Week 11/Thing 23

Where to start!
I feel that this course was one of the best learning experiences I have had-- including my courses at Simmons. The lucid explanations of what can be confusing technologies, the wide scope of tools and relevant sources of information, the clear directions about blog topics, and the freedom to work on this course as time allowed were the greatest strengths of the course. 1)My favorite weeks involved photo sharing tools, the online productivity tools, and YouTube week. 2)All of the learning experiences (including the ones I did not especially like such as the avatars or things that I messed up on and had to try over again) have affected my lifelong learning goal to be current in my field and leave my comfort zone often to try new technologies and applications.
3) I was most surprised by several things-- all the cool stuff I could do and just how long each lesson took me. Most of the time I clicked every link and tried to read everything listed. This explains partly why I am so late in finishing. I didn't realize it would take so long, but to me it made sense to use the informational links provided. Another surprise was all the accounts I had to set up.
4)The online productivity tools, Del.ici.ious and Library Thing-type tools are things that will most benefit me personally and my work, although most of the other weeks have things I am already using. 5) I'm not aware of any other social networking tools we did not cover. I also don't know how you would improve this program--the only thing I can think of would be to ask a mentor/teacher/instructor-type person to provide weekly feedback to us via our blogs. 6) I'd like to see a porgram of this type offered at least twice a year. I would definitely participate and look forward to any new things you can provide to us.
Thanks again for a great program.

Week 11/Thing 22

This week helped me to understand how podcasts work and how they can be wonderful (and easy) for small libraries. I really liked what Springfield Library did with he Children's room podcasts. I was amazed to find so many library related help tools that did not seem that difficult to implement.
Finally, I checked over the podcast directories and selected 2 that interested me. I subscribed to Nancy Pearl's feed and also subscribed to Writer's Corner through my iTunes acct. I'd like to get my high school students to do a podcast on YA books and will look into it further--we need some basic equipment--but I think this would be popular. I love the optional assigment-- I don't have a mike but I'll borrow one someplace and come back to this in my blog after the course is over.

UHF Conan The Librarian

Week 11/Thing 21

This week's "thing" is one of favorites --I've been viewing YouTube for some time and I especially like the daily/weekly videos. I'm still amazed at how video sharing has become commonplace (I looked at the other video sharing sites) and how it varies from the "sublime to the ridiculous." I also can't help but see how it is still one of the most powerful for good and bad of the social networking tools. As a school librarian, what's amazing to me is how YouTube videos of differing relevancy are showing up on Google searches for student information on topics. That said, I also like the TeacherTube site.
I signed up for an account and added my fav --"Conan the Librarian" to my favorites-- and downloaded it to this week's "thing."
YouTube definitely has a place on a library website--it can introduce a staff, instruct or introduce the library plaes and procedures like the Harper College Library video, serve as a lively host for book talks, student contests,etc. I like the idea of student created and edited projects without a huge expense of materials(like the old days!)

Week 10/Thing 20

I explored LinkedIn since my daughter at NYU Stern SChool of Businesss had mentioned it as a professional tool for job. I was a litle disappointed in it, but maybe libraries and non-profits are not that well represented here. I saw a blog post in SEOmoz that sort of echoed my findings " ... pondering the value and use of LinkedIn, the professional/business version of the social networking phenomenon. To date, I've connected with 30 or so folks through the service, but they're largely people I know from the industry. I've been introduced to one person through the service, but it was by way of a colleague and could easily have been done through email, too." I also looked at a number of other award winning nominees--especially those in books, web design, etc.

Week 10/Thing 19.1

This is another mini blog entry written in Zoho Writer and posted to my blog. I love the templates and the applications here.

Keeping this short since I've created it in Google docs and will send it to my blog.

The best part of this project is that it gets me to actually try the things I have been reading abvout--in this case, the google web-based office applications. I'm very impresssed--I like the spread sheet much better and made myself a tiny 3 page "powerpoint" presentation that works very well--inserted a YouTube link. I can see how the software giant might be threatened--I personally think these web-based tools will become SOP in the workplace. I also love the share presenatuons and edits--we have a project that will be vastly hastened.

