Flickr

Low Tide 18 June 2008, a photo by jane calthorpe on Flickr.
Sorry I am so late with this post on Flickr - I didn't find this very easy - apart from the fact it took me ages to choose a photo I found it difficult to work out the steps - I have uploaded some of my own photos on Flickr but couldn't work out how to send them to my blog - so what step was I missing?

#17 or #18? Delicious

This blog should have been done on the weekend - one of my senior moments when I thought I had published! But as to Delicious - interesting site - when I mentioned it to a few people they had never heard of it either, so a few of us have learned something new. I see the sense in it - I had never really thought about it - at the moment I can't see myself using it really, but my daughters who are at Uni thought it was something they could use - I use a computer at school and have my Favourites there - what I do at school is not the same as at home so I have different Favourites on this laptop. If I was in the classroom it would be extremely useful, tagging those sites with your own terms - as a librarian I find some of the 'traditional' subject headings tedious and not quite right , so tagging would be great.

#22 and #23 - Audiobooks and downloadable media

How sad it was when we heard Borders and A & R were closing! I love browsing through bookshops. I was chatting to the girl in the ABC shop and she said if it wasn't for their selection of DVDs the shop wouldn't survive. I love audiobooks and Ebooks but.......I couldn't survive my 3 hours of daily driving if it wasn't for podcasts and audiobooks. I've never purchased any audiobooks as the local public library has an amazing collection. We purchased a Kindle for our school library and have downloaded free books from Project Gutenberg onto it. I personally don't enjoy reading from the Kindle - I would much prefer a book - but a teacher who travelled OS purchased one and loved it. Being an avid reader this was an easier and cheaper option for her. Maybe when I travel the concept will blossom. One of our junior campuses purchased MP3s for the downloading of audiobooks for the Lifeskills students - as the senior campus we haven't as yet done this - the English teacher would prefer to hold off - her decision. Unfortunately our numbers are too large for us to contemplate anything in this line for English Studies. Being a senior school we are HSC driven with very little time for experimentation or playing. Now let's see - I've had a little whinge and now I feel better!

#21 U Tube / Teacher Tube

What a wonderful tool - how often are clips from these sites used in classes! It's no longer just a tool for the clever teacher either as so many kids use them in their presentations as well. We have U tube blocked at school for the kids but teachers love having teacher tube there where so much of the searching has been done for them! Hang on, isn't this how Justin Bieber was discovered? Oh, so there is a downside!

#20 Podcasts

This one was easy - I find podcasts wonderful - apart from audiobooks this is how I handle my commute to work so easily - I subscribe to a couple of podcasts - until they left daily radio Hamish and Andy were my favourites - the best thing about the podcast is that the adds are cut out!  So you only listen to the good stuff! As to educational worth - we often download podcasts for the English audio assessment. We also used some other podcasts on the Year 12 retreat - seemed to work.

#19 Rollyo

Pretty impressed with this site/tool - have set up a searchroll for my av purchases - an extremely basic one but one I will add to when I'm at school and have a few moments to check out the sites I normally go to - a neat package. I can see this being useful for any class assignments, esp. the Year 11 History research projects which are currently being undertaken - would have been ideal to present a searchroll to the kids to kick off the reasearch. So many applications, I think.

#18 Wikis

A very opportune moment at school when I was asked to help 2 English teachers with setting up their wikis on their current novel. Crash course has begun. Being a senior school library I don't personally see Wikis being useful for me in my environment but having  knowledge and the how-to has certainly allowed me to help my peers. And the web.2 page posted on Amalie's blog was absolutely amazing!

#15 and #16 RSS Feeds

Well, I had no idea what an RSS feed was until now - I can see it working with a number of different subjects in class - Legal Studies classes and Society and Culture classes would find it really useful - next HSIE staff meeting I will have to take a few minutes of their time.I don't access the internet for much myself except work so this tool would perhaps not be so useful - well, not at this particular time anyway - but who knows what's around the corner?

Myspace and Facebook

I find Facebook great for certain contacts I wish to keep "an eye on" - I find it hilarious that one of my daughters has denied me - one has to wonder what her photos show about her social life that she doesn't want me to see! I have tried to explain to my kids the opportunities hackers have to access all their photos and their are thousands and that their comments are no longer private but what do I know? I'm only their mother.I enjoyed the movie 'Social Network'. An intriguing concept for such a young man. I am surprised that MySpace is still around - my kids were on it when they were much younger and I haven't heard it mentioned in years - all I've heard about is Facebook. I suppose it's all to do with trends.

