Week 7, Thing 13: Library Thing

13. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.

I'm not sure I would ever really use LibraryThing for my personal library, but after I had looked at basically every link on the assignment page I decided that LibraryThing would, indeed, be a cool thing to add to my library web page to highlight some of the library's new acquisitions. I need to revamp my web page anyway, and when I do, I'll add that feature. Meanwhile, I set up a blog for my school library so I could put the LibraryThing widget on it. Linking to the blog on the website will be a much quicker fix than redoing my home page!

Hmmm... So what was the assignment and did I do everything I was supposed to? I created a LibraryThing account. I added at least 5 things to my library (though trying to remember "new" acquisitions from a few months ago strained my memory, since I was doing it from home!). And now I need to add a link to my LibraryThing catalog and I am done with week 7's assignments!

Week 7, Thing 12: Play around with an online image generator

So even though the folks who are all caught up are on week 8, here I am on week 7. Thank goodness for week 6 being a catch-up week. Maybe I can get caught up to the right week for the date soon!

I took a look at the sites that were linked on the assignment page and tried out a few, like the scolling typewriter text at screedbot. I'm sure I will go back and explore a few more of them further at some point. To really mess around online, though, I figured I'd try the Meez image generator. I noticed that a few other people (those "all caught up" types) had used it and thought it was pretty good stuff. And now, of course, I have yet another username and password to remember. I created an avatar that is definitely a much-better-looking version of me. Now to see if I can get it to show up here.

Looks like it worked. If only I was really that thin...

Week 5, Thing 11 : Set up a Facebook page

Facebook is going to be my social network of choice, mainly because my kids use it. Before I went to set up a page I checked out the resources linked on the assignment page. Watched the presentation: Michael Porter’s BIGWIG 2007 Facebook Presentation, which rambled on a bit, but did explain some of the applications available on Facebook. I thought it seemed like it would be a bit confusing to folks who are not already deeply into Web/Library2.0 use (but probably useful to those that are!) I also read "12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally" and it had a few good tips, as well as links to other useful things, like "Top 10 Facebook Apps: Work."

Done reading up on it, ready to sign up and create a Facebook page.

OK, that's done. I've added some applications, joined a few groups, invited people to befriend me. Now I have to wait for folks to confirm that they will be my friend. And I will no doubt have to tweak my profile and such.

Week 5, Thing 10: Explore social networks

I looked at all the pages linked on this assignment and I can see where many libraries could find social networks to be a good avenue for communicating with their teen patrons. I mean, these kids are online already, might as well approach them in a venue with which they are comfortable. I don't see as much use for it in my setting, which is an elementary school library serving PreK through grade 5. A lot of our students don't have access to the Internet at home and I don't think they'd get much chance at school to use this type of site. It would probably reach a few of our 4th and 5th graders who like to and have oppportunity to do things online, but I don't see it as anything with a broad base of users at this point.

My opinion on social networking in general is that it's a good thing as long as it doesn't take the place of face-to-face interactions. It can actually facilitate those, such as when my son and his friends set up an "event" on Facebook and invite folks to attend. They can see who's planning on going and even coordinate who's driving or whatever. Since so many teens use it, it can also keep them connected to people with whom they might otherwise lose touch, like high school classmates at different colleges. My daughter can use it to easily keep in touch with some of her cousins, who are spread across the country. Basically, there are good and bad aspects to it, just like with almost anything. (The obvious exception here is chocolate, which is only bad if you are allergic.)

Week 4, Thing 9: Locate a few useful library related blogs and/or news feeds.

I browsed around and found a few blogs that look interesting. I decided to narrow it down by subscribing to blogs that contain reviews of children's books, something useful to my job and that I might actually use at work. Of course, in my travels I came across a link from Roger Sutton's blog (thanks to being reminded of it by Julie's comment) which led me to the New Yorker's Humor section, so I had to subscribe to that, too. And to Roger's blog, which I hadn't remembered to look at since right after he spoke at the Red Clover Conference. Now I see that if I had learned about RSS feeds earlier, I might have been reading his blog all along!

I think I have done this week's tasks to death!

Week 4, Thing 8: RSS feeds (part 2)

OK, so I got Sage set up on my Firefox browser and then I managed to figure out how to subscribe to blogs with it. I was wondering what one does when there is not that handy RSS icon on a web page or a link that says "subscribe." Actually Sage makes finding feeds on a site easy, so that was a quick thing to figure out, without even resorting to reading a tutorial. It took me a bit longer to figure out how to do it with Google Reader, but not long -- yes, I had to read the directions, then it was easy. I decided to subscribe to some of the same sites/blogs on both readers, see how they look, and after test-driving them awhile, I'll decide which one I like best.

Week 4, Thing 8: RSS feeds (part 1)

"Learn about RSS feeds and set up your own feed reader." I admit this one seemed a bit daunting compared to the other tasks thus far, mainly because I have zero experience with RSS feeds. After reading the assignment, the first thing I did was watch the video "RSS in Plain English." It was awesome. Brief, entertaining, and informative. After watching it, I felt like I was ready to start setting up a feed reader, no worries. Now to go learn more about the different ones and make a choice.

