I was wondering why I couldn’t subscribe to our Tech Camp participants’ blogs and continue to get subsequent posts in my RSS feed reader.  I finally wondered about this when I had the time and inclination to check into it further through the Edublogs Help and Support blog, The Edublogger.

The answer was found in a two step process…  (Without the second step, subsequent posts still don’t show up in my RSS feed reader, which pretty much defeats the purpose.)  The second step in this process requires you become an Edublogs Supporter at a cost of $25 annually.  I thought it was a small price to pay for this next endeavor in my blogging adventure.  Check out the Edublogger posts on Adding a RSS Feed from FeedBurner AND Redirecting your Blog Feed to FeedBurner for detailed instructions.  It’s easy and your readers will thank you for allowing them to subscribe to your blog through their favorite RSS reader.

Keep reading and keep learning!

If you’re in the habit of wandering around the great blogs we have here in this school district, you’ve heard about a cool online application called Wordle.  I was inspired by the Wordle creation of Latonya Taylor, who writes The Tiger Den blog, and have been wanting to give it a try.  I’m holding an “Open Library” Reception for our faculty and staff this week to highlight some of our newer books and the many resources we have available for our teachers and students.  I thought using a Wordle on the teacher’s invitations to the reception would not only catch their eye but also convey the fun and creativity available in our library.  It was fun to try out different fonts, different layouts, different combinations of words, re-shuffling the order.  I really like this and, more importantly, it rated fairly high on my teenage daughter’s “cool” scale!

Wordle Tip:  If you want 2 or more words to be shown together (name or phrase), use a ~ between those words and Wordle will translate that into a space between those words.

Keep reading and keep learning!

This is the time of year when school librarian’s everywhere are creating folders, request forms, informational sheets, pamphlets, etc. to inform their teachers of all the wonderful resources and instructional opportunities in their school library.  Creating a consistent logo for all library publications and correspondence conveys the professionalism of the school library management.  All that… …AND making your own logo is just plain fun!

Logo Ease is a FREE online tool, highlighted during Tech Camp 2008, that allows you to create your own logo and download it in a variety of sizes and formats to use as you see fit.  Logo Ease’s varied selection of art and wide number of fonts allows for the creativity of the user.  It’s easy and fun!  Go for it!       Oh, and Keep reading and keep learning!

If someone had told me a couple of months ago that I should “jing my wiki”, I’d've slapped them first and asked questions later.  Seriously, I wouldn’t have had a clue what they were talking about.  Now, thanks to Tech Camp 2008 and the instruction of our incredible MCS Ed Tech team, I am reasonably familiar with Jing, wikis, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and all manner of impressively innovative technology tools.

I mentioned in a previous post that I have created a wiki for my middle school.  I was asked to prepare a brief overview of this wiki for a presentation and was unsure whether or not I would have internet access at the presentation site.  You know how it is… Be prepared for all possible problems.  I decided to use Jing to record the screen activity as I “toured” my wiki on my computer at home the night before the presentation.  I figured that if I couldn’t access my wiki online at the presentation site, I could at least show my Jing video of the wiki, which was saved in the Jing History on my laptop.  Even though I ended up having internet access at the presentation, I showed the Jing video to illustrate how Jing can be used to create tutorials for our classrooms and teachers.

Click on the picture of my screencast below to watch a Jing video of my school’s wiki.  I’ll warn you… This was my first attempt at a Jing video and I was a little tentative in my delivery.  I’ll speak louder next time.

I just completed my second iMovie.  I think I mentioned my first iMovie in a previous post but didn’t go into much detail.  There’s a reason for that.  I wasn’t particularly happy with the results of that first attempt.  It was an overambitious venture with a tight deadline.  I wasn’t familiar enough with the editing features in iMovie (even though it’s quite user-friendly) and the movie ended up being longer than I would’ve liked.  Having said that, it was very well received and I got lots of compliments on it.  Isn’t this stuff great?  Looks fantastic even when you know it’s not.

I feel much better about my second iMovie.  It’s a very fast-paced summary of our Tech Camp experience this summer.  I was able to find answers to the many questions that arose during my first iMovie experience and this iMovie creation went much smoother.  Once I finished and pronounced that this imovie was good… …enough, I still noticed a couple of small things I’d change if I had the energy and inclination to dive back into it.  I don’t have either… but I’ll make note of these improvements and will incorporate them next time.

I think the lesson here is that even if you encounter problems when you try new applications, keep working and asking questions.  You keep learning and it gets easier and more rewarding.

One of the topics we covered at Tech Camp this summer was wikis.  We watched a great little video called “Wikis in Plain English” on the commoncraft website and I was sold.  Where could I sign up?  That was easy enough at pbwiki.  I signed up to create a free wiki and got started.  It’s like creating a document (or series of documents) on the web with multiple authors and access for whoever needs to read it.  It’s perfect for people (like me) who love to collaborate but REALLY HATE meetings and like to let people be creative in their own timeframe and place, when it’s convenient and comfortable for them.

I’ve started a wiki for the faculty at my school to develop resources for our school-wide themes.  As a faculty, we have chosen a character-based theme as well as another relevant theme to incorporate into our classroom instruction and decor each six weeks period.  I have done some preliminary research and provided a list of resources for each of the twelve themes we selected.  The great thing about the wiki, though, is that it will evolve throughout the year as our teachers find other resources or tweak ones already listed.  Instead of printing a stagnant document that our teachers may or may not be able to locate when and if they think of it throughout the year, our wiki will be as available as their access to the internet.

My first attempt at a wiki is pretty basic …simple, easy to access, and yet surprisingly gratifying…like peanut butter.  Try pbwiki.  You’ll like it, too.

My daughter just came home from a sleepover and asked if we’d looked at www.befunky.com at Tech Camp.  Since we didn’t, she was excited to be able to show me something new.  It’s a cool little FREE way to cartoonize (is that a word?) a photo.  As you can see by the lovely photo of my family on the right, you can add accessories and frames to your newly created cartoon.  You can also add text.  In addition to just being fun to play with, I’m sure all those creative minds out there will put it to good use for educational purposes.  You don’t have to register to create a cartoon from a photo.  I’m not sure, though, if you can access this site through the MCS firewall.  I haven’t tried that yet.  Hopefully, it won’t be a problem.

There’s more to www.befunky.com than what I’ve done here.  Go check it out!  Have fun and be funky!