 - Great banter

Played with some mash ups - i love color and this one is easy to use. The banter part follows...a user commented on the site and the creator commented back. Priceless.

This is either something that designers and photo editors have been waiting their whole lives for, or one of those "I've created this because the Web lets me do it" kinds of things.-- Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
To those that question the utility of this little application, let me point out that it is a toy -- like all the stuff on my website. Its purpose is simply to provide wonder and delight. Nothing more, nothing less. Isn't that enough? -- jbum

Site is color fields colr pickr by Jim Bumgardner http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/

Thing 5 - Flickr

Explored Flickr - whoa. Had no idea there was so much to it - all I remembered was Yahoo telling me that they were going to Flickr. It's fairly easy to manipulate - and the tags are pure genious. I'm really trying to NOT become a bigger geek than I already am but because I tend to be a wee bit on the perfectionist side, I could spend hours on a simple project. So Flickr will allow me to assemble quickly. Thank goodness.

Thing 4

SO. I'm officially on the blog train. Non-stop to station 23. It really has been easier than I thought it would be. I could see where one would want to start up a number of blogs to specialize by subject. I'm thinking my students would just love to blog with me about books and movies. Hmmmmm....that's an idea.

Last imported comment - Thing 3

"Tiger Lilly said...
Thing #3 was slow going but I really did enjoy picking out my Avatar's outfit :) Now I'm going to be obsessed with changing my clothes for different seasons and occasions...I just know it."
January 23, 2008 9:08 AM

Imported comment on Thing 2

Whoa - so there is a difference between a nickname, a blog name, a blog URL and your Avatar name. I swear, I'm going to get through this. Where is that chocolate I hid yesterday....

"Tiger Lilly said...
The 7 1/2 things really hits home with me. The easiest habit for me is naturally the first one - setting a goal. The hardest is the third - viewing problems as challenges. I tend to view problems as problems and get discouraged when the new task doesn't just come easily to me. It's a character flaw! I am a lifelong learner, though so that's what keeps me going.
January 23, 2008 8:37 AM "

So now I'm showing up as Tiger Lilly. Good.

Imported Comments on Thing 1

For all of you "non-23 Things" bloggsters, you're probably thinking WTH, right? Just bear with me. It's general housekeeping. Apparently I posted comments in the wrong place. Duh. So I'm going to copy and paste them here. Smart, huh? Heeheeheehee...bwahahahaha.

"Not Just Another Pretty Place said...
This is where I 'blog' down. Do I really want all of cyberspace knowing my most private thoughts? My dreams? My vices? OK,if you must know, there was this one time when...oh, wait. This isn't "The Secret Life of Librarians" blog. My bad. Yeah, ummmm, right. Blogging is a valuable tool and I look forward to embracing the Library2Play philosophy."

Note to self. Cut down on the coffee.

Do your really want to know?

OK - I'll start off with a confession. Blogging could possibly be a fun outlet for me. I know, I know....I've been bashing it since I signed up for the gig. So I've thrown in the towel. Strung up the white flag. Y'all win. But here's the deal. I don't want it to be just Librarian shop talk, OK?