Thing 6 - Workflowy and Readability

I'm a list maker and a list loser.  I have a couple of paper notebooks/journals in which I list tasks or take notes;  I'm a woeful Luddite when it comes to lists.  I like the solidity of a spiral bound notebook or a tiny memo book that I can carry in my purse.  (I still have a dumb phone so keeping a list within it isn't do-able.)  Workflowy may help me make the break to digital list keeping.  I have several work and home lists posted to it now and have shared one home list virtually  with my husband.  The Workflowy shortcut is on the taskbar of my home desktop and laptop computers.  The only drawback I foresee now is that I won't be able to use it at school because it'll be blocked by the filter.  That said, I once-upon-a-time had an iGoogle list going which I could access at school.  I didn't consult it much so the second drawback is my short attention span coupled with fickleness.  Will I forget about using Workflowy or abandon it for another productivity tool?

Readability has made online reading a breeze in the past day and a half.  I love the way it cuts the extraneous matter from the screen so that you can concentrate on the text rather than be distracted by peripheral ads and links.  This one will most likely be a keeper.

Thing 5 - Pinterest and Diigo

Pinterest grabbed members of my family before it sank its claws into me, but it’s got me at last.  I’m collecting ideas for our current house renovation and grabbing library signage ideas as well.  Then there are some travel ideas…and recipes…  I love the visual aspect of Pinterest.  Its graphic nature makes it a natural for collecting sites to use with elementary students and in libraries, in general.  http://edudemic.com/2012/03/20-ways-libraries-are-using-pinterest-right-now/ 

Pinterest competitor Clipix  www.clipix.com offers a privacy or friends-only option for clipping/pinning graphics.  That might be a nice option in a school setting.  I haven’t tried Clipix at school yet, but I suspect that it may be blocked by our filter as is Pinterest and a great many Web 2.0 tools.  The filter is a topic for another day.

Diigo is less visually appealing than Pinterest, but its sticky note and highlighting features make it very useful.  Kids could benefit from gathering information on a Diigo page, annotating the site and assigning tags.  I’m not yet up to speedwith Diigo but have been diiging pages to read later. 

Thing 4 - RSS - iGoogle and Google Reader

Happy Spring Break, a perfect opportunity to catch up on -- count ‘em -- 4 things.  Let's start with Thing 4.

I’ve had an iGoogle page for several years and used this assignment to change some  of the scenic themes and add a couple of new tabs.  On the children’s literature tab,  I follow some perennially favorite blogs, e.g. Fuse 8 and Educating Alice.   I added some new ones, including the UHLS feed – so now I can quickly reserve titles that I’ve read about on the blogs.  I added a Cool Tools tab, too.  Facebook updates provided by Twenty by Jenny, Reading Rockets and the like have eliminated some of my dependence on iGoogle, but I’m still a great fan.

My home tab, as of last night, includes a link to Google Reader.  It’s only been a day and I’ve subscribed to only a few rss feeds through the Reader, but I suspect I’m going to feel overwhelmed with updates soon.  A secondary 0r college student doing a major research project would probably find this info inundation on his/her topic extremely useful.    

I'm on an Animoto Roll!

Last year, I saw a piece of art that one of Betty Ahearn's students at Westmere Elementary School had done in connection with a Knuffle Bunny lesson. In the fall of 2011, I did a Mo Willems unit with my second graders.  We read all the Knuffles, watched the video narrated by Mo and Trixie, and made our own illustrations.  The students glued crayon cartoon characters -- self portraits, Spongebob and other friends -- on a black and white photo of the library.  Here are a few of the creations.  Thanks for a great idea, Betty!
Knuffle Bunny Illustration Project

Thing 2 at last

Children's Literature Connection
Here's a  video highlighting some recent and not-so-recent activities of the Children's Literature Connection.

Thing 3 and Digital ADD

I've avoided Twitter for a long time, preferring to keep up with people and news through my iGoogle pages and Facebook. I've done it, though. I've signed up for Twitter and am following some of the same people whose blogs I read.  One of my colleagues has been tweeting enthusiastically for quite a while so I'm following him, too.  I'm one of those old-fashioned critters who doesn't have a smart phone so I do my social media reading on my home computer-- even though the requisite brevity of tweets seems best suited for phones..  Now I'm overloaded with tweets.

As you read blogs and tweets and those old-fashioned email messages, do you feel the weight of information overload?  Today I read an email message that Dee sent with a link to this Common Core post:  http://www.schoollibrarymonthly.com/articles/Kramer2011-v28n1p8.html   That led to the ALA crosswalk of Common Core and information literacy standards.  That led to the ZooBurst 3D pop-up books site. I haven't done my Thing 2 assignment so I started playing with ZooBurst.  Then I checked Facebook (because it was open) and  a friend's posts about ALA Midwinter. I looked at Twitter and saw some of the suggestions my first grade colleague recommended.  I moved on to some blogs...aarrghhh!  I think I'm suffering from digital ADD!

Why don't I just read my most recent Horn Book -- in print?      

Stalling on Things

I'm procrastinating on Thing 2 -- indecision, technical issues with recording for Photo Story, and vigilant filter issues with some of the tools. (Sigh)  Yes, I'll get it done -- and Thing 3, too.  In the meantime, enjoy this etsy link that shows an extremely cool Christmas gift from my cousin:   http://www.etsy.com/listing/59409227/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows