Thing 23: Congratulations!

22 Things down, one to go!  

Now that I have (almost!) completed my 23 Things journey, I have some questions I need to answer.   

1. What were you favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?  

I really, really enjoyed working with Shelfari.  I think that this is a great way to make book recommendations and, for librarians, to share lists of books with teachers. I also liked the online image generators because I feel that I can use them to make my websites and social media pages more attractive to young children and teenage students.  

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?  

Until recently, I have been pretty resilient to learning about new technology. I kind of like being a hermit!  However, I now understand the new librarian has to not only be up-to-date on new technology, but must also be able to present it to teachers and staff.  Despite myself, I have really enjoyed learning about the different facets of technology that I will use as a librarian. One of my new lifelong learning goals is to not only be a librarian that is current on technology, but one that introduces the newest technology.  

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? 

Actually, I was very surprised how much I enjoyed it. Again, I am not one who is very interested in technology.  However, I felt that most of the things on the "23 Things" list were relevant to my career and I was very interested in learning how I could use them as a librarian.  

4. If we offered this program like this is in the future, would you choose to participate?  

I would, because, like I said before, I want to be someone who introduces technology.  I don't want to just be up-to-date on the newest technology in education, I want to be able to share it with teachers. Isn't that our job as librarians? I would like to see the 23 Things to include some things like LinkedIn, Blackboard, and remind101.  

5. How would you describe your learning experience in ONE WORD or ONE SENTENCE, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things Learning Activities?  

Enlightening!  

Thing 22: Your Turn!

Ok, fellow teachers and librarians, get ready for your students to love you!  I am going to introduce you to remind101.  This is an app with which teachers can text students in a safe way.  The way it works is, teachers sign up for remind101 and create a class.

Ok, so now you have set up a class. You can either download the remind101 app to your smartphone or send the messages from your computer. The remind101 app is free.  If you don't have a smartphone,  you can send the messages from your computer.


Now that you have set up a class, students will need to sign up to receive the messages. First, remind101 will generate a number for students to text to and will give you a message to include in the body of the text.  So, my Student Library Advisory Committee will text @mrsricem to 870-776-8329.

Students will then receive a reply message that looks like this:

They will then text their full name, which will add them to my list.  They will then receive a message  that looks like this:

Then, students will get a text message anytime I send them one. Now, I can send them messages from either from the app on my phone or from the computer. If teachers do not have a smartphone, they can send messages from their computers. It will still send from the computer.  

Parents can also sign up to receive these messages. In fact, elementary school teachers will probably want to use this with parents rather than students since most young children will not have phones with which to receive texts. As a Spanish teacher, I would send out a reminder text the day before a quiz, a test, an assignment was due.Sometimes I would just send out an encouraging message, such as "You guys did an awesome job today!" I had many students tell me that they wished all teachers would use this because they loved getting the reminders. I also had a higher success rate on quizzes and tests when I would send students these text reminders. The fact is, most students use their phones or tablets more today than they do their computers.

 It is important to remember that students will not get text messages from your phone number. Students cannot reply to the messages so they will not have your phone number.  Moreover, teachers cannot select individual students from the list to send text messages to.  Teachers can either send them to the group or to no one.

Thing 21: Online Image Generators

Today, I tried out some online image generators. I want to ask my teacher, "What are you doing to me?"  I could have played with this all day.  Out of all the online image generators, I like Image Chef  the best.  It was easy to use and there were many different tools that I was able to use.  Image Chef gives the option of using a sketch pad, creating a timeline cover for Facebook, a poetry blender, a word mosaic or a poetry blender.  

Image Chef could be a great tool for teachers because, let's face it, students respond to visuals.  The more aesthetically pleasing the visual, the better they will respond.  Teachers can use this site to create images to use on their teacher websites or in presentations in order to engage students.  

This could be used as a cover photo on the Facebook page for an elementary library. 

Children and teenagers respond to visuals more than text.  Librarians could post this to Facebook or Twitter and students would be more likely to remember this piece of news.  

Thing 20: Recess

During this "recess,"  I decided to explore Shelfari a little further. Shelfari allows users to make a "Best of.." list, so I made a "Best of YA list."We are starting a Silent Sustained Reading program this year at Dickinson High School and I am hoping to share these recommendations with teachers. I am also including my reasoning behind adding each book.  So far, I have added these books to the list....

1. The Harry Potter series

2. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series

3.The Hunger Games trilogy

4. Before I Fall

5.  An Abundance of Katherines

6. The Fault in Our Stars

7. Looking for Alaska

8. Dreamland

9. The Chronicles of Narnia 

10. Holes 

11. Nineteen Minutes

12. Percy Jackson and the Olympians series

13. The Heroes of Olympus series

14. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

15. Between Shades of Gray

16. A Wrinkle in Time 

17. Just Listen

There are many more I am going to add but, in the meantime, everyone should give these a read!  You can see my list here.  

Thing 16: Video sharing

Using YouTube, I found several videos about librarians and libraries. I liked this one called  "Librarians in Fashion" a lot.  I thought it may be used as an icebreaker or introduction at a professional development for librarians.  While it's funny, it's also trued. The face of the stereotypical librarian is changing to reflect our culture and we don't all wear glasses, pencil skirts, and cardigans every day.  (Although I do like pencil skirts and cardigans).

Thing 19: Mashups

Mash-ups aren't just educational tools, they're fun! Today I explored Flickr's tool Bookr.  I must say That I spent quite a bit of time playing with Bookr instead of blogging about it .With Bookr, users can select photos from Flickr and create a book based on a certain theme. For example, history teachers could look up photos on Flickr's Creative Commons on "space exploration" and create a book of NASA's photos.  They could then show the book to students as they lecture over the history of space exploration in the United States. Or, let's say science instructors are teaching a lesson over different types of snakes.  The teachers could use Bookr to create a collection of photos of snakes. This would engage the students and they would likely pay closer attention to the lesson. Out of all Flickr's different options for creating mash-ups, I liked Bookr the best.  

Also, FD Toy has a Trading Card maker, which is kind of like creating an online business card. Those who create business cards with this program can share them on Flickr, thus giving their business information to other professionals in this field.  

This is the trading card I created!

Thing 18: Shelfari

Shelfari is Amazon's way for us reading geeks to build shelves we've read, we want to read or that we're reading. Shelfari also allows users to like their accounts to Twitter and Facebook, which then makes their shelves and reviews more visible to friends.  Shelfari and Goodreads are the ultimate book recommendation tools.  Librarians and teachers could introduce these to students in order to have students recommend books that they have read to each other.  Middle grade and high school students will like using these book recommendation tools because they can easily comment on each others' reviews and they will be able to get reviews from their peers.

I have been using Goodreads for a while now, but I built a Shelfari shelf tonight.  On it, I included the book I am currently reading and the next five books I plan to read.  I was happy to be introduced to Shelfari because I use Amazon to quite a bit to purchase books. Since Shelfari is linked to Amazon, it will help me decide on which books to purchase.  :)

This is my shelf!