I would almost say I'm sad to be through with this assignment, it's been fun. However, with technology, it's a "never-ending" story. Always something new. In fact, it's really way too easy to get behind if you take a "nap."
On each and every "new" thing I tried: first, frustration - how do I do this? Then,(eventually) satisfaction - this is soooo cool! I enjoyed all of them. Rollyo is probably my least favorite. But, if they get it fixed, it will be useful.
Camaraderie: It's been fun to work with other professionals. Checking out your blogs to see what you're doing. Getting ideas and great information from you guys. That's my delightful "take-away."
I had a student try to access my blog the other day. A little disappointed to discover that it was blocked to them. I do see a great potential in using this with the students. When I had my own website with myschoolonline, there were many little extra "fun" things you could do to entice the students. In order to look professional, we can't do that on our school websites. I understand, however, "Hairy" is fun.
As to "life long learning" - learning keeps you young. That's what I think, and I don't plan to stop anytime soon.
And, finally, would I sign up for a another discovery program like this in the future? Where do I enroll?
:)
Thank you, Kiera. (She who made us do this...lolol)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
NetLibrary and Audio books
Yes, it's me. I'm the one who has caused such a mess with NetLibrary...lolol.
Not only that, I set it in motion about ten years ago. If you've seen the 44 titles I picked, you've noticed that they are old. (See, I told you I had a preference for Dummies and Idiot's Guides.) ;)
I'm seeing success with the new ebooks from Region XI. I've had several students open up an ebook for information in the computer lab. Pretty exciting.
I checked out the audio downloads. Put one on the computer. Like everyone else, I see a great potential for this format. Yes, I will still get a "real" book for my reading pleasure, but there are many people who tell me they enjoy listening to an audio book as they travel or commute. With our MP3 players, it will be so easy to enjoy a book anywhere. I've also had people tell me that an audio book is not really "reading." That,"students need to actually read." I agree with that, too. But, stories come in so many formats. Cave drawings, ghost stories around the campfire, printed novels, movies and now, audio books. To me, it's like a diet, you should vary your diet for good health. Variety - spice of life - just my take.
Not only that, I set it in motion about ten years ago. If you've seen the 44 titles I picked, you've noticed that they are old. (See, I told you I had a preference for Dummies and Idiot's Guides.) ;)
I'm seeing success with the new ebooks from Region XI. I've had several students open up an ebook for information in the computer lab. Pretty exciting.
I checked out the audio downloads. Put one on the computer. Like everyone else, I see a great potential for this format. Yes, I will still get a "real" book for my reading pleasure, but there are many people who tell me they enjoy listening to an audio book as they travel or commute. With our MP3 players, it will be so easy to enjoy a book anywhere. I've also had people tell me that an audio book is not really "reading." That,"students need to actually read." I agree with that, too. But, stories come in so many formats. Cave drawings, ghost stories around the campfire, printed novels, movies and now, audio books. To me, it's like a diet, you should vary your diet for good health. Variety - spice of life - just my take.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Podcasts
Cody Blair, The Study Prof, has a series called "Wired Study Tips" on ITunes. He's an interesting speaker and makes his podcasts fun. I've always wanted to introduce the students to this instructor from Texas A & M:
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/tamu-public.1449877907.01449877921
I just recently completed the podcasting inservice and see great potential in podcasts for library instruction: library tours, how to use resources, booktalks, student interviews about books, etc.
http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Feed/tamu-public.1449877907.01449877921
I just recently completed the podcasting inservice and see great potential in podcasts for library instruction: library tours, how to use resources, booktalks, student interviews about books, etc.
YouTube
I'm familiar with YouTube. It's an amazing concept. You can find just about anything. I was searching for booktrailers not too long ago and ran across several. What a great way to entice your students to read. With the Flip, students can also make their own booktrailers; I'd love to see some of ours work on this kind of project. Would be so cool.
First Try - Zoho and Web 2.0 Awards List
This is my first attempt at a Zoho document. Writer's block, that's what this is. Here I am, faced with a large amount of blank space and I can't think of anything to write.
However, it's kind of fun playing with all the buttons.
- I often carry work back and forth on a flashdrive, this will be useful.
- Since you can share these documents, that would be useful to the library committees, I would think.