Week 9/Thing 18

I've enjoyed leaning about how wikis work and how many types there are. That said, I spent a long time fooling around with them, linking my blog etc. and making mistakes of some sort. The most user friendly was Wetpaint. I added my link and may return to set up an account. I also liked PBWiki because of all the VT Librarian content and added my blog and something to the vacation spot pages, as well as adding a new page for favorite movies. The ease of doing all this is really incredible once you play around with it. My least favorite was Mediawiki -- and it seemed as though I should have created an account first. Just did not like the way it was set up. I also looked at Wikimatrix --it was useful.
I can see numerous ways for a library, school to use wikis for information, communications and others. I often look at comsumer information wikis to see how a product really works. When time allows, I plan to check out the other wikis listed on this thing.

Week 9/Thing 17

I checked in on most of the wikis on th elist. I had visited Book Lust before and really liked it. I will definitely return to (bookmarked)Library Success and Library Instruction--this wiki will help me as school/public librarian. I am constantly reinventing the sheel by writing up new assignments,etc. The plagiarism assigment was very good. Library Success included example of great library websites---we realy ned to upgrade. I loved the Simpsons wiki, also. I don't really see a downside to using a wiki--as long as one realizes who participates in it, and I like wikis. But I didn't really know until now that there are different access permissions available and also that there are charges to upgrade to get more bells and whistles.
Wikis make perfect sense for libraries to create a collaborative group.

Week 8/Thing 16

Really enjoyed these articles and they were very useful at this point as a way to sit back and reflect on the previous "things" and how these new technologies can be applied to the everyday workings of my library. I found the wikipedia piece very useful (I constantly consult wikipedia to get definitions, histories and bibliographies about new computer products, definitions, technologies, etc.) It makes sense that the social networking philosophies and tools of Web 2.0 would morph to Library 2.0 --I liked the restating of the key principals. Similarly the OCLC articles were fascinating--the "icebergs" piece is a good wake up call to all libraries especially with regard to budgeting. I thought the Library 4.0, neo-library "knowledge spa" idea was a bit farfetched. In my opinion, these new technologies (and the fact that they will be available cheaply to people in their own homes)will drastically limit the physical spaces of libraries, not create these library temples. That said,I feel that the library 2.0 model is a long way off in many places due to the digital divide of age and access. As a librarian in a very small town with unreliable,very expensive Internet access, it's been a struggle even to get our patrons to use email to check the notices I send them.

Week 8/Thing 15

This week's activities is quickly becoming one of my favorities. I've read lots of blogs, especialy class and professional blogs, but Technorati is amazing. Doing the suggested exercises led to all kinds of discoveries. The clicked around the tag cloud and also claimed my own blog and may return to that and fix it up. The following are observations:
The sheer depth of the info in different formats here is mid-boggling. Since this is the day of the Pennsylvania primary I've been most interested in the political material. In reading through those posts, the immediacacy of this information is startling--posts made 21 minutes ago on the campaign trail in Pa. ..almost like a chat room in some ways. One very current "state of the nation" post led me on a search to fingd out who actually wrote it ad it took me to the masthead of the Daily Kos--very interesting guy who began it and a full roster of reporters. Now I see how these sites are really challenging traditonal newspapers. That said, another technorati post took me a NY Times aticle on MvCain's ties tro a Arizona developer. Before I run out of space, I also tried a search for "Vermont librarians" and compared it to Google -- both went right to the librarian.net blog.

Week 8/Thing 14

I've been hearing about his technology for a while and thought it was just a way to keep your leisure time favorites in order, but after seeing both videos and creating my own account, then using that ridiculously easy link to add to my blog here, I'm astonished at what a great tool this is for academic research and teaching. Keeping web resources organized has always been a struggle for me -- I'd have lists of favorites, stuff cut and pasted on word docs-- and no way to really get a handle on what I'd read.Luckily, I've learned how to use rss feeds to at least keep these resources current. I love the "folksonomy' aspect of tagging here, reminds me of using a thesaurus. I also did contrast a search on Stonehenge on del.icio.us with a search on Google. Very interesting. This is an amazing resource for a library to create and share sites on a topic as well as my number one tool in any kind of research project. I'm going to extol its virutes to my grad. shool daughter and college student son.

