Let's Try Again

Hmm, so much for being a regular blogger. Well, here I am almost 12 months later I've managed a few changes.

I'll start with the not so positive to get it out of the way - haven't lost any more weight, haven't put any on though which is good. I've also lost centimeters so it's not all bad. I've organised my eating plans and picked up the training at the gym so moving forward in a positive way once again. My personal trainer is still putting up with me but I whinge a lot less now.

Work is good. I'm more organised, and don't allow myself to be distracted. I have smaller 'to do' lists each day which means I'm actually getting through them and achieving small goals every day. Instead of taking loads of work home, I've allowed myself whatever fits into one bag and I work on that, and again I'm getting some work done. I'm using the Moodle at work with the kids and it's great.

So - goals for the short term:
- get through the Easter Show without buying a Cadbury or Darrel Lea show bag.
- Go to the gym each day whilst on school holidays. (except the day I'm at the show)
- Stay organised with my eating plan so that I don't fall off the rails.

Fingers Crossed.

Hopefully I'll be back soon, no promises =]

First Personal Blog

Ok to start with - How disappointing was that game against Germany? Still we have 5 days to regroup and focus on our next game. I'm not a huge soccer fan (I know, I know it's football) but what can I say - it's the FIFA World Cup.

I'm stressing about work at the moment. Being a Teacher Librarian is one of those jobs where everyone thinks that you have it easy and don't work very hard while everyone else in the school works their butts off. I can't even begin to describe how much work there is to do but even if I do explain, people just see it as whinging. I'm not one of those people who is good at selling herself so It's time for me to 'man up' and start acting like a leader, an integral part of our school community, blah, blah, blah.

I have to put off the day to day stuff for a while and get into developing our web site - I have some great ideas but can't put any of them into play until I have set up our site. So guess what I'll be doing on the Queen's Birthday Public Holiday! Well after I've done some washing, vacuumed the house, gone to the gym and picked up a few bits and pieces at the shop and then mown the lawn.

Weight loss - hmm, I should write something here to at least keep me honest. So, I've lost 30kg in 12 months frustrating but everyone assures me that losing it slowly is the best way. I have a great Personal Trainer who puts up with a lot of bitching from yours truely. I'm aiming to lose 20-25kg more and I guess that's all that's of interest at the moment.

I'll try to add to my blog regularly for those of you who are interested - or at least for my own sanity.

Finished!

I've always been pretty ok at utilising technology, but always seem to be a step behind. Over the past few years, I seem to have fallen further and further behind. This course has been a saviour. Access to everything that I haven't previously made the time to learn. I like the structure as well as the flexibility of completing this in my own time and own space.

I'm still at the beginning/basic stages but I now have the foundations, understanding and confidence to utilise any of these sites and resources where I feel they can be useful.

Thanks, good-bye & all the best

LG =)

The Librarian Song

#22 - EBooks & #23 - Audiobooks

I love this.

Ebooks would be fantastic to use at school, particularly if you have some form or smartboard or interactive whiteboard. Imagine using picture books for Infants students or as a tool for visual texts in highschools. We could use them simply as a reading tool.

I also love audio books, I already buy and borrow audio books from the library. The ability to download them and to listen to them in my car on my 1hr drive to work and home is fantastic.

Happy Reading =)

#20 - Podcasts

I had much more success here than I did with Rollyo earlier today, although I have to admit, my aim was more personal than professional as I found some country music podcasts that I could subscribe to.

This would be a wonderful teaching resource, students are way ahead of us when it comes to current technologies and are more likely to be engaged if we utilise these in our teaching.

In order for us to ensure that the students are engaged in their learning we need to get away from relying on overheads and utilising resources that we've been learning about here and by subscribing to podcasts that are relevant to your curriculum there is a simple to use teaching tool.

#19 - Rollyo

This is post is not exactly what we've been asked to do....

I have had a play with Rollyo, created a search engine on the topic of holden adding a couple of web pages to the search pool but I think I picked a bad day.

I am not creating a link to my Rollyo profile at this stage simply because there seems to be a problem with the site today. Every time I hit the 'create' button the site timed out and I lost the information I put in.... so I've given up for now.

I love the idea and I will come back to this on a day when hopefully the site is happy to accommodate me. This looks like it will be a fantastic tool for directing student research on a given topic, ensuring that their information is from sources that you trust.

Check back later, if I manage to get this site working I'll place the link here =)

#18 - Wikkis

I've enjoyed looking at the ways in which Wikkis are being used in an educational setting. I can see that this is something that I can use, support and promote in my high school.

I imagine that to begin with our school would mostly use Wikkis as a way of sharing research on specific topics. As the librarian, I could set up the wikki and use lessons in the library to help students and the classroom teacher to add information to the wikki.

#17 - Delicious

A useful tool both personally and professionally. I like that we can find out other similar sites or other popular sites that are similar to ones that I'm interested in. As a librarian I use the internet quite a bit in day-to-day work and it's great to see what other similar sites are out there.

I like that we are able to select which sites we make available to the public and which ones we keep private too.

Like everything else that we are doing here, I can see that I can potentially make great use of it - when I make the time. So hopefully during these school holidays when things settle down a bit I'll take the time to re-visit some of these sites and to explore and organise them further.