Actually, this is my second try at Zoho. I didn't realize what the first try would look like. Whoa! It was huge. I like this product, will have to spend some time exploring all the different applications. - The Web 2.0 Awards list was fun. We have actually covered several of the products listed: Delicious, Wikispaces, Bloglines, Zoho, Flickr, Rollyo. So I went for the widgets. Yourminis has all kinds of fun little widgets you can add to your blog. I picked the five day forcast from the Weather Channel.
Wiki
I enjoyed working with the HEB23-Favorite Things wiki. I had fun answering "every single question" only realizing later that we were asked to do "at least two." Whoops.
On one of the blogs I visited, one of the librarians on the Internet said that "accuracy doesn't matter" and that wikis will guide you in your quest for information. Hmmm...personally, I'm not so sure about that. As a research tool, it seems like a wiki would fall into a very specialized niche. Personal experiences and opinions, ever-evolving information.
As an organizational tool, I can really see the potential. We are presently serving on library committees and a wiki would be an excellent place to share our thoughts. Might even be easier to work on a wiki than to get everyone together in the real world. Everyone is so busy these days. The best practices in librarianship wiki looked very interesting; will have to investigate that.
On one of the blogs I visited, one of the librarians on the Internet said that "accuracy doesn't matter" and that wikis will guide you in your quest for information. Hmmm...personally, I'm not so sure about that. As a research tool, it seems like a wiki would fall into a very specialized niche. Personal experiences and opinions, ever-evolving information.
As an organizational tool, I can really see the potential. We are presently serving on library committees and a wiki would be an excellent place to share our thoughts. Might even be easier to work on a wiki than to get everyone together in the real world. Everyone is so busy these days. The best practices in librarianship wiki looked very interesting; will have to investigate that.
Web 2.0 Technologies
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,” Charles Dickens
I’m not against progress; ITunes has exposed me to music from all over the world. Products like Voicethread will create wonderful opportunities for our students to interact with other students around the globe. These Web 2.0 tools have been fun and many will be very useful. It’s an exciting time. You can get to know people from all around the world; even better than you know your own neighbor, sometimes. The Internet provides movie trivia, recipes, products, directions, phone numbers, weather radar, medical information (caution!) and much more. I read political blogs to keep up with Washington. When my computer is out, I’m at a loss. In my profession, the Internet has become indispensible. A large part of my library budget goes for databases, which the students and teachers use constantly. We’re starting to see ebooks become easily available and it’s great. Our library resources are available 24/7. “Integrating services and databases into the school curriculum is one of the keys to success,” says George Bishop of the Ovid-Elsie Schools. This is also one of our goals.
However, as I watch politicians’ use statistics to make their argument, numbers that the opposite side says are bogus, I worry that facts will become too elastic. Already, we depend on databases based on journal articles that are edited, proofread and, we hope, reviewed by peer experts. We librarians and teachers’ know better than to take a webpage at its’ word. Many students do not. Perfect example, Wikipedia; too many students are content to quote Wikipedia as a trusted news source even though we tell them over and over….this information can be changed at the drop of a hat. Then, there is the high school junior who quoted a fifth grader’s paper that was posted on the Internet. We must keep our eyes wide open as we go into this “brave new world.” When we “collect user intelligence” such as OCLC’s “pilot program that allows anyone using Open WorldCat to contribute and share tables of contents, notes and reviews,” I just think we’re going to have to be cautious. Who are these people? What is their expertise? Will we be able to teach our students to recognize bias?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s&feature=related (Epic 2014)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDBhg60UNI (Epic 2015)
In conclusion, we have no need to worry whether our jobs are in jeopardy. I like Dr. Wendy Schultz’s thought “People will collect librarians rather than books.” Our job might extend past our career; we might be Internet librarians well into our 90’s and beyond! As others have said, this is an information explosion. And, while we librarians may or may not be able to use Dewey in the traditional sense to make it easily accessible, someone will have to help make sense of the huge amount of information. Why not librarians? Then, again, who am I? ;) What do I know? :P
Citations:
Bishop, George - http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/advocacy.htm
Nilges, Chip - http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/4.htm
Schultz, Wendy - http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm
I’m not against progress; ITunes has exposed me to music from all over the world. Products like Voicethread will create wonderful opportunities for our students to interact with other students around the globe. These Web 2.0 tools have been fun and many will be very useful. It’s an exciting time. You can get to know people from all around the world; even better than you know your own neighbor, sometimes. The Internet provides movie trivia, recipes, products, directions, phone numbers, weather radar, medical information (caution!) and much more. I read political blogs to keep up with Washington. When my computer is out, I’m at a loss. In my profession, the Internet has become indispensible. A large part of my library budget goes for databases, which the students and teachers use constantly. We’re starting to see ebooks become easily available and it’s great. Our library resources are available 24/7. “Integrating services and databases into the school curriculum is one of the keys to success,” says George Bishop of the Ovid-Elsie Schools. This is also one of our goals.
