IN PURSUIT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

In light of all the chaos and uncertainty surrounding current events, online tools are becoming more of a necessity than a convenience. With the requirements of social-distancing, self-isolation, remote learning, and everything else entailed under the mandates by government officials, we find ourselves resorting to our tablets, phones, laptops, and other devices more than ever before. I've wished for ways to communicate with my colleagues and to share with them things I'm finding out - and while we have each other's phone numbers, emails, and social media, those are just not great platforms to share easily. E-mail is probably the best choice among those since it puts the information in a place where the recipient can easily find and access it - but it does have some drawbacks. We have dozens - hundreds? - of emails daily with updates and new information and questions. If somehow the link or resource is shared inaccurately, there is now an additional obstacle to overcome bef...

I have to admit - I was very skeptical of this assignment. I had no idea what an aggregate page was or how to put one together! In reading the instructions, it sounded like this was a "Pinterest" of sorts...a place to keep all your ideas about stuff in one place....almost a replacement for the toolbar at the top of your screen. After I played around with both NetVibes and Protopage, I realized that this is actually a pretty cool idea. If I wanted, I could make my "aggregate page" my HOME page - and instead of having to click on 14 tabs or search for 14 sites, I can have them all ready to go and right in front of my face. That's kind of nifty, if you ask me. Of the two sites we were to experiment with, I initially thought that NetVibes looked more simplistic, less flashy, and easier to read. I think this still may be the case, but when I started playing around with NetVibes, I was turned around so backwards that I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to ...

"Mom! Can I watch YouTube?" This is a frequent question that I hear from my daughter. I'm always torn. I trust my daughter. I trust that she will not visit or search for any unsavory videos or subjects. But do I trust YouTube? Not really. YouTube for me has always been this big unknown. I usually only visit the popular site if a link from elsewhere takes me there, OR if I have a specific video I'm searching for. Otherwise, all that "chance" of seeing or hearing or experiencing something I don't want to is too big for my anti-risk taking ways. All that being said, I embraced this adventure because I realize that I live in the 21st century. Like our professor says - THIS is what kids use the way we use Google. Do I like it? No. That doesn't change the fact that it IS a fact! Also, my husband had just set up an account channel for me to record videos for my library students - so I was looking forward to playing around with that a bit more. What did I...

Ah, Twitter. 280 possibilities to express what's on your mind. (Note: This is new. The limit used to be 140.) Except for when someone takes 10 "posts" to express their long rambling thoughts. Um - Hello! That's not what Twitter is meant to do! Get on Facebook, Instagram, or - hey, I don't know - BLOG about it! I've actually been on Twitter (meaning, I created an account) since 2015. I never really embraced its use. I'm still not sure that what I'm doing now would be considered an "embrace" of Twitter either. However, last summer, I began using Twitter on a more regular basis after attending a Scholastic Reading Summit. I wanted to be able to follow some of the authors I met and learned from and this was the best way to do that. Subsequently, I jump on Twitter once or twice a week. Since the authors are basically the only ones I follow it's not a long feed to scroll through to see if I've missed anything interesting. I appreciate tho...