Rhubarb

Let's start. My father fancied himself a gentleman farmer. He and my mother bought five acres in 1951 in Milton to cultivate a small farm and a family. When we moved in there was about an acre of asparagus and a large block of rhubarb. For many years they sold both crops to local people who had been regular customers in the past. They raised rabbits and had a huge garden. I remember as a kid learning to cut asparagus and rhubarb, wash and weigh them by pound and bundle them with rubber bands.
Asparagus is another story. It must have been a big part of our diet because for me comfort food means creamed asparagus on toast. My grandmother lost her sapphire ring one summer cutting asparagus and found it the next summer. She died when I was 15 and because I was her oldest godchild and our birthdays were both in September, I was given her ring. (Unfortunately it was stolen when I was living in a dorm at UVM.) I have tried to grow asparagus here at my own gentleperson's farm. However it requires more attention than I can give it now. Maybe when I retire.
So let's talk rhubarb. Easy to grow, red is the best, the sweetest, according to my father. Rhubarb is my new learning challenge. I have always taken it for granted. It just grows and you turn it into pies. Let the challenge begin.

New Directions

I have been waiting to get inspired to change this space to something new. I have used this for library work but it is time to move and make it more personal. So here it goes. Think rhubarb!

Week 11 - last thing

Overall, this has been an amazing adventure. My brain is crammed to overflowing with new learning and creative ideas. Although 23 Things is geared for librarians, I have found many things were equally relevant to my work as an elementary school teacher. I have shared many of my discoveries with my teaching job share partner.
Perhaps the thing that has had the most impact on my work as a librarian is learning how to create and use a blog. After finding out how it easy it was to create a basic blog, I created a second blog for the library. It has proven to be a simple way to provide patrons with information about events at the library. We do not have a website and so the blog is filling the void.
Currently our library is conducting a community survey about library services and because space has become an issue, how the community wants to see the library grow. With the help of a board member the survey is available on line and there is a link to the library blog. http://monktonlibrary.blogspot.com
I really liked the Common Craft videos. Very clear, concise, basic information that was easy to understand. I shared several of them with my job share partner at school.
Most likely I will continue to use Flikr, delicious, and YouTube. I would like to investigate librarything and Mappr more. My use of social networking with FaceBook is alive and well, several times a day actually.
At this point I am not sure how I will use the RSS feeds. Although I initially liked the idea of having access to so much news about so many things, I found it too overwhelming. I will be thinking about this particular tech tool more.
I have enjoyed this learning experience. I always feel invigorated when I am learning new things. I also feel overwhelmed by this experience. Unfortunately, because of my work schedules both at the library and at school I have not been able to spend as much time as this project really deserves. I would like to think that I could go back again and again to each of the things and play around. I have created a written journal to help me remember places I will return to after 23 things disappears into cyber space. I have also bookmarked many sites on delicious as a way of getting back to some of my favorites.
I would definitely participate in other learning experiences like this in the future. My school district hosts many tech learning workshops on a regular basis. I have spoken with our technology people about the possibility of creating something similar to 23 Things. I know she has spoken with someone in department of Libraries about how to make this happen.
Many thanks for many things.

Week 11 - Thing # 22

Podcasts
I am not an ipod user, yet. One of my goals for the the summer is to purchase an MP3 player and start playing with this technology.
I listened to a podcast on LibVibe about a library in Massachusetts that was struggling because of budgetary issues. The site was easy to navigate and I could listen on my computer.
I might consider using podcasts for our board meetings when members are not able to attend.

Week 11 - Thing # 21

Coming down the homestretch and what a fun THING to do. YouTube is an amazing phenomenon. My daughter posted a video on YouTube to announce her second pregnancy. The video featured my first grandson prancing around wearing a T-shirt that said I'm the big brother.
I watched a video that was included in the I Love My Library contest. It was entitled Thank You Note. I emailed it myself because I loved the message that was contained in it.
I will be thinking about how to include videos of happenings at the library on YouTube with links from our library blog. Our upcoming Strawberry Festival might just be the place to start.

Week 10 - Thing # 20

I will definitely go back and spend more time with this award list. I went to the short list of Web 2.0 awards because of time constraints. My first journey was to .docstoc where is searched through the education section. I found several documents; one for spring bookmarks and a collection of poems called Celebrate Being a Kid which was published by an elementary school. I emailed both documents to my school email address and will share them with my job share partner.
My second journey took me to imcooked where i watched a video about eggs benedict. Yum.
Definitely will go back to this site again.

Week 10 - Thing # 19

For this week I created an account in GoogleDocs. In my other job as a classroom teacher, our school is using GoogleDocs to allow more collaboration among teachers and staff as we create documents that may used by many people.
I have used many different word processing software such as Openoffice Writer, Appleworks and Microsoft Word. GoogleDoc functions much the same way. I found it relatively easy to use.