This is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end!

Well, I made it. I did all the tasks, understood and enjoyed most, but most important I earned that day off! Right on, baby!

This was a great learning opportunity that the library encouraged staff to do, I really appreciate that the library is investing in staff learning.
Learning new things is always good, and the more we know about the web the more we can assist the public.

I hope the library continues to provide these types of programs for staff.

Some of my favorites --
Youtube
BlogLines
MySpace (already had an account)


Least Favorites --
Facebook - boring!
Instant Messaging
Twitter - YUCK!!

Killin' the Twitter bird but Tumblin' with Tumblr

Wow, almost done! Yeehaw.

So, I checked out Twitter and hated it! What the heck? No one wants to know that much about someone unless they are a stalker! Why would anyone waste their time logging on to that site, writing down the lame everyday activity they are currently doing and think that someone else in the world wants to know that they just had a cup of Joe? No thanks! Isn't there any mystery in relationships anymore?

Now, the Tumblr site I really liked? A lot like Bloglines but quicker to tag. I like that if I find an interesting website I just click the button and wham! it is on my Tumblr page. Very nice!

Videoland!

I added an awesome video to my blog about Cookie Monster in the library. A true classic.

These video websites are great, it is so nice to be able to find the most obscure things and add them to your blog, myspace page or whatever. The only thing I get tired of is the videos of scantily clad girls. It gets old.

YouTube and Sciencehack are my favorites. When I searched the other sites for videos every one of the videos I chose were videos from YouTube, so why use anything else? I'm sure there are reason, features or ease of use for uploading, but for my purposes YouTube works well.

Podcasting from the edge

Well, after a bunch of tries I finally got a podcast to play here on my computer at work. I have listened to podcasts before at home and though they are interesting, I just don't use them much. I did discover that I can listen to yoga podcasts on my ipod and I will start doing that for home practice. I did not find anything interesting to listen to about libraries so I ended up listening to Laura Bush read a story to school kids called "Mrs. Pickle." It wasn't very good, poor kids.

Music and Audio

This was interesting. I didn't get the radio thing at first, I mean why waste time with one of these sites when I can listen to my iPod or other music player? But, after talking with a work mate I can see where people would like this option. I personally could care less who else out there likes the same music I do, but others might want to talk to others that like the same bands or music style. Of the three sites offered I like Pandora best. It was fun to look up my favorite bands, watch videos and listen to music. One thing I liked about Last.fm was the top played list, I would use this to discover new bands I hadn't heard of before.
I thought that the Gutenberg.org site was torture! It is great that all these books are out there and someone has put them on the Internet for free for people to read, but good grief, I had eye strain after the first paragraph.
The one I loved was Mango Languages. I am trying to learn another language so this will be fun.

Google Docs -

This is very interesting. At first I could see that companies could really use this and that is about all, but after thinking about it and reading some more I see a whole lot of possibilities. I will start using this at home, since our new computer only came with a trail version of Microsoft Word and that is about done.

I am now trying to figure out how to post this on my blog and I am finding that I have to do a lot of digging to find out how to do some stuff. As I was digging I did find something that was kind of funny to me. Under Share, there is an option to "Email as attachment", isn't that what Lee LeFever in the video we had to watch at the beginning of this exercise said was so nice about Google Docs, that you did not have to email attachments to people? Whatever.

It just made me chuckle. :-)

Totally Cool Stuff!

I tried all of the suggested sites and liked most of them. Scrabulous and Wordshoot were my favorites. I was kind of annoyed with Sketchcast because you had to create an account to even try it out. With this Discover 2.0 program, I have made more accounts with different websites that I care to count and I did not want to make one more. It does look like a neat program though, I saw what a coworker did with his, and he did a awesome drawing.

Wicked Wiki

Wikis are definitely interesting. I use Wikipedia quite frequently and find that it is a very good source for quick information. As I was looking at the different wikis listed on the Discover 2.0 page I was disappointed with most of the sites. The information on the sites would be more appealing on a regular webpage. I did like the Wikihow, it always nice to know there are instructions out there on how to hire a bodyguard in case the need ever arises. :-) Wikimedia Commons was also fascinating, I am very visual and I loved the cool pictures, check out the picture above that I found while searching.
As for concerns about these kind of sites, I don't have many. I'm sure that there is bad information out there, but for every person who adds bad content to a page there is someone out there who is just inchin' to correct the information and then all is well.
We use pbwiki here at work to keep track of storytime themes, fingerplays and good books for school visits. I think that it is a great resource but I am never quite satisfied with it. I keep thinking, if I could only do this or I wish entering data was easier. For now, it's great but hopefully later I will find something that meets all my needs.

Good Read, Library Thang!

Pretty cool. I ended up making an account with both services to really get the feel of the two. Both had good and bad things about them. I thought that Library Thing had a better tutorial but Good Reads seemed to be easier to add books and notes to each book you entered. When I first was reading about these two services I was excited about being able to list all the books that our family owns, but after entering just a few titles I realized that cataloging all of our books would be very time consuming. I think that these services are great for people who want to keep track of the books that they have read during the year but not for going back and entering everything from the past.
I do like the little widget and where on Library Thing you can access your list on your phone, so when you are at the book store and are not sure if you have the book you can check.
I know a number of patrons who I will recommend these two sites to, but I don't know how much I will use them.

