#23 Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog
I guess my favorite thing about this program was that it got me to try a lot of things that I knew I should do, but just hadn't made time for. Now when people talk about blogs, RSS feeds, wikis, and podcasts, I have a clue what they are talking about. Not only that, I actually have a blog, am associated with a few wikis, and even connect with a few other librarians through social bookmarking. And as a bonus, I had a reason for messing around with some fun things and with the excuse that I was doing it for a course! Like creating a Facebook page, which has helped keep me connected to some of my nieces and nephews that live in other states. Not to mention having some lovely chats online with Mara. :-)
What will I take away with me and keep using? Well, I'm going to try using things like wikis and Google Docs to collaborate with colleagues at work and in our professional organization. I may try some things with students, like book blogs. And, partly spurred on by the 23 Things, we are thinking of making Web 2.0 the focus of the VSLA fall conference (of which, frighteningly, I am the co-chair).
Things I have already used for other purposes than just completing tasks for this course:
RSS feeds, wikis, Del.icio.us, Pandora, Facebook.
And things I know I'll keep using:
for work: RSS feeds, wikis, Del.icio.us, Google Docs, probably Library Thing, maybe podcasts;
and for personal use: all of the above (except maybe not Library Thing), plus Pandora & Facebook.
I enjoyed being able to work at my own pace and felt very little guilt about not ever working on any"thing" the same week it was assigned. There were weeks that I was far too busy to even think about working on tasks for the course and other weeks I worked on several of them. For a future offering of the 23 Things it might be good to spread it over a longer time, maybe with two weeks for each of the ten topics, or one week per Thing. That would give people more time to really check out each topic in depth, without feeling rushed. Perhaps you would also want to consider making it available in smaller bites, for those folks who don't want to tackle 23 new things but could maybe manage 5 or 10? Just a thought. I would participate in another of these courses, depending on the topic, if the DOL decided to offer some.
One thing I noticed while I was working through the course was that my obsessive need to try pretty much every link in a lesson sometimes led me to read or watch things that I couldn't make much sense of the first time through. Most of these incomprehensible things became clear if I waited until after exploring the basics of the "thing" in question before attempting to understand the "extras." Perhaps a warning message like, "now go try it out and don't even think about clicking on any of the links below until you feel comfortable with the basics!"
My final comment (ha! like you can really shut me up!): despite the fact that a few people commented that with this online course they missed the face-to-face aspect of sharing learning with others, I have to say that
a) That didn't really bother me, personally;
b) I sometimes went and read what other people blogged about some of the things, especially if I felt like I wasn't getting what was so great about it, and commenting back and forth with people can be a connection if you take advantage of it; and
c) I actually met at least one person face to face that I never would have known if I hadn't participated in this course. (Hi, Rhonda!)
In other words, for me it was a good experience and I learned a lot.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Week 11, Thing 22: Podcasts
#22: Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts.
Podcasts are one of those things I have heard of but never took time to learn about, so this "thing" will be good inducement for that. Naturally I started out by going to every link on the lesson page. I enjoyed the Springfield Town Library Children's Room podcasts. I tried out all the Book Beginnings quizzes and did pretty well. (What a relief! If I had failed that might mean I was not good at my job!) At the PLCMC Teen Pages I listened to an author talk about how he got the idea for one of his books (which I read a few years ago) and at the Denver Public Library site I listened to a few picture books being read in their entirety. I listened to a story being told at the Orange County Library System site and, since it's a folktale that I've read to kids myself, it was interesting to hear how someone else told it. I think I could put the podcasts from the Worthington Libraries to good use for planning kindergarten and preschool storytimes -- they have children's rhymes and songs recorded. So if I forget the words to Five Little Ducks, I'm all set. My iPod was already plugged into the computer so I decided it would be a good time to see how the iTunes podcast thing works. I downloaded a few things to iTunes on my computer that sounded like they might be interesting to listen to, but not everything could then be transferred to my iPod. I can see I might have to read some instructions so I'll know how to tell which will work and which won't. I went to several of the other podcast directories that were linked in this lesson. The user-friendliness varied and some of them would not be wise to open up in a school setting, but others seemed OK. The Education Podcast Network sounded promising, but I was a little flummoxed by how some things were categorized. I tried the Information Skills category and included in it were such things as Just Baby Names, The Business Side of Music, and How to Sell Your Car. Somehow none of these fit under my definition of information skills. The last site I checked out looked quite useful: the SirsiDynix Institute's free web seminars. The ones I thought sounded interesting were all an hour long, though, so I'll wait until I'm ready to digest that much info. I did subscribe to a few sites with podcasts by using RSS feeds. I may go back and also try subscribing to one using iTunes just to see how that would work and which method I prefer. I don't think I'd want to deal with all the copyright issues involved in recording whole books, and I also don't see that as being something my library needs at this point. But I could see having students do brief book review podcasts or making up book-related quizzes for other kids to try. When I decide I'm ready to take on creating podcasts, I'll go back and go through the tutorials, but for now I'll settle for figuring out how to find them and what to do with them. I can see that a good resource for the future would be the Podcasting – Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki page.
