Friday, March 9, 2007

Dummies Display

Here's the link to our display: http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-291827.html

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Podcasts, Video, and Downloadable Audio

20.1 I love YouTube! Whenever I want an '80's" fix, I log on and watch music videos that I used to watch when I was a kid. I also like all the Harry Potter spoofs: puppet shows, fan-made trailers, and funny shorts.

20.2 Yes, there are quite a few applications that can be used in the library. One I can think of would be related to Reading Readiness, a preschool reading program, which Nora Conte supported. Not only would the children and parents present at the classes benefit, but also customers on the Web. This could be a form of distance learning that libraries have not had the resources to support. These classes would either benefit staff with training or with the public, who could view classes they missed or cannot attend.

21.1-3 Wow, one podcaster I immediately noticed was Sunnyvale Public Library! They have some community information shows, buy my interest was piqued by the Podcast for Storytime Pre-Walkers! Wow, that is really a super way to get the public interested in storytimes!

I do enjoy podcasts on one of my favorite websites, Mugglenet.com. Every week, the staff discuss theories and life in general.

22.1-2 It seems that a lot of e-books are non-fiction on our website. The Project Gutenberg is fantastic! It looks like being a proofreader is a wonderful way to donate one's time!

23.1 I really liked all the possible usages of wikis. There is a lot of possible collaborations that can be made in this area! Its very exciting.

23.2-3 I finished Library School about five plus years ago and there are so many new technologies out there! It makes me realize that I must not fall behind in learning new technological advances. Learning 2.0 has just given me a snippet of what I am missing!

23.4 I think the most important change to address was in the RSS-Newsfeed exercise in Week 4. I think tackling the search tools in Exercise 9 should be done before adding the 10 RSS feeds in Exercise 8. If I had looked at #9 first, I would have had an easier time finding the 10 RSS feeds. Otherwise, I loved this exercise and would like to see future exercises that expose us to new (and free!) technologies!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Online Applications and Tools

18.1-3 It seems that the need for more hard drive space on the computer is coming to an end! Many applications seem to be moving to the Web, so the necessity of saving onto a drive seems unnecessary. I did try ZohoWriter and was impressed by the similarities to Word. However, there is a limited number of fonts. I do like the direct exports to this blog, for instance.

19.1 Wow! I love this website! When the little ones are all off to school and I have some time on my hands, I will try to catalog some of my favorite books!

19.2 For now, reality sets in and I realize that will be some years down the road. I did add five books. See discussion below:

19.3 I chose one book I was sure would have many versions: Harry Potter and the Sorcerers' Stone. As expected, there were about 9 pages. What was annoying was that the list seemed to be randomly ordered, as opposed to an ordered listing. Thus, the paperback version that I have was listed on the 4th page! I also looked for a book from an online publisher, and lo and behold it was there! One title, a Hawaiian publication, was not listed. I had the pleasure of adding this title to Library Thing! For my fourth title, I chose the newest UNPUBLISHED version of Harry Potter. There were about 40 people who have it listed as a title in their library! I am guessing they ordered a copy on Amazon and are considering it as already on their shelf???? For the fifth title, I tried to find an obscure guilty pleasure read from the 1970's but I couldn't locate it. I had to resort to a favorite easy reader. Here is my personal library URL:
My Library

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Wikis

Wikis are a wonderful way to collaborate with peers! This is so exciting because wikis allow collaboration not only with other San Jose Public Library staff, but all with librarians all over the world! This takes the typical website a step further, because it allows others to correct misinformation. I am very excited about the possibilities.

16.1 There are so many possible collaborative horizons: sharing conference information, ideas, practices, and staff development.

16.2 I like the idea of sharing program ideas. I also like the idea of staff development. Perhaps people who are shy about contributing in meetings will feel more free online.

17. Phew! Thank goodness there were other people who have already finished adding their blog to the favorites! I needed to look at the previous entries to see what I needed to do. First, you need to change from "wiki" to "URL". Then you have to add the URL for your blog. I was confused as to what "link text" meant; I haven't coded html in a long time. Finally, I remembered that "link text" is what will show on the web page as a representation of the link.

