Thing 4 : Photo Sharing

     I have been doing a little exploring with Flickr and think I am figuring it out.  Things have been really busy. You know, it is that time of year, and so I am running a little behind.  Here is a pic I found that I like. Later I will post our version of this sort of holiday tree with our weeded fiction books.  :) I followed Polly's directions and it was pretty simple.

     I searched Flickr using some pretty specific topics and found pictures from geographically nearby, pictures of decorations, pictures of book trees like the one above, and lots more with quick simple searches. It is not to difficult to find things.

    Several weeks ago, Polly mentioned the editing tool, PicMonkey. I have been using it for my library's facebook page and other little projects since. It is so easy and fast.  Our art teacher has put all kinds of her Studio Art class projects in the library. Within minutes, I took pictures and quickly made collages. It is one of those tools I wish I had know about long ago ~ what an absolute time-saver for me!!

       Okay, here is our tree, I used PicMonkey to crop and re-size it in about 45 seconds from the time I opened it on my computer.  :) Love that!

      Trust me when I say that if I can do this, anyone can do this. Below is one of the collages I created, again for our fb page, of the student art work.

     If Flickr is as simple and useful as PicMonkey, then I will have another tool down soon, I hope.  Students are always needing to do things with pictures, so how can we go wrong in learning these tools ourselves?  The ability to search and limit to the Creative Commons pics is a great feature in itself.  Goal for the next few days: become a Flickr expert... well, at least get out of the novice category.  ;-)

I am trying to add a picture following the directions in the video today. I am not having the best of luck, but here we go again.

http://flic.kr/p/7q8wt1

Thing 3: RSS

       Working with Thing 3 has been tricky. First, because it is such a busy time of year and it is hard to find the time to really learn what RSS feeds, etc. have to offer. Second, it seems a little more difficult to get a feel for what works for me.  I have been using both Google Reader and Netvibes.  Both seem fairly easy to add subscriptions to but neither seems very easy to manipulate  or make more manageable.  I think I am going to have to let these go and move on to the next lesson without having accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.  I will keep working at it.
     One other thought before I stop typing is that with my iPad I like using Flipboard which I think is the same sort of thing; and it is very visual and easy to navigate. 

Thing 2: Online Learning Communities...even more

     I am really liking Twitter and following along so many folks in the library world.  But, one thing remains a mystery and that is how people keep up with all that gets tweeted that you want to check back with later or try out or just remember.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I do use Diigo for some things, posted information in my last blog post for others and, yet, there is still more that I just haven't been able to deal with yet.  
     As far as my learning experience, after watching the screencast that Polly posted, I do have a better understanding of hashtags and how to use them. I also find that I recognize them much more in the tweets I read. There is some improvement.  I have retweeted several tweets.  I am not sure what that is doing, but I use a retweet kind of like I would like the "like" button on facebook. Who knows if that is the point?  For now, it is my point.