Podcasts are one of those things I have heard of but never took time to learn about, so this "thing" will be good inducement for that. Naturally I started out by going to every link on the lesson page. I enjoyed the Springfield Town Library Children's Room podcasts. I tried out all the Book Beginnings quizzes and did pretty well. (What a relief! If I had failed that might mean I was not good at my job!) At the PLCMC Teen Pages I listened to an author talk about how he got the idea for one of his books (which I read a few years ago) and at the Denver Public Library site I listened to a few picture books being read in their entirety. I listened to a story being told at the Orange County Library System site and, since it's a folktale that I've read to kids myself, it was interesting to hear how someone else told it. I think I could put the podcasts from the Worthington Libraries to good use for planning kindergarten and preschool storytimes -- they have children's rhymes and songs recorded. So if I forget the words to Five Little Ducks, I'm all set. My iPod was already plugged into the computer so I decided it would be a good time to see how the iTunes podcast thing works. I downloaded a few things to iTunes on my computer that sounded like they might be interesting to listen to, but not everything could then be transferred to my iPod. I can see I might have to read some instructions so I'll know how to tell which will work and which won't. I went to several of the other podcast directories that were linked in this lesson. The user-friendliness varied and some of them would not be wise to open up in a school setting, but others seemed OK. The Education Podcast Network sounded promising, but I was a little flummoxed by how some things were categorized. I tried the Information Skills category and included in it were such things as Just Baby Names, The Business Side of Music, and How to Sell Your Car. Somehow none of these fit under my definition of information skills. The last site I checked out looked quite useful: the SirsiDynix Institute's free web seminars. The ones I thought sounded interesting were all an hour long, though, so I'll wait until I'm ready to digest that much info. I did subscribe to a few sites with podcasts by using RSS feeds. I may go back and also try subscribing to one using iTunes just to see how that would work and which method I prefer. I don't think I'd want to deal with all the copyright issues involved in recording whole books, and I also don't see that as being something my library needs at this point. But I could see having students do brief book review podcasts or making up book-related quizzes for other kids to try. When I decide I'm ready to take on creating podcasts, I'll go back and go through the tutorials, but for now I'll settle for figuring out how to find them and what to do with them. I can see that a good resource for the future would be the Podcasting – Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki page.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Week 11, Thing 21: Video
#21 Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos
I've watched videos many times on YouTube, including videos about libraries and librarians (ninja librarians, anyone?), so the whole YouTube concept is not a new one for me. But I do enjoy a good excuse to watch more! I checked out most of the videos that were linked from the lesson and went to most of the video sharing sites as well. I had heard of TeacherTube, but had not used it before, so I decided to search for "library" on that site. I found a whole series of videos about collaboration between teachers and librarians. These videos, by "Dr. Loopy", have some humor to them and include parodies of TV shows and movies. These include the Bionic Librarian, America Idle: Information Resources, and Codee Books: Library Agent, which I will embed in this entry. The Librarian and Classroom Teacher Collaboration presentation is in 4 parts, which total 35+ minutes; clips showing just the show parodies are posted separately. I watched them all to see if they have enough new information to merit showing any of them at staff meetings. The teachers in my school are pretty good about the type of collaboration depicted in the videos, so I don't think I will use them in that way. I'd recommend them to any school librarians who are having trouble getting teachers to see the benefits of collaborating.
