THING 16. STUDENT 2.0 TOOLS

Where were these when I was in high school and college? On second thought, there is an overwhelming amount of information here. I'm impressed with how comprehensive the U of M Assignment Calculator is. Afer plugging in start and end dates, the Calculator displays 12 steps with dates for completing each stage of the process. I used the dates 9-23-2008--12-15-2008 and tried different subjects. Many, many links came up, including the U of M catalog, WorldCat and links to databases for the chosen subject area. There are links to creating your own database of citations with another link to generate citations in different styles. Strunk's Elements of Style is here and even a link to a discussion on procrastination. Step 12, the end date, is for putting the paper in final form. For the end date, I would choose a date a day or two before the paper is due.

I wonder how many students use the assignment calculator and how many just wing it.

Could I use this to help manage a project of my own? Maybe the rest of the 23 Things? I have 7 more to go. I'd have to tweak the dates. I don't know which Things will take more time. The assignment calculator is geared toward writing research papers. I think it might be less useful with other types of projects.

I looked through the teacher support materials for the Research Project Calculator. The tipsheet on improving a Google search could be helpful for others besides students.

I can see having both the U of M Assignment Calculator and the RPC as links on our online resources page.

THING 15. ONLINE GAMES

Aargh mateys! Today is September 19, Talk like a Pirate Day! For this Thing I played Puzzle Pirates. It took me four tries to get a name for my pirate that no one else had used. Who would have guessed there was already a pirate named Shirlee? I tried bilging and made 72 pieces of eight. Later when I posted a notice for a Pirate Party, I got a message saying I didn't have enough pieces of eight to throw a party. It didn't say how many you needed. I did pretty well with Learn to Carpent.

I see patrons playing games on the public internet terminals, but it is not something I would spend my free time on.

THING 14. LIBRARYTHING

More than halfway done! I signed up for LibraryThing and created an online catalog. My library now has a whopping 7 books. It was easy to add the books. I like the book cover icons. I chose a mix of books I've read and some I've requested.

I might use LibraryThing for request books. I don't see using it to catalog my personal collection of books. After 26 years of cataloging, I want to do something else with my free time.