#15 - RSS Feeds

This is really new to me. Most of the activities and applications we've done to date, I at least had some basic knowledge of what they were about, but I wasn't aware of how RSS Feeds worked.

I like it.

I've added some feeds that are personal and as a result I'll always be informed about what the latest happenings are in Cricket, which is of course very important.

A drawback I can see is that it may become overwhelming, with the amount of updates that happen each day.

How can I use this in a school environment? OK, this is where my imagination is limited. For me, I'll look for some sites that keep up-to-date information on the latest teen reads. I'm not sure what the students could use it for... I'll look forward to reading other posts to steal some ideas =)

#14 - Facebook

This had to be the easiest task yet as I already have a Facebook account that I use quite a bit and it is already a part of my iGoogle page.

I have enjoyed taking the time to check out Twitter for the first time though. Time will tell if I become and addict or not =)

#13 - MySpace

I already have a personal MySpace page, which I admit I rarely use, Facebook being my preferred place to communicate with friends.

I had a look around and didn't find anything that really convinced me to create a page for my school library. I admit to being conservative (or at least not very brave) and I'd like to see some much more forward thinking (brave) school/teacher librarians create and maintain dynamic and useful pages before I go there.

At this stage to manage, moniter and maintain a page and constantly ensuring that the language and content is suitable for school is not something I'm prepared to tackle.

Not writing it off, just maintaining my distance from this for now.

I also looked at some of the public library MySpace pages, mostly in the U.S. I liked what some of them have done. Some of the styles were definitely targetting teens, the photos of events and activites were great and it looked like a great way to keep the community informed of what's happening and what's available at the local library.

Rocky Beach at Night

Rocky Beach at Night
Originally uploaded by 'Bobesh

I like this photo. Once a Central Coast girl...

#11 - Library Thing

I'm enjoying getting to know my way around Library Thing. I've added a few of my old favourites as well as a few of my recent reads. This application will give me something to do in the school holidays, as I've just moved house and it will give me the motivation to sort and organise my library. I'm looking forward to it.

Some of my books were more popular than others, which is not surprising and again I can't wait to see how popular some of my other books are.

I like how the site gives us the section of conversation directly surrounding a particular book so you can make a more educated decision on whether or not you want to read more. However most of the conversations mentioning my books tended to be very brief or only mentioning my book in passing.

I would love to see this utilised in schools. I'm not sure how we could monitor the content of posts and avoid inappropriate information being accessed by students but it would be worth consideration.

For any interested there is a link to my catalogue below. (If you are interested, you might want to check back closer to the end of the school holidays.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Lyndall72

#10 - Image Generators

I had fun playing around with these Image Generators. I can imagine that the students at school would enjoy playing with them too.

http://cooltext.com/

I really enjoyed Fotosketcher which makes some great images.

http://www.fotosketcher.com/download.htm

#9 - Virtual Life

After having a quick look at the resources for this activity I can see how it will be easy to become involved in a virtual reality.

This isn't something that I can see myself using at school for a number of reasons. The lack of control over the content that would be inappropriate for high school students as well as the lack of control over who the students are talking to are two obvious problems. However the educational benefits in economics, social skills, property management would be great.

I can see that this would be a wonderful resource for students who are studying at a higher level. For example, I completed one of my Bachelor Degrees as an external student, through a university located in a different state. To be able to communicate in a more persoanl online setting such as Second Life and being able to connect in a casual setting in real time would have been a much more enjoyable experience for me.

You must excuse me now as my other life calls =)

#8 - iGoogle

I love iGoogle - and I love the searchable gadgets that are available. With these gadgets I can have quick access to things that are relevant to me. I think that iGoogle will continue to change and improve with the times so that I will always have information that I use on a regular basis at my fingertips.

Would I like to work at Google? Hell yeah! Unfortunately I don't think that I'm dynamic enough, creative enough or forward thinking enough to meet their requirements.

What changes would I suggest? Introduce an ice-cream stand =)

#7 - Google Books

OK before I go too far, I'll admit that I only had a very quick play with Google Books.

I searched for a few books from series that I'm currently reading and was disappointed. Trying title, author and series titles there were no hits for my book, which is from a popular series. It did however bring up some similar titles. Although they seemed a bit dated. For now I'll probably stick with other sources when searching for books, but I will come back in the not-too-distant future and have a better look to see if I missed something here.

#6 - Google Maps

The timing could not have been more perfect. Tomorrow, instead of doing the usual day-to-day at school, I'm off to watch some of my students compete at trampolining (which I'm very excited about). Of course, I've left it to the last minute to find out exactly where the venue is located so it has been very useful to not only get written instructions on which exits to take, which roads to turn off on and how many round-abouts I'll be going through but to also have a clear blue line marked on a map =)

Now I've got no excuse to not find my destination and be on time tomorrow.

#5 - Google Docs

Hi there,

I found the Google docs utility relatively straight forward and easy to use. It is a great alternative to creating and storing information that you can take with you wherever you go - so long as you have online access that hasn't blocked the Google applications.

If you are comfortable with other applications such as Microsoft Publisher, Word, Powerpoint etc. you will find that you have few problems using Google docs.

Another application that I'm excited to have at my fingertips.