The End or Is it the Beginning?

Well, here I am on the final item and I must say this has been a fun and interesting journey. I've learned all sorts of things and now some of this technology stuff doesn't seem half so scary. There have been a few things along the way that I will probably never use (twitter, facebook) but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate them... well, maybe not twitter...And then there are some items like the RSS feeds that I love and could not do without.

Thanks for a great program and I hope that we can do some more training along these lines!

Alternative Blogging

Well, I've looked at Twitter and I just don't think this is for me...
I think I'd rather pick up the phone and call my friends or e-mail my colleagues. When I went to check-out Steven M Cohen's blog there was a notice that he is going to quit twittering due to some offense taken by someone and....it just seems like a waste of time...Guess I'm too old for this one!

Tumblr seems like a kinda interesting sort of blog alternative -- I like the links to sites right there...Nice...maybe for the more visual person?

Videos

Wow, you can get very addicted to internet video sites and sucked into wasting a lot of time. I did find some interesting videos on YouTube and MetaCafe. They are posted below -- might make for some interesting programs in the future. I can see why these videos would be helpful especially in the case of the Kirigami clip -- It all makes so much more sense when you can see someone put it together in front of you!

I checked out Sciencehack's site for some ideas for an upcoming science program for kids but decided that the library would probably not want us using liquid nitrogen so I'll leave that site to the real scientists!

Future Pop-up Program?

Thought this was kinda cool and maybe good for a future library program... Enjoy!!




Seven Flowers. Awesome Pop Up. - The best free videos are right here

How to make Hot Ice

Dolly Dessert...for monkeys?...

Stuart and I were able to attend the Ridgefield Library's 11th annual Dolly Dessert. He brought his favorite monkey-pal, Cheeky Charlie, and a great time was had by all! His favorite part was winning a prize book all about Smurfs!

First Mike

we had a visit from Mike Gregoire, the Governors husband, during one of my Preschool Storytimes. He read an Easter book to the group and then presented a great Washington alphabet book to the library -- "E is for Evergreen"

Here comes Spring!

Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Podcasting

I looked at some of the podcast sites listed on the library blog and many of them need special software. So that's inconvenient considering you can't download to the machines at work. I found this item in our entire 2.0 journey the most frustrating, perhaps there is some library relevance but I can't see it. For now I will use podcasting at home to catch-up on missed NPR shows.

Audio/Video Adventure

I visited all of the audio sites listed; Last.fm, Pandora, and IMEEM and the only one I was somewhat impressed with was the Pandora site. It was user friendly and I found what I was looking for immediately. I could see using this if you want some music in the background while working on the computer or perhaps trying to put together a CD of certain songs for storytime.

I thought the Gutenberg Project was very interesting -- I was able to take a look at some old Charlie Chapman films that you never see these days -- kinda fun and it makes you wonder what sort of things we will be archiving 50 years from now. They also had the complete Da Vinci Notebooks to download. This would have been useful to know a few weeks ago when a patron was looking for some of the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions -- would have been nice to tell them about another option. Also the Universal Library was fascinating. I perused some of the Sherman Campaign writings -- this would be a great source for someone doing research because you have access to some great collections worldwide.

My Favorite Truck-Driver!

Here is a new picture of Stuart with some cool trucks from cousin Zoe!

GoogleDocs

I really like Google Docs -- It seems like a pretty neat tool. You can upload documents share them with others revise add info and then publish them as a website, blog, or just email on to others. I can see this being a great tool in one of my distance classes. For an assignment we are suppose to design a website as a group and then do a presentation about our design. This will be easy with Google Docs. The professor can see exactly who added what and then we can publish as a website direct from Google Docs and even do the presentation from here. I can also see its possible use in evaluating an employee who has two supervisors in different locations. The supervisors could collaborate on a joint document. So the possibilities seem endless!

