Final Reflection

I for one have always been very into technology and thought in high school that I was ahead of the pack, and infact I was for my small town and the little technology that we had. I graduated in 2006 and while most schools were starting to implement SmartBoards into their classrooms, I was a pro at working the electronic projector that our school just purchased. When I got to college I was issued a huge shock at how behind I was!
If I'm ever a librarian or in my own classroom I want to be able to have access to all of the technology that I will have available to me. I think it's so important to keep up with technology and to keep the students up to date. Podcasts, video's blogs, there are endless possibilities when it comes to technology, and they are there for the taking.

Podcast

I was not able to upload my podcast onto my blog for some reason. I was able to post it on the wiki, so that's where it is.

Book Trailer Reflection

This was a really hard project for me to get going on. I've made movies before, but never with one of the online sites Sally provided us. My first experiment was with Animoto, but I wasn't able to put text onto it so I moved on. The next program I tried was Joggle, and man was that complicated! Finally, I found One True Media, and that combined all the things that I wanted, free music, text and I could adjust the transitions between photos. I only chose to use one photo, because while I was doing research for this project I watched some different book trailers, and the ones that really stood out to me and made me want to go and check out that book right away were the ones that simply had the cover of the book and some text. The others had to much animation and pictures and made it feel like I was watching a trailer for a movie rather than for a book. The really good simple trailers with just the cover of the book had some speech, like different passages from the book read by the "characters" speaking them in a voice that you probably image them talking in while reading the book. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to do that, nor am I able to speak in different accents. Maybe my next book trailer will have some dialog! :)

Reflective Essay 2

I think using a blog in a LMS is a great idea! New books and happenings in the library can by updated regularly and students can go there to check things out. It would also be useful for students who are doing reports and essay’s because they can look up information there if the librarian posts links to other educational sites. The LMS can post book reviews and if he or she has time can make a spot where teacher's can post assignments or information on assignments for students. I think a blog for a library is a great idea, and may try and talk my mom into creating one for her library!

Reflective Essay

When I first created my blog last spring it wasn’t something super new to me, since I’d created one my freshman year of college for a writing course, but I had much better instruction on how to create one since I created the second blog for my elementary technology class I took during the 200 block. I was able to personalize it and make it feel more like mine so it was more fun to use. I would still like to learn how to personalize it more, such as how to change the font to something other than the four options given on the blog layout page. I know that would require me to rewrite the HTML of the blog layout, and that is something that’s a bit beyond my capabilities!
What I found most challenging is finding a descent blog to follow. The wedding blogs I follow can only be followed for so long, and then I have to find other blogs that interest me. I’d really like to find more library media related blogs, but there are so many to choose from and I’m not sure which ones are credible or not.

The 3 blogs I chose to follow...

Some of the blogs I'm following are "Cathy Nelson's Professional Thoughts" seemed like a great blog to follow because she blogs about new and beneficial technology to the library media center and about budget related issues pertaining to library media and library ed. She also has links to some other great blogs that are related to library media and technology.

The second I'm following is American Indians in Children's Literature. I sure could have used this site last year for my library class! This is a great site for a future Montana educator to follow since Indian Ed for All is a huge thing right now.

The third blog I chose to follow is Tech Tips and Timely Tidbits. I came across this because Cathy Nelson herself posted a TON of library media and tech related blogs on my first post, so very quickly I came across some great blogs relating to library media!

I'm very glad I have library related blogs to follow and not just wedding blogs! They were starting to get old!