Thing 23

I did it! All 23 Things!

I feel like Helene Blowers is my best friend and it would be nice to meet her someday. It's truly amazing how much I've learned these past couple months. This exercise opened my eyes to many new innovations in web technology I never knew existed. And the most amazing thing is I'm using some of them in my daily work already and have plans to use others soon!

My Favorite Things (to name just a few) :

• YouTube
• Web-based apps (word processing and spreadsheets)
• Podcasts
• Wikis
• RSS feeds/Bloglines
• Digital books
• Web 2.0 awards list
• Online image generator

Least Favorite:

• Rollyo
• Flickr

With this exercise, my list of lifelong learning goals has now grown to include more of these web 2.0 "things" and to try to keep up with trends in technology. The more I explore and learn, the more I discover that I really don't know and these become new goals for me. As I said in my first post about life-long learning, technology is the easiest for me, but also the hardest. I love playing to "learn" how to use technology, but the hardest part is keeping up with all of the new "things" that keep developing.

The only suggestion I have for improvement, is that it would be helpful to have some feedback from the blogteam that we have completed the program successfully.

Absolutely, if you offered another discovery program like this in the future, I would definitely chose to participate

Week 9 - Thing 22

E-books. I love them! My husband is a prolific reader of e-books and has been downloading them onto his pda for several years now. I am very familiar with our digital books page on the library website. We have many of the latest fiction titles in e-book, but it's also exciting to see all of the nonfiction available. The feature I like the best is that they check themselves in when they are due. My husband's pda requires the mobipocket format for a download, so he's always looking for titles compatible with his player.

I love listening to audio books when I'm driving. So downloading e-books in audio will let me mutiltask while listening. For this exercise, I opened an account on NetLibrary. I am ready to download e-books for an mp3 player in the mp3 format. Can't wait!

Week 9 - Thing 21

I love listening: I love podcasts! It's nice just to sit back and listen instead of always reading. I searched all 3 podcast directories suggested, but I liked the yahoo podcasts the best. Very easy to search and get pertinent results.

On Yahoo Podcasts, I retrieved the RSS podcast for Nancy Pearl Book Reviews. I once went to a Back to the Book Workshop sponsored by NOLA, and she is great! I guess now I'll have to order a Librarian action figure. I can't wait to hear her book reviews everyday!!! And I found NPR Books Podcast.

On another note, I found a great podcast on Podcast.net, Classic Radio and Movies Network, and also added this to my feed. This one is great! I found it on the list of "Most recently added podcasts". Check this one out. It demonstrates that even classic movies are on podcasts!

I added all 3 podcasts to my Bloglines RSS feed.

Did I find anything useful here? Absolutely!!! The more I search the podcast directories, the more podcasts I want to listen to. And when we create our Poland Library Teen Blog, we will definitely want to include a podcast on it.

I am hoping to add my own podcast to my blog, but the link on the learning 2.0 page didn't work. I see that Yahoo has a "Publish a Podcast" page, http://podcasts.yahoo.com/publish . I'll have to look into that.

Week 9 - Thing 20

YouTube is a lot of fun. I love it!!! Who doesn't like watching videos, and even the videos of the most mundane things are fun. The best part about this site is that it is so easy to search. And I'm amazed at how many videos there are to choose from on each topic I search. Wow! The homemade videos are so much fun.

I chose 2 videos to add to my blog. In the first, someone is singing "Does your chewing gun loose it's flavor on the bedpost overnight", one of my favorite songs, while strumming the banjo. I choose it because it's just plain fun. I love that song - It makes me happy. Secondly, I choose a Christopher Walken video that my daughter shared with me (she is my connection to the younger generation).

I searched libraries and came up with the March of the Librarians video, which is a bunch of librarians at an ALA convention. This is the most mundane video, but I love it, too. Totally cool! I may add this one, too, if my blog has room for a 3rd video.

Putting a video on the library website would be a very appealing feature. It could display info about programs or new offerings at the library. And updating it monthly would be incentive for people to keep coming back to the site.

Week 8 - Thing 19

I'm already familiar with some of these Web 2.0 sites. I"ve used Craigslist before. That's what all the young people use as online classifieds. The subject headings on this site are web 2.0 tags. We used it to look for an apartment in Cleveland for my daughter's internship in the big city this summer. And my daughter at Kent uses Facebook all of the time to talk to her friends.

So for this discovery exercise, I explored the Mashup, Ning. I first heard of Ning when I was reading the YALSA (ALA) website and discovered that they have a Ning. Ning is described as a way to Get Your Own Social Network! They claim to be the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds. And they call themselves a Home Depot in terms of social networking, saying that if you have the time and the inclination, you can build the network yourself. And you can choose which networks you want to join. There are network tags and also a search feature to find which network(s) you want to join.

