Week 5: Play Week #12 Roll your own search tool with Rollyo

The final portion of week 5 deals with a online tool called Rollyo. Rollyo lets you "create your own personal search engines" by "picking the sites you want to search. There are options to search "searchrolls" developed by others interested in whatever topic you select. I don't lnow that I have my arms wrapped around this yet, but my instinct tells me as time goes on, this may be a valuable tool in a library setting.

So often our searches revolve around either topics of curricular importance or of personal interest to our students. I could see searchrolls developed around the content that naturally happens in our libraries.

My first searchroll creation is centered around the PA Young Reader's Choice YA authors. I'm not sure how I will use this yet...but at least the framework is in place. I'll add the link tomorrow.

FOLLOW-UP - I've been back into Rollyo and so far have not found the path to add the link to my blog. The directions say "Add your searchroll to your blog using the "Create a Searchbox" tool.Select...Reference. Search The Web". I get so far, but don't know what code to copy or how to migrate what I need here. Anyone else having the same trouble?
jane

Week 5: Play Week #11 Join a Ning network & play Traveler IQ

Well, I'm member #1841 of TeacherLibrarian Network!
I've joined two groups - YA Lit in School Libraries and High School Teacher Librarians.
I think I will add these via RSS to my Google Reader...I need someplace to manage my library subscriptions. This makes sense to me...but any practical advice on how to manage/navigate in this "new web 2.0 world" would be appreciated.

And this is just plain fun...
Traveler IQ Challenge
I always have students who want to play in the MC.
I think I'll recommend this!
jane

Week 5: Play Week #11 Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list

Wow! The assessment of the various Web 2.0 tools was right-on...

"With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you

(like Books or Personal Organization) and then select a tool/site to explore"...

I looked at a few. Under Books LuLu has potential in our school setting for our budding authors. The Demo is well done and easy to understand what the product has to offer. It seems as if you can use the service for free to upload your creative work. One thing that I would want to be more comfortable with before I'd recommend this as an educator in a high school setting is copyright. Are any rights transferred? I would want to be clear on this issue. Maybe the best way to understand would be to pilot a project. I truly like the concept though. We've had students who self publish...so this may be a great opportunity for them.

Under Organization, I really like Zoho. It took me a few minutes to find out what a CRM is...CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Three users can access the product for free. The web site states...

"Zoho CRM Free Edition is the starting point for Zoho's full-featured on-demand CRM services. Ideal for entrepreneurs, consultants, and small businesses who need an immediate solution for day-to-day organization management. Free Edition is a no cost investment with big returns to help you better track prospects, contacts, accounts, business opportunities and inventory control".

From this perspective, this might be a valuable tool for our business classes to use. Possibly they could find a way to incorporate this into instruction. My instinct is that students who plan to go into business will often find their work environment online. Talk about practical experience...

What attracted me to Zoho first was the online meeting option for web-conferencing, then Zoho writer, sheet, note-book, planner, chat...really a one-stop shop...VERY comprehensive. A district could choose to use this for their communication bundle. I'm sure the issue of security would be of concern. I'd be interested to hear a computer network/technician's perspective on the idea. I'll have to ask.

What I think is especially useful about this type of exercise is the exposure to potential. For me applications need to be practical. Sometimes it isn't obvious on first glance how a product might best fit. Experience has taught me that storing these ideas and keeping up-to-date (as much as you can with these types of tools) can lend itself to opportunities not quite yet imagined. Truly...the web 2.0 sky is the limit.

jane

Week 5: Play Week #10 Play around with an online image generator.

These two were found on the Image Chef site...banners and stickies...
Both fun and easy to use.
http://www.imagechef.com

I'm thinking about purpose for this one...
Hmmm...how about using these tools to add pizazz to the posts...always happy for aha's as they happen!

Another tool not mentioned in our list that I've used with great amusement is Blabberize . http://blabberize.com/
You upload a picture, place a "movable mouth" over your image and record.
We used this as an invitation for our students to attend an after school event involving Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Illych.
Tolstoy did all the talking! Definitely more interesting than me saying it...

Week 5: Play Week #10 Play around with an online image generator.

Our library is undergoing some renovations this summer. I'm thinking of inviting this little guy to help with the re-shelving...

I found this in Comic Strip Generator. This seems like a fun way to develop web presence.

One thing that keeps crossing my mind is copyright. Do sites like this have permission to use Disney images?