The blurb:

Bloggiesta is a three day event where participants will spend as much time as they can working on fixing all those pesky blog related tasks…. all those things that you think “some day I’m going to clean that up, or change that around, or add that thing!” Everyone will post a “to do” list, or goals they want to accomplish and then all of us will work together to get our lists done. The fun thing is that we can cheer each other on, and learn from each other and have a blast doing it. It’s the perfect time to figure out that something you’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t know how… or to get caught up on reviews, or to fix your labels, or take control of your Reader… or do oh so many other things!

Edit:  Check the mini-challenge list for some fabulous blog-sprucing ideas.

I actually have four different blogs (yes, blogging is an illness ) and they all need a bit of sprucing up.

As for goals, I’d like to:

• Back up all of them and find a way to create back ups that is easier to do so I will do them more often. Edit:  WordPress.org has information about backing up blogs – I am trying out the plugin Online Backup on my blogs – got it installed and it is backing up -Nice!

• Find out to how to make my blogs Pinterest friendly

Joy of Joy’s Book Blog stopped by to let us know about her Bloggiesta Pinterest challenge. If you aren’t familiar with Pinterest, she has a neat how-to-sign-up post and she’ll even help you with an invitation. Check the comments for even more good advice.

See also her link to the  Directory of Book Bloggers on Pinterest at The Well-Read Wife.

Looks like adding a “Follow me on Pinterest” button and a “Pin it” might be good ideas.

Easy “Pin it” plugin for WordPress

• Figure out Google Adsense (that says it going to expire this month) and how to use it effectively (as in work at all).

For this blog, Wrapped In Foil:

• I would like do some book reviews that need to be done ASAP. Books, you know who you are!

Edit:  The Bluestocking Society has 5 tips for writing better reviews. Did you know there is html code for adding stars to your blog?

Melanie at Melanie’s Musings has 5 tips for getting those reviews done faster. I really need those!

• Create a page/list of language-related children’s books for those studying a foreign language or trying to decide which language to take.

Edit:  Charlotte at Charlotte’s Library has an awesome challenge about adding pages to blogs. I did get some research done on this topic.

• Decide if I should make any other pages to help people find relevant posts more easily.
• Figure out how to send my reviews to Goodreads in a timely way (plus a couple of other places) -Wouldn’t it be great if there was an automatic feeder like Networked Blogs sends your posts to Facebook?

Edit:  Check Janice at Janicu’s Bloggiesta Goodreads Challenge. She has some great tips.

Comment:  I have been wanting to do a better job with Goodreads for awhile, but only had signed up for an account and never really used it. Today I tried to sign in to take part in the challenge. Goodreads immediately created a brand new account for me using my Facebook account and was contacting all my Facebook friends before I realized things were going wrong. It is funny now, but I was frantic for a few minutes trying to stop it. Now I have to try to delete the new account without losing my old one. Sometimes social media is a bit too social.

The good news:  I found some new friends.

Has anyone tried writing their review in Goodreads and then publishing it to their blog? How does that work for you?

For Growing With Science:

• Consider whether or not to change the theme. It is an old clunker as far as the comments are in the header, no one knows how to leave a comment, plus the pages aren’t in the tabs correctly. But because it is a clunker, I’m really afraid to try to tinker with it by changing the css. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
• Freshen up the science books for kids page and research more great STEM books that are coming out

Edit:  Did a blog post that I have been putting off about this and did some research.

• Organize mystery seeds into one page of pictures with links to answers

Edit:  Oh well, this was an epic fail. Turns out thumbnails are too small to see. Well, now I know.

I should also clean up my sidebars

For Wild About Ants:

• Write some of the posts I have been putting off. How about all of them?

Edit:  I posted and made a list of seven more topics to post about over the next few weeks.

• Long term:  Learn to create videos to add more interest. Oh yes, I guess that would require getting a camera to take videos wouldn’t it?

For Eleven Point Pink:

• Change the focus to gardening as well as photography. Add some new posts and add links to blogroll, etc.

Edit:  I did add a new post.

See, setting goals was helpful already. I’m sure as I read through other people’s goals I will think of more things to add to the list.

I’d love to hear from you if you decide to take the challenge, too.

Edit: What a great challenge! I had so much fun, met some wonderful new people and accomplished a lot, too. The biggest thing I learned was the usefulness of having goals and spending the time to work through them. It has been so energizing!

Hope Bloggiesta went well for you, too.

It’s spring in the desert. Time for spring cleaning!

At first I thought probably it would be too broad an alert and I’d get dozens or maybe even hundreds of links. I figured I’d have to tweak it to make it manageable. As it turns out, I have gotten relatively few alerts, even though I know our community is actively blogging about children’s nonfiction. I began to wonder how are the blog posts chosen for alerts.

Today’s alert hit a new bottom. There was only one alert for “children’s nonfiction” this week, despite all the posts I know have been written. I don’t want to give this post any more traffic, but I know you’ll be curious and want to see it for yourself, so here’s the link. I am just so very, very sad that this is the only post chosen.

Do you know how Google chooses blog posts for its alerts? Do you think I’m missing the boat because most people choose to hyphenate non-fiction?

Rosen calls the technically savvy kids the “iGeneration,” with the “i” in this case standing for individualized. In the past media was generic and everyone watched or listened to the same limited offerings provided on television or the radio. In contrast, the youngest children have grown up with a plethora of choices. From the TV they watch to the music they download, the media they experience is all individualized to their specific, unique tastes.

The individualization doesn’t stop at media, either. What children experience and learn is also more personal.

” ‘They know almost every piece of information they want is at their disposal whenever they need it,’ [Dave] Verhaagen [a child and adolescent psychologist in Charlotte] says. ‘They’re less interested in learning facts and learning data than in knowing how to gain access to it and synthesize it and integrate it into their life.’ ”

If this statement is true, then it represents a huge challenge to those of us writing children’s nonfiction books. Not only do we need to present the facts in an entertaining way, but also make them more personal and relevant than ever before. On the other hand, the bit that children’s books do well is the synthesis of information, and we have to continue to make that a strength.

Although challenging, the extra effort will likely result in innovative and better quality books. I can’t wait to see where we go next.

What about you? What do you think about the idea of the iGeneration? How do you think it will change children’s books?

‘igeneration’ kids grow up techie
By Sharon Jayson, USA Today. Retrieved 2/27/10 from http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/kids/articles/2010/02/09/20100209i-generation-kids-technology.html

Results of a standard web search:

(Note: I did this search yesterday and I don’t know how my post ended up on the first page. It’s a fluke, I’m sure.)

Here’s what an image search looks like:

Seems like a lot more and better options, although maybe that’s because I’m a visual person.

In any case, I’m going to try to include images of the cover from now on so people can find my reviews. Up to know I have just added Amazon links, which has been fast and easy and gives readers a quick way to find out more, but wouldn’t show up in an image search.

I am very curious what you think. Did you already know about searching by image? What do you think of searching by image, does it lead to more finds? How do you include book cover images in your reviews and why?