Kicking and Screaming into the 21st Century

Thing #3

cmasek — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:12:35 +0000

Podcasts…something my children are familiar and comfortable with, but me, not so much. Oh, I’m not scared of them or anything, it’s just that I see them as potential time-takers and I don’t have much to spare. So, I haven’t really pursued podcasts in any meaningful way.

So, for Thing #3, I gotta do podcasts! I was reading Cathy Nelson’s post and she recommended the K-12 Online Conference as a useful podcast. It seems tailor-made for me, in that I can pick and choose among offerings, only listen to what I really want to learn about and do it all for free. I subscribed to this one in my feed reader, which means that it will be right there ready for me to listen to anytime I open Google Reader.

Then I was reading Heather Loy’s post about Thing 3 and I found ANOTHER podcast to get. This one is Nancy Keane’s Booktalks Quick and Simple. I subscribed to this one via iTunes. It was very simple to subscribe to, and I even found some other podcasts that I added. Unfortunately, you can see that this has the potential to use up even more of my not-very-available free time, which is what I was afraid of in the first place. It is a vicious circle!! However, I consider all of this to be PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, which is important to me, so i shall persevere. Wish me luck!!

Thing #2: RSS

cmasek — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:53:35 +0000

As part of SLJ’s 2.0 Learning Experience, participants are asked to set up a feed reader. This is an easy one for me, because I have been using Google Reader for months. I LOVE it. Before I started using Goggle Reader, I had a Favorites folder of all the blogs I read and I would go to each website daily to see if there was a new post. It took FOREVER and many days I would just skip it because of the time involved. Then, I discovered Google Reader and my blog reading became easier and much more manageable. I learned how to set up folders and moved all my blogs into subject folders, like “mom stuff”, “school library media” and “funny stuff”. Not very imaginitive titles, I know, but it works for me. I subscribe to over 50 blog feeds, and they are well-organized into folders. When I go to my feed page, I can quickly scan and see which blogs have new posts.

If you haven’t tried using a feed reader, you should. It will change the way you feel about blogs.

The first day

cmasek — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:45:56 +0000

Well, I have arrived at Web 2.0 – scary and exciting at the same time. I am a school library media specialist in South Carolina. I have spent the last 17 years in a high school library, but this year I begin my career as a MIDDLE SCHOOL media specialist. Talk about scary and exciting at the same time….Somehow, the idea of learning all about new tools and technologies seems to fit with starting out in a new school environment. In a mad-scientist sort of way, I will get to experiment on my new teachers and students, to try out on them the things I am learning here. So, I guess this blog will be a witness, of sorts, to my learning and teaching. Wish me luck, and check back for more posts.