Week 3--Online Meetings

I have attended several meetings using Wimba, the last live one I attended was the session on Illuminar. It works pretty good to be able to sit at my desk and listen to the session and take notes as opposed to driving 2 hours for a hour or two session. I see a lot of good for this type of meeting and have suggested that maybe the Southeast Kansas Library Board meetings might consider some sort of online meeting, as I find it hard to get away sometimes to attend those board meetings. But so far we haven't worked it out, so I missed the last two meetings.

Since I'm involved with curriculum and testing at school, I have attended several "Live Meeting" sessions. The only issue I find with those, is the bandwidth. There is a big lag time and part of the time it drops out and i have to refresh several times in order to get the jist of the meeting. In a perfect world, it would be an exccellent resource.

I listened to an archived program on Chocolate on Opal by Judy Graves and Angela McMillan, and Allison Kelly. It was neat to hear all the information that they have in the Library of Congress and the links and sources that they showed were pretty awesome, since Chocolate is a particular favorite of mine :)

I have signed up for Technology Essentials 2010 and hope to be able to participate in more upcoming webinars. With shortage of funds, this is a good way to train people and I forsee over the next few years that it will be perfected, so bandwidth won't be a huge issue and we can sit at our desks and attend conferences around the world in real time.

Week 2--Online Communities

I decided to join the Facebook world a few months ago, and it's addicting. I've found and reconnected with many of my former students (can't believe it's been 25 years since I started teaching). It's been a lot of fun. I chose 3 people from the 23 things to ask to be friends. Hope to hear from them soon.

It's also been rewarding to keep up with my "distant" cousins through Facebook. I get to see pictures of the new babies, birthdays, and weddings, even though I can't be there in person.

Facebook is easy to use and seemed to be the one most of my educator friends are using. I have a hidden profile, as they prefer that we don't friend our current students. Many of them would like to be my friend, so I find it easier not to have a public profile.

I have been playing around with creating a facebook page for the public library in LaCygne and I do have somethings posted, but only the director and I are fans. I think it would be used more if we get the historical reenactor grant for this summer to keep our kids in the loop.

I am a fan of 23 things on there already. I belong to several educator's Ning groups. I joined Kansas LIbrary Association and Mountain Plains Association groups on facebook. Since I'm in SEK I chose to be a fan fo Iola Public Library.

This ia a lot of fun.

Week One Blogging

Hi!

My name is Janet. I have library in my blood. I spend most of my waking hours in one or the other library. My full-time job is as Library Media Specialist at Prairie View High School near LaCygne. This is my 7th year in that position. I enjoy working with the high school students (didn't think I would after 18 years teaching elementary). I work with testing, curriculum and some technology for the school district also. Some days I think they forget I'm a librarian. (That's me in the pink--we're being honored for years service to our school district).

My other job is one that I've had since I was 17. I work part time for the public library in LaCygne. This summer I completed my 30th year there. I can do just about everything there, but my main responsibilities are keeping the technology up to date and working and cataloging. I also enjoy planning activities and programs for adults and children. Picture shows one of my Curious George Events.

Last summer I taught 6 weeks of lessons on Web 2.0 tools that our patrons could use. It was a lot of fun to introduce our patrons to a "whole new world of things on the computer". I haven't blogged before, but I use Plurk and Facebook.

I like to learn and like to be able to help others, so when I saw the "23 Things" offered, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about tools that I can use for both personal and professional growth.

Blogger was easy to set up and use and I feel that I could use it for various purposes at both jobs. Thanks for encouraging us to explore more things that are out there.