"Some" thing about social networking

Facebook, IM, etc. - Something to think about - A student calling her teacher to check in about a field trip? Not a problem. The two friending one another on Facebook is another story. Per new policy, the School District of Elmbrook in Brookfield, WI, has banned all chatter between Elmbrook staff and students on instant messaging or social networking applications not sponsored by the district. The policy, approved by the school board on February 10, stipulated a range of “practices considered irresponsible,” including personal communication between staff and students via social networking and IM.

Thing 9 -

Above is my imported presentation. As you can see, there were some issues with the import, significant in the slide with the picture. To be honest, the original was rigged in a way and I can understand why this happened.
I explored the website (new to me! YEAH!!) and I have to admit I am impressed. Where have you been hiding? This is great for creating presentations when there is no software around. Kudos to the creators in Zoho Show.
Later on, I went to Slideshare. Looks simpler, with audio capabilities which I didn't explore. Did Zoho have that? I'd need to check later. The import worked a lot better, without distortion in the slides - so it took longer, but did better :-)
The instructions for embedding seem to be hidden... ah! Here they are...

Tech Meeting Presentation

View more presentations from coral3.

So, shoot me. I didn't have another PowerPoint in my computer and I am not feeling very creative tonight. But this is great to know it exists. I just sent my whole faculty a copy of the presentation, clogging the mail pipes in the district server... this is more elegant, perhaps my teachers would be more inclined to click on a link than to open a presentation in a slow computer.

Thing 8 - IM, SMS, Web conferencing

This one should be easy for most.. I have had an IM account for a while, use SMS to communicate with my family, have used web conferencing for training. I imagine most people have some experience with this?
I have my iPhone configured to use AIM, but mostly use SMS since my son prefers it (over 1200 messages a month for him!) The Web conferencing has been around for trainings for a long time and I have taken advantage of its capabilities.
For IM in the library, I think Meebo is a good choice - allows for communication across platforms and the librarian would only need one service. I can see this being useful in the school media centers after hours, but, of course, nobody would get paid for this and that is a service killer. Students during the day are not allowed to use IM at school, so establishing this service would be tricky in my high school. For a public library, it seems it could be a choice if reference desk librarians take turns to reply, just like they do with the phone requests.
Messaging is expensive in some phone plans and I imagine unlimited messages for an institution are not as cheap as they are for an individual - SMS is a two-way street and if a patron receives a text from the library s/he will likely want to reply. Broadcasting could be the solution or sending from a blocked phone, I guess. I still don't see this happening in the public school sector.
As far as web conferencing, I think our students are so used to Youtube that something like this, synchronous, would be as exciting... as being in the classroom. We did have a neat NASA conference with the astronauts orbiting around the Earth - this was a unique opportunity for a packed auditorium to see the guys in space and ask synchronous questions and receive immediate answers. Goosebumps!
I will be exploring OPAL in the near future and perhaps find a webminar my students can relate to - or perhaps one I can enjoy for personal growth.
I also have Twitterrific installed in my iPhone... I follow Katie and my son when my phone decides to work, but I don't see the need to update my Facebook status AND Twitter. This is definitely overkill!
(Why would my daughter choose Facebook updates to let me know she was all right after a car crash instead of calling????)

Thing 7

This was made with the Image Chef at http://www.imagechef.com/
No more tonight... I am going to play!!

Thing 6 - Flikr mashups

Mashup... this is a new one for me. I had heard the word and have been meaning to explore the concept, but never had the chance.
I played with some of the toys and ended up with this picture of my granddaughter in front of the jewelry display case at Sam's...
I have played with some of these before (inserting friend's picture in magazine covers, Stumble upon sites where these mashups are possible) but never under the title of "mashup". Another Web 2.0 term that is better explained in Wikipedia or in Webopedia.
I found some of the applications slow and still in an experimental state. Color picker was entertaining for a bit, the bighuge lab is where I found the mashup for the picture I posted. There are a variety of options there for all tastes - READ motivational posters, ID cards for library patrons, Mat maker for"framing" pictures... it'd take days to explore them all!
Let me try the letters now...

Nice... two granddaughters in one post!

I played with Splashr and ended up with these cats
http://splashr.com/show/slideshow/cat/25/
Way cool.

Thing 5

I went "Flickring" and discovered I already had an account, which I had to open when my daughter started trying out wedding dresses and wanted my opinion from afar. I went ahead and uploaded some pictures, which i left private since they were just tests of the editing capabilities of Flikr.
One thing I found annoying is that the pictures have to be seen one by one. I have the Firefox add-on Cooliris and this would let me look at ALL the pics at once on those pages full of thumbprints... I guess this is part of the Pro features? I'd have to go back and look again.
Since I've been looking at library furniture to improve my place, I did a search for "library furniture" but wasn't very successful. During the process I found this beauty, which I know some of you will be able to appreciate:


Taken from
http://flickr.com/photos/51035720546@N01/2962333065/

Yes, and I did check. They are available on Ebay if anybody is interested in one of these.

Thing 4

RSS finished... found Unshelved again, that for some reason stopped being delivered via email (did I miss something, perhaps?). Added a couple of RSS feeds, but, frankly, I doubt I will be able to keep up with them. It's all about TIME, right?
Now... how to I go about creating one of those RSS buttons in my blog?