Diigo

Recently, I decided to use Diigo as my social bookmarking tool at school. I needed a way to bookmark webistes I found at school that I could access from home. I guess I could've easily chosen Delicious but I liked the folder concept that Diigo provided. Delicious seems more visually appealing in how it displays the websites but I didn't know how I could organize the content - until Aaron showed us during our Hangout last Tuesday...Now that I understand tagging is how Delicious is organized, I'm tempted to try it out as well. Perhaps later.

Social bookmarks are amazing especially the bookmarklet that comes with them. The little tool on my favorite bar allows me to bookmark any site I like by just clicking it and adding it to whichever list I create!! Love it! I haven't done much with it but it's very interesting. I created a list of our class blogs earlier before Aaron created the Greader, which is a better option since it notifies us whenever someone posts (good or bad...?)

I used it to create lists of sites that students can go to for their projects that can be reused over the years until those sites are taken down or outdated...

I used it to find sites that would be helpful for me in teaching concepts.

Here is a video of what other things Diigo CAN do:

StumbleUpon

It looks like I have stumbled upon something new! lol... Anyway, StumbleUpon is a website that finds websites, pictures, videos, etc according to your preferences. It surprises you with things you may never have found otherwise... Below is a quick video of how it works:

I tried it out. It has led me to a lot of interesting websites and pictures pertaining to books! They are news articles, websites, etc...I like the entropy feature of it and it does bring some refreshing ideas into my head. The layout seems simple enough and every site that I liked is in my profile so that I can always go back and look at it. I couldn't find a way to embed my likes but I took a screenshot of how it looks like:

It's a nice, small preview/capture of the sites I went to and tags it under the preference I put it in so it's easy to browse through for whatever I'm looking for.

Youtube as a social bookmark

It wasn't until Ben commented on my playlist that it dawned on me that this is also a form of social bookmarking! I have a tendency to go on YouTube and find videos of study skills, screencasts for whatever I'm learning about, etc. I made the study skills playlist because I wanted to have one ready so that I can use it for my students when the need was there. Now, I know that this playlist is a potential for many, many other playlists that I will make for my own learning purposes! I'm curating via video. YAY! I've looked through so many Library Commons YouTube videos without ever putting together a set that I can refer back to in the future. It would save time if I have a playlist made for it. It's very easy to make and I can also go back to it.

YouTube

I didn't get a chance to share my YouTube experience! Before summer, I decided to go to the Surrey Central Public Library to take a look at the newest addition to the public system and it is GORGEOUS!

So I filmed it with my iPhone with a little bit of narrative (Or a lot) to show my students that they could go to the public library during the summer while school library was out!

From this, I created a YouTube account or rather it was always there since I have Gmail and posted my video:



More importantly, I use YouTube to create playlists that may be useful for study skills:



This is how YouTube is important for me!

Screenr Part 2

Due to sound difficulties, I redid my tech tip using Screenr. It should work. I tested it out! Feel free to use if you like:

Podcast

photo courtesy of Peter Pilgrim

Speaking of podcasts, I just recently made one for my other course, resource based teaching! I created it as a pretend radio program for my library. It's actually a lot of fun to make but it takes so much time to edit and add music.

I found my music at this creative commons website: Jamendo

I also used Audioboo to convert the file so that I can post it here:

listen to ‘Library Promo’ on Audioboo

There are so many podcasts on iTunes for educational purposes to listen to from science to language! I actually found the 60-Seconds Science podcast interesting and fun. There is the possibility to add this to the class.

Screencast

I'm starting a tech tip of the week on our video announcements on Fridays and I thought screencast would be AWESOME to show some of the techie stuff I would like to share with all the staff and students in the school.

Today was my debut! I didn't use screencast for this week's tip but it was a nervous, fumbling start. The crew sent to film me were also beginners so it was not phenomenal, just informative. I printed out a picture of the Dropbox and showed it on camera while I talked about why I think it's cool and everyone should have it...

Then I thought about next week. Next week, I'll show off Quizlet and I'll use the screencast I created using the program Aaron uses, Screenr. I found it to be very easy to use and it has so many options for me afterwards like

• embed
• URL
• share
• download
• publish to YouTube

This is the one I created:




However, I failed to mention that a couple of students approached me afterwards and suggested I use them as my filming crew so that my "library corner" show wouldn't be so boring...This would mean that I probably won't use this screen cast on the video announcement next week BUT I will post it onto my library blog so that anyone can go there and watch it for more details :)

For us TL's, my show also includes a book of the week. This week's book is LEGEND by Marie Lu:

Which book should I use next?

Flickr

Since my lack of success with Picasa to create something with pictures that I can embed onto my blog, I took a small break...Today, I felt I could try again with Flickr.

I signed up an account using my Gmail and I uploaded some pictures from my Europe trip last year. I created a "set" for my Florence highlights and it bundles it up into a group. I can watch a slideshow of these pictures AND embed them onto my blog as a slideshow to share:




I'm feeling rather smug at the moment because I was able to do this! The ability to create sets of slideshows that can be embedded or shared via a link/email makes it a lot more useful than Picasa in that sense. I can even link my blog to the website so I can do it right there when I upload a picture!

The free account allows 2 videos and 300MB worth of photos per month. So, it does have its limitations in that sense. I would have to go Pro if I want to have no restrictions to this service to upload photos onto the website and it doesn't seem to cost that much.

I can also determine whether I want to share the photos with the public or privately with people I know. I can also join groups and create groups. There is an option to print the pictures or create calendars and such as well! Quite varied in services. It's an entire community.

However, it's kind of scary to see that Flickr is able to determine when and where I took the photos and with what device...If you're ok with that then it's all right.

Enjoy!

Picasa

So I tried to use Picasa as the icon is on my school computer desktop. It would be useful if I know how to use it and then I can promote it to the students who come in to use the program. Unfortunately, after I created an account (which is apparently linked to Google), I could not figure out how to embed photos on my blog as a slideshow...

Although the good thing is that Picasa is online and can be downloaded for free. It has photoshop editing capabilities so interesting photos can be created!

I want to check out Flickr next to see what's different.