Week 7: Microblogging

I am now on Twitter! I started my Twitter account last year after attending the spring MACE conference but then didn't do much with it. Now I have people to follow, some accounts coming to me through RSS feeds, and it looks much more promising as far as my using it goes.

Currently I am following various librarians from the 23 Things Kansas website, Hall Davidson - he was one of the presenters at the spring MACE conference, and he describes himself as a hopeless ed tech geek since '73, and Elizabeth Kohut - she is a SMART certified trainer and Discovery Educator (she even does training on how to use Twitter!)

I am finding their posts helpful because they give me tech ideas. I am hoping that Tweeting with the 23 Things Kansas librarians will be helpful too. As far as uses for Twitter go, right now I see it as a way to connect with other educators worldwide. I hope to use it for personal reasons in the near future!!

Tagging and Social Bookmarking

This is my first attempt at social bookmarking and I really like the idea of being able to access my bookmarks from any computer. Setting up my account was relatively easy, but I did use all of the tutorials. I imported all of my favorites and now I have the task of organizing this information to make it more user-friendly for the public (especially fellow teachers, library colleagues, etc.) Tagging will allow me to develop a resource list for students and teachers that they can access while keeping my personal bookmarks private.

RSS and Feed Readers

RSS feeds are a new concept to me. I have heard of them before but never tried using them. For this assignment I used Google Reader because I already had a Google account. I viewed the eHow videos and then got to work. I chose to follow these three:
1.) iLearn Technology >> Smart Boards
2.) School Library Monthly Blog
3.) KASL

Want a great story starter? Pictures of teachers pets make for great topics of discussion as well as prompts for writing.

This is my dog, Chance, and I have used this picture many times with great results! The students ask all kinds of questions about him as they try to write from his perspective. Or, they will ask all about what he likes to do when they write about an adventure he had. You get the idea.

It's a great way for the teachers to show off a part of themselves (their pet) and to bond with their students (oh, and the writing part is good too!)