creative musings

Today I used iMovie for the first time! I dove right in...It wasn't as easy to use as Photostory but it had many more customization tools built in. If I need to make a quick presentation I will use Photostory when I become a librarian. I also used Glogster which was incredibly visual and graphic but a bit slow to load. Overall I had fun with these tools and know I'll use them again as a School Media Specialist.

My final reflection on LIS629

This course was invaluable as a fabulous source of inspiration. By getting to work "hands-on" I have overcome some of my web 2.0 and future librarian fears I felt before this course. All the tools I used were fairly easy and it's remarkable how graphic and sophisticated most of them were - and all for free! What used to be expensive programs is now shared online. I am even more excited than ever before to share them as these tools are impressive. I really loved them all but my favorites involved multimedia and strong graphics. I loved creating wikis and using Wix and Glogster. Making an avatar was like playing in a sandbox! I was amazed at all the different tools available from Google. I particularly loved all the image generators and can spend hours creating at BigHugeLabs and Flickr. It was fun making an ALA Read Poster and using Amaztype. I can use these image generator tools as a break for students from intellectually-demanding work in the library or near the end of our class as a closing activity. Making my very first presentation using Smilebox in a matter of an hour was something I never would have imagined before this class. I can use Webspiration to entice my visual-learner students. VoiceThread is a perfect place to collaborate with and among my future students. Using their actual voices will make a strong and memorable connection for them. Making my first-ever movie in Photostory was really a blast. Jogtheweb was a simple and automated way to visually represent a Pathfinder of sources for students. I will refer to these hundreds of websites over and over as I become a 21st century librarian!

A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter

A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter

Found this today and I think it's a great resource.

Haven't blogged in days since I'm consumed with work at Apple...40 hours + overtime makes for not-enough-time-in-the-day-to-have-fun!

last day : (

This is one class I wish I had for a long time...I'm loving leaning about all these great sites I can use when I become a school media specialist. I should have taken this during the fall semester so I could have stretched out all this fun!

Learned 4 new tools at "geek camp" today!

Learned PhotoStory, Wix, VoiceThread and Glogster today and made my first movie - watch out Hollywood, here I come!

Thoughts on Thursday

I'm not overwhelmed by what we have learned today but afraid I will forget something great. I spent a portion of today quickly adding all the sites to Delicious so that I can re-visit them later. One reflection is that I had not spent a lot of time before today using Google except for simple searches and Google scholar.I am really blown away by all that I can do from just one website. It doesn't surprise me though since Google's philosophy so closely resembles Apple's where I work and feel at home. At this point in time I don't have ANY free time and am a bit frustrated knowing that I won't be able to "play" like I did today - for that is what I see all this searching as - playing! It's learning I consider fun! As we went along I thought about all the ways I can use these sites in my future library and how I can educate my students to find better information.

great technology day!

Ok. So this is very cool and I feel very empowered! Nothing like a day exploring the net!

Using blogs in the library

I will use blogs in the school library media center to give students a "home" - a place to find cool tools to help them learn. I want to make learning easier, more creative and fun. For my blog to be a success I will need student imput and collaboration so that we all learn from each other. There will be lots of interactive websites to try and I intend to add more daily. The key is to "think outside the box."