Final Thoughts on Web 2.0 Discovery Tour

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)

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.

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.

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.

1. I often carry work back and forth on a flashdrive, this will be useful.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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