Thing 4 Again

I am again trying to upload FLickr letters to my blog.
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Thing 23

Reflections
This was a great experience. I won't keep up with writing a blog, but I'm glad that I have done it. And I will keep reading blogs about things I am interested in and I wouldn't have done this before 23 Things. I had fun with Flickr and the mashups and image generators but I haven't had time to play with them. I thought I was keeping track of my passwords, but I lost my Flickr one. However, it was easy to go through the steps to have them send it to me again. I think that is the only password/log in I forgot to write down. Is it only people my age who have this trouble?
Since I found out that many people I know and organizations I am interested in have Facebook accounts, this is what I have used the most. Library Thing will be fun because of the reviews. I thing I'll try cataloging my own books. I won't use it as much as Facebook, but I will use it.
I didn't see the point in my using Twitter or instant messaging, but I can see how it works for some people. I am very glad that I found out what tagging is, since it was invented since I earned my MLS back in the Dark Ages. Now I know what my daugher is talking about. I was frustrated with Digg and I had trouble finding what I wanted when I was looking for very specific topics.
I had to most trouble when I tried to insert Flickr letters in my blog. I need to try again.
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Thing 22

Developing Your Own 23 Things
It is hard to believe that this course is almost over. It has been great. I don't know how I ever would have been able to find out about so much technology so easily. However, I want to go back over the lessons, so I hope that you keep the website up for awhile. I think that libraries must keep up with the latest technology if we are going to be relevant to patrons. My town's public library has a very nice facebook page. Their activities are advertized in a very nice video on You Tube. I can see other uses, too. A blog could be created with with book reviews for patrons to read. Podcasts of storytelling and book reviews could be attached to the library web page. GoogleDocs on the library computers could give patrons important information easily. A Wiki could be used for residents to create a history of the area.
There are problems with implementing technology. Staff needs to be trained and given time to practice. Patrons need to find out what is available so they will use it. I think that classes for the patrons on many of the 23 Things would be great way for libraries to help their patrons become more technologically aware. Seperate classes for teens and adults might be good.
I am a retired school librarian so I can't actually put the 23 Things to use in a school library. However, I do work a few hours a week with a blind student and his technology. I intend to show him most of these things. Not Flickr, pictures don't work well with screen readers. He does need to know what it is in case his peers talk about it. Many of these things, such as GoogleDocs and Wikis he will need to be using for his classes next year. I think he will enjoy blogs and podcasts and may want to create some of his own. So this has been great.
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Thing 21

Podcasts
I like podcasts. I went with my daugher to Austin, she had a TLA committee meeting. This meant I had a short vacation of hanging around the Hyatt and reading. We listened to podcasts of Radio Lab and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on the trip there and back, even though I had just bought an audiobook of Well of Lost Plots. I admit that my podcasts were restricted to NPR shows downloaded from ITunes. So it was great to discover a bigger world of podcasts. I had trouble with the sound on the Chesire Public Library podcast, but it seemed well done. The DeKalb library podcast was songs from concerts that were held there. The quality was good and it seems a good way to publicize events. I enjoyed the Denver Public Libraries storytelling podcast. Mohawk College's podcast on streaming videos was very short, just a good explanation of what streaming video was. Podcasts on a library website could be a good way to explain the different library services if a video clip wouldn't beappropriate. The Lincoln Public Library book talks were also interesting. I was wondering if it would be better to have more but shorter podcasts for booktalks. I think podcasts attached to library websites for information on library services, book talks, storytelling, are very useful and make libraries more attractive to the public. I was wondering if libraries ever make podcasts, such as the free NPR ones, in a format for patrons to take home with them. I think this could be a popular service.
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Thing 19

Google Documents
I admit it, I can't count. I skipped this one by accident and will get to it as soon as I can.
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August 2, 2009
Google Documents was easy to log on to. I went through the tour and the video. I set up some sample documents. My daughter said that she didn't think she would log on to the master grocery lists. I was thinking it could be a fun way to share recipes with family members. This could be very useful for class projects or projects for a group at work. A library could share information with its patrons this way. However, I had problems with the spreadsheet. I could make one, but the save button was grey and I couldn't save. I couldn't save a presentation, either. My husband suggested that I use Google Chrome instead of Explorer and the problem was saved. The documents were just like Word. The spreadsheet was just like using Excel. Okay, I don't make very complicated spread sheets. The slides were created just like PowerPoint, but I had a great deal of trouble inserting pictures. I don't have that trouble with PowerPoint. I don't know if the problem is me or the program. However, Google Documents is very useful.
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Thing 20

