23checkout

Week nine, thing 20: We're not candy

2007-08-18T07:49:00.001-07:00

from you tube. remember this wonderful song, a public service announcement from long ago?

week nine, things 21, 22 & 23

2007-08-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

from the directions: Week 9: Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio20. Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos.21. Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts.22. Take a look at the titles available on Overdrive or NetLibrary or Project Gutenburg and learn about downloadable audiobooks.23. Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog and learn about where to go from here.

20. I have had a lot of fun playing with youtube. It can be kind of addictive, and i can see how people become you tube "celebs". I posted a you tube video to this blog...(see posting week 9, thing 20, amazing robot dance).

21. I'm taking a look at Yahoo Podcasts now. I've listened to podcasts before, ones I was interested in and looked up specifically...never created them,and haven't used directories...I think radio is an incredible medium, though. so much potential. like old time radio...stories are read to you, plays are dramatized, allowing your imagination to understand the content, interviews could be happening in the same room.

OK. I've browsed around the yahoo directory...I see you can subscribe to a podcast, like the Learn Chinese podcast, or the NPR story of the day podcast. That's neat. I see that some are for watching and some are for listening...I had thought podcast meant audio only. OK, I feel more familiar with pod casting already. :)

22. Project Gutenberg, I appreciate that this is out there, and look forward to seeing how it develops. At present, I'm not that interested in e-books. I like reading books in book format. It could be a useful place for people to look at books they need for assignments if all the real copies are checked out at the library.

I have a net library account. I like this for the audio books, I'm glad we offer it at our library. One thing I don't like about it is that you cannot return the books early, due to licensing agreements.

23. reflecting on 23 things. wow. this program has been a bit challenging at times, and on the whole, it's been terrific, and I have learned a lot! it has been wonderful to have a structured means for exploring all these things ...i think this will help me in my work here at the library, as well as making me a more up to date citizen of the 21st century.

week nine, thing 20: we're not candy. oops where did it go?

2007-08-17T11:07:00.001-07:00

good thing someone found and posted this old public service announcement to remind us: medicine is serious. from you tube, remember: pills are not candy!

for some reason...the video disappeared from here...so, please see above.

Week eight, things 18 & 19

2007-07-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

From the directions: Week 8: Online Applications & Tools18. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.19. Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it and write a blog post about your findings.

18. online productivity: The online productivity tools are good to know about. Free, "portable" means of creating, storing, and retrieving documents.

I tried out google docs, and saw that it was easy to use. It looked "familiar", even though it was the first time i was trying it out, maybe because it's comparable to Microsoft word. I like that you can import documents from various sources, and thst it's compatible with different formats. I think it's a useful resource, and I showed it to some folks the other day who had come for the morning computer class.

19. web 2.0 awards list: Nici showed me her Netvibes account, one of the web 2.0 award list. This is a personalized homepage with all kinds of bells and whistles, very customizable. It looks cool, so I signed up for an account, too, which I have yet to play with.

NETVIBES:
http://www.netvibes.com/

i started playing with my netvibes homepage, and it is pretty great, i'm not really ready to switch over from yahoo, even though it is way more customisable and playful, and seems pleasingly impartial and modern.

then i went to another of the web 2.0 awards winners: Yahoo answers. Yahoo answers, where i have searched for questions and answers before, requires that you sign in if you want to post.
http://answers.yahoo.com/

It turns out that you create an account and start with a certain # of points (100 or so). You can ask questions with points (5). you get points when you answer questions (2). or 10 if your answer is chosen as the favorite.

anyone can ask or answer, you must take it all with a grain of salt...but it's a really interesting way to communicate and share information.

Week seven, things 16 and 17

2007-07-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

From the directions: Week 7: Wikis16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.17. Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki.

16. Wikis. Wikis are controversial amongst librarians, especially wikipedia. "-pedia" suggests authority.

According to dictionary.com, (italics mine).

"Word History: The word encyclopedia, which to us usually means a large set of books, descends from a phrase that involved coming to grips with the contents of such books. The Greek phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios, "cyclical, periodic, ordinary," and paideia, "education," and meaning "general education.""

"encyclopedia." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 23 Jul. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/encyclopedia>.

Meanwhile, "Wiki" is "Originally an abbreviation of WikiWikiWeb, software developed by American computer programmer Howard G. Cunningham (born 1949) : Hawaiian wikiwiki, quick + web.]

"wiki." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 23 Jul. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wiki>.

