Week 10, #23: The End

My favorite activity was probably creating the avatars. I enjoyed the variety of avatars available, and it was fun creating a personal mask!


This program has really emphasized how quickly web capabilities change. I need to be more vigilant about keeping up with the new technologies. Bloglines, with its RSS feeds, should help with this, and I was unfamiliar with Bloglines before this program.

We are planning to offer community workshops on the 23 Things in the spring. This will make me review the things we have learned throughout the program, which is good. Perhaps I will come across new Web 2.0 technologies that I would like to explore.

Week 9, #22: Downloadable Media

OK, I absolutely love HCPL's audiobooks! My Christmas present last year was an MP3 player that was compatible with the system, and I have used it well. I'm glad to find out about the LibriVox and Wowio websites, too. I downloaded some poems from LibriVox onto my MP3 player. I like the fact that they offer various readings of the works, so we can choose which readers we prefer.

I still prefer using HCPL's audiobooks. I don't think it is easy getting started, because you must download the software, then download the book, then download it onto your MP3 player, and hopefully you have a player that will accommodate your audiobooks. My first player did not. Once you have successfully downloaded a couple of items, however, it's very simple.

I may be improving with podcasts, too. I just added the RSS feed for LibriVox to my blog, and it works! Yea!

Week 9, #21: Podcasts

I found this exercise to be very confusing and inordinately time-consuming. After much frustration, I finally was able to add a video games podcast to my blog, although I sort of stumbled through the process. My boys love playing and reading about video games, and so I was looking for a way to keep up with the vast number of games that are released. I do like the way the entries change on my blog each time a new entry is added to the podcast!

Week 9, #20: YouTube and other video sites

I found an enchanting video titled, "Dreams," about Down Syndrome children and teens. They are expressing their hopes for the future, and many of them express these hopes very well, indeed. The topic is near and dear to me, because I have a 55 year old Down Syndrome sister who is charming in her own right. This is a video that tugs at the heartstrings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_-P4t2jR1g

I like playing around in YouTube. It's fun to see some of the videos. Some of them can be tedious, however. I can certainly see how library websites might use a video as a means of highlighting certain programs that the library offers or as a teaching video, like the videos that were made for ihcpl.

Week 8, #19 -- Web-based Applications

I played around with some of the Zoho applications, and created the document below. It's nice, and I like having the icons for action button, but I really miss the Help feature of MS Word.

Zoho practice document

This is Pretty Cool

 

This is pretty cool, and I did not realize that this was available.  However, I am having some trouble with it.  I really like some aspects of the toolbar, because having an icon for many of the actions is nice.  I miss the Help feature of MS Word, however!  I typed one document and somehow changed the title heading style, and I could not change it back. 

 

It is fun _{and I learn} from ^{playing around with it.}

 

I love the ease of changing colors!

 

---

1. And adding horizontal rules
   1. And changing spacing
      • And adding page breaks
        •  And bullets

 

But, there is not as much variety in some aspects, such as font, outline choices, bullet choices, etc.  Also, I tried to spell check my document and was told that it was unable to do it and to try back later. 

 

This would be nice for someone who does not have access to MS Word, however.

Technorati Tags     ihcpl,23Things

Week 8, #18: Social Networking

I looked around some of the social networking sites, and I registered with Facebook and with Ning. I tried unsuccessfully to locate people that I knew in library school and high school. Too bad. :(

I like Ning better than some of the other networks, because it allows me to join a group based on my interests. I found several ferret social networks; however some of them consisted of a group of one: the creator.

I don't often sit at the computer just for entertainment, and I still think that I would prefer to use the telephone to chat with someone.

Week 7, #16 & 17-- Wikis and Technology

Week 7, #16 -- Wikis
Our library actually has a wiki for internal use. We can use it to let one another know about situations, class projects, current displays, etc. that are going on in our library. This is just another avenue for communication besides e-mail. The drawback is that it is only as good as the members who remember to post to it!


Week 7, #17 -- Technology
As my son was working on a research paper for his English class, I was thinking of how much easier, in one sense, research and preparation are today. I was one of the fortunate ones, because I had an electric typewriter in college. In addition, my professors frequently allowed us to use erasable bond paper, so that we weren't forced to retype a sheet or paint it with White-Out if we made a typing error. How much easier it is today, however, to type your paper, change the font size, erase entire paragraphs, have your spelling checked, block your type, and even automatically have your footnotes placed at the bottom of a page.

Does he need a resource? With a few clicks of the computer he has access to electronic books and journal articles on his topic. No more pouring through volume after volume of paper indexes. However, citations have become more onerous.

Changing subjects: One of my favorite technology candies is downloading audio books from eBranch onto my MP3 player! I love this!!!

