Since I started the 23 things last winter, I have been continuing to explore even though I have not been blogging.  I thought I would use my “Catch-Up Week” post to look back at what I have been learning.

I am still trying to find ways to use Flickr well.  I am the yearbook advisor at our school, and we have a perennial problem getting candid photos of sporting events, classroom activities etc.  Teachers and parents don’t always want to take the time to e-mail photos or bring them to the library to be downloaded.  I don’t know that Flickr is any easier than e-mail, but perhaps it would be a place to gather all school-related photos.   I had difficulty linking to my Flickr photos for my family’s blog.  My daughter uses something called Photobucket (I think), and that was much easier.

I continue to use delicious often, and I am encouraging teachers and students to set up accounts.  Because I work in two different places and regularly use two different computers at home, being able to access my bookmarks from anywhere is a great time saver for me.  At the school library, we are creating an account for all of the teachers to use.  That way, we can save useful lesson plan and projects sites in a place where everyone can share.  We are working hard on our curriculum right now, so we are all well aware of what is happening in other grades.  If we see a great site about the desert or hieroglyphics, we can easily save it for the teacher who covers those subjects.

This summer I started a new blog with my family.  It was supposed to be about our summer projects - a way to keep us motivated.  I was afraid that we wouldn’t have enough to blog about - instead we have so many projects that we don’t have time to blog!  Unfortunately, I don’t seem to do too many picturesque projects - I hesitated to post a picture of myself painting the living room ceiling.  I doubt it would inspire anyone.

My family has teased me about the pictures that I have posted - when we made strawberry jam I had to arrange the strawberries and jam in a nice dish with a doily etc.  It seems that posting pictures online tends to make me stretch reality a bit!

My children encouraged me to join Facebook - they tend to use it more than MySpace.  I still don’t have a picture uploaded, but I have searched around, checked the sites related to my high school and colleges, and I became a friend of the LSC library.  There are a lot of possibilities for social networking - I am just overwhelmed by them at this moment.  I’m trying to look at each of these technologies and consider which of them would actually make our library better, make a job easier, make learning more fun etc.  If a cool new thing doesn’t pass any of those tests, I mark it on my delicious bookmarks for future reference and let it go!!

This was by far the least comfortable of these exercises.  I think the idea of social networking is interesting.  It would be great to have a place to go to see all of the Vermont librarians and exchange ideas and tips, post pictures etc.  It would also be very helpful at school.  If our entire staff was part of a group, we could also exchange ideas, reminders etc.  more easily than e-mail. On the other hand, I was hesitant to be a part of the whole MySpace community (I actually couldn’t bring myself to post my own picture and put up a picture of my card catalog) (??).  I’m sure there’s years of therapy right there!  I also know how much time the students in my college classes spend on MySpace and Facebook, and I know how distracting it can be.  When I first started teaching college writing, computers were a miraculous timesaver.  Now I’m afraid it takes a lot of willpower to turn on a laptop and buckle down to writing an essay without checking e-mail, MySpace etc.  I’m sure as a student I would have had the same problem! I checked out the libraries that have MySpace and Facebook accounts.  It seems like an interesting way to keep in touch with teen patrons - as an elementary school librarian, I’m not sure there is a small child social network (aside from Club Penguin!) out there.  Again, it would be great to stay in touch with other librarians, but I would always have to balance the fun of networking with how much time it uses.  

I forgot to blog about posting a picture to Flickr.  I have used Flickr to look at sewing and art projects, but I never had any interest in using it myself.  I’m still not sure how the library would use it, but as the yearbook advisor for our school, I am very excited about creating  a place where parents can upload photos of sporting events and other school happenings that we can draw from for the yearbook.  I would also love to get my family to use Flickr - we live far apart and tend to get out of touch with what our children are doing, how tall they are growing, how deep the snow is way up here in Vermont etc.  This would be an easy way to share our pictures.

I love RSS feeds!  I have been using Google Reader to keep track of some of  my favorite blogs.  It is so much easier to keep track of new things.  Because I have a Google e-mail account, I have started checking my blogs when I check my e-mail.  It really saves time.   I used to hesitate to bookmark blogs, knowing that I would probably not have time to keep up - now I know that I can easily check everyday.  I already have a new list of children’s lit and library blogs I plan to add to Google Reader. 

I loved the Color Pickr.  I always enjoy arranging things by color - kind of a dangerous hobby for a librarian!!  I have no idea what use I could find for it, but after this very gray and snowy day all that color was a treat.

Retrievr is also fun, but since it lets me find photos based on my sketching abilities, I don’t think I’ll be retrieving many photos!!  I drew what I thought was a pretty nice picture of poppies and got everything from people to umbrellas -everything that is except poppies!

  It was difficult to know how to get this word from the Spell with Flickr website to my blog.  I ended up copying the code and pasting it right into my blog after I clicked the tab that said code.  I don’t know how this would work in other applications, but I’m glad I can actually see it here. 

I never thought I would have my own blog.  I have enjoyed reading sewing and craft blogs for a long time, but the urge to write my own never hit me.  I could never figure out how the writers had time to sew all their own clothes, homeschool their children, grow their own vegetables etc. etc. and still had a few spare minutes to rhapsodize about the sunrise and take pictures of the sticky buns they baked for breakfast.

I don’t expect to take many pictures of my family’s breakfast, but it is fun to be on the writing side of the blog for a change.

I always find viewing problems as challenges a bit difficult.  It is easier in theory, I think, than in practice.I love setting up the “toolbox” necessary for a new project.  That may be my fatal flaw - I take so much time reading about a project and assembling the tools that I never actually get started!!