YouTube. I had heard about this, but hadn't really looked at it before. I spent a great of time. I looked up different kind of libraries. I found a very good video for the Columbus, Nebraska public library. It was a great intro to their services, but I have a feeling that the person who made it is a great graphic artist. Others were just a mish/mash of pictures. They were entertaining but it would be harder for someone not familiar with the library to get the information they needed. There were some good intro videos for academic libraries also. I think it would be great to have a video on YouTube for a library, maybe linked to the library's web page. I looked up some instructional vidoes. There were some on the Dewey Decimal System which would be useful for a school library. Now I am wondering about how this works with copyright, especially after I noticed a Sesame Street clip on the library. This could also be useful to place instructional videos for the library. Also videos of library activities could be placed on YouTube for participants to watch. I think there are lots of possibilities.
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More Thing 18

Today I worked on the second part of the Wiki assignment. It was easy to go to Wetpaint and create a new page. I had trouble adding pages until I read the comments section of the lesson and realized that I needed unique names for my subpages. After that it was a piece of cake. I couldn't add pictures from my laptop. I had a message that the pictures were too big. I can see how Wikis could be useful for libraries and classrooms.
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Thing 18

Wikis
The activity was very interesting for me. I worked a few hours a week with an 8th grade student last school with technology. And Wikipedia was a big battle. His teachers wanted him to use the library data bases for research but he, of course, wanted to use Wikipedia. In his defense, he uses the JAWS screen reader and it was easier for him to to directly to an article Wikipedia than wade through the schoolweb site to find what he needed. And I would find myself going to Wikipedia if we needed to find some bit of information quickly. I did try to explain to him that since anyone cancontribute to Wikipedia, the information may not be valid or as complete as other reference sources. I do not remember the discussion boards or history page. The article on time travel stated that this was a controversial topic that may be under dispute and that substantial changes should be posted on the discussion page with citations. It didn't occur to me that time travel would be be in that category. I looked up Margaret Sanger, who I expected to be controversial. The article itself said that it might contain misinterpreted or inappropriate citations which might not verify the text This was very interesting. It was intersting to see what was written in the discussions for the articles. It shows that the people contributing may have some very strange ideas. The article on braille, which isn't a very controversial topic, had some discussions on whether or not occult symbols were languages. Since braille is an alphabet, not a language that makes the discussion even more weird. I will have to work on creating a wiki tomorrow, Torchwood calls!
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Thing 17

LibWorm was also fun. It was an easy way to find blogs and other web based info. I searched for disabilities. The first lisiting was a guide to ADA, which would be very useful for libraries. Searching for braille produced "Graffati: Art, Vandalism, or Information". I didn't think that blog would actually have anything about braille. I was wrong. It had a video about a braille graffati project in Oregon. I didn't find anything on disabilities or braille when searching catagories. the categories were useful for broad topics like schools or medical libraries. The subjects were broader. I choose audiobooks. A blog on the Unconference at ALA had a comment that libaries will need to do a better job of providing digital media if they want to keep adolescent patrons, which is very true. I found the tags harder to use to find info on disabilities or accessible media. So I choose the tag on children. I found on a blog that Philip Pullman is objecting to having criminal background checks on visiting authors. Anthony Browne, however, feels that writers shouldn't object. However, he did object to the cost of 64 pounds. The tags in alphabetical order were easier to search even though there are lots of them. And that probably defeats the purpose of tags. The other arrangements made the most used tags the most prominant, which seems to fit the goal of tags more. I searched for braille, but none of the entries were in English.
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Thing 16

I love LibraryThing even though I had problems finding thingLang, MARCThing, and ISBNCheck. I finally found them in the Thing-ology Blog after I was sure I had already searched there. LibraryThing will be great for keeping track of my own personal books. I will use the reviews Major issues when I was an elementary school librarian were entering materials in the catalog. ISBN numbers were a problem and half my colection was not in English. So thingLang and ISBN CHeck would be really useful. MARCThing sounds very useful. And the fact that they are giving it to libraries is great. I signed up for the group "Librarians who Library Thing". They had great topics. The postings on strange requests from patrons had me laughing out loud. I entered 3 of my latest book purchases, it was super easy. I wondered how it would do with older books. I have a book from 1917 and it was entered just as quickly. I checked the statistics on the book and I seem to be the only member with a copy of it. The cover picture didn't appear, but I can live with that. I am going to buy one of their bar code readers. This was a fun site.