17. md sandbox homepage w/my blog link:

http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/Favorite-Blogs

md sandbox my wiki contribution:

http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/favorite-fantasy-vacations

md sandbox homepage with my contribution link:

http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/

week six, things 13, 14 and 15

2007-07-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

from the instructions: Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati13. Learn about tagging and discover a Del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site)14. Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts.15. Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries and blog your thoughts.

13. I, (like many others, it seems), found the instructions & tutorials for using del.icio.us obtuse, and at least one link was dead. I know delicious is very popular, and I have been curious about it, so I decided to just go ahead and start an account. At the site, they describe delicious as a place to do social bookmarking. A place to put all your bookmarks in one place. And, "A tag is simply a word you use to describe a bookmark. Unlike folders, you make up tags when you need them and you can use as many as you like. The result is a better way to organize your bookmarks and a great way to discover interesting things on the Web."

I have registered and now I'm going to try and see how this site works.

OK, I have looked around and tagged some sites. I like it! The instructions at the site are quite easy to use, and the process and vocabulary make a lot more sense when you can actually apply it. Del.icio.us offers an intuitive way to use the net, the toggle for tagging that I installed on my browser is very convenient. I like how the list of sites are complete with URL. I think it'd take some use to understand the potential of the site to the user, but my first impression is that it's a neat tool, a human-friendly and interesting way of organizing bookmarks and learning about sites, recommended by others, related to an interest.

14. technorati link up:
Technorati Profile

15. Perspectives on Web 2.0:
"The first traces of Web 2.0 are already appearing. Consider the roaring success of sites that embody Web 2.0 principles of simplicity, rich interactivity, user participation, collective intelligence, self-service, novel and remixed content—Flickr, MySpace, FaceBook, del.icio.us, YouTube, LibraryThing—to name a few."
from:
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/1.htm

well, some of those sites have become pretty familiar.

"Reliance on user education Libraries are poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed for teaching. Ask yourself what your patron-to-librarian ratio is (at the University of Nevada it’s about 680 to 1) and then ask yourself how you’re going to train all those patrons. We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning. Obviously, we’ll help and educate patrons when we can, and when they want us to, and the more we can integrate our services with local curricula, the better. But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons. One-button commands, such as Flickr’s “Blog This,” and easy-to-use programs like Google Page Creator, offer promising models for this kind of user-centric service."

from:
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm

This is true: intuitive, user-friendly access is a terrific goal and definitely the direction the web interfaces are going. It's also true that unless or until the online environment is easy for all to navigate and contribute to, people need help to use it well. In some cases, the library is the only, or the main place where individuals have access to web, and other online resources. This is an awesome offering. We at the library could use more resources in terms of staff and training in order to provide expert education to our public so they are empowered to interact effectively and productively with the online environment. We should also try to assure that our own interfaces, like our webpage and database access are as un-intimidating, and welcoming to use as possible.

At the same time, even as the web becomes "easier" to use with clear buttons and easy programs, and even if our library homepages shine with well lighted pathways to our resources, "information literacy" goes beyond the ability to get at information, to manipulate and to contribute to it. Also important is the will and ability to look at material critically, the knowledge to evaluate information, along with the saavy to judicially, ethically and safely share information.

These components of information literacy promote quality use of the internet and still need to be taught "impartially". Critical thought.

week five, things 10, 11 & 12

2007-06-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

From the instructions: Week 5: Play Week
10. Play around with an online image generator.
11. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.
12. Roll your own search tool with Rollyo.

10. online image generators:
I created an avatar at the simpson's movie site http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/main.html and here it is complete with an itchy (or it it scratchy? ) tee shirt.:

Then, I tried out the horoscope generator http://www.generatorland.com/generators/horoscope_gl.php
and it came up with this:

"Chewing gum will save your life this week. • Seriously? You're wearing that? • You need a pet. Go ask someone to pet you. • You are being watched but they're really bored."

11. Library thing:

I created an account and entered some books and then felt a kind of regret about all the books that I'll never remember to enter and which i wish i had a comprehensive record of. One thing i think is unuseful about it is that books come up in various editions and I was pretty much picking one randomly, which I think means that I am only "linking" to other members who selected taht same edition, but really, it might be more effective if there was an option to select all editions of a given book, or have them included as part of a master record.

Here's my (off the top of my head) library:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/23checkout

12. Rollyo:
here's my rollyo selected sites search engine called "baby bump & beyond" for folks looking for information on just that:

I like rollyo, I can definitely see using it for its intended purpose, a selected search engine. I also see its potential and would like to be able to use it as a collection of webologies. If I want to see the list of sites so eone else has collected on a given topic, can I look at the sites that way? It does look like they're listed as in "these sites were searched in putting together this results list", but it doesn't look like you can get the urls from that in a quick and easy way, you'd have to click on individual results in order to get the sourch URLS.

