Thing # 23

It is with great joy that I enter the final blog, Thing #23 into my blogger account. YAY!!!! I have learned quite a bit and along the way have collected a bag full of passwords and usernames with which to unlock the secrets of the internet universe.

My feelings about Learning 2.0 are very positive. The program is a little intense, but very beneficial. I'm glad for the opportunity to learn about blogs, manage pictures, learn about the future of library systems and join with my fellow co-workers in expanding our horizons through blogging and learning.

Let's see...the highlights for me:

1) Learning to blog and how EASY it is!
2) Learning about podcasts
3) Learning about flickr and then finding my own digital photo management system, smugmug
4) Reading the Library 2.0 stuff, fascinating
5) Audio books access!
6) Library thing
7) Talking to other staff about the Learning 2.0 program

It's been fun and truly a great way to learn about technology using non-traditional methods.

And with that, I call it a Learning 2.0 day.

Thing # 22

Friday, September 29

I established a Netlibrary account for myself through the PLCMC site. Yes, one more username and password to establish, glad to know it's the last for this program and yes, my mp3 player is in sight, YAAY!!

I clicked on the audio books link and too a look at the titels. I searched for a book called the Secret Life of Bees...didn't see it right off the bat so I looked for another...gardening of course, my latest obsession

here's what I found... Great Titles!

So I can't imagine listening to audio books of gardening without looking at the pictures but I'll be willing to try with my new mp3 player! :-)


One struck me right off the bat:
The Wildlife Garden: Planning Backyard Habitats.
That will be one of the first audiobooks I download! :-)

Thing # 21

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Discovery Exercise:

Take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. See if you can find some interesting library related podcasts here like book review podcasts or library news.

I found at least one podcast that interested me by doing a search for movie reviews. I then did a search for library news and found another podcast that interested me.

I logged onto the LibVibe podcast which was an interesting podcast because it was a sort of news broadcast with Libraries as the topic.

Listening to both podcasts made me realize just how many different possibilities are out there if you have a speedy computer and a microphone. If you have a slow, lumbering computer, I imagine the podcast function wouldn't be quite as fun.

Add the RSS feed to podcast to your Bloglines account

Not sure what is meant here...how to you add an RSS feed "to podcast" to your bloglines account?

Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?

On a personal level

I found the podcast function amazing. I have often thought of doing a movie review with a fellow movie critiquer friend of mine who lives in Cleveland. With podcast, we may be able to make the thing happen without having to be in the same town.

Applicable to library life?

For a marketing or communications message, podcasts could be used to provide audio information to patrons through e-mails. Podcasts could be attached to the plcmc website for folks to click on for additional information. The Director could do a monthly podcast on the state of the library. Bookclubs could record their events and provide podcasts for members who missed them. And on, and on and on and on!

Thing # 20

Discovery Exercise: Explore YouTube & find a video worth adding as an entry in your blog.

I stumbled across this staged video: Angry Librarian

And then I found this one and it brought tears to my eyes! Free Hugs I read a little bit from the u2b blog and Free Hugs was featured on Good Morning America this morning! I was thinking as I was watching it that it should have been featured! :-).


Create a blog post about your experience. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Can you see any features or componets of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?

This was my first foray into YouTube. As an avid Good Morning America watcher, I was aware of YouTube because GMA features top videos on Wednesdays. I left for work before I had the chance to see the featured videos today. I even saw an interview with the creators of YouTube...two regular guys who saw a need for sharing video much the same way that digital photography is shared. It's an ingenious idea.

I never logged onto it before now because, once again, I'm normally too busy and too afraid of getting addicted to this type of stuff. Logging on and discovering YouTube has been very eye-opening and I'm glad I did it.

Library use I can definitely see a tie between YouTube and the public library...especially with ImaginOn and Studio i. Yesterday I took my Writing for Children class to ImaginOn and an intern, Ben explained the process and showed us some of his animation work. I think he should load his work on YouTube. There shoudl be some way for the older teen set to have access to YouTube for their work and to showcase on YouTube. Since YouTube does have mature content at times, that part might be a challenge. In addition, there are video editing booths and other video production tools in Virtual Village so adults who make filmm or videos could also showcase them on YouTube and have a sort of "user group" made up of Library patrons. So many cool possibilities!


YouTube Conclusion: Enjoyed it immensely! Wonderful idea!

