Pink iPod nano

Pink iPod nano, originally uploaded by JJSlash04.

Oooooh, I just found a new color! I want this one!

Apple Ipod Nano 8GB

Apple Ipod Nano 8GB, originally uploaded by web_guruAish.

Oh, yeah! What a sweet payoff! Thanks, Mary and Debbie!

Reflecting back on the 23 . . .

First of all, let me just say this . . . WHAT A GREAT FEELING TO BE FINISHED! But the question emerges: what will I do with myself now that I AM finished? (Besides the laundry, read all those books stacked up from Christmas break, and clean the house) This has been a lot of fun. Not always -- certainly not at first. At the beginning, when everything was so new and foreign to me, it was slow going. Putting the avatar together was a big learning curve, but the end product was very rewarding! And now I'll actually have time to change that poor girl's outfit once in a while! Flickr was undoubtedly the hardest lesson for me, and the one I spent the longest amount of time on (like, the whole weekend!). I think the biggest thrill for me was the RSS feeds. First of all, the knowledge of what that symbol meant was heady in and of itself! I had seen it for so long, and now I not only knew what it meant, I could actually manipulate it and use it for my own benefit! Then, thrill of all thrills, my tech-savvy brother knew far less than I about it! I think that's when I began to feel empowered with a capital E by the 23 Things.

I used to be very timid towards using technology in the library, but after getting into this project, I turned a huge corner in my behavior and habits. I am now very eager to use technology, setting up blogs for students and teachers in the Thompson Book Club, embracing the laptop computers that were delivered to our campus last semester and using them with third graders during research, spreading the word among teachers that wikis can be useful in collaboration, and encouraging Boxtop profit dollars to be spent on LCD projectors and ELMO 22O2 document cameras. If we were to do another 23 Things-type project, I would gladly participate, because this has grown and stretched me in ways I could never have imagined before last October. This has been great.

Thing #23 (wow!) Creative Commons

"Creative Commons" is a term I seem to remember Mary and Debbie talking about during one of our staff development sessions--maybe last spring? But it didn't become real to me until I started working with Flickr. That's when I had to pay attention to that term to make sure I used the right pictures in my blog.

I think this new turn of the corner on the traditional copyright is very interesting. It directly reflects this digital generation's collaborative nature, embracing technology and creativity (changing the image in some way) yet still retaining some of the original rights. On one of the creative common sites, I noticed that the CC has been updated. How typical. Ever changing and evolving. That's progress. I think we had no other choice in this age of changing and emerging technology but to change and mutate, if you will, the old, traditional copyright laws. They were hardly working with the world of paper and pencil, much less something as slippery as the web.

Creative Commons allows us a lot more latitude in working with images, videos, and other things we borrow. It's a whole new caveat in the world of educating our students about copyright.

Thing #22 Animoto

That was cool! Almost like being a movie director or something. (Okay, not quite. Let me dream big.) However, like other online tools, I do wish Animoto had come with a few more instructions before I had begun. For instance, I uploaded a lot more photos than I needed to before I noticed the note in red on the right sidebar warning me that some of my photos might be dropped because I had more than 15. Unless, that is, I wanted to go ahead and make a full video. (Are you kidding?) So I started deleting. And now that I've viewed it (or in director-ese, "now that I've screened my film"), I will go back and rearrange pictures so that my daughter and her fiance will be the first and last on the "reel", so to speak. However, you can remix the whole thing instantly while saving the original and have a whole new video short. That's cool.

As for the music selection, shall I say slim pickin's? ! That's definitely an area that could use some broadening. But overall, it was a fun experience, one I will definitely return for!

Thing #21 Podcasts

Podcasts are nothing new to me, or really to any of us, because we've have staff development on this before. Because of our training, I already knew that podcasts were audio broadcasts of information using a source like itunes (most commonly), and that these broadcasts are provided on an episodic, consistent basis. I also have had personal experience with podcasts through receiving them through itunes and listening to them through both my computer and my ipod. The podcast I listen to the most is a church service provided by a church I went to a few years ago. Because churches have services every week, they are a natural for podcasting.

I looked at several directories for podcasts, and ended up enjoying Yahoo's service best. I took a "tour" of New York City's Bryant Park and 7th Avenue, and found a cool reading site designed for reluctant readers (Reading Rockets) which also features several interviews with children's authors. I was disappointed when these interviews wouldn't feed into my Google Reader, but I did subscribe through Itunes for the latest interviews (Brian Selznick on The Invention of Hugo Cabret included!). However, I did add a very geeky podcast to my Google Reader: The Typical Mac User Podcast. And if you don't think it's geeky, just click here and have a listen.

Thing #20 YouTube: What Fun!

I've been a fan of YouTube for a while now. Who isn't? It's hilarious! I could obsess on it for hours. One of my favorites is the Cadbury Gorilla, a very intense gentleman. TeacherTube is instructional, and that's great for finding another way to present material, especially to our media-starved students. There's something charming about homemade videos over professional videos that keep us watching -- why is that? I think that is part of what sells YouTube, besides having instant hilarity at your fingertips. The absolute funniest, one that I could never present to students because of the occasional profanity, is the one that features a tiny little girl and Will Ferrell, with the child acting as if she is his landlady.

There are limitless uses of YouTube in the library and school, not only bringing the videos into the building but also creating a video (for Children's Book Week or National Library Week, etc.) by students, for students. That's what I didn't see when I was looking for videos on books, libraries, or school libraries. I saw some mighty boring looking things, too, believe me, but nothing that looked like it was celebrating those weeks, or nothing that looked like it was created by young students. This might be a fun challenge to take on.