Slowly, but surely....

When I orignally used the image generator, my phrase was too long to fit in my blog and appear right. So, I did a "print screen", and copied my image into Publisher. I then croped the screen shot and saved it as a picture. Then, I went to Photobucket and uploaded the picture so I could post it on my blog. Not sure if this was the long way of doing things, but I got it done nonetheless!

Have your own fun with Flickr Spelling!!

Google Docs Rock!

I am dancing in my seat right now, because I was able to put Google Docs to use for the first time today.
First, a little background. Our public computers have recently been transitioned to use flashdrives instead of floppy disks. Many of our patrons only have access to disks, and some cannot afford the price of a flash drive. As you can imagine, that can be frustrating for our patrons who are creating documents such as resumes or reshearch papers.
Today I came across a young lady who was working on a final research paper. She only had a floppy disk to save her work on, and no money to print. At first, the situation looked bleak, but then the light bulb flashed on above my head. An idea! Yes! Google Docs! After I did an internal happy dance, I sat with the young woman and proceeded to set up a Google account for her, and gave her a quick tutorial on how Google Docs works. Now, this lady appeared to be relativelly unfamiliar with technology of any sort, so I was a bit apprehensive of throwing this application in her lap. Fortunatly, Google Docs is so easy to use that it only took about 2 1/2 minutes to show her how to use it to create documents and save them. She did not ask for any further assistance, so I assume she was able to navigate the system the rest of the way. I know that I am going to be using Google Docs on a regular basis from this point forward.


I'm so happy I could kiss my computer!

I Heart Wikipedia

I can't count the number of times I've heard students say "My teacher says that we shouldn't use wikipedia because it is not reliable." This frustrates me to no end. I love Wikipedia , and I think it is a great resource for students, especially when dealing with topics with which they are only vaguely familiar. The format is easy to follow, and when taken with a grain of salt, the information is helpful and most times reliable. I often explain to them that wikipedia has weaknesses not unlike all other information resources. One of the major reasons people distrust wikipedia is because the information it contains is edited by numerous contributors, sometimes annonymously. I say "What?!" In my humble opinion, that is what makes it so great. To have a topic expanded by people from varying backgrounds and disciplines adds to its credibility in my mind. Not only can people add to entries, they can also challenge faulty information. What other source can brag of timely (sometimes daily or even minute to minute) updates and editing? In graduate school I wrote a paper on the validity of wikipedia compared to that of other trusted information resources. You know what I found? You might want to sit down for this one.....When articles on the same topic taken from both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britanica were compared, researchers found an average of 3.86 errors per Wikipedia article, and 2.92 errors per Britannica article. Hmmmmm.....let's just chew on that one for a minute. Apparently, the overall integrity of Wikipedia has been found to be at least comparable to that of The Encyclopedia Britannica. And teachers still say that it is unreliable? For now, to satisfy teachers across the country, I will say that Wikipedia is at the very least a good starting point for students who are researching topics for school papers. And the next time a student chastizes you for using wikipedia to help them explore a topic, take the time to educate them on the usefulness of this wonderful tool.

Rollyo

It took me approximately 2 1/2 minutes to set up a searchroll with Rollyo , and I am quite impressed. My typical MO is to enter a site, see if I can make sense of the application, and in the case of Rollyo, try to create my own. It really was self explanitory. After creating my searchroll, I went back and read the user guide and found even more exciting things that I can do! I will admit that I rely on Google to a great extent, but I have a feeling that I will be creating my own search engines from now on. Oh, the power! No longer a slave to Google! In all actuallity, this tool will allow me to streamline my searches, specifically refering to searching for book reviews for the newest teen materials. The searchroll I set up for this excersize consists mainly of sites that are dedicated to reviewing young adult literature, but I'm not stopping there. After some experimentation, I have a sneaking suspicion that I will have numerous searchrolls created by the end of the day.

Playing Catsup

I'm a bad, bad blogger. I've neglected my poor 23 things blog, and I should be scolded. Okay, so it really boils down to the fact that I feel guilty playing like this at work, but since it is a sanctioned play time, I suppose I should get back in the groove here before the deadline hits.

So, in order to bring myself up to date with the 23 things, I'm going to do a couple right here.

Week 4 RSS feeds
I've known about RSS feeds for a bit, and while I see them as really neat opportunities for staying up to date on all my favorite review and news sources, I really don't see myself utilizing them on a daily basis. I set up a Google reader account, and to tell you the truth, I really didn't like the interface. I was just bored with it. I did find quite a few feeds that would be useful to me in my work with the teens, but I would much rather bookmark the site and check it every couple of days. I feel like the feed makes me miss out on the full experience, especially when I really like the layout of the site I'm accessing.

Week 5 Playing
Oh boy! I absolutely love, love, love GoodReads. If there is any one site that I visit on a daily basis, that would be it. I've discovered some really great reads just by browsing shelves belonging to other people. Many of my coworkers have accounts as well, so I can see what everyone is reading on a daily basis. Being able to keep track of the books I've read, want to read, or what is currently on my nightstand has come in handy many times. I even use it to select books for the teen book group. I love having access to all of those reviews and star ratings at just the click of a button. I've even put the Goodreads widget on the teen Myspace page so the teens can check out what I'm reading or what books are being considered for the book group.

Week 6 Tagging
I've heard whispers of Delicious in hallways, and elevators, and up until today had no idea what it was all about. Well, I have seen the light! I haven't had a chance to really explore this tool to its full extent, but I have a feeling that there is much more than meets the eye with this application. First of all, having remote access to all of my bookmarks? Talk about a life saver. How many times have I been working on a project (usually a craft project for the teens), needed to refer to a site, forgotten the URL and even the web page name, and been stuck because someone was using the computer I was on when I bookmarked the site? I only have a couple of bookmarks saved on my account at the moment, but as soon as I get a chance I'm going to really sit down and explore!

Okay, three weeks down, three more to go. I think I've made some good progress tonight, so I'm going to go relax now. (I'm doing this from home....double shame on me.)