Technorati - ho hum

I was not as excited about Technorati as I have been about the other Web 2.0 lessons. First, the video link did not work and then the activities were kind of boring. When I was doing the activities I noticed that the most popular were either celebrity gossip or tech/gadget blogs, with news blogs following way behind in third. I was also surprised when I looked at the number of people who are subscribed to the blogs, that there were only a handful that had really high subscriber numbers. With how many billion (I forget) blogs out there that Technorati keeps track of, not that many people subscribe to them. So, it looks like there are a lot of people out there with tons to say and nobody is reading, or at least very few.
So, Technorati was just ho hum for me, nice to know what it is if someone ever talks about it but will I use it? No!

Mmmm Del.icio.us!!

What a great tool. I have not started an account but will soon. I can see this making searching your favorite sites much easier. I have tons of bookmarks on my computer here at work and it is a constant worry that some day this darn computer is going to crash and zip, all my bookmarks gone. Errrr! With a del.icio.us account I would not have to worry! Yea, sunny days.

I like the tagging part, this gives people so many options when they have large lists of sites and they need to find a page fast. As for the # of people who have also subscribed to this website, it is interesting but I would not use it much.

It would be nice to make one of these for our branch. It would be useful for those reader's adviosry questions.With the tags it would be so much easier for looking up that hard to find time period that all the sixth graders in the school district need. :-)

Play! Fun, Fun, Fun!

I loved this! I quickly lost track of time while doing this, but boy was it fun. My favorites were the Fortune Cookie, Add Letters and Billboard generators. This would be great for making funny cards for family and friends. I can see people who scrapbook really using this to add a little fun to their pages. I will have to try this more at home where all our pictures are on the computer.

Below are my favorites that I made.

Social Networks

I think it is great that libraries take the time to create accounts on social networking sights. It is a way to reach patrons that my not think of the library as a place for them. I love that the YAABs are creating spaces for the teens and hopefully we will have accounts for other library users. This is great space to announce upcoming programs and recommended reading. I am surprised that libraries seem to be concentrating on teens with these types of accounts and not other age groups. I know of a number of my "30 something" friends who have accounts with various social networking sights and they rarely use the library, but I think that they would be interested in knowing that something like this is out there for them. Why not target them, let them know what that the library has a page for them.

Meebo!

Well, I did it. I have a Meebo widget on my blog that will never be used. Yeah!! I did have some trouble getting the widget onto my blog but did finally get it there.
The whole IM thing is not me at all, if you want to talk, pick up the phone or email me and I will get back to you. I do think that patrons would love to have IM available to them for reference questions. I can see patrons from the deaf community using it and the 20 and 30 year crowd being interested in this kind of service. It give the impression that the library is up to date and current with how different people communicate. I would not like to see every branch having this service, it should be centralized. As for staff using this service, I think it would be used more for social interaction than work.

RSS - A Second Helping

I think this could be dangerous! I have lost control of myself and have signed up for so many feeds that my computer is going to implode. Once I got the hang of the feeds I really had fun looking at sites and adding the feeds to Bloglines. Technorati and Topix.net were my favorite and the easiest for me to use. Syndic8 was ok, but let's face it, just not as visually appealing as the others. Sadly I do judge a website by its layout.
I can see the library using feeds to keep up to date with breaking news or even getting new book titles and blurbs about books to teens and other interested library users. It may take another full time job to keep up with it all, but hey, isn't the library floatin' in cash? *smiles*

RSS Feeds -- Argh!

I finally did it!

This whole thing is intriguing, and I know a bunch of people who will find it to be very useful. I subscribed to several blogs and I will be glancing back at them in the next couple weeks, but I know that soon I will forget about this and never log on again. I don't think that it takes that much time to open my favorites and click on the site I want. RSS feeds are fun for now but not ideal for my use of the internet.
I did have a hard time at first with subscribing to the blogs, I had to reread the instructions several times before I got it. And then I was embarrassed because it was so simple in the end. DUH!!
So, for the next couple of weeks I will enjoy reading my Perez Hilton gossip, comic strips, and small farming news!

Flickr Mashups

At first the whole mashup thing confused me, but then I remembered I don't have to make one, I just can enjoy the mashups other people have made. I like the Spell with Flickr site. This was fun but does get old after awhile. My favorite by far was the Flickr Sudoku. I could play this all day long! The first one I got was pictures of hamsters. How funny.
I really didn't see any mashups that I would use for a long period time but it is interesting to know that these programs are out there.

Flickr

I love this! I had heard people talking about Flickr but I had not checked it out yet. I'm glad I did. I can see lots of uses for this type of site. I can't wait to start an account at home so my sis and I can exchange photos of the kids.
It does frighten me how many people do not put some of their photos to private. As I was looking around the site and checking out the photographs I came across some that put a blush on my face. :-) To each their own, I guess.
I did find a cute PT Cruiser that is a storytime vehicle, "Storytime-a-go-go" they call it. Too cute. I would love for our library to have a couple of these, and go around to schools, daycares and other agencies and do storytimes.

7 1/2 Habits

First Question - What will I find easiest and the hardest of the 7 1/2 Habits of the Lifelong Learning Habits?

If I am honest with myself, the first habit would be the hardest. Oh, I am great at beginning projects or things I want to learn, but finishing...that is the hard one. I am famous in my family for starting projects and learning new hobbies but after awhile I just sort of peter out. It is different at work, I think that is because I have to learn new things to stay up to date and be successful at my work. At home there is no deadline, just the guilt of not fully learning something as the items I purchased to learn the new "thing" are staring at me in the corner. :-) Hopefully this Web 2.0 process will help me at home as well as work.

The easiest of the 7 1/2 Habits is number 5, Create your own learning toolbox. I love to gather all the items I will need to learn a new skill. You would think this would make me more willing to complete the learning process, but I am always saying to myself, "Now, I have all the things I need, for when I have time to learn."

Let the gathering beginning!