Thing 5: Digital Storytelling

I haven't had much call for this in my classroom. I have used Animoto for book trailers, but have not had as much time for that this year. Maybe over the summer I will get back to it. I also like Glogster. Below the posts is one very basic one I did as a demo for a potential project on an alternative pick for the first president - if George Washington hadn't been elected, who would have been the best choice to lead the country? We didn't end up doing it, but I still think it would have been really cool.

Thing 4: Photo Sharing and Editing

I don't do a lot of picture taking, but I do work with images as part of projects. I am always trying to get kids to realize that pictures are part of intellectual property and that they need to only use pictures they are legally allowed to. That's where I run into a wall - teachers want them to find specific pictures, and sometimes, those pictures just don't exist legally. I've had some success with Google's advanced search and wikimedia commons, but this really needs to be a school-wide dialogue that hasn't happened yet. On the flip side, I love Aviary, and use it to take screenshots all the time. I even have it as an extension in my Firefox browser.

Thing 3: RSS

I love RSS! I used to use My Yahoo, but I am slowly converting everything to Google Apps for Educators, so now I use Google Reader. My biggest problem is getting through everything, and I may think about paring it down somewhat, but for now, many of my ideas and updates come through RSS, and I then share them with teachers or incorporate them into my lessons and library activities. I also RSS journal articles from EBSCOhost, which saves on me having to go and check for new content all the time.

Thing 2: Online Communities and PLNs

I've been on Twitter for a while, but I find it harder to keep up with than other things. Most of my news and PLN work is in the form of RSS, which is difficult with Twitter. I am trying out the weekly digest, which I have had sent to my email, and we will see if that will be easier to keep track of.

Thing 1: Blogging

Hi, my name is Mickey Schied. I am a middle school librarian at Indian River Middle School. For this blog, I'm just going to share anything cool I discover in the world of libraries.