Well, I looked at the home page for FeedReader and it had an almost overwhelming amount of info on all the marvelous things it could do for me. I had already decided not to use it, though, because the computer I mainly use for this course hasn't exactly got the largest hard drive and just doesn't need one more thing installed on it. Still, I had to check it out in the interest of being thorough (or perhaps it's just more evidence that I am somewhat obsessive-compulsive, but why split hairs?) Next, I looked briefly at Bloglines. I realized at this point that I had no idea what features I should actually care about. Perhaps I was a bit overconfident jumping in so quickly and ought to go back and try the "Feed Me" tutorial. It had screenshots from several of the readers, which was the only thing that kept me going -- the "RSS in Plain English" video was a much more appealing presentation of the material! Back to looking at readers. The sample screenshots from all of these things look pretty similar at first glance, so I'm finding it hard to see why I ought to choose one over another.

On to Google Reader. Hey, I already have a Google account; these guys are ready for me to jump right in, which is very appealing. But wait, what about Sage? I already use Firefox as my browser, so adding Sage to it would be an easy thing to try. But there is almost no info on the Sage download page to tell me what it can do for me. (Good thing there is a page with info from our 23 Things gurus!) Oh, how I hate making these decisions. What the heck, I'll try them both.

Week 3, #7 : anything technology related

The assignment was to "Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week." What to choose? Well, I went to our first district technology committee meeting of the year yesterday. One of the topics of discussion was how to get more teachers to put up web pages on the district site. The tech guys make it pretty simple -- if you want, you can just e-mail them a document you want on there (like a weekly classroom newsletter) and they'll put it up as a web page. Right now there are only two of us with web pages in my school and both of us have been at it for a while (and do more than e-mailing a simple document). The history teacher on the committee is ready to start by posting his weekly assignments. For my part I am working on finding at least one more elementary teacher willing to take the plunge.

Week 3, #6 : Flickr Fun

I played around with a few of the mashups (first I had to figure out what "mashups" meant -- could have saved myself stress by remembering to read the assignment for #6 before worrying about it during #5!). I had been reading other folks blogs and seeing the things they made with Spell with Flickr and the trading card maker so I tried the spelling one. I liked the fact that you could click on an individual letter in your word and get a new image for just that letter, giving you the ability to create just the effect you are looking for (if you have patience enough to click till it's just right!) Then I tried playing Sudoku. I agree with the person who blogged about that and said it would be cooler if you could do it with your own photos, but there does not seem to be a way. Unless you created some truly unique tag for your photos in Flickr and used that tag to select photos for the game...

Week 3, Thing 5 : explore Flickr

Well, I have been mucking about on Flickr a few times now. I browsed around the first time, searching for things by tags like "Vermont" and "libraries" and looking at the group created for this course. I admit to being a bit obsessive-compulsive (I mean, we all have to be, a bit, to keep everything organized in our libraries, right?) and right off the bat I noticed a photo with a Vermont tag that had an error in the caption. Of course I had to create a Flickr account right away so I could comment on the photo. Now let's see if I can link to the photo here in case you want to check it out. (BTW, the original poster did fix the caption!) OK, so I had issues with getting the photo to show up here, but I know enough html to at least adapt, so instead of a weird little empty box, you can click on words...

Week 2, Thing 3: Set up your own blog. (part 2)

My daughter, away at college, asked what fun things I'd been doing today and I explained I'd started working on this "23 Things" project to learn more about Web 2.0 things, setting up a blog... "Wait, you have a blog??" She's now awaiting/dreading the assignment where I create a Facebook page. (I told her she has to "friend" me, of course.) Isn't it nice we're never too old to (potentially) embarrass our children? :-)

Week 2, Thing 4: Register your blog

E-mailed Mara at the DOL, so I guess i can cross this "thing" off my to-do list.

I have been looking at other participant's blogs and am amazed at all the things people find to write about. I guess I'd better add "be more creative with blog postings" to that list of mine...

Week 2, Thing 3: Set up your own blog.

Done!

Week 1, Thing 2: Pointers from Lifelong Learners

I have to say, the pointers were not anything new, as most of us found. Having said that, I suppose having it all in one list of 7 1/2 things is a handy way to break it down. Of the 7 1/2 things, I find it fairly easy to have confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner. The hard thing for me would be beginning with the end in mind, I guess. Deciding on a goal is the trickiest thing; it means I have to prioritize and make some kind of decision. It was hard enough for me to decide on a title for this blog! Once the "thing" is decided on, I am confident in being able to do it, though.

Week 1, Thing 1: About This Program

Learning about new-ish technologies in bite-sized chunks sounds like a good way to try these things out. And it doesn't hurt to have a friend doing it at the same time and prodding me along!