Week 6, #15 -- Perspectives on Web 2.0

I believe that the most significant improvements are those that Web 2.0 can bring to library services, such as using an open WorldCat, providing graphical means of searching by place, or using collective tags to make items more easily searchable. The harnessing of collective intelligence is a tool that will help libraries as well as their users.

Week 6, #14 -- Technorati

I spent some time in Technorati and found that a keyword search in posts (972), tags (672), and directory (775) yielded different results. This is not surprising, since people tag different ways and frequently may not tag at all. I searched through favorites, and I searched for blogs on hummingbirds and Rockport, Texas, since that is a topic that is of interest to me. I found 4. I elected not to claim my current blog. Perhaps in the future I may create a blog on hummingbirds and claim that one.

Week 6 -- #13, Tagging with del.icio.us

I created a del.icio.us account last year, and really haven't used it. Today, as I was working on this assignment, I attended a library program presented by one of our geography profs that really slammed home the power of tagging. He showed us a film clip about Photosynth, a new technology that takes images from the internet, analyzes their similarities, and seams them together to create a 3D visual representation of places. You can view the clip at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129. The tagging issue is important, because the program relies on tags, such as those assigned to images in Flickr, to identify the images that it uses. Also, I like the fact that I can create a Favorites list that is accessible to me from any computer! I just moved my Outlook favorites list to del.icio.us.

Week 4, #12 -- Library Elf

I was able to register for this with no problems. It showed me the items that I have checked out and those that I am waiting for. I don't really see the advantage to this, however, since Horizon does the same thing. This would be great for patrons who do not have access to this type of information, but I don't see how it really helps me.

Week 5, #11

I already had a Library Thing account that I created last year. For this assignment, I added several titles, a link, and the author cloud. I think this is an interesting tool, but I don't really care to make my library public.

Week 5, #10 -- Avatar

This is fun!! This is the first avatar that I have ever tried to create, and I really enjoyed it. It reminds me of playing with paper dolls when I was a kid, only there aren't any little tabs for me to accidentally cut off! I will try some of the others, too.

Week 4, #8 and 9

This was an easier assignment than last week's. I had established a bloglines account some time ago, but I did delete some of my feeds and add others. I really like the library feeds. There are some very good ideas embedded there, but there is also a lot of superfluous talk at times. I also enjoyed Rhoda's report!


These are my current feeds:

Bloglines News

Cool Tools
Dictionary.com Word of the Day
Librarians' Internet Index: New This Week
Library Marketing - Thinking Outside the Book
The Shifted Librarian
Slate Magazine
U.S. News & World Report
Washington Post Book reviews
Wired Top Stories

Week 3, #7

Peggy

peggy sepia 2
Originally uploaded by peggysis

-- I changed the picture of Peggy to sepia. The tools are kind of fun to play around with, but some of the choices are just strange (e.g., clouds).

Week 3, #6

My creation
Originally uploaded by peggysis

flickr does have some cool options. Just witness this cool librarian, waiting at his post to serve the patrons.

I have a difficult time finding my way around flickr for anything other than just uploading photos. I like the card, though.

Houston, 1965

Houston, 1965
Originally uploaded by peggysis

What are these girls looking at?

Week 3, Flickr

Yea!! Thanks to iStar's very helpful directions, I was finally successful in posting a picture directly from Flickr to my blog. That procedure was more difficult (at least for me) than just posting from my computer. Now I see how it can be much easier if you have your pics posted on Flickr. Thank you, iStar!-

Week 3, Flickr

I created a Flickr account previously, but I have not used it very much. When I first created it, we could download only about 5 pictures before our account was full for the month. I'm glad to know that we can now download more pictures.

This is a picture that was taken during the summer of 1965. Does anyone have an idea what these girls are looking at (or looking for)?

Week 2: Creating a blog

Week 2, #2: I am new to the concept of posting my information and thoughts on the web, and I am hesitant to do so now. The video of the young girl who had posted a questionable video of herself is a very good reminder of how public and how potentially dangerous and damaging the web can be. I have never been a blogger, and I am not convinced of the benefits. I don't like the idea of placing my words into a format that cannot be recalled. However, I can see that creating a place where people of similar interests can share ideas could be a fun endeavor, particularly with tools that are so easy to use. This is a new experience, and hopefully I will learn from it.

Right now, I like the idea of anonymity. I am somewhere in the picture above. This is about as public as I wish to be at this point. I will add items to my profile as the days progress.

I do like the idea of sharing likes and dislikes, and I will add a favorite book every few days.

Week 2, #3: I am very impressed at how easy it is to create a blog with blogspot! This could be a lot of fun. I'm eager to add elements to it.