Although I am not currently interested in posting any videos, I did watch the 3-minute video on "How do I make a video?", and even though I was never a Bob Ross painting show watcher, I have seen enough of him to appreciate the host of this how-to, "Rob Boss." I also checked out many of the links under "Fun extra" at the end of the lesson. The 1987 - Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad was a bit of a trip down memory lane, not just because I lived through the era of huge eyeglasses and high-waisted pants that was the 1980s, but I went to ASU during that time and spent some time in the Hayden Library. Not sure if I ever encountered Betty Glover...
I've watched videos many times on YouTube, including videos about libraries and librarians (ninja librarians, anyone?), so the whole YouTube concept is not a new one for me. But I do enjoy a good excuse to watch more! I checked out most of the videos that were linked from the lesson and went to most of the video sharing sites as well. I had heard of TeacherTube, but had not used it before, so I decided to search for "library" on that site. I found a whole series of videos about collaboration between teachers and librarians. These videos, by "Dr. Loopy", have some humor to them and include parodies of TV shows and movies. These include the Bionic Librarian, America Idle: Information Resources, and Codee Books: Library Agent, which I will embed in this entry. The Librarian and Classroom Teacher Collaboration presentation is in 4 parts, which total 35+ minutes; clips showing just the show parodies are posted separately. I watched them all to see if they have enough new information to merit showing any of them at staff meetings. The teachers in my school are pretty good about the type of collaboration depicted in the videos, so I don't think I will use them in that way. I'd recommend them to any school librarians who are having trouble getting teachers to see the benefits of collaborating.
Although I am not currently interested in posting any videos, I did watch the 3-minute video on "How do I make a video?", and even though I was never a Bob Ross painting show watcher, I have seen enough of him to appreciate the host of this how-to, "Rob Boss." I also checked out many of the links under "Fun extra" at the end of the lesson. The 1987 - Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad was a bit of a trip down memory lane, not just because I lived through the era of huge eyeglasses and high-waisted pants that was the 1980s, but I went to ASU during that time and spent some time in the Hayden Library. Not sure if I ever encountered Betty Glover...
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Week 10, Thing 20: Web 2.0 awards
#20 Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it, and write a blog post about your findings.
I decided to check out the "short" list of award winners first, rather than the comprehensive list of nominees. (The more comprehensive list, which includes honorable mentions, is annotated, though, which is helpful.) I noticed a number of sites on the list that I have already visited, some because of the 23 Things, like Technorati, Library Thing, Google Docs, Del.icio.us, Flickr, pbWiki, etc.; and some i have used completely independent of this course, like Google Maps. I looked briefly at a few, like the bookmarking site Ma.gnolia, but since I already have a Del.icio.us account I wasn't ready to join Ma.gnolia in order to fully explore it and see what might be different (perhaps better) than Del.icio.us. The winner in the Books category, Lulu, is a totally different type of thing than Library thing, which was the second place winner. Lulu is for creating publications, selling them, or purchasing those of others. I found it interesting that two such different applications were winners in the same category. I appreciated that Lulu had a video tour that let me see what it did without having to join.
I looked at Meebo, which is web-based instant messaging that lets you "chat with your buddies on every major IM network in a single buddylist." I can definitely see the value in that. I generally use AIM, but I also have an MSN Messenger account, since that's what my daughter's friends and "family" in Peru use, as well as our former exchange student who lives in Japan. I rarely think to log onto MSN, thus missing out on the chance to communicate with these folks. I decided it was worth creating an account and now I can see my AIM contacts and my MSN contacts all in one list. It seems to function similarly to the last version of AIM I used to use. Not bad. Oh, no -- a problem. Even though I have it set to do so, no noise is played when I receive a new message. I kept our Chilean exchange student waiting for a reply without even knowing he was messaging me. Well, nothing is perfect. *sigh*
I'm off to explore more of the sites on the list.
a little later...