Week 7/Thing 13

I love Library Thing!. This is really an amazing use of social networking and what a library of resources! I created an account and then purposely set up an "off the wall' list of five books and created one tag for them. I also sent out a few invites. I especially liked the "be a reviewer" option which I'd love to do at a later date. I took a peek at Shefari and Gurulib. Honestly, I could spend days on tthse three sites and add many many books to my shelf. I just invited a few people and joined a group--Nancy Pearl's Book Lust.

Week 7/Thing 12

http://www.meez.com/main.dm

Frankly speaking, this was my least favorite and useful lesson so far. That said, I did learn a lot about creating avatars (did not really get their popularity with YA's --even when on the cover of School Library Journal) and how many sites are available for the novice. I checked into Zwinky, created a virtual self on Meeze and Avatar and looked at Speech Agents.I can see how speech agents could be useful in online learning courses. It was a little bit fun to play paper dolls with the images.
What;s amusing is the comment"remember to be tasteful" -- I guess that's why I'm not so crazy about this technology.

Week 6 --Catch Up Week

Thnaks for this extra week. I'm going back to my MySpace and Facebook accounts and adding libary groups and a few people. I want to look at the customizing stuff and the optional things.

Week 5/Thing 11

Still learning about social networking and creating accounts. Today its Facebook. It's very easy to set up these accounts and the amount of applications is amazing. Also, fun to contact and keep in touch with people. My daughter uses Facebook to send "e-vites" to parties and social stuff. That said, I read the wikipedia article and realized how complex and problemmatic this technology is --and the not-so-great uses of it. For instance, I didn't know it was located in Beverly Hills and owned by Fox and how corporate it really is, I wasn't aware of the lousy customer service aspect(I just assumed there was a contact us box and that somebody would get back to you.) I guess (from my brief tech class) I knew about the problems with the poor web source coding--which explains its popularity since relatively few peoplel take the time to learn how to write correct code and don't really care--but I thought that the techies had taken car of that and that it was not a problem. I did not realize that a 14 year old can have a page and that a 16 year old can have a public page--which seems strange since 18 is the age of a legal adult. Does this mean that a 16 year old who's page is linked to a crime is tried as a juvenile? I can now see how Congress, child protective agencies and first amendment supporters run into such a quagmire when trying to regulate social networking sites on the Internet and how much a worldwide issue this is.

Week 5/Thing 10

Wow, my last post was 2/27--do I need to catch up! I've actually been looking forward to his activity since Facebook and MySpace have played such a huge part in the lives of my children. One is 26 and very committed to this technology as a way to keep in touch with high school friends and let them know what's she's doing. My son is 21 and also uses social networking to "get the word out "about himself and find out about others. It's easy as an adult (to whom this way of communication is so foreign) to look for something sinister here and many young adults are now just realizing that what they post can be available to employers and school authorities and that even when they request that a profile be taken down, it still lingers on a server someplace. Also, according to my kids, the whole "friending" aspect of it can result in uncomfortable situations. At their ages, they are savvy to the realities of privacy and fraud, but I still have concerns when thse technologies tricle down to middle school students. Still, this is the way that many younger people communicate and it has outgrown the college community to become mainstream. I really liked Digg with its political focus and Ning was ok,too. With regard to libraries creating MySpace pages, I actually think its a viable idea to connect with young adults would be much more likely to access My Space than the traditional library website.

Week 4/Thing 9

Continuing on from the last post, I added "Shifted Librarians" to my Bloglines aggregator and it's really interesting. The best part was how it got me to related links and I signed up for three more feeds, including urban legends through Snopes (which I had heard about but not really checked out) and also Slate which I try to read now and then. I was so woefully ignorant of this technology that i looked up rss history on wikipedia to find out when it became so available and useful. Turns out it is fairly new--2005-2006. I will definitely use Bloglines or a similar thing in my daily life and I feel it is an absolute necessity in anyone's professional life. Everybody now has to keep up with the latest work-related info as well as the latest updates in leisure time activities, plane fares, purchases, etc. In my library I will be customizing my personal desk computer with my own feeds, and will poll my public patrons about their interests also. I'm thinking that news feeds would be popular. I am defintley going to investigate how our patrons can take maximum advantage of RSS.