Tagging, Folksonomies, and Technorati

13.1-2 The tutorial was really quite explanatory. I was actually expecting a food site! =-) I was surprised to see that many other people have already taken a look at the SJLibrary site and have comments!

13.3 I clicked on "Theory" and discovered that there are a whole slew of tags associated with the article. Are they all related and helpful? For instance, what is "toread"? This is a tag that would be useful to the tag-maker but would not be useful to someone who is not familiar with the terminology.

13.4 The obvious usefulness is that libraries can assist by making a directory of tags used in sites like del.cio.us, so that there is some consistent usage of tags.

14.1 Yes!!! 34,081 in blog posts; 232 in tags; and 302 in the blog directory. This means that Learning 2.0 was mentioned 34,081 times in all blogs. Of that, only 232 were tagged as Learning 2.0. 302 are actually blogs about Learning 2.0

14.2 I was not too surprised by popular blogs. I was surprised to find that people were searching for more information about Paris Hilton's friend, rather than Paris Hilton. I did not see a list of popular tags, though!

14.3 Its nice to know that there are websites that are devoted to cataloging blogs. Because people can use feeds to notify themselves of news on their favorite topics, its necessary to have blog directories.

15.1 Tagging is something between formal subject headings and keywords. The obvious advantage is that searching with tags is not as random as using keywords. Its useful to clubs or secret societies as well; they can use specialized tags, which only members can understand. Of course, tagging is disadvantageous if the meaning of the tag is obscure. It can also be disadvantageous if many people use different tags to mean the same thing. At some point, someone will have to make a compendium of tags, like a dictionary, so that tags will have a commonly agreed upon definition.

15.2 I enjoyed "To a Temporary Place in Time". The author sounded truly excited about the future possibilities in libraries because of Library 2.0. Its exciting to think about all the possible applications we can implement. Libraries are already very different from how they were just ten years ago! Its astonishing to think how we can use the new web technologies to really meet the needs of individual users.

15.3 I agree with the Wikipedia assessment that Library 2.0 means that we will forever be in beta mode. We cannot allow inertia to take a hold of us; we must constantly be striving to learn new technologies if we want to meet the needs of our technophile public. It may seem stressful to think about learning all these new technologies. However, if one keeps up with emerging technology, stress will be minimal. In other words, Library 2.0 comes at an opportune time for anyone who is unfamiliar with these technologies to jump aboard all at the same time. Then, it will be up to each individual to ensure that the learning never stagnates.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Play Time

Ah! What a relief! Some fun stuff after all that RSS cataloging!

10. I especially liked the Horror Story Generator. It reminded me of Mad Libs! The Flickr Toy Shop is something I already looked at in Flickr, so I skipped it.

11. I tried out many games of my youth at Arcaplay! One game, called Munchy Man, seems to be a rip off of Pac Man. I wonder about the copyright issues for all these old school games!

12. Rollyo seems to be an updated version of the meta search engines of the past, like Metaeureka. This seems to be something that could replace the old pathfinders of the past.

RSS Feeds

As I continue to do these exercises, I am continuously amazed by what we are now capable of doing on the Internet! With news aggregators, I often find that what I read in the newspaper is just a repeat of what I've already read the day before! Extraneous information seems to be a thing of the past! I wonder, however, if we are losing a broad knowledge about everyday events by depending upon personalized news. We might be missing out on news that the RSS feeds filter out from our information stream.

Well, back to business:
8. I have opened a Blogline account and added 11 RSS feeds. This was quite an exhaustive exercise; I had to spend quite a while looking for blogs that were current and topically interesting. The public Blogline account is: http://www.bloglines.com/public/AMomsMusings

9. This exercise might have been more helpful if it had come before number 8! I tried all the feeders and found Syndic8 the most useful! I used one topic in all the feeders and this one was the only one that pulled blogs that were most related to my topic.