I know that so many school libraries use Destiny as their library management program. I’ve been a Destiny user for several years now, but just discovered Destiny Quest. While the regular Destiny interface works for me and meets my needs as a librarian, the catalog isn’t the most appealing interface for students. Enter Destiny Quest:

The search features in Destiny Quest are a lot more user friendly. Students can search by subject, title, author, etc. all in the top search bar. When the results appear, students can easily use the side toolbar to narrow their search. This interface is so much more visually appealing and easy for students to navigate. And searching is just the tip of the iceberg with Destiny Quest.

All of the typical catalog information is available when students click on a cover. They can also easily view Accelerated Reader info, peer reviews, recommendations for similar books, and the option to hold a book if it’s unavailable.

Oh wait, did I say peer reviews? Yep. Destiny Quest goes way beyond offering a nifty looking catalog. It gives students a social place to interact with their classmates and share what they’re reading.

You can add your friends (like on Facebook?!?!) to keep track of their book updates. You can see what they’re reading, reviewing, recommending, and even what they want to read. What an AWESOME way for them to find books that they want to read too. AND it’s a cool place to keep up with all the books you’ve read, are reading, and want to read.

Just drag and drop book covers onto your shelves to keep track. It’s so easy and so fun!!!

Plus there are some amazing ways that you can use Destiny Quest for research, which I’ve also been introducing to my students. Like all they have to do is drag/drop books and websites into a list and BAM! it formats the citations for them automatically.

I’m Quest obsessed. With my students, I’ve started a Quest craze. They’re logging in at home. They’re rating, reviewing, and recommending books. They’re showing their friends how to log on to Destiny Quest so they can share what they’re reading. The social aspect TOTALLY hooks them. But in the process, they’re learning to use the other tools as well, which is pretty amazing.

Does your school have Destiny Quest? Have your students taken to it as much as mine have?

So I’ve written about the keynote by Vicki Davis, Leslie Fisher’s Gadgets session, and a little from Brian Mull’s session on Internet Responsibility. And of course lots about my session on free tech tools. I have to say that I’m still feeling like a rockstar after my first big presentation. I’ve gotten such great feedback in the form of email, tweets, and comments. I had such a great time presenting and felt like the many prep hours I spend was well worth it. Presenting is something that I definitely want to do more of in the future…after all, what’s the point of soaking up so much info if I don’t share it? My hubby knew I would love it. The first thing he asked when I called him after my presentation was, “So are you hooked? What are you going to do next?” I can’t wait to see what’s next!

I went to lots of sessions, so I’m going to share the highlights:

Jefferson Parish has got it going on with their Techneaux 21S program. They have formed partnerships with many museums and historical sites and students are researching and creating podcasts and videos to be used by these organizations. I hope that I can follow their lead and form similar partnerships here in Baton Rouge for my school. The authentic learning experiences that take place in these projects are absolutely incredible.

My pal Paula Naugle presented on Web 2.0 Lessons Learned. She did an amazing job of sharing how she manages web tools in her classroom and overcomes the obstacles that they sometimes present. Paula is a pro with so much to share and so much passion for what she does. I was able to have lunch with Paula on Friday after both of our presentations, and I really appreciated the chance to visit with a like-minded thinker.

I was also able to catch the last half of Brian Mull‘s presentation on Google Maps. Google Maps is something I have not had the chance to mess with too much, but after Brian’s session I really want to because the possibilities are endless! I’m really glad that I had the chance to meet and connect with Brian through LACUE and Twitter. Yay for a growing PLN!

LACUE was such a great experience for me. I realized that I’m much more of a hardcore tech nerd than probably 95% of the educators in my state, but I’m okay with that. In fact, I kind of like it 🙂

I’ve been sort of missing around these parts lately because I’ve been in massive preparation for my first non-school presentation. That’s right, I’ll be presenting at LACUE, our state technology conference, on Friday. I’m a planner and an obsessor, so I’ve been consumed with hammering out my presentation. However, I am not one to plan what I’m actually going to say — which makes for interesting presentation planning. My preso is on “Tech Tools You Can Use,” and all of the tools I’ll be sharing are FREE! I hate going to a conference session that’s trying to sell you stuff. So in my 50 minute session, I’ll be cramming in as many awesome tools (most with awesome examples) as I possibly can!

Today I did a “dressed rehearsal” with some of my AWESOME co-workers at school. All of my planning paid off, because my timing (which I was concerned about) was pretty much on point. I’m quite the talker and low self esteem has never been my struggle, so I don’t generally get freaked out in front of an audience. Plus, I’m rambling about things that I LOVE and know, so I’m pretty comfortable.

