Thing 8

I am finally coming back to work on the Things...I have not been on vacation, just catching up and continuing to learn techy stuff but neglected to keep up here. I'm hittin' it hard now though, I want to be complete by the end of July (before really). So here goes. I had taken classes on blogging back in 2006 and set up a Bloglines account. Hardly ever consulted it or kept up. Then a few years ago I took a class offered in my district called "All Things Google" and at that point set up an iGoogle page along with a Google Reader account. Again, rarely visited it and although I set up some feeds I just didn't quite get it. But...NOW...I get it. Guess I took the slow-burn route on this one. I viewed the Common Craft videos on both RSS and Google Reader and saved the website Newbies Guide to Google Reader and then I actually opened it and played and explored and consulted the "guide" and I really do get it now. I will use this professionally and personally on a much more consistent basis. I've been advised to make my iGoogle page my home page so that I actually SEE the reader list everytime I launch the internet. The saying "So many books, so little time" hardly begins to cover it these days!

I attended a Kathy Schrock workshop at NECC about tips for handling information overload so I will definitely consult my notes from that before I grow to my laptop! Next quest...move wanted subscriptions from Bloglines and keep only Google Reader -- but I gotta get up and move for a while!

Thing 7

Google is taking over the world -- is a comment I hear often in almost any venue you can imagine. These folks and the services they provide are truly genius. I have an iGoogle page, I have set up a Calendar that's not really used much, have used Notebook but not as extensively as I would like to and I simply adore all that Docs has to offer. Learned last week that the forms option will let you create a survey. Love that!

• School implications . . . now that more teachers, students and families have Google accounts (for email if for nothing else) I can see incorporating these more with students. I work predominately with 5th and 6th graders so there are some issues to work out there.
• What I would like to do: A. post the calendar on the library web page and make it so that teachers can sign up to use the different library spaces online, B.have students create iGoogle pages so that both teachers and I can "push" info out to them, C.use Notebook more and teach students and teachers how to do so as well, and D.Have students, teachers and folks in staff dev. sessions take advantage of Docs.
• Have thought about . . . A.Using Earth to put together some lit-trips, B.Move all my photos to Picasa - although now I'm torn between Picasa and Flickr -- more research to be done on that, and C.Figure out the implications for my level of student with Scholar. I'm sure the teachers (especially those working on advdanced degrees) would get a lot of use out of it. I hear great things . . .

Oh so much to do and learn!