Method 12

My favorite discovery was learning how to use the Meebo widget.  I have seen these on web sites but had no idea it was such a simple tool.  


I have heard of most of these web 2.0 tools but it was nice to get background information on them.  I thought the " Commoncraft" and "In Plain English" videos were great to provide an introduction to each tool.  


I would definitely participate in another course.  I have taken many online courses and consider this one of the best.  I like the fact that we blogged about our experiences and had to actually use the web 2.0 tools.  I also learned a lot from reading the articles.  Discovering how other libraries use the tools was another great element of the course.


It is difficult to keep up with all the emerging web 2.0 tools.  I am the only librarian in my school and have learned a lot from this and other TSLA courses and webinars.    With shrinking budgets, I also appreciate that the courses are offered free and online.  I have shared information with the teachers and students in my school.  

Method 11

I discovered a great pod cast form Hopkinton Middle School.  It is a weekly podcast of book talks from a state list.  I love this idea and would like to try it with some of our Texas state lists!  I have a student library group and think this would be a perfect project for them.  
http://www.hopkintonschools.org/hhs/library/podcast.html


I also like the NPR car talk pod cast.  It is a call in car help show, but the mechanics make wise cracks and joke with the callers.  I think it is entertaining and I know nothing about cars.
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510208


I also learned that POD stands for Personal on Demand!

Method 10

I found it interesting to get some background information on Wiki's.  Though I am familiar with  and use them, I guess I really had not thought too much about how they differ from blogs and other online tools.  On the wiki for this assignment,  I posted a link to Awful Library Books which highlights the importance of weeding in an entertaining blog.


I am a member of a school library book review group.  We have a wiki we use to post our book reviews to make them available for all members.


Wikis would be great collaboration tools for students to use in class projects or to create pathfinders for assignments.


Interestingly, I met a librarian at TLA who had received a grant from NASA to update the planetary information on Wikipedia!  

Method 9

I am excited to learn how to embed the Meebo widget.  I have been working to get it on my library web site, but I am having some formatting problems so I decided to embed it here for practice. I plan to embed it on the library web site too.

I think this is a great tool for libraries to answer questions for their patrons, especially academic and public libraries that may have extended hours.   I am not sure how available I will be during the day to help students because I am seldom at my desk.  We do not have evening or weekend library hours so I will have to see how effective the chat window is for my library.

During the day, everyone in my school district has access to IM through our Google Apps accounts.  I use this often, especially if I need immediate help from our tech department or want to have an extended dialog with a teacher.  I like using IM and have learned to wait for a response before I type again to avoid messages passing in cyberland.  I have had some pretty confusing chat sessions, especially when more than two people are chatting. Most teachers are not able to spend much time at their computers so sometimes it is hit and miss with chatting.