Pursuit 21

I am familiar with Photostory, so I admit that I took the easy option here. I think that I like using it better than Audacity anyway because this way you get the photos along with the sound. Like many other Library2Players, I can't find my microphone here at home, but will try adding some narration once we get back to school in August.

We've done Photostory projects on campus for the last few years. This would be a great way to share them!

BTW - The best way for me to get help with postings is to use the Blogger Help menu. I can find out how to post things in under a minute. I would recommend going straight there instead of wasting time trying to figure it out yourself!

Pursuit 20

I enjoyed viewing the videos on Teacher Tube. I can see where organizing a whole set of tutorials could be useful for our faculty and students. Will have to delve into this further at the start of the school year.

Pursuit 19

The Web 2.0 Awards page has a lot of fun sites to visit. I found Lulu.com which is a site for publishing books and songs. My sister has previously published a short paperback, so this site looked like a good way to publish a second book for her. I looked specifically at the songs section for use on MDE TV. Last spring I went to Best Buy with a mission to buy some new broadcast music but found nothing. Either High School Musical or Sponge Bob. This site seemed to have some cute, original children's songs for either very cheap or free.
I had mentioned in a previous post about a color picker widget that I couldn't get to work on my blog. ColorBlender.com was listed on Web 2.0. Since I am moving into a brand new house next week, I am hoping this help me pick some colors for fabric. I could also use it for making color appealing web pages or presentations.
iFoods.TV was also on the Awards page. I watched the recipe for 10 minute Crab Cakes. I'm going to send this link to my college-age children. They are always looking for recipe ideas, just like their mom!

Pursuit 18

I have experimented with Open Office in the past. I have it on my home computer as well as my new school laptop. I started looking at it more closely after visiting with my niece and her sons. They are constantly struggling with their home computer. Part of their problem is a severely limited budget. I sent them a copy of Open Office to install instead of spending money on Microsoft Office. (They are on dial-up, so it would have taken them a long time to download it themselves.)I haven't heard from them. I am curious to know if they were able to use the program easily. I will have to ask them in person to get honest feedback, and I haven't been to Indiana lately.

Pursuit 17

Rollyo is an interesting concept. It would be nice to use it to narrow searches to my favorite sites to use as a first go around. I had looked for online crossword puzzles in the past, but was never sure which sites were safe to save from on play online. I used the Rollyo Reference list (as previously established by Rollyo) to search Crossword Puzzles and came up with some pretty good results. Much quicker to sort through than my previous searches for this topic. My Search list is at
http://rollyo.com/drtrivialpursuit/trivial_pursuits/. I would have to think for awhile about other sites to add to the Search list.

Pursuit 16

Well, I wandered my way through this one. I have always enjoyed using Wikipedia. They do seem to pick up some really random, accurate information there. I read the accuracy percentage a long time ago. Can't remember exactly what it was but for sure it was in the high 90s. It is definitely my husband's favorite site. He always starts his web searches there.
I looked at some of the posted WIKIs. It seems that many of them have crossed into more of a blog format. I looked at the Sandbox site and left a comment. I got a chuckle out of the What we want in a library list. Everyone seemed to have something to say there!
Before that, I somehow drifted into the Library Hacks links. I found PaperBackSwap.com which I will try for awhile. It reminded me of the book chain letter that circulated our campus earlier this year. I always hate spending money on new paperbacks so this might be a good way to get some cheaper reading. I went to the county library and checked out seven paperbacks last night (I do tend to run through them during the summer!) I found another library hack called Libary Elf that might help me remember when to return them!
Curriculum idea- most likely to try a collaborative information project

Pursuit 15

I think that the Library 2.0 philosophy is needed for today's students. Information on the web can be much more up to date than a book that's been on the shelves for years. You can get so much more information, too. Kudos to the library profession for leading the community to explore new ways to learn and communicate.
I think our greatest challenge as teachers is to get the students to EVALUATE all the information they get from the web. Evaluate and ORGANIZE. This is actually the more time consuming part of technology instruction and it is often skipped over.
I have heard about the forum that was hosted last spring with the higher ups in the Ad building and some high school students. One of the boys on that panel from Memorial High School found a very polite way to state that he had never checked out a book from the library his entire high school career (and, yes, he was a top student at MHS.) Makes you think there are a few challenges out there discovering what a future library should provide.

Pursuit 14

I spent some time looking at Technorati. I found myself just wandering around without any clear plan, so I don't think I'm geared toward this format. When I looked at the Top 100 Blogs, I was surprised to find Ariana Huffington as the top blog! Had no idea she was that popular. The Google Blog was in the top rung too. I've e-mailed my son to see if he actually reads that posting. Technology, news and entertainment seem to carry the most weight in the tags. The technology comments really seem to get the most interaction, hmmmm.
The tags are helpful. Somehow when I've seen them on pages before, I never connected that the larger the text, the more popular the tag. What a great idea! I did enjoy watching the video featuring the Technorati founders. One of the things I learned in a GT graduate class is that computer programmers usually are high up there on the GT traits - they have to think how their code transfers to a user friendly interface - a very spatially orientated task.
I've been experimenting with widgets a bit. I found this Shelfari Bookshelf widget on another Library2Play page. I thought it looked cool. It took me two tries to get it to work. I really wanted to get the Color Matcher, Picker one that I found earlier to work. That would be really useful to have. I couldn't get it to work and now I can't find it again!
Does anyone know how much risk is involved in bringing in these widgets as far as hidden codes? I know the code itself is on blogspot, but can it hurt your home computer when you use the code?