Week 10, Thing 20: more Web 2.0 awards
Just a few notes on some of the other award-winning sites I explored:
One Sentence is a fun read, appropriately enough, since it was the second-place winner in the category "Fun Stuff." Fuzzmail could be mildly entertaining, but I can't imagine I'd really use it.
I played some games on Arcaplay and now I know where to find Space Invaders, in case I need to relive my formative years. **Note: this site has apparently changed since I originally wrote this post. So I took out the link and the game I had embedded. (Sigh. No more Space Invaders!)
Another game site, Guess the Google, was fast-paced and a little frustrating, but I had a hard time quitting -- "just have to try once more to beat this thing..." Try it!
It may have become apparent that I mostly tried out the "fun" sites, rather than the more productive ones. :-) I figure at least I'll know where to go and look for things when I need them. A useful skill, n'est-ce pas? For instance, the music site Pandora looks interesting, and I'll probably register there one of these days. It appears that I can use it to play music (that I actually like), which I might want to do when I am working late, without having to have something like iTunes downloaded onto my work computer. Some of the Search category winners let you create a customized search engine, which sounds intriguing. And after I do the podcasting stuff in the next week's "thing" I may find I'd like to explore the winners in that category. Plenty of time for all that!
I decided to check out the "short" list of award winners first, rather than the comprehensive list of nominees. (The more comprehensive list, which includes honorable mentions, is annotated, though, which is helpful.) I noticed a number of sites on the list that I have already visited, some because of the 23 Things, like Technorati, Library Thing, Google Docs, Del.icio.us, Flickr, pbWiki, etc.; and some i have used completely independent of this course, like Google Maps. I looked briefly at a few, like the bookmarking site Ma.gnolia, but since I already have a Del.icio.us account I wasn't ready to join Ma.gnolia in order to fully explore it and see what might be different (perhaps better) than Del.icio.us. The winner in the Books category, Lulu, is a totally different type of thing than Library thing, which was the second place winner. Lulu is for creating publications, selling them, or purchasing those of others. I found it interesting that two such different applications were winners in the same category. I appreciated that Lulu had a video tour that let me see what it did without having to join.
I looked at Meebo, which is web-based instant messaging that lets you "chat with your buddies on every major IM network in a single buddylist." I can definitely see the value in that. I generally use AIM, but I also have an MSN Messenger account, since that's what my daughter's friends and "family" in Peru use, as well as our former exchange student who lives in Japan. I rarely think to log onto MSN, thus missing out on the chance to communicate with these folks. I decided it was worth creating an account and now I can see my AIM contacts and my MSN contacts all in one list. It seems to function similarly to the last version of AIM I used to use. Not bad. Oh, no -- a problem. Even though I have it set to do so, no noise is played when I receive a new message. I kept our Chilean exchange student waiting for a reply without even knowing he was messaging me. Well, nothing is perfect. *sigh*
I'm off to explore more of the sites on the list.
a little later...
Week 10, Thing 20: more Web 2.0 awards
Just a few notes on some of the other award-winning sites I explored:
One Sentence is a fun read, appropriately enough, since it was the second-place winner in the category "Fun Stuff." Fuzzmail could be mildly entertaining, but I can't imagine I'd really use it.
I played some games on Arcaplay and now I know where to find Space Invaders, in case I need to relive my formative years. **Note: this site has apparently changed since I originally wrote this post. So I took out the link and the game I had embedded. (Sigh. No more Space Invaders!)
Another game site, Guess the Google, was fast-paced and a little frustrating, but I had a hard time quitting -- "just have to try once more to beat this thing..." Try it!
It may have become apparent that I mostly tried out the "fun" sites, rather than the more productive ones. :-) I figure at least I'll know where to go and look for things when I need them. A useful skill, n'est-ce pas? For instance, the music site Pandora looks interesting, and I'll probably register there one of these days. It appears that I can use it to play music (that I actually like), which I might want to do when I am working late, without having to have something like iTunes downloaded onto my work computer. Some of the Search category winners let you create a customized search engine, which sounds intriguing. And after I do the podcasting stuff in the next week's "thing" I may find I'd like to explore the winners in that category. Plenty of time for all that!
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