Thing 15

I checked out Digg. I didn't subscribe because I seemed to have subscibed to an awful lot of things at the moment. I had some topics I was interested in but they seemed to be soo obscure. I don't know if the trouble is with me or the site. I enjoyed exploring the general topics. "Ten Bizzare Things to do on Vacation" was funny as well as one on the business lessons to be learned from Monty Python. I also found some interesting websites 109.com and an online magazine called Seed. I also didn't find the number of digs useful. However, like tagging, this may have some value in that the most useful thing for the biggest number of people will rise to the surface. I was interested that the magazine sites I read used tagging.

Thing 14

So I signed up for Delicious and added it to my toolbar. I also used Delicious to find a website and I subscribed to it. I think that Delicious will be useful to help keep track of bookmarks. I haven't had a chance to try it on another computer, but I think this will be great. I think I'll use it to find othe websites people recommend on my favorite topics. However, when I searched for a topic I was interested in I did find websites on that topic. I also was directed to websites whose first words were apparently my topic but the rest of the title was "refinance your mortage". This website was listed multiple times. This is a disadvantage.
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Thing 13

I consulted with my daughter, the MLS student after reading Wikipedia, because I felt like I needed to get my money's worth from tuition payments. She felt that the advantange that tagging uses an uncontroled vocabulary and that is the way the world is heading. However, the disadvantage is that tagging uses an uncontrolled vocabulary. Since tags use natural language these are words people think of. People don't always know what words to use with controlled vocabulary. I can vouch for the fact that children had lots of problems with subject headings. However, I think tags would have been even more confusing for them. Our consensus wat that tagging does get the library users involved and accesible but a controlled vocabulary is also needed.
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Vacation

I've been away from my blog and 23 Things since we were on vacation. We visited friends in family in El Paso and had a great time. Sitting on my friends patio watching rainstorms in the distance and the fireworks on the 4th were great. And she has the world's cutest grandchild, who is fifteen months old and came to visit from Arizona. We even went to the old fashioned Fourth of July parade. Visiting my brother on the other side of town was also great. It was also a great time to think about technology. My nephew, the high school government teacher, has 2 TVs in his den. Not that television shows were ever watched. They were for games. I alwaysthought videogames were isolating. However, the visiting children, who were 2,3, 4, 6, 7, and 8, sat in a group in front of the games watching even though only a couple were actually playing at a time. Having grown children and no grandchildren I hadn't seen this before. Of course my nephew has a laptop and my husband and brother-in-law had his. However, they were always in use so I couldn't do 23 Things. Okay, they weren't in use when we were playing cards but I wasn't going to miss that. So now I need to get back to work on the things.
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Thing 12

Twitter is everywhere. I heard about it after there was a sermon series at my church on "The Theology of Twitter." There was coverage by local TV networks and apparently CNN ran a clip. One part of the clip showed my husband sitting in a pew and typing into his phone. We were encouraged to Twitter during the sermon. My husband confessed he really wasn't "twittering", he was just playing. The theological impication was that the church must communicate and will need to embrace new technology in order to do this. However, I haven't used it yet. I'll write more after I set up an account
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I set up the account, my name "morereflections". I found another blog where somebody had posted their user name, but when I tried to become a follower Twitter said the account didn't exist. I haven't found anybody else. Maybe I should go write something in my account in case I have some followers. I think having the tweets appear on my phone would be annoying, and I probably won't remember to check the web page. Maybe e-mail would be the easiest way for me. I follow my spouse, who felt guilty after appearing on the new and did set up an account and 4 organizations.
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Thing 11

I signed up for AIM Express, http://www.aim.com/aimexpress.adp since it was web based. I tried the Google IM first, and it never would load. My screen name is "somereflections". It would be nice if someone would message me. I don't think IM will be very useful for me. I think the odds of my friends and family both being on the computer as the same time as me and having the time to IM are small. If we had that much time, we'd phone. E-mail is a more useful form of communication because it can be read and answered at the reader's convenience. Text messaging on the phone is also convenient for short messages. I don't see how I would use IM in an elementary library. However, I have enjoyed finding out about all of this technology.
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Thing 10

Ning was interesting. I found several sites on it for things I was interested such as mysteries, books, Bluegrass music. However, I didn't join after reading the article. Privacy is an issue here. Also, I know several people on Facebook, and it will take enough time keeping up with that
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July 29
A friend told me that a child we know was recently diagnosed with an rare disorder. I did what any librarian would do- a little research. I used the NORD data base and found a support group for this metabolic disorder. I was inerested to find out that it was an Ning site. It seemed like a very useful site for parents and friends of children with this disease. I'll be on the lookout for other Ning sites.
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Thing 9

