Scribbitt - Kids Create Books

Here's a cool tool for teens who want to draw or make their own book.: Scribblitt.  The site's subtitle is "Sparking Creativity".  This is a good site to send kids after they complete a California School Library Association's tutorial, "Tools2Create" or "TeenLearning 2.0".

Make Beliefs Comix - comic strip creator

Comic creator Bill Zimmerman has a fun comic strip creator, MakeBeliefsComix. It gives you 20 characters, 25 objects (like flowers, books, phones, hats), talk and thought balloons -- all of which can be re-sized, flipped, moved, or an object brought to front. Once you create a 2,3,or 4-panel comic strip you can print it or email it.

It is a cool tool that can be used to bring humor, yet communicate rules (like this is a "Quiet Zone": Readers at Work), issues, or other bits of necessary information. It could also be a way for students to be challenged to tell a 3-4 panel story -- including who, what, when, where, and why. Enjoy.

READ Image Generator by ALA Graphics

The end of a school year or beginning of summer vacation is a good time to remind book lovers of this cool tool. American Library Association Graphics makes it easy for members and friends to create their own, mini READ Posters. Simply download your photo (or anyone's photo), select one of four READ backgrounds, then add text if you wish.

How could you use it? Invite all teachers, students, and staff to get their own very special mini-READ poster? I'm sure students of all ages will come up with lots of creative ideas.

Word Clouds

Wordle is a fun and powerful image-making tool for making word clouds. Create images with groups of words that appear in your text. Select fonts, colors to enhance your word image. Words that appear more frequently in your text appear larger or figure more prominently in your word cloud. Go ahead and play!

Hit the "create" menu and either enter text or a URL. I experimented with several professional development and two retail-oriented urls:
Discovering Assistive Technology, School Library Learning 2.0, Classroom Learning 2.0 and Nonbook Gifts for Book Lovers.

You can add your image to the gallery, print the image, or get the html code for it. Below are Wordle images created for the Discovering Assistive Technology tutorial and the Gift Guide.

Wordle was created by Jonathan Feinberg, who describes
himself as a Senior Software Engineer at IBM Research.

Open Gaming at ALA Conference 2008

Several years ago, Sacramento Public Library began enticing teens to the library with pizza and eGaming. Librarian-in-Black Sarah Houghton-Jans mentioned at LITA's annual "Top Tech Trends" panel that the San Jose Public Library sees 40+ eGamers at a time. That is a lot!

Games and eGaming in public libraries has caught on. ALA offered a Friday evening "Open Gaming" event at its annual conference and devoted an Exhibits section to Gaming. At the Friday party, I munched popcorn, watched teams of virtual bowlers (bowling with a white Nintendo wii wand that looks like a TV channel changer), and I jumped in to race three others. I'm not much of a Mario racer, but it was a fun evening.

eGames are growing way beyond young guys because programs like Dance, Dance, Revolution (DDR), WiiFit, Wii golf and bowling, and such have been discovered by fitness clubs like my local YMCA, retirement and convalescent homes, after school programs, and others.

ALA featured non-electronic games too, including a variety of board games from Out of the Box Publishing. At "Open Gaming" night, teams of librarians were at board games like "10 Days in the USA" or "10 Days in Europe" -- I'm sure there was lots of conversation about places and past trips.

See also: Gaming @ Your Library activities during National Library Week in April 2008.

Merriam-Webster Goes Mobile

Merriam-Webster's Dictionaries are available for most mobile platforms.

I noticed this when updating my eGames hotlist. There is a good selection of word games offered by Merriam-Webster Online. When I started exploring the site to see what was new, I noticed the Visual Dictionary and searched for school library and library. University shows up as a part of a downtown cityscape. Image downloads for educational, non-profit, and individula blogs are free, as long as the site http://www.visualdictionaryonline.com/ is clearly identified and linked. Kudos to Merriam-Webster for the Cool Tools!

Mobile Computing [Humor]

Speaking of mobile technologies -- check out this funny "mobile desktop" event by Improv Everywhere! This group's theme: "We cause scenes."

YouTube Award Winners 2007

YouTube is amazing. Here are the award winners for 2007. One of these days, a library advocacy video will win a prize. Or, maybe the librarians should have an awards nomination and winners for categories especially for library topics! Why not?

ALA or CLA award categories could include: humor, advocacy, "how to" search, professional development, program promotions, etc.

Virtual "READ" T-shirts for Librarian Avatars

Now, thanks to the new "READ" T-shirts for Yahoo! avatars, you will know just what to wear for summer 2.0 fun!

Members of the California School Library Association and their friends who are participating or planning to participate in the free, online course, School Library Learning 2.0 have a special T-shirt for Yahoo! Avatars that promotes literacy and reading. Here is where to find the stylish "READ" T-Shirt.

• Go to http://avatars.yahoo.com/


• Select the tab marked "extras"


• Click on "issues and causes."

The first T-shirt choice is a "READ" T-shirt for male and female avatars. Thanks go to Amanda at Yahoo! Avatars and Rachel at ALA Graphics for making magic T-shirts happen!

More fun...with ImageChef

Here's a fun image from ImageChef. I hadn't seen this book image when first exploring the site, but one of my first "comments" to my blog alerted me to this. So, here is an appropriate book title for the 2CoolTools blog...

WEEK 5: Award Winning Sites - ansaTHAT.com (#11 Thing)

This Discovery Lesson urges us to explore at least three award winning 2.0 sites. Here are my favorites: DailyMotion (video site), Wayfaring (mapping), and HipCAL(organization.)

DailyMotion.com won first place in the web 2.0 awards. It is something like YouTube, which won second place. Showing was a hilarious daily "research" program with James Black at ansaTHAT.com -- "The place where YOU ask the questions and WE find the answers."
see the January 30th or February 1st programs to capture the craziness of this British bloke -- is he a librarian? Good question to ask him.

Wayfaring.com is something like Google Maps. Problem so far with mapping applications is that they ignore our southern neighbor, Mexico! In any case, it won first choice, followed by Frappr and HousingMaps.
HousingMaps is a visual way to look for housing including available rooms to rent.
Frappr is for individuals to map where they are, attach a photo, and socialize with others in their Frappr map. One group consisted of people who own/ride horses, for example. This could be an interesting way for specialized librarians to have a national conversation.

First place site for organizing was HipCal, it's about time -- a site for creating calendars. This has potential for library room reservations, and possibly reference desk duty. Website indicated this was just acquired by second place winner, Planzo.com

Other places I checked out:
Shopping web.20 site ETSY is for buying and selling handmade things. OK, but I'm not much of a shopper.
So much to explore, but need to absorb possibilities before touring some more.