Soooo Excited!

My principal is going to let me present 23 Things to the whole school next week at our faculty meeting! Hopefully I can get everyone excited and organize a good group to participate this summer.

What? Free Food!

click on picture to go to Mision Burrito site and get more info.

Searching for textbooks?

It's almost time for summer school, and we all want to get the best deal for our textbooks. CollegeSwapShop.com searches the web and finds different sites where books are sold to compare for you. Simply type in the ISBN number and BAM you have options. It does all the seraching and comparing for you.

AND it's not just for textbooks, it will search and ISBN.

I added a widget (right below my avatar) for easy use.

Saves me time and money, I'm all for it.

Thing #23

Wow I can't believe I made it to Thing #23!! This has been a very interesting and entertaining ride. I have really enjoyed reading all the other blogs and sharing in this journey together. I am going to take away confidence in trying new things. I really enjoyed just exploring! I took away many new skills and lots of resources. As new things come out, and others go away (or start to charge) things might need to be updated and revisited. I wouldn't change the format at all, just make sure it adjusts with the times. I could definitely see myself participating in another project like this.I will tell others that this is FUN and rewarding!

Thing #22

As some of you have also commented free Ning's will soon be a thing of the past.It's a great idea to build a social network around common interests. I know the 7th grade English classes at my school created a Ning so that they could have discussion across the grade not just in groups of 25-30. Great way to host book discussions!

I did some looking around on the Texas School Librarians Ning and could see myself checking back there to read some of the discussions.

Thing #21

This was the first time I really played with Photo Story. It's very simple and easy to use. I did have some trouble uploading my video because just like BJ (BJ's Bubbles) I did have the video icon. Her post saved my time and troubles and it was a quick fix. Last weekend we redid the landscaping in our front yard. We now (after living here for a year) have met our neighbors. I guess we just had to prove that we would try and make things look nice and keep the street up to get their approval. So my vidoecast is about my yard. (Can you tell I'm excited about it??)

Podcasts or vidcasts can be used in many different ways to promote what is happening in your library, preview books, recap events etc. For classroom teachers they make great attention grabbers or reviews.

I took the same pictures and made an Animoto slideshow. Even easier than Photo Story and I just embedded it right in. You can pay for a "pro" account and have the ability to download your slideshows. The librarian at my school uses Animoto with her book talks. And my students have made some GREAT slideshows for class.

Thing #20

This is one of my FAVORITE history videos. My students always laugh because I end up singing along. :)

TeacherTube is such a great resource! Thankfully it isn't blocked at school. Videos can give a great introduction to a topic or wrap up what you have been covering. Now that many sites make the embed codes easily accessible  it's much easier to use videos. I like to send my students videos on Edmodo as a review of what we have discussed that day, or I send something out a few days ahead of time to prepare them for class. How great would it be to stay organized and keep an updated class blog full of videos that students can refer back to. Someday I'll be that organized. . . I hope.