Week 4/Thing 8

Okay, I have just got to pull myself away from this exercise and move on. I found this week's thing fascinating and spent lots of time on all the aggregators. I finally get what rss means and operates after having seen it forever, but never really taking advantage of it. Again, the amount of updated info is awesome and explains why I took so long sifting through all my interests. I began subscribing to a wide array of feeds, including my local newspaper, Office Depot , Library Journal just by subscribing to the rss on those sites. But I think the way to go is through an aggregator (I used Bloglines ad I loved its ease of use) and started clicking through the top 1000 feeds, but soon got sidetracked since I want to read everything. I set up a list of 6 feeds through Bloglines. But I also liked the Google Reader's news bundle and set up a few feeds through that . After reading the post about Sage, I'd like to get back to that and set it up later.

Week 3/Thing 7

In addition to all the other 23 things stuff this week, many of us also participated in a digtial library training course hosted by Overdrive to teach about the new ListenUp Vermont audiobook initiative. I can't say enough about how great this service wil be for our patrons. But as this post relates to a technology issue, I want to comment about how the training which combines online web sharing(all 10 of us from all over the state sitting at our computers could view the same power point pres) and telephone conferencing ( so we could hear each other and ask questions of Ann our trainer-presenter.) There were a very few glitches such as a hum on one of the phones and you did have to make sure that your computer was updated, but it went very well. I've never participated in this type of training before and I was impressed. YOu don't need any new expensive equipment and it certainly saves on travel costs! Kudos to Stephanie Chase (who sat in on the training) for making this prgram work and setting up the trainign sessions.

Week 3/Thing 6

I had heard about flickr but never explored it and had a great time with all the fun stuff one can do. (I spent much more than my 15 minutes on this section, too!)I created a flickr free account and uploaded a pic of one of our shelves and tagged it accordingly. I was a little disappointed that it did not show up right away in the "vermontlibrarieslearn" group, but the help feature assured me that my pic would show up soon. I like the options for different groups on flickr. I have also had a super time creating movie posters from the mashup option and that's something that I will definitely use at our library.

Week 2/Thing 4 Blog Experimentation

I'm out of sequence here -- but would like to use this post to experiment with at least one of the customizing tools from the tool bar. I'll add some random stuff and see what happens.

1)Adding images is great-- to the left is an old (1910) postcard from a collection my mother has. We're trying to organize them for sale by taking photos.

2) Threw in a link to UVM--my son's school.

http://www.uvm.edu/

Week 3/Thing 5 (twice) View from Scopello ( Sicily )

View from Scopello ( Sicily ), originally uploaded by angie_real Angela Lobefaro.

Here's another excellent use of Flickr--look at places to plan a trip. I'm researching a family trip to Italy and we plan on going to Sicily. I loved this image.

Week 3/Thing 5 Flickr Test Post

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. I decided to create a Flick account--so far, so good.

Week 2/Thing 3: Blogs are fun!

Setting up this blog reminded me of how much fun blogs are-- both writing and reading, as well as being very useful. One of my classes at Simmons required blogging on about 100 YA books throughout the course. I really loved learning about my classmates' reading choices and opinions. I've been visiting as many of our 23 Things participants' blogs as possible and commenting (since it's great to get comments.)
That said, I've also remembered how many hours I spent at the computer the last time I had a blog site to keep current. I think it's important for librarians to try to keep a balance between work-related computer hours and home and family time.

Week 1/Thing 2: Pointers From Lifelong Learners

I loved the life-long learners manifesto, but as comprehensive as it was, one element was not emphasized enough -- "Get over looking or feeling (choose 1) a. stupid , b.hopelessly old-fashioned, c. computer phobic, d) change-resistant. " You could also add intellectually lazy, mired in the past, nostalgic for the good old days, too comfortable with the status quo, etc.
A commitment to life-long learning, as well as being uplifting, empowering and good fun, also includes varying degrees of confusion, negative self-assessment and frustration. It challenges one to leave the comfort zone to do something new and think in another way.
My brother and I just got my eighty-four- year- old mother a computer to send email and search Ebay. Now that's lifelong learning!

Week One/Thing One: About This Program

I'm delighted that this program is so highly relevant to what I see my patrons of all ages doing. The self-paced aspect is also a lifesaver for me. And, yes, I will probably do most of the assignments at home on my own computer at odd hours! Thanks for this great learning opportunity.