Library Lady Marler’s WEB 2.0 Blog

THIS WAS A GREAT CLASS!  I’ve talked others at my school into taking and now two people are registered/registering.  These tools are wonderful and definately the wave of the future….which I have now said about many things in my 26 years of sitting in front of some kind of computer!

Classroom 2.0 is a good resource for education.  Ning, My Space, Facebook, etc. hold no interest for me.  WAY too much like placing personal ads!  Bleck!  I signed up for Ning, did a search on my undergraduate college, joined a network and was IMMEDIATELY asked about marital status.  Who cares?

Pageflakes is easy to use!  Just click on this and click on that and look at your nice new personal webpage!  Very accessible, flexible, and easy to create.  I created one last year when we had an AATE meeting at Woodward Academy and Shelley Paul introduced us to it….it’s fun!

Google Docs are great!  I would love to use them in a Language Arts for collaborative writing.  I would use them in a Math class for collaborative computing on spreadsheets.  I would use them with another teacher for a collaborative presentation.  But the BEST thing about it!?  It’s available 24×7 from any computer in the world.  No more “I lost my paper!”  All the students at our school should be using them!

I’ve spent COUNTLESS hours on YouTube looking for all kinds of various things.  Like a movie?  Find videos about it on YouTube.  Like a singer?  Find her videos on YouTube.  Like an actor?  Find videos about him on YouTube.  Missed an episode of something on TV?  Rewatch it on YouTube.  Your favorite tv show goes on hiatus because ABC scheduling department monkeys around with the schedule?  Rewatch the episodes you’ve already watched.  This thing is ADDICTIVE!!!!!!  One of the first things I ever looked at on YouTube was a video of Richard Armitage (British actor) which is a montage of all of his films set to a song by Usher.  The next one was a video of Richard set to the song “Candy Man” sung by Christinia Aguliera.  I began to ponder….do people really stay up late at night making these videos?  They do and we appreciate it!

The uses of both YouTube and TeacherTube are mind boggling.  I watched various videos on both and really liked the history ones available on TeacherTube.  The use of these two sites will really impact how many DVDs I will need to buy for the library in the future!  Science and History teachers in particular are MAJOR users of videos as the students respond and learn to audio/visual. Here is the one on Jamestown that I liked. Download Video: Posted by AIHE at TeacherTube.com.

I’m going to make my own podcast!  AND I’m going to record myself in the quiet HIES Upper School library!  How’s that for being a noisy librarian?  Off to podcast.

I record in Evoca.  That was easy!  
My recording is at

Another day
Another podcast
SO many people use it!  Does it really help?  It reminds me of 4th grade music class when we put our heads down on the desk and listened to classical music. 
It must work because so many people use it!
I think I’ll make a podcast for Language Arts.  We’ll practice a Word of the Day just like Mr. Webster.

I used ITunes store as it certainly has a lot to offer!  I tried one of the other sites, found a nice podcast, and then of course it was not able to download because there was not a RSS feed for it even though there was an RSS button!  So ITunes it is!  I really liked the enormous amount of podcasts I could find.

We have a teacher who uses podcasts all the time.  In fact he recorded me coming to his class and teaching the students how to do research on a particular topic.  I was nervous!  When you are recorded you have to talk slowly with distinction and ensure that you don’t say anything that should not be on a podcast for Middle School students!  If I was a classroom teacher I would definately use podcasting as they can be informative, entertaining, and can calm down the students for sure! 

Nice idea!  I added the standards…..Lose Weight, Save Money, Pay off Credit Cards.  I’ve already lost weight (30 pounds) but am struggling with losing the last 10 pounds!  I’ll never save money or pay off credit cards as I am a single mom of a child in day care and I love to shop!  So there you go!  My lame excuses.

This has been one of my favorite Web 2.0 sites yet!  Of course as a librarian I would love it!  I added my all time FAVE-O-RITE book Jubilee Trail by Gwen Bristow which I read as a 12 year old.  How nice to see other people picked it as well and gave it a good review!  I also added a couple of more books but will have to actually be at home to get more of my titles.  My favorite is Historical Fiction.

Delicious is delicious!  How nice to be able to see all of your favorite bookmarks from any computer.  One day I envision there will be one computer in the world (along with the one bank after one bank buys all the other banks) that hosts everything and we access the computer via just thinking about it!