The best computer teacher in the world (I love you, Steph!) videoed my preso, so I’ll see if I can stomach my obnoxious voice to see how I did. I felt good about it, but hate watching myself since I’m a spaz (what can I say, I talk with my arms). I’ve compiled some pretty sweet resources into my presentation wiki, so you should check it out and find a new favorite toy! I’ll  update after the big event, too!

The Edublog Awards are such a great way to discover new blogs to follow. I love reading everyone’s nominations and it’s pretty much impossible to pick a favorite for so many of these categories. So here are my picks! Make sure you make yours and submit them before Friday, December 3. Click on the banner above and it will zap you to where you need to go for instructions!

Best Individual Tweeter: Steven Anderson @web20classroom

Best Resource Sharing Blog: Kelly Tenkely at iLearn Technology (everything she shares is pretty much the BEST)

Best series of Tweets: #ISTE10 – from the conference that changed the life.

Best Teacher Blog: Mrs. Bluebird at Bluebird’s Classroom (I absolutely, positively love reading her posts!)

Best Librarian Blog: Gwyneth Jones at The Daring Librarian (I want to be Gwyneth when I grow up)

Best Educational use of Video/Visual: Doug Valentine with Hot Dog Book Reviews

Best Educational Wiki: School Library Websites Wiki

Best Educational Webinar Series: TL Virtual Cafe

Lifetime Achievement: Joyce Valenza at NeverEndingSearch and everywhere else where she shares her sheer awesomeness.

The awesome blogs I follow and great people I follow on Twitter share some amazing resources. It’s amazing and overwhelming. It’s also impossible for me to organize and share these resources with the people who need them. Believe me, I’ve tried. Teachers don’t want several emails a day from me, even if what I put in them is AWESOME. Believe me, I can’t even get them all to read and follow through with the mandatory emails (but that’s a different tangent and I won’t go there today). So I’ve been needing to find a way to get organized (ha!) with the awesome tools that I keep finding. I’m also hoping (I think I’m hoping anyway) that the proposal I submitted for LaCUE will be accepted and I’ll be doing a presentation in December on the best free web tools.

I’m in the process of bringing my favorite teaching tools all into one place. The problem is, I can’t decide which place I like best. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I first found out about Only2Clicks.com from Joyce Valenza’s blog Never Ending Search. Joyce is THE library goddess and my ultimate library idol. I met her (AND Gwyneth Jones, may I remind you) at ISTE this summer and was in complete and utter awe of her greatness. But I digress…

Only2Clicks is pretty awesome. I like it because everything is there in one place. I like the tabs. I like the visual appeal of actually seeing the sites. It’s not all fancy looking, but it’s very simple and organized. So check it out and tell me what you think.

So the other site I’m thinking of using is a combo of Symbaloo and Weblist. I learned about these two tools from Kelly Tenkely’s awesome blog, iLearn Technology. Her blog is pretty freakin’ awesome. She shares the best tech resources and gives great descriptions of them. If you don’t follow it, you need to.

I think that Symbaloo is eye-catching and fun, even if it doesn’t look organized. I linked my Symbaloo squares to separate Weblists for each category. I like the look of this, but don’t like that I’m using two separate sites to make one organizational resource compilation. Decide for yourself.

So this weekend I’m going to try to lay out firm categories and links for each, and I’ll be sharing that soon. In the meantime, I would LOVE some feedback on these two choices. Neither of my projects are complete, but check them out and let me know what you think. I’m trying to decide if one would be more teacher friendly (and one more student friendly) than the other. I really like them both but I need to pick one and go with it! So help me decide…PLEASE!

This year I’ve started doing Tech Tuesday with Tiff. Every couple of Tuesdays I do a quick, 30 minute session on a tech tool. This week, I shared blabberize.com, a fun tool for digital storytelling. Of course, technology doesn’t always work as planned, and it didn’t today. We had some issues with the external microphones that were to be used to record their blabbers. Booo. But they still had a chance to learn about and play around with a new tool, so we’ll call it a success anyway. Click the link below to see the handout I created for it using Comic Life. I cannot figure out how to embed the image, so there ya go.

Blabberize

I’ve just started playing around with Go!Animate and I’m having a blast! It’s unbelievably easy to use and really so much fun. I did end up buying some GoBucks so I could make my character look like me and so I could download my videos. I’m going to have to cave in and do GoPlus+ soon so I can upload my own pictures for backgrounds. The possibilities are endless with making library promotional videos using Go!Animate.

Thinking about how far I’ve come with video creation in the past year is pretty amazing. I started using PhotoStory last fall to make videos for the library. A few months later, I started using MovieMaker to make Wednesday’s morning announcement videos for my school. I got a Flip Cam and started incorporating video clips into my movies. This spring, I bought my MacBook and recently started playing with iMovie (which is SO much more awesome than pain-in-the-butt MovieMaker). Now I’m feeling like a rockstar while playing with these cartoon animations. Here are my first two creations…enjoy!