However, as I watch politicians’ use statistics to make their argument, numbers that the opposite side says are bogus, I worry that facts will become too elastic. Already, we depend on databases based on journal articles that are edited, proofread and, we hope, reviewed by peer experts. We librarians and teachers’ know better than to take a webpage at its’ word. Many students do not. Perfect example, Wikipedia; too many students are content to quote Wikipedia as a trusted news source even though we tell them over and over….this information can be changed at the drop of a hat. Then, there is the high school junior who quoted a fifth grader’s paper that was posted on the Internet. We must keep our eyes wide open as we go into this “brave new world.” When we “collect user intelligence” such as OCLC’s “pilot program that allows anyone using Open WorldCat to contribute and share tables of contents, notes and reviews,” I just think we’re going to have to be cautious. Who are these people? What is their expertise? Will we be able to teach our students to recognize bias?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s&feature=related (Epic 2014)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDBhg60UNI (Epic 2015)
In conclusion, we have no need to worry whether our jobs are in jeopardy. I like Dr. Wendy Schultz’s thought “People will collect librarians rather than books.” Our job might extend past our career; we might be Internet librarians well into our 90’s and beyond! As others have said, this is an information explosion. And, while we librarians may or may not be able to use Dewey in the traditional sense to make it easily accessible, someone will have to help make sense of the huge amount of information. Why not librarians? Then, again, who am I? ;) What do I know? :P
Citations:
Bishop, George - http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/advocacy.htm
Nilges, Chip - http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/4.htm
Schultz, Wendy - http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Delicious and Tagging
Several years ago, I set up a Delicious account. Might have learned about it at the in-service by Naomi Bates, or perhaps an in-service here in the district. Can't quite remember. It's great having all your bookmarks in one place, accessible by any Internet computer. What I didn't realize was that tagging was such a cool feature. I went back in and tagged all the sites on my personal Delicious and the one I made for this project. "Social bookmarks take a world of chaos and make it orderly" according to the video, I love that.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Playing in General
Playing on the computer is easy. When my son was much younger, he wanted to play an mmorpg. I was unfamiliar with "massively multiplayer online role-playing games" and was leery of internet predators. To investigate, I created a character. Later on, so did my sister and even later, my mother. We still play to this day, long after my son moved on to other things. Basically, we instant message while our characters mine, smith, cook, hunt and so much more.
My high school students roll their eyes and grin when I tell them, but it's fun and it's sort of a stress reliever. I enjoy visiting with my family as well.
*Shhh....surprisingly, it's also educational, but don't tell the kids that.*
The game I play has made the Guinness Book of World Records two years in a row. People from all over the world and of all ages play, so it's not unusual to talk to people from China, Australia, Sweden, etc. Fun.
My high school students roll their eyes and grin when I tell them, but it's fun and it's sort of a stress reliever. I enjoy visiting with my family as well.
*Shhh....surprisingly, it's also educational, but don't tell the kids that.*
The game I play has made the Guinness Book of World Records two years in a row. People from all over the world and of all ages play, so it's not unusual to talk to people from China, Australia, Sweden, etc. Fun.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Playtime - Rollyo
I was prepared to dislike Rollyo. Seems like everyone was having problems with it. However, at 2:30 AM on Sunday morning it seems to work fine. Still a little slow, but at 2:30, so was I. I always have students who want to tell me about titles they've heard about or read and want to recommend for the LMC. One of the other Rollyo members had a list of bookstores and voila! My Rollyo was born. I've selected several bookstore websites and we should be able to find just about any title suggested. Kind of cool. I'm really tired, think I'll call it a day.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Playing - Library Thing
Library Thing is a good way to keep track of the titles you've read. It has many opportunities to see what others are reading. Other features include: chances to read pre-released books before they even hit the bookstores. There are books that are being given away by other members, featured authors and author chats. A section is available to show you events that are happening in your area such as book signings.
