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I love my Google Reader . . . it is a great way to keep up with what is going on ‘out there’ in addition to keeping up with what is going on with MILI. Since I didn’t need to set up an RSS aggregator for Thing 3, I decided to do a couple other things. First, I went through my list of subscriptions and deleted feeds I don’t really like. (It’s a pretty good clue that you don’t like a blog if, after reading it for a while, you start clicking ‘Mark All as Read’ even though you haven’t read any of the posts :))
Then I decided to look through my “starred” posts to see which blogs I star the most so that I could recommend the blogs which have been most useful for me. However, this appeared to be an overwhelming task since I have starred hundreds of posts and there is no way to put them in order by blogger. THEN I discovered the “Trends” option in Google Reader . . . Lo and behold, the Reader keeps track of my Top 10, Top 20, and Top 40 blogs according to how many times I’ve starred the blogs’ posts! Yea! So, according to my Trends (and excluding MILI blogs), my most-starred blogs are
Larry Ferlazzo’s Website of the Day for Teaching ELL . . .
Now that I think about it, this isn’t a truly accurate depiction of my recommendations because I often do not star the valuable postings . . . Rather, I often go out to the sites a blogger recommends and then add them to my “favorites” for future exploration. Therefore, based on my own subjective preferences rather than the objective Trends, I also recommend:
Doug Johsons “Blue Skunk Blog”
Joyce Valenza “NeverEndingSearch”
Then, I added these seven blogs to the blogroll on my blog. Of course, my preferences will probably change as I discover new blogs, so from now on, I’ll just update the blogroll.
(FYI: I hope this won’t be too repetitive for MILI participants who might be reading my blog . . . if so, I’ll always use the heading “On a Stick” for these posts, and you can just delete them.)
I just signed up for 23 Things On a Stick. According to the blog, 23TOAS ”was developed by the seven multitype multicounty library systems as part of the staff development the multitypes offer in their regions . . . This program is open to all staff in any Minnesota library—public, academic, school, or special—as well as members of their Governing Boards, their Friends groups, or Advisory Groups.” Surprise, Ann Walker Smalley is the wizard behind the curtain . . . . I mean, the blogger behind the blog 
Even though we are teaching/learning a lot of these things in MILI, there is always more to learn! I tried (unsuccessfully) to get into a St. Kate’s class this semester called “Library 2.0,” so I decided that participating in 23TOAS would be a good alternative.
Since I already have a blog (Thing 1), I did one of the “challenges” by adding a couple widgets to my blog — a counter (350 views!) and a “recent comments” section.
Just a quick note from me on Things 6 & 7 (RPC) & 8 (Dribbling). You all know that the address to the Research Project Calculator is http://rpc.elm4you.org/. And I’m betting that most of you are going to http://www.metrolibraries.net/pro/dribbling.html for the Dribbling Lessons. But did you know that you can get to the Dribbling Lessons from the RPC site? If you are using the RPC regularly, this would be an easier route for you . . .
For example, if you go to http://rpc.elm4you.org/ and click on “Support Materials,” you’ll find a link to the Dribbling Lessons beneath the support materials for each step. For example,
I know that this has been mentioned, but I wanted to share this timesaver for the people who may not have “caught” it. Especially since there have been several posts about how useful the RPC and Dribbling Lessons have been for some of you! (It works the other way, too. You can link to the RPC from the first page of the Dribbling Lessons.)
As I’ve mentioned before, if you have comments on or suggestions for the Dribbling Lessons, please let me know since I’m going to be working on improving it this semester. Any feedback is appreciated!
In lieu of a teacher webpage (Thing 5), I’ll share a couple of mock websites I created for classes I’ve taken. In both situations I pretended I was creating a school library website — in one the focus was on content, and in the other the focus was on design. For the first one (content) I just used Word. For the second one (design) I used Photoshop and Dreamweaver, which was a real struggle for me.
Even though these assignments were repetitive in a way, I actually appreciated having to think through both the content and design thoroughly in different contexts. While I don’t love either of my creations, they are probably better than what I’ll actually be able to create in real-life (i.e. as a school librarian) because of the limitations of 1) time and 2) the webmaker used by the school. While I LOVE anything that doesn’t make me use html, I’m frustrated with how cumbersome many schools’ webmakers seem to be (and I’m not just referring to the districts we are working with . . . it looks like most districts haven’t found a program that allows for great design and content and is easy to use.)
Here’s the one in Word (o.k. this was a good idea in theory, but this wouldn’t load properly, so I had to just do a screenshot.)
Here’s the one in Photoshop/Dreamweaver (and this one can’t load properly, either There are cool pics behind each of the colums and a logo on top that signifies learning, unlearning, and relearning. Oh well. For all I know, ya’ll might not be able to see anything.)
