Thing 10 - Wikis

I viewed the Common Craft video and checked out the various links in thing 10. The Subject guide wikis at SJCPL were of varied levels of development. Some were good, some not as well developed. But that's the strength of wikis, they can be edited and developed over time. The Princeton Library (NJ) use of a wiki for book reviews for a book club was a nice snapshot in time, but I liked better their incorporation of the reviews into their catalog. Looking at the Library Success wiki showed that they have had to resort to e-mail confirmation for editing because of vandalism--there's always got to be rotten apples to make things more difficult.

I was pleasantly pleased to find that the Aurora Public Library was among the blogging libraries in the Blogging Libraries Wiki. Their librarian is currently one of those who has completed the 23 things program. You can read her 23 things blog here: Paula's 23 Tech Things

I can understand why teachers might not allow Wikipedia as a source for writing papers. How do you know the author's work is authoritative? But they really should encourage students to visit it to find where else they might go for authoritative material on a topic. And it would be a great part of a unit on how to evaluate reference material and resources which is what students should be learning to benefit them for the rest of their lives. While I can understand teachers wanting to encourage use of many different formats, I don't believe that limiting use by format is at all helpful or necessary. With the ability to access many primary resources online today, the internet should not be excluded simply because it isn't the "standard" accepted print media.

I added an entry to the 23 things on a stick wiki and signed and dated the entry. I included a photo (above) of the birthday cake my husband bought me recently which I immediately thought would have been great to add to a storytime celebration or summer reading program event. Let's hope we never get too old to appreciate storybook characters!

More Thing 8

Despite dreading yet another login and password to remember I signed up for PictureTrail, quickly and easily uploaded a small collection of photos, and created a slideshow. It took hardly any time at all (once I had the pictures selected!) Then it was so easy to send the slideshow right to my blog. Only problem was that the first size I sent was a hair too big for my post area so it was cut off. So I went back and edited the size, copied the new info and replaced it in the edit html window of my post. It now fit nicely into the space. But rats! As I watched it, I realized that the picture that should have been last was #7. So back again to Picturetrail to edit my creation. And even that was easy..just drag the pictures where you want them and save the thing. The changes automatically show up in your post. It couldn't have been any easier. Wow, am I glad I tried it. I know I'll be back with some other projects I want to share.

I'd highly recommend this to even novice users as it is so easy to use.

My subject of choice was my grandson engrossed in his book. He didn't even know I was taking the pictures of him as he was so taken with the pictures in his storybook. (I think it was Flotsam by David Wiesner, but I could be mistaken.)