#11 Library thing

Ok - I'm sold! That would be the best site! I created an account, found some books I love, read a few reviews and then added my 2 cents worth to a group talk on Tudor England/Historical fiction! Oh, bliss!

#10 - Image Generators - Take 2!

This is my second attempt (as the title attests) and who knows - there may be a third or even a 4th! I loved playing in this unit - it was just the posting that proved difficult.

Activity #10 Image generators

Once again I seem to have spent a lot of time playing around and I was so intense on doing a couple of units - Am I right in thinking or remembering that we need to only spend one hour a week to complete this course? I seem to be spending much more than that - but gee it's fun! Watch out friends for my Xmas cards this year!

#9 Virtual Worlds

I have seen and heard about this whole idea of virtual worlds - didn't really get it though! I personally couldn't see the point of spending hours on the computer when you could so easily enjoy a good book on the beach or whatever! However, having had a bit of fun on the sites I can understand how you can get caught up in it - I work with a guy that is totally into Warcraft and spends hours every night on it and loves it - he is an IT techie and I thought "No life" - WRONG- I have had to talk to him about it and it is beyond anything I could think of - My God, I lead a sheltered life! One thought though, I have enough problems fitting everything in now - if I got caught up in a Virtual world game I would have to give up work or the kids or my husband.... or all 3!

iGoogle add on - blog take 2!

Just have to say that I would love to work at Googleplex! If employers in Australia learned a few ideas from this company maybe Australia wouldn't be so fraught with so may lost days with 'sickies'!

Activity #8 iGoogle

I started to feel I was dragging the chain a little on this course so I decided to give myself some time and get stuck into the it! Unfortunately, iGoogle was the next session and I simply got lost going from one gadget to another - way too much - I decided that enough time was spent on that session and I need to move on but one kind of then became distracted again! I am sure with a little discipline iGoogle is wonderful but..... Actually, I can understand why so many kids here at school say they spend so much time 'researching' and end up with so little to show for it!

Activity #7 Google Books

Fascinating - Unfortunately, some of the books I looked at weren't totally open as they are still available for purchase. I have used this before when we were downloading some of the freebies for our Kindle at school  - mind you, being of the old school I still like to hold a book and put in an old fashioned book mark! How old am I? I was perusing some of the old mags on the site and entertained some of the teachers with the headings - like, "Two headed woman pregnant! One head wants a girl... the other wants a boy!" Puleeze! Lots of fun!

#6 Google Maps

Well, what do you know - I have been using Google Maps without even knowing it! Since I don't have a Sat-Nav in my car I have always found the directions for destinations this way - in fact, I had just done a search for my father, then went onto Activity 6, did  the Google Maps 'tour' only to find - Voila!

Activity #5 - Google Docs

Well that was useful - I see its use in a classroom situation where groupwork is on - I see it as a great collaborative tool for kids at home still doing groupwork. Having been an English and RE teacher Ican see me using it -  in fact, I think I will share my insight with my daughter who is at Uni, supposedly doing some groupwork, but finding it difficult with her fellow conspirators with so much commuting happening. This should prove interesting as to whether she listens to me or not! I won't get over-excited - after all I am only her mother! (And what would I know?)

Keeping up: Activity #4

How was that! I got so excited I actually blogged about Activity #4 and titled it #3! So all my random thoughts from last weekend still apply today - except I did catch the movie "The Social Network" on Sunday night and found it amazing. "Necessity is the mother of invention" so they say (or something pretty close to that) - now if we could just invent something to stop earthquakes and tsunamis........

Activity #3

I can't decide whether to be philosophical about Web 2.0 and talk about the amazing ways that it has changed our world and opened it up (and how blase the students are about it and just take it all for granted )or whether I should just let you know that I have read about it and have always felt quite ignorant and now, hopefully, will become part of that group that can talk with a little more knowledge. Yep, that's what I will do - I will just share with everyone that I admit to being a little ignorant but thanks to Web 2.0 and this course my ignorance will, hopefully, abate!

One small step ......

Ok I will admit it! I'm proud - but I think I will just keep this between ourselves - I'm pretty sure people thought I already knew how to do this! Hi all - I'm a teacher-librarian in a secondary school that's about to be bombarded with sooo many computers  later in the year that I thought before Web 3.0 appears in our vocab. I had better be acquainted with Web2.0