Week 9: Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio - Thing 20, 21, 22 & 23

Thing 20 - Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos. Here is a video that I really like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZblrRs3fkSU
UTube is so easy that I now understand what the hype is all about. It is so great to know what the kids and other adults are looking at. I can't wait to see more librarian videos. I think SJPL should make some really fun ones! I would love to be part of that. Another librarian showed me March of the Librarians and I love that one too! You can see comercials and band performances too! This is a very easy site to navigate and upload videos to.

Thing 21 - Podcasts (You don’t need an iPod!). I waisted a bunch of time trying podcast.net and for some reason, none of the podcasts would download. I will now try postcastalley.com which did not work out that great either. So I finally tried yahoo podcasts and found "Spellcheck does Avalon High" which is a teen reviewing the book "Avalon High" from the Sunnyvale Library. This is a great idea for teens to get involved in revieing YA books. And it is cute that her code name is Spellcheck like a DJ name. This is a Prime Speaks program. Prime is a librarian who lets teens peer review books through podcasting and reviews books himself through various podcasts. This reminds me of a college DJ format of programming. It is really cool to know that storytimes and book reviews can be podcast to library users. I tried to get pull the RSS feed into my Bloglines account as well and I forgot my yahoo ID and password. There are so many IDs & passwords that we need a secure way to organize those. I've tried to use the same ones but it is impossible as many usernames are already taken. The most important thng I learned is to locate where to add podcasts & RSS feeds into my bloglines account. I just lost the original podcast.

Thing 22 - eBooks and Audio eBooks. I looked for the ebook Black Beauty by Anna Sewell since my Rosebuds book club is reading this book next. I am so happy we have the eBook. I actually was able to download the ebook but it is not intuitive to put a book in the bookbag and then proceed to checkout and then download the book. I wish this was a 1 step process instead of a 3 step process. I understand that bookbag is intened to be in place of shopping cart and proceed to checkout is the same but it is sort of confusing. I hope someday that our eBooks are much more intuitive and easier to checkout with one simple click.

Thing 23 - Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog.
1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?And last but not least…
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?

The exercises I like best are LibraryThing, blogger.com, flickr, and the online image generator. With more time, I think I will really enjoy Utube and online tools such as google docs and Soho writer. I really enjoyed learning 2.0 and all of the things that I have learned as a result. I am also grateful that our staff has been so supportive and helpful with one another. Learning 2.0 has sparked many a debate here at RG while offering us a forum to communicate about these new technological tools. I feel that I have learned so much since the beginning of this program and actually feel more confident in understanding how to add new web content to my blog. I see so many kids on myspace everyday and wondered why they like it so much. Now I have a deeper understanding through actually being able to blog myself.

I think that my technological worldview has greatly expanded and I see many possibilities for using these applications as a librarian. I have made a commitment to be a Librarian 2.0 and have adopted the Librarian manifesto from the Utube video I posted. I wanted to become more tech savvy and learning 2.0 will continue me down this path.

The thing that suprised me most was all of the things you can do without knowing html code. I am not a web designer or computer programmer or even IT person. But now I feel as though a whole world of web access has been opened up for me. I loved creating and maintaining my blog and discovering new ways to make it better.

To make things easier I would like someone to come up with a way to somehow keep all of our usernames and passwords in the same secure spot. I tried to be consistent but sometimes it was just impossible. Short of printing out every login page, there must be a better way. And the last thing is that Mozilla Firefox seemed to work better than internet explorer.

And lastly, yes I would very much like to be part of a future training like this. It would be great to go for a Learning 3.0 and 4.0 if we could. Thank you for this wonderful learning experience! I will continue to use the knowledge that I have gained to explore more learning possibilities.

Week 8: Online Applications & Tools - Thing 18 & 19

Thing 18 - Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools. Wow, Zoho writer is a very cool site! There are so many templates already created to use for free. I added a resume cover letter and their office suite is full of free applications to use. This could help library users when they need to do a resume or cover letter or anything else to create a ready made document. I will start using this immediately to help library customers now that I understand it more. It would be even more helpful if we could write up a cheatsheet to hand out when necessary. I signed up for a Zoho account but there was no confirmation email so I will have to check back later. I was in the site under my user name and then it was lost somehow. Oh well, I still understand it!

Thing 19 - Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books. My favorite books are at: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=chrisshome
Out of all of my favorite books, Crime and Punishment was the most poular with 5317 postings as a favorite. I will start using LibraryThing right away. I needed a place to stick all of my favorite storytime books. This way I can keep track of everything that works well in reading to the kids. I love this site!

Week 7: Wikis - Thing 16 & 17

If Flat Stanley can do it, so can you!

Thing 16 - Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them. I first looked at "Library Success: A best practices wiki." There was so much to check out on this wiki. I specifically liked "Self-Promotion Tips for New Librarians" where it gives suggestions on how to make sure you are adding a positive contribution to the library field. It is so easy to forget that there are so many other libraries out there facing the same challenges that we do. It is always good to get out and meet other librarians and talk with them about what new things they are doing. This reminds me to get more involved in associations to keep current with new ideas, especially in children's librarianship. Our SJPL Youth Serivces wiki might be the perfect way to communicate and hold all of our programming ideas. It is just hard to get into the habit of posting there but I have checked it out and even kept of copy of the rock painting program which I hope to do at RG this summer.

Thing 17 - Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki. Wow, I just posted my blog and my favorite books. At first I had some difficulties because it seemed to only want HTML code but I tried it anyway and it worked. Also, this wiki does not seem that intuitive as I had to search for favorite books to add. Oh wait, now I get it. You go to recent activity and then add some favorites. Well, I did it the hard way. Libraries could use a wiki to talk about their bookclub, for example, my Rosebuds Book Club so our members could share information about the books we are reading!

Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati - Thing 13, 14, & 15

If Brutus can do it, so can you!

Thing 13 = Learn about tagging and discover Del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site). I registered on delicious through firefox. I've come to discover that there seems to be certain things you can not do as easily on internet explorer. This is frustrating but I am trying to switch over. And, every time I sign on to a new site I have to use different passwords. I have started to keep a file because I can't keep track of everything. But the good news is that I am learning. I got the delicious and tag sign up on the mozilla firefox interface. It is really cool to have all of your bookmarks in one place but I downloaded all of the bookmarks I had from internet explorer and dumped them into my delicious account. This might not have been the best idea. It might be better to start from scratch or try and add one at a time? This really has helped me to learn that there are better ways to organize information and that is so important. I really want to have everything organized into one nice neat space and I think that in time delcious will help me do this. It is also good to see what other people have bookmarked because most likely, some better sites have already been tagged. It's amazing all of the info you can get from just one tag!


Thing 14 = Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts. I did a keyword search usine "Learning 2.0" and came up with different results. For blog posts, I came up with 2,642 posts about doing the excersizes in learning 2.0 and I even recognized some of the blog posts. For tags, I got 260 tags. For blog directory, I got 75 blogs about learning 2.0. This means that more people should be tagging so as to track all of these blogs. There are so many blogs its incredible.

On the popular favorites page of technorati, I watched two video clips. The first video clip was voted OK Go and was the famous "Here it Goes Again" with the 4 guys in suits on the treadmills. Wow, they must have really practiced lots. The second video was the FREE Hugs campaign where a guy holds up a sign that says Free Hugs and it takes awhile before people actually take free hugs. That was very inspiring. So it looks really easy to get videos recognized and out there. It's amazing how people come up with this stuff and even more amazing how quickly people become famous after a video posting.

There seems to be many advatages to tagging, the biggest one being that you organize and compare your information searching against others information seeking. Tagging seems to help set up one's personal library. A disadvantage might be trying to reorganize one's favorites through a different type of identification process. This takes some getting use to but maybe only initially.

Thing 15 = Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries and blog your thoughts. I read "Into a new world of librarianship." The main point of this article is that librarians need to sharpen their techno skills while keeping in mind what might be useful to library users. Librarians can be key players in using new web tools to help us better do our job and to forge innovative information seeking pathways. The whole point of being a Librarian 2.0 is to be creative and not afraid to make mistakes. A new school librarian looks to collarboration and implementing the best ideas while not being afraid to change one's information seeking worldview. I really liked this article and it seems totally relevant to working as a librarian today in the 21st century. This article also does well at explaing how library users are the ones who are creating content and new and improved ways to access info.

Next, I read "Away from Icebergs," in which the writer claims there are 3 ways to block the future success of libraries. The first iceberg is having "a just in case" library collection. I am so glad to be at a branch where weeding is a "good thing." So many librarians out there still get very upset when we want to get rid of old, outdated materials! Usually, it is on the web and we need to remember our online content will far outlast the physical material. I like the fact that we can now think of blogs as an information source. The second iceberg is having a library system where you need to be taught how to use it. The goal is to be as user friendly as possible. This totally makes sense. Sometimes, the staff does not even know how to best use our research tools which is a big problem and indicator that we still have much work to do. The last iceberg is the "come to us" model of service. We really need to remind ourselves to give customers what they want and need on their terms as opposed to our terms. People that need to find library info online need to be able to do so from any location they choose. I really identified with this article. I think that everyday I work one of these icebergs drifts in front of my path and I am constantly rowing my boat in the world wide web while showing others how to use their paddles as best I can.

Library 2.0 has become a way for me to catch up with learning the current technologies and how to best understand and apply them to how I navigate through this vast sea of information. It really has been the best life jacket thus far.

Week 5: Play Week - Thing 10 again (online image generator)

My creation,
originally uploaded by Rose Garden Rosebud.

Thing 10 = Yeah, I finally did it! This is so cool and I saved it to my computer! You have to be careful at how much you type because the words run together but it finally turned out ok.

Week 5: Play Week - Thing 10, 11 & 12

Thing 10 = For the online image generator, I made a silly love poem and printed it out but could not figure out how to save it. I will try again later in the next post.

Thing 11 = Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it and write a blog post about your findings. I checked out a few sites but really like propsmart.com. This is a realestate site where you can get listings of homes for sale and it shows you a detailed map of where they are located as well as pictures of some of these homes. And with last.fm you can create your own music library of your favorites have instant recommendations of similar artists.

Thing 12 = I created 2 searchrolls on ROLLYO, Haircuts & Styles and My Haircuts & Styles. This is a cool way to search for the stuff I want instead of just random searching. It is always hard to find a picture at the last minute to give to my hair stylist. This way I can have quick pics at my fingertips and I found a site where you can download a picture to see different hair styles actually superimposed over your own photograph. Now I know what I would look like with a mohawk. Ha!

Week 4: RSS & Newsreaders - Thing 8 & 9

Thing 8 = I set up my bloglines newsreader account with 13 feeds. Wow, this site is very cool. I subscribed to BBC World News as well as the Daily Show, just to name a few. And then I added the URL to my blog.

Thing 9 = I found and subscribed to the Librarians' Internet Index, The Shifted Librarian, and the NYT Book Review. This is a super great way to orgainize current bits of information.