Week 3: Photos & ImagesThing #7 Post about anything technology-related

Well, I have to say that this day has been quite a productive day in terms of new technology knowledge. I started the Intel training through my district and I learned what a wiki is (a site to work on projects as a group, to manage groups, and allow users to add posts or comments, etc.). It is really neat! I also set up a Delicious account to keep track of all my favorite websites and access them from anywhere on the web. I started ANOTHER blog to keep track of all I'm learning over at that training, and added the important addresses from this training onto my Delicious account. All in all, I have to say I am having a lot of fun learning all these new gadgets to work with. What's even more amazing is that it's all free! The services are just out there for us to start enjoying!

Week 3: Photos & ImagesThing #6 Flickr Mashups & 3rd Party sites

Mashups are applications or websites that take the best of two other services to create a new, innovative service. In this example, I used a Flickr photo and created a trading card using bighugelabs.com and then saved it to my blog post, as was the assignment. I will be exploring other mashups next and hopefully posting another picture here. I am going to try mosaicmaker now, also from bighugelabs.

To use Flickr photos, you need to first "connect" the two services (bighugelabs and Flickr). This is very simple. You go to mosaicmaker and then when you are ready to upload photos, you can either use pictures of your own from your desktop, or you can choose other sources. I chose Flickr and was asked to connect the two....it just takes a couple of clicks. Hope you enjoy both my trading card and my mosaic! I hope I don't have any problems uploading two photos to this blog post. Wish me luck!

Week 3: Photos & ImagesThing #5

Alright! This is now getting into the neat stuff! Flickr is really neat! I already created an account and uploaded some photos. Cool stuff. I am having a tiny bit of trouble finding the Creative Commons collections, but I'm still looking. Creating the account and uploading pictures was pretty user-friendly. Incidently, I'm taking the Intel training at my district and I'm also learning about blogs and wikis there, so this is turning out to be one really productive summer! I'm also learning about Delicious accounts there...really looking forward to learning more about EVERYTHING!

Oh, I forgot to explain about a neat feature of Flickr--you can add tags to your photos so that it makes it easy for others to find your photos and for you to find theirs. They are basically words that can be used for searches. For example, I added a picture of a wedding cake topper and tagged it using the following words: wedding, cake, topper, funny, etc. These words will make it easy to for those looking for such things to find.

To find the Creative Commons collections: click on EXPLORE and scroll down to CREATIVE COMMONS. It's important to be familiar with the Creative Commons Rules so that you know how you are allowed to use each of those collections.

Ok, downloading a picture onto the desktop was a piece of cake...now I gotta' figure out a way to add it to this post....I don't think I saw the instructions on the 23 Things page. Here goes nothing...I did it! All I had to do was click on the little photo icon at the top of my blog editing page and it was easy after that! Yessss--done with Thing #5!

Week 2: BloggingThing #3 (Adding an Avatar--CORRECTION)

Sheesh!!! I finally got this step done! I have to say, I just had to resort to Googling the instructions for this! I followed the instructions given on the 23 Things website, but couldn't do it. I could only export it to Facebook, which is nice, but not the assignment. What would have helped, is if the instructions said to scroll all the way down and to the right to find the box labeled "export"...I think that in my frustration of already spending 4 days on this assignment (on and off), I failed to just do that simple step. Anyway, good old Google came to the rescue and I'm finally done with this step! Now on to bigger and more exciting Things!

Thing #2 (corrected)

Ok, I hadn't realized I had skipped a very important link in this Thing. I just finished watching The Seven 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners and I really enjoyed it! I really like knowing that I am, indeed, a lifelong learner. I like continuing to learn about my job and ways in which to overcome some personal challenges that life has sent my way. I have to say that many of these habits already apply to my personal life. I am the parent of a child with autism and have had to become incredibly informed on the topic in the past 2 years. To keep this post short, I will say that habit #1, start with your end goal in mind, is one that greatly applies to me. I know exactly what I want for my son and that is what drives me each and everyday to do what it takes to get him there. Anywhere at all that I can learn more on the topic, I will take the time to learn. Habit #5, create your own toolbox, is also one that already applies to me. I have my own library of books on autism, web pages listed under favorites, newsletters I am a member of, and member of a support group for other parents.

I have to say that if I had to choose one habit that is difficult for me is habit #7, teach/mentor others....although this only applies to my role as a librarian. My principal has asked me to guide the teachers on some Renaissance concerns at our campus and to do a training to refresh some guidelines. Well, I'm going to be nervous about it all summer because I don't feel confident I can do that! (So I guess it's a combination of habits #4 and #7--have confidence, and teach others.)

I think I have to write a list of things I want to cover with my coworkers so that I can feel more confident when it's my turn to stand before them....wish me luck!

Still trying to tackle Thing #3

I added two followers to this blog. That would be me and, well, me. I am following myself from this Google account, but since that did not add my Yahoo! Avatar, I decided to also follow it with my Yahoo! account. That brought up a mini profile picture of my Avatar, but I'm not sure if that's what the assignment requires. I notice that for the other steps in this Thing, there are links that take you to where you can read instructions. However, "add an avatar" does not give you a link guiding you HOW to do it. I'm frustrated that I can't move on. Specially because I know that adding an Avatar is simple, and I've done it on Yahoo, but can't do it here! Back to trying....

Thing #4 (register my blog)

Well that one was pretty simple and I got it done in a little under two minutes. I am liking these 23 things! Can't wait for more!