I made an account and listed the five books. Although I will still use Shelfari to entice my students to read, I might use librarything.com for my personal authors.
Library Thing
I made an account and listed the five books. Although I will still use Shelfari to entice my students to read, I might use librarything.com for my personal authors.
Library Thing
Playing - Image Generator
Ok, you got me. This was really fun. I enjoyed looking at all the generators and there must be millions of them. Not able to look at all of them, however, I finally settled on this website: http://dummies.book.cover.txt2pic.com/
I'm rather partial to the "Idiot's Guides" and "Books for Dummies." So this one seemed the most appropriate.
I'm rather partial to the "Idiot's Guides" and "Books for Dummies." So this one seemed the most appropriate.
RSS Feeds and Newsreaders
The RSS feeds will come in handy. For my HEB Blogline newsreader, I found feeds on young adult literature, study tips, Web 2.0 tools and one of my favorite leaders in the field of library science: Doug Johnson. Wish Gary Hartzell had a blog....I looked.
:(
Here's the link for my Blogroll:
CT Follows Blogs
I'm following Kiera's lead and will answer all the questions in order:
*What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
I had seen that little RSS icon before, but didn't realize it had a purpose. I just had all my favorites in a folder on my computer. Being able to subscribe is much better...the information comes to you. I especially like the newsreader. I have several political blogs I follow and it will be nice to have them in one place with the new posts front and center.
*How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life? It will save time, that most precious commodity.
*How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? The book review sites I subscribed to will help in making collection choices.
*Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? I just like to look up topics that interest me on the Internet. I had some saved from prior searches.
*Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? I found them about equal in difficulty. Had a little trouble with my blogroll and I'm not sure if it is right or not.
*What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? The study tips and book reviews will be useful. I like the sites that update daily like the Astronomy Picture of the Day, SAT words and questions.
*What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? I did use a couple of directories, but had more luck with simply searching Google.
My five RSS feeds for the blog are located on the right......
:(
Here's the link for my Blogroll:
CT Follows Blogs
I'm following Kiera's lead and will answer all the questions in order:
*What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
I had seen that little RSS icon before, but didn't realize it had a purpose. I just had all my favorites in a folder on my computer. Being able to subscribe is much better...the information comes to you. I especially like the newsreader. I have several political blogs I follow and it will be nice to have them in one place with the new posts front and center.
*How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life? It will save time, that most precious commodity.
*How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? The book review sites I subscribed to will help in making collection choices.
*Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? I just like to look up topics that interest me on the Internet. I had some saved from prior searches.
*Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? I found them about equal in difficulty. Had a little trouble with my blogroll and I'm not sure if it is right or not.
*What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? The study tips and book reviews will be useful. I like the sites that update daily like the Astronomy Picture of the Day, SAT words and questions.
*What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? I did use a couple of directories, but had more luck with simply searching Google.
My five RSS feeds for the blog are located on the right......
Permalink
Well, I've seen many questions about this thing called "permalink." I've searched high and low on the internet for instructions, read posts from others. Quietly cheered them on when they figured out what it is. Found the html code that I might be able to use. (Unfortunately, my "edit html" button seems to be no longer working. I click it and see no coding.) I've perused all the other blogs to see what this "permalink" looks like in action and here's my conclusion: I think my blog is automatically permalinking. It looks like all the others. Happily, I'm going to move on to other things. :P
BTW, if it's not right, will somebody tell me? TIA
BTW, if it's not right, will somebody tell me? TIA
Flickr - resumed.
I'm finding that I will probably not use this product. The pictures that I really like are copyrighted....duh. That's why mine wouldn't show. I uploaded my avatar like George did and one of my favorites from Animation Factory (tagged HEB23-3), but I really don't want to put my personal pics on the web. Although it's easy to see the value of a site like that. You can put your pictures on and choose who can see them; just family, friends or... everyone.
(I've been a member of AF since about 2001.)
(I've been a member of AF since about 2001.)
I have put several pictures into a gallery called "My Favs" and I can see how you might get addicted to searching for cool pictures. Amazing photography and really cool videos here. If you go, check out the animated skittles...fun.
Here are the pictures I downloaded:
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