Thing # 19

Discovery Exercise:

Select any site/tool from the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees

First I took a look at them all, then I took a look at the winners. I checked out the marketing section which only had a weak couple of honorable mentions (by weak, I meant they had nothing to do with actual marketing) and then the digital photography section. I wa already familiar with flickr and really sort of liked zoto, so I thought I'd play around with zoto.

Explore the site you selected.

I selected: zoto

Create a post about your discovery. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting?

I'm already a member of smugmug, but I like zoto because it is free. The thing I don't like about flickr is that it doesn't let you save your photo in its largest size and it doesn't currently allow you to sort your photos in the order you want to sort them in. Zoto seems to allow you to do both.

Zoto also says that family and friends can add their photos to your gallery. I theenk I like that, in theory anyway. At the same time, not sure if I like the idea of other people putting their pictures in with mine. Have to let that idea simmer a bit.

Soon after I discovered Flickr (Thanks Helene) I also discovered some reviews of photo sites using my trusty dependable and apparently old fashioned Google search engine. Here's what I came up with Zoto Review by Gator which is why I guess I didn't sign up for the free zoto, but instead chose the pay for it, smugmug.

Applications for a library setting? Perhaps something like a zoto could be a way that individual branches could keep up with photos that are taken in their branches for possible publicity/archiving. Each branch could have an account and within each account the pictures that they've taken. Then PR or others could access them and download the digital files into the "in-house" filing system. Something to think about.

I wonder what the criteria for winners are? They could be imbedded somewhere and I just lost them...but I wish they'd say why they picked the winners.

Thing # 17: Add a Post to the Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki

Discovery Exercise
Accesing the PLCMC Learning 2.0 wiki and create a login account for yourself.

On Wednesday, September 27 I created a login account for myself on the wiki sandbox

Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there.

I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page. It's there! :-)



Create a post in your blog about the experience.

Here's the post about my experience. It's nice to have a place to "play" because these days fun and learning go hand in hand.

I also added something to the "Favorite Television Shows" wiki-so I have been thoroughly wiki-fied.

Thing # 16-Wikis

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding. Here’s a few examples to get you started:

I looked at the following:

Book Lovers Wiki


PL Subject Guides


A best practices wiki


Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?

Here's the blog post about my findings. I think the concept of sharing information in this way is fascinating. Perhaps most individuals in their deepest of hearts really do want to help others. The sharing component of the internet sort of speaks to that. Having knowledge shared in this way also expands our definition of who holds knowledge. The old way of thinking about knowledge pointed to older, wizened experts who spoke from on high to the the tiny little masses who gleaned the tender morsels of knowledge thrown down to them. Today's definition of knowledge expands to include the tiny little masses. Today's definition of the masses recognizes that the masses also have knowledge. I think this might be helpful to the library industry because it expands who can help patrons/users find knowledge. Encouraging patrons to form and use wikis could be one way to put these ideas into practice. I'm sure there are many many others.

Thing #14: Explore Technorati
Discovery Exercise:

Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “Learning 2.0”
in

Blog Posts

in

Tags

and in the

Blog Directory

Are the results different?.

Yes, the results are different in some cases. Often there are similarities and there are differences. I noticed actualy pictures with the tags part. Limited information was noticed in the blogs part. Interesting.



Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?

I explored the above by looking at them. Not sure what else was expected.

Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.
As always, time is a factor. I took at look at this and it is quite amazing. I especially liked the top videos. I'd love to see the 9 months of gestation in a few short minutes, but no time. There is so much to be blogged about and so many blogs to tag. Who knew!? One day when I have more time I will spend more time looking at everything. Nice to know it exists and is there for when I can look at it more in depth.

Thing # 15-Library 2.0 and the future of libraries...

Read the documents

Document #1: Iceberg
Document #2: Temporary Place in Time
Document #3: Powerful Ways to Cooperate


Blog the topic: What does Library 2.0 mean to you?

I really liked what Rick Anderson had to say in regards to the third "iceberg": 'The Come to Us' Model of library service. It seems to me that we're sort of stuck on the idea that we must get more people into the library. I struggle sometimes with thinking that this is really a realistic goal. Perhap we really should be thinking about the online services and indexes and search engines that we offer, and making sure those are up to par. For example, why must someone be affiliated with a college or university in order to access certain online indexes? (Now I must admit that my knowledge of the library comes from being a power user." It's purely from the inside out.