Ning, like all mashups, puts an emphasis on interactive user participation and would be great for library staff and patrons to network and communicate. Actually, the library could have a Ning like YALSA does. YALSA has one main Ning, divided into 4 main separate subject areas. The library's Ning could be 1. Reader's advisory and post your own comments and reviews about the latest books you've read (or new books at the library) 2. DVD and music networking 3. Children's books 4. Teen book discussion. The thing I dislike about Ning is people have to join in order to post, and that my inhibit some from participating.

Web-based Apps: Posted through Google Docs

Web-based Apps: Posted through Google Docs

I thought it would be interesting to try Goodle Docs, too. Google Docs differs from Zoho in that both the Word Processing and the Spreadsheet appear to be in the same application. All you have to do is click the New Folder on the top left and choose either Document or Spreadsheet. Once again, I like the fact that I can save it online, without going into layers of folders on the computer or on a flash drive (and if the computer crashes, you still have your document!). And it saves with each new entry as you're working on the document, and can be access under the Revisions tab. This is great stuff! No more lost documents.

And it appears you can upload and email documents to your own unique address in this program to continue working on them through Google Docs (of course, I'll have to write down that address to remember it, it was a long string of characters). Under the Share tab, like a wiki, you can give permissions for others to add or edit the document. I'm impressed with this new techonology, and I never even new it existed.

Week 8 - Thing 18 Part 2

I am posting this entry from Google Docs.

Thing 8 Revisited

On reviewing the instructions for RSS Feeds, I noticed at the bottom of the instruction page that we were suppose to "share" our bloglines in a blogroll. So tonight I created a blogroll of my RSS Feeds on my blog. And I also included a link to my public bloglines account as suggested by Helen Blowers. Totally cool! This is a better way to access my feeds rather than always going to bloglines for them.

In the Thing 8 Discovery Exercise, Part 2, we were suppose to subscribe to at least 3 of Charlotte's Feeds. I did add the Learning 2.0 feed to my blog, because it appears that it will help to reinforce the learning 2.0 principles I'm learning as I go back and read it. But I couldn't see a reason to add the Charlotte.Com news feeds, since I'm not from Charlotte and I'm already on other news and entertainment feeds. I really wanted to add PLCMC's Reader’s Club new review feeds, but it is no longer a feed. The PLCMC Competency Blog entries were dated 2006, so since it appears not to be an active blog any longer I didn't subscribe to it. But I am on the Unshelved feed.

I think I have now completely finished Thing 8. I like RSS Feeds. Neat!

Zoho post

Thing 18 Post 1. 

 

I created a Zoho account. Then I tested it out.  This is truly amazing!  It's like Microsoft Office online, but better. You actually save the document onto Zoho on the Web!

 

Zoho writer has some neat features.  I changed the color of my skin from sea blue to pale orange and back to sea blue again.  I easily inserted symbols: ♥  (the black suit heart) and Π (pi) in case I have a math problem to tackle.

 

Zoho Template writer has 50 templates to choose from.  Includes even a recipe template. Wow!

 

I love the fact that my document is saved online.  I wonder how much I can save on Zoho before my space is filled?

 

 

Neat!       

Week 8 - Thing 18

Web-based Apps: online productivity web-based applications -word processing and spreadsheets.

I am publishing this post through Zoho writer onto my blog.

Week 7 - Thing 17

Sandbox Wiki: "Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play.

First, I created a login for myself and then linked my blog to the PB Sandbox. Then I uploaded the PB pic to this post. Then I added 3 of my all-time favorite movies to the wiki, making the font a little bigger and bolding the titles. And added my favorite music, too. It was easy.

This is fun! It's like making a website without worrying about perfecting the HTML markup language. Now I want to create a wiki. So far this is the most fun of everything I have learned!!!

Week 7 - Thing 16

Definition: Wikis can essentially be used for anything where collaboratively developed content or easy Web editing is desirable. Internally they can make it easier to share information among librarians. Externally, they can make the library’s website a true online community.

When I first read about wiki's, I was a little skeptical concerning the authenticity of information, especially in regards to the Wikipedia. Yet after the readings for Thing 16, I learned it's more about sharing information and ideas. Yes, there is a place for this type of social networking to broaden the scope of information available.

This has large implications for libraries. A wiki would be a great communication tool for librarians and local teachers. Librarians could share new books and upcoming programs at the library, and teachers could share upcoming assignments that students may be coming to the library to use.
Committee meetings can be extended through the use of a wiki where all members contribute to share information. And I loved reading about the different examples of wiki's already in use in libraries.

Although those are only a couple examples, the implication for libraries means that the library can become the focal point of the community. By using wiki's, people in the community can share information - ideas and experiences - and the library information becomes a richer information source, making the library’s website a true online community. And isn't this what it's all about?

By the way, I learned by surfing around "Thing 16" that there is a library 2.1 for us to learn next!