Update

Well, since creating my Facebook account I've found an old college friend and caught up on lost time.
I've gotten sucked into Wordshoot -- Very Addictive!
And finally I ran my blog through the "Blog Readability Test" (Personally, I think they tell everyone their blog is "Genius" level) Oh well, who's to complain.

Blog Reading Level

Movie Reviews

Wikis

After looking at a few of the district wikis you get an idea of the potential that could be used here. The YAAB groups from all over the district have a centralized place to post events, photos, suggestions for the district -- really whatever they want. I really enjoyed checking out IS "fugitive" wiki what a great way to have everything in one accessable place add to it or update whatever is needed. As a student wikis are great! You can coordinate and plan group projects from all over the country and not one person is left "holding the bag" so to speak. because you can tell exactly who and what was contributed. So I think this is a great tool people just have to commit to using it.

LibraryThing

Well, I created a LibraryThing account. I like how you can add a widget directly to your blog. Mine looks pretty good. I found that under tools on their website you have the option of joining their early reader program. You can sign-up to review some pre-published books. Just a simple little review and you get to keep the book. Fun!

using Technorati.com

Technorati just looks too confusing and messy for me. Maybe if you used it all the time you would get used to it and know all the little nuances but for now I can't really see the need.
When searching for "Learning 2.0" under Blog posts I found 18,125 results, under Tags I got 1,310 posts, and using their Blog Directory I got 592 blogs. So big differences -- maybe blog directory would be the way to go.

Del.icio.us

Well, I liked Del.icio.us -- I was able to use the site to research some subjects for school and found some interesting websites through everyone's bookmarks. I also found some great sites with ideas for possible childrens programs that have been tried at other libraries around the country. It's also nice to have access to your bookmarks where ever you are since I work at several different places this is handy.

Reflection Maker generator:

As you can see I've been having fun this last week with all kinds of interesting (potentially useful) toys. I especially enjoyed the Spread Effect generator and this reflection maker. I continue to check my RSS Feeds and find them quite useful for school & staying current on the news.

This was fun! Great little graphics toy.
www.ReflectionMaker.com



(click the picture to see a bigger version)

A funny "library" clip from YouTube.com...

(just click to view)
 

Photo Spread

Here is a photo that I used in the Photo Spread Effect generator....kinda neat!
Here's the site:
http://www79.lunapic.com/editor/?action=photo-spread

Huzzzah!!!

Got to love it!
I found this cool Aristocratic title generator here.
 

Meebo Widget

Well, here it is my very own little Meebo Widget (to the left, at top).Interesting -- So you could use this to view U-Tube videos, get instant reference question answers, just all kinds of stuff. I even had a patron inform me that they used IM to send an instant video of their kids playing in the snow to the grandparents in New Mexico.

Social Networking

Some thoughts on social networking -- mainly MySpace and Facebook.
I think the general idea behind social networking is fundamental I mean we are social creatures right? Why shouldn't libraries try to carve out a place in this part of the techie world. It sounds like we will really be missing the boat if we don't make some effort to reach the younger generation that is so computer savvy. I see teens in everyday at the library logged on to their MySpace pages getting their daily fix.

I like the idea of having a catalog search interface embedded right in the MySpace page or using our annual "Battle of the Bands" contest to put up some of the band's music or videos. This could be kinda fun.

RSS & Newsreaders

Well, I added some new feeds to my bloglines account and did some searching for new rss sites. I liked the Topix.net search tool the best -- it seemed to locate more sites than the others. I can see where rss feeds will come in really handy with distance learning programs and keeping track of site updates and chat. This could also be useful in notifing patrons of upcoming events, or teen blog updates.

RSS & Bloglines

The whole Bloglines and RSS are a nice way to manage all the information out there on websites. It was interesting to learn that RSS is even being used in businesses as a way of managing accounts and paying bills.

I've been subscribing to a couple of news websites on my Bloglines and it's great to just be able to pop over and check out the latest headlines.