Week four, things 8 & 9

2007-06-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

from the instructions: Week 4: RSS & Newsreaders8. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines newsreader account.9. Explore MERLIN and a few useful library related-blogs and/or news feeds.

RSS, really simple syndication.

8. Bloglines is neat. I like being able to collect a variety of things of interest in one place. I was a little disappointed at how the feeds don't look like the material at the source sites. Sometimes images that were associated with text at the home sites don't come along, and some of the feeds just have a blurb and a link. However, all in all, this is a really neat tool.

9.I added Merlin to my bloglines account.

I am looking at Feedster now. Trying to set up a widget to present RSS feeds at my blog (what am I saying?)

week three, things 5, 6 & 7

2007-06-16T13:39:00.001-07:00

From the instructions: "Week 3: Photos & Images5. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.6. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites.7. Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week. "

5. Here's the link to an image that I liked. I got to it by putting in the searchterm "booklove".: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doornail243/336621006/#comment72157600375235298 I do think it's adorable .

So, even though the above linked to photo is "public", I don't see any option to blog it using the blogging tool.

However, this flickr image has the "blog this" option:

kicks
Originally uploaded by 4ever30something

I wanted to try using the blogger upload tool, so I picked this second photo with the "blog this" option .

This photo appealed to me because I used to do Taekwondo and I really loved it. I remember being a yellow belt, the belt after white, and seeing these girls practicing makes me think about the exciting progress and achievement that lies ahead for them, as well as the value of the discipline that they're experiencing now. also, makes me think of how fun it was to watch the karate kid on tv the other night. And this photo coordinates well with my background.

6. I goofed around with some of the tools for playing with flickr images. Some of them were amusing, like the montagr, and the tools for making trading cards and calendars.

Here's an image i made with th warholizer:

7. ok, to post about anything technology related: Nedra introduced me to Pandora, the "music genome project" at www.pandora.com. Pandora is an internet radio site where you can create "stations" and learn about new music. Anyone who sees this reply and doesn't yet know about Pandora, check it out: It's easy,intuitive, rewarding and free to set up an account. I love it and recommend it to anyone who likes music.

week two, things 3 & 4

2007-06-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

From the instructions: "Week 2: Blogging3. Set up your own blog & add your first post. 4. Register your blog and Track your progress to journey into Learning 2.0 together. "

3 &4. ok, I have set up and registered my blog, so far so good.

week one, things 1 & 2

2007-06-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

From the instructions: "Week 1: Introduction ( official start of week June 4th)1. Read this blog & find out about the program.2. Discover a few pointers from lifelong learners and learn how to nurture your own learning process. As you watch and listen, write down which habit among the 7 & 1/2 that is easiest for you and which is hardest. You will use your personal blog (which you will set up next) to post your thoughts about lifelong learning. "

1.
I am excited about this training opportunity. It seems like it will be a nice way to get familiar with technological forums and mechanisms. This knowledge is important; particularly to us in the field of information literacy.

2.
Easiest habit for me: Create your own learning toolbox:

When I identify an information need I do tend to seek resources to fill it. I’m curious about things and want to learn. It’s been a lifelong habit, and it works well for me, especially as I become a more efficient and effective resource finder. The process of improving and honing my skills will, of course, be a lifelong endeavor.

I’m not always as organized as I’d like to be about it, but I do keep in mind useful resources, identify tools that will help me with a given task at hand, and access and utilize them to learn what I want to learn. This can run the gamet from a practical how-to question to a philosophical or artistic one, to finding a delicious read--to understanding those I care about. My ability and drive to do this has helped me throughout my academic career, as well as in my personal life. I believe that it is (in part) my ability to create my own learning toolbox that makes the field of librarianship, where I get to work in a giant learning toolbox, and help others use the tools and create learning toolboxes a good match for me.

Hardest habit for me: View problems as challenges:

Typically, I can view problems as challenges. If I don’t find information in the first places I look, I’ll widen and vary the scope of resources I look to, or try a different method to try and solve the problem at hand. However, when the stakes surrounding the information need are very high and if the first couple of likely sources don’t seem to lead to the necessary information, I sometimes find it difficult to view problems as challenges in the positive sense. I think that this is natural, but I’d like to be able to put my best foot forward consistently order to continue to work on a problem, even a difficult or frustrating one, because I think I can be most effective that way.

I think that this optimistic way of looking at problems ties into the attitudinal habit: have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner. I think that if you have that confidence, the process of solving a problem is endowed with the peaceful notion that you are doing what you can.