I guess I will have to admit that I have found Facebook pretty addicting. I have made friends and joined groups and become a fan. I put the website to my local library on my wall. My patronus is a bat. I joined my local church, town, and library group. I joined a Star Trek group. I work with a blind student a few hours a week, so I joined a blind students group and a braille group. One of my daughters has CP, so I joined a group for that. It will be interesting to see how useful these will be for me in the future, but it has been fun today. I do see the privacy problems, since my page tells what town I live in and where I go to church.
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Thing 8

Facebook wasn't difficult to set up. I feel like I maybe the only person in the world without a page. After putting in my name, e-mail address, and age a list of potential friends appeared, two of whom I know. Okay, how do they do that? I didn't put in my e-mail address for finding friends. I told my husband he would be in big trouble if he didn't accept me as a friend. And the wise man did so immediately, even if I can't spell his band's name. I can see how it could be bad to have too much personal information on a page. I am interested in doing the next lesson to see more ways to use Facebook. From my husband's page I went to our church's music ministry page. It seems like a good way for members to keep in touch as well as encourage people to join. I am also curious so see the page of my daughter, the new librarian.
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Thing 7

I added a feed to my Google Reader and another to my blog. It was easy to do. And I think these are great ways to handle blogs, the issue again is time.

Thing 6

I am afraid that Google Reader may be dangerous for me. I ended up signing up for blogs on some of the topics that interest me, such as accessibility and mystery books, and if I read them all I won't have time for anything else! In reality, it is a great way to keep up with a field.
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Thing 5

Image generators were also fun to play with.
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This time cutting and pasting the code worked! Very exciting. I also created a magazine cover, but my husband complains that his band's name should be two words. I told him reporters always get names wrong.

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More Flickr

Playing with the Flickr was fun, especially adding captions and the mashup. I played with lots of toys.
I spelled out the word "read" and pasted in the code that the site said would allow the letters to appear on the blog, but it didn't work.
I posted pictures to flickr. I don't know if my daughter will like the mishmash of her graduation picture, but that was fun, and it was fun making a mosaic of wedding pictures. I don't know if I have time to play with flicker much, but it does to alot of great stuff. I did decide to put the account to use, and put some wedding pictures that family were wanting there, instead of waiting for my husband to put them on DVDs.
So I have learned a lot.
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Flickr

June 13, 2009
I obtained a Flickr account and uploaded some vacation pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleaseview/ is the location. It wasn't hard to upload the pictures. I wasn't able to change the icon, I think the picture I was trying to use was too big, I decided it would be better to try again later. This does seem like a great way to share pictures.

Electricity

June 13, 2009
There is one problem with this technology--it all uses electricity. Our house was one of the 500,000 who lost power from downed power lines from thunder storms in the DFW area on Wednesday. It was great when it came back on on Friday. However, it made working on 23 Things impossible. My daughter went to a public library to do her e-mail and some work for her on-line job. However, my links and passwords were on my computer, so I didn't work on 23 Things there. Okay, I should write them down. My neighbors were surprised to learn that, as long as the place has electricity, the local library is great for checking on e-mail. And it has air conditioning, besides all of the great books. So there may be more visitors from my neighborhood at the library if this happens again. I did a lot of reading by flashlight, so the outage wasn't all bad.
And the neighbors check in with each more often, looking for the latest news.
Flickr is very interesting. It was great looking at pictures from my favorite places. I will use the account. This is great for libraries. I wonder if school libraries use it much? I'll blog more after I set up an account.

Library 2.0

June 8, 2009
I watched the videos today. Stephen Abram's was very interesting. He referred to the minor change of technology and the web made on libraries. I disagree. I became a school librarian in 1975. I had a manual typewriter to type the catalog cards with. Students signed their names on cards to borrow books. Buying a new set of encyclopedias every year was crucial. Technology did make a very big difference in the library world. I do agree that all of the different parts of technology that make up 2.0 are making enormous changes. I agree that we must make it a focus of libraries or we will be seen just as warehouses, not an important part of today's society. He was also right that we must use the technology ourselves, but that can be the hard part. It takes me more than a few minutes a day to learn something new.
"Think Library 2.0" did a great job of showing visually just how much technology has changed from pencil and paper to things like Flickr and Utube on the web. I like how he showed how Web 2.0 is linking people. Now we need to use Web 2.0 to link people to the library!

Wednesday

May 27
Yeah! My blog was published. This technology is new to me. I am excited to get started on the rest of the activities
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I am a both excited and apprehensive about the Round Up of Web 2 Technology from the North Texas 23.  It is exciting to have a chance to learn about all of the excting new things out there-but it seems as soon as I learn something, there are 5 new pieces of technology to learn!  But this is a great opportunity.  

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