Community libraries are definitely a neccessity, but I think what brings folks to the library today is much different from what brought them to the library in the past. The ImaginOn model is a great futuristic way of viewing the library and the collaboration that unites two groups. Library programs geard to the community also bring folks to the library.

Anyway, I'm rambling and I really must go. But I think that we need to evaluate our goals and make sure they are realistic and more in tune to the upcoming and current era.

Thing # 18. I created a user account using Zoho writer Miss A's Zoho and then I created two different very brief documents. This is a very very very useful tool for future use. Nice to know about. Interesting to think that something coming along may make Microsoft Office Suite obsolete. In terms of trying out Zoho's features, let's see what some of those features are... 1) Publish to Blog: Okay, I tried to publish to my blog but that didn't work. 2) Email it: Then I emailed it to myself and that did work :-). 3) History: I looked at my history which can show the document at different stages. Nice features. 4: I imported a jpg file from my camera to the zoho document and boy was that weird. It came out really big, don't know how to re-size it using Zoho.

Thing # 13-Learn about social tagging and discover a few sites that use "tags" to connect information. I got my information from wikipedia about tagging from Wikipedia: Tags I learned that Flickr is one site that uses social tags. I also learned that Del.icio.us is another. I admit its way more information that I would ever need to use. Plus I'm afraid of getting yet another web addiction. Thanks to Learning 2.0 I discovered Smugmug while playing with Flickr and now I use Smugmug all the time. When am I going to be able to get in the garden?

Thing # 12. Okay, I discovered Rollyo and I created my own search tool. I have to admit that needing to search only trusted sites for information defeats my need to search everything everywhere for the information that I need. If I only needed to search trusted sites, I'd simply go to those trusted sites and search them. In addition, I trust google for my searching needs. So it's a great idea for people who are on the web quite a bit...but I don't need this function. Besides, it makes me hungry for candy rolls! Rollyo Away! Miss A's Rollyo

Thing # 9 I located a useful library related blog/article on bloglines

Homeless man uses library resources to build empire

and then I found a quasi-useful article Library Marketing/PR

Then I went back to my trusty old google search engine and found something fun

Landscaping with Native Plants"

Thing #11

I created a library thing account and I catalogued some of my titles. I am going to attempt to create my library thing here. Crossing my fingers and closing my eyes...

Well when I pasted the html into my post to actually create a little box for my library it didn't work. So I will have to try this instead:

Miss A's Library Thing

Thing # 10
I guess you could consider this playing around with an image generator. I hope it just posts to this page and doesn't change my cool Angel image.

Thing #8

I learned about RSS feeds and I set up a bloglines account http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs. I'm still trying to determine if I have a need for them. I see RSS feeds as similar to magazines. Since I have alot of interests, I have alot of magazines. What happens though is that I don't have time to read them all. So they sort of pile around. I think that would be the same thing that would happen to me and RSS feeds. I'd get all these great web sites that are waiting for me to click on them...and I wouldn't have time to click on them. But at least they wouldn't pile up like magazines, hmmm.

I do use the internet to find out about the world. I use it especially to provide product reviews when I need to make major purchases. I also use it to read the Charlotte Observer. I use google quite a bit as my search engine. It's convenient and its there.

As far as RSS feeds go, I don't see them as a major issue for people in the future. The reason is that who has time to read all that stuff. I think that individuals are getting busier and busier the more that the internet frees them to do more stuff. My feeling is that when people go to the internet for information...they want it quick...get in, get out. People who have a great deal of time for the internet are teenagers. Middle school and high school aged folks. I don't think that adults have great gobs of time to spend reading more than 5 RSS feeds...that is, if they have lives.

I'd estimate, though I admit I'm purely speculuating, that people use the internet to get breaking news, to learn about new things or to get answers about things they have questions about. They'll go there for dating prospects, room mate prospects, and to buy or sell items. And they'll go there to work on their own blogs, create blogs and to read selected blogs.

Those are my predictions :-).

Thing #6

I explored 3rd party sites, but what I don't understand is why are they called 3rd party sites? While I thought it was pretty cool that you could use pictures to create colors and pictures to create mosaics, I really don't have the time or the interest to do so. That's cause I'm pretty cut and dried when it comes to internet use. Otherwise I'd spend all my time on the internet and not enough in real life :-). Flickr was awesome. What a great idea!