Thursday, May 20, 2010

Things Twenty-Three!!!!

Yay! I'm relieved to have gotten to the finish line before I retire next week! It has been a very interesting and fun experience to get to sample so many Internet tools. I would say that my favorite learning tools were Library Things, the image generators, and especially the on-line word processing tools. I also enjoyed exploring some sites that I already felt somewhat familiar with such as youtube and OverDive and NetLibrary.
I can see that there is always more to learn. I felt like I just barely skimmed the surface of most the sites I looked at. It's great to have more of a comfort level with knowing what these tools. I look forward to having the opportunity to going back to look deeper into the ones that interested me. Also I'm in the interesting position of being about to retire, so I feel a little afraid of how far out of the loop I may get. It's great that I can find the links to this training on the internet so I can play around more on my own. I hope that there will be some options for retirees like myself to continue with our lifelong learning.
To improve: check links to make sure they still work. Thanks for a great journey!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Thing Twenty-Two

I enjoyed taking a closer look at Overdrive and NetLibrary. It was helpful to go onto our own website and get a better idea of what the pros and cons are for each of these sources for audiobooks. I feel that I am more comfortable in explaining the features to customers for each. I do think that NetLibrary was easier to navigate and seems to have many other advantages, such a longer loan periods, ability to check out more items at a time, easier availability of titles, ability to renew. I especially was interested in how many choices are now availabe for ipods. It seems to me that Overdrive might have more ipod-loadable titles than Netlibary.
I can see some choices that I am definitely interested in downloading. I imagine that when I choose to download some audiobooks to my computer or ipod, I will probably choose NetLibrary first. I like the range of children's books that are available, as well as many adult titles that interest me such as popular fiction and Pimsleur language courses that can be found on NetLibrary.
Very worthwhile dip into the land of audiobooks.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Thing Twenty-One

Podcasts. Surprisingly to me, I didn't have much success with this one. I only found one of the three links to still be active - podcastally.com. Honestly, I didn't really find much that interested me in the choices. I looked at several categories of genres: Arts, Food and Drink, Family and Kids, Society and Culture and Travel. When I tried to click on a podcast that I was interested in, I didn't really understand how to get it to play. It seemed like I had to subscribe to it, which I really didn't feel like doing...
I didn't have any more luck when I tried to follow the link for MERLIN. This Things left still pretty much in the dark! Sorry!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Thing Twenty

Another fun THING! Youtube is pretty amazing. I use it often. I have watched important events, speeches, videos that my friends post of children and grandchildren, and even instructions for things I need to know. My favorite Youtube moment was when I spent the night in the hospital with my daughter and her two day old son! We watched Youtube when we needed instructions on how to swaddle the baby and didn't want to admit to the nurse that we were still struggling with it!
Tonight I had fun looking at old clips of some of my favorite entertainers like Jonathan Winters and Danny Kaye.
I'm posting a link to this clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm6ktYq0Yxk
from the movie "The Five Pennies" where Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong sing a fantastic rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In." One of my all-time favorite films, and this is one of the highlights! I even learned the names of many composers with this song, when I first heard it as a kid.
I'm glad to introduce it to anyone who might read my blog!
I didn't enjoy the other video sites as much as Youtube.
The uses for Youtube in the library are almost limitless - as an instructional tool,advertising and also as a record of programming, which can be a learning tool in itself.

Thing Nineteen

This was a really fun lesson too - to look over and explore one of the nominees for 2.0 Tool Awards. I took a look at Twitter, joined and chose a few sites (not sure of Twitter terminilogy) such as NYTimes Books, Neil Gaimon, Rachel Maddow, Sesame Street and Bill Cosby. I see that I already have several tweets to look at. I honestly don't know that I'll keep up with Twitter. I am not that curious about any of the tweets that I see so far. It seems like Twitter could be fun, but also something you could end up (dare I say) wasting a lot of time. Still I've been very curious to take a look at Twitter, since it's something you hear mentioned so often.
So now I've had my taste -- and who knows, maybe I'll be back!
I also took this opportunity to do part of a sample lession in French in Mango. It's fun! I imagine I might want to brush up on my French and Spanish knowledge through MCPL's Mango subscription, once I retire.
As for library applications, of course, we already are involved with both of these sites!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Thing Eighteen

This has been my favorite Thing!!How great to discover these tools available online. I had just been thinking that I might want to buy a Microsoft Office software, but now I can just scratch that off my list! I LOVED exploring Zoho. I was able to use Zoho Writer to create a To Do List of all the things I need to wrap at work before I retire in two weeks! Ack!! I also created a Planner of all kind of upcoming events through the end of June. In doing so, I managed to discover that I have a conflict on a day that I scheduled a doctor's appointment. Whoops! I'll have to take care of that on Monday. Good I could copy the entire planner list to my email so easily, as a reminder to myself!
At any rate I found Zoho Writer and Planner very easy to use and look forward to using some of the other features, such as Zoho Show, which I'm thinking might be like Power Point. What a gem!
I'm sure that the comparable Google Docs is also great and am loking forward to trying it out as well. Thanks for including these tools in the training! It's great!

Thing Seventeen

I'm afraid I didn't have much luck playing in the Sandbox! The links for all of the Discovery resources seemed broken and when I tried to log in to the Maryland Libraries Sandbox, I really didn't get too far. I tried to create an account, but seemed to get go around in circles and was not able to get anywhere. Sorry! On to Thing Eighteen!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Thing Sixteen

I guess the first thing I need to confess is that even though I frequently come upon and read entries in wikipedia I hadn't really put two and two together to realize that it was a wiki. Obviously I knew more about wikis than I thought.
I especially enjoyed the article on using wikis in communities, with specific ideas on how libraries benefit from creating wikis. It was fun to see the examples of wikis discussing books, a variety of subject headings and the ALA New Orelans wiki with all kinds of information on the conference and tourist information on New Orleans. I did notice that the information in the first two wikis mentioned above were very sketchy and kind of unpredictable. I guess that's another fault of wikis in addition to the fact that lots of erroneous maatrial can creep in.
I am excited about the prospect of MCPL staring a children's programming wiki. It will be great to share all of our great ideas, and will be very helpful in the coming hear with the challenges that face us. From what I understand though, there will be some oversight as to what gets posted rather than having a free for all wiki.
It might even be a good idea to have a wiki next year to deal with all of the changes and hardships the library will be facing. Honestly one downside - just finding time to participate and read!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Thing Fifteen

I read several of the articles recommended for this assignment, including "Away from the Icebergs," Into a New World of Librarianship" and "To more Powerful Ways to Cooperate." Basically I can see that the library is already turning to more of the Web 2.0 tools than I had really been aware of. I can see the value of them, in providing information to customers without having to rely on print material, the physical library building as much, and ways to locate materials and have a richer catalog with OCLC and WorldCat and more ability to share with each other. All of this shared knowledge and use of technology is so exciting and yet can be confusing and almost overwhelming. I love the idea of getting information at your fingertips, from home or anywhere. Also while it's wonderful to have all of this information from wherever, I hope that our library boat stays afloat and that people realized the we need to be well funded. Libraries provide free access to everyone, whether from at the library or on the web. Also we need to be aware of all of our customers, both with and without technical abilities and access to the technology.
As for me, I love learning the new things,but even after each exercise I feel grateful to being exposed to these new tools, yet feel I have barely touched the surface. I hope I can keep up to some degree even after I've retired.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Thing Fourteen

This time the goal was to learn something about technorati. I have to admit that I had some trouble getting into this one. I tried the exercise on searching for "Learning 2.0" in various ways, and am not sure I really understood if I was doing it right. I did find more when I tried to search blogs.
It was interesting to see which blogs were on the rise and which were falling. Interesting to see that the Twitter blog was falling! I was interested to read one blog claiming that the media hasn't given the Nashville floods as much press as they should have. I thought it was just that I hadn't followed it well as I would have liked, since I have a cousin in Nashville and was worried about how she was doing.
Otherwise, I wasn't surprised to see that events in the news were also the top blogs.
One other thing - I added labels for all of my posts. Not sure what that does. I didn't actively add my blog to technorati. Didn't want to be out there in cyperspace any more than I already am.

Thing Thirteen

This time I enjoyed the tagging assignment and spent the most time on del.iou.us, playing around with various tags. I now understand why the list of booklists that I use on the our own Kidsite looks the way it does! I had felt a little uncomfortable the first time I saw the new format of our lists, with the long blue titles! NOW I understand that they look the way they do because they are available (not sure of the correct terminology) through del.iou.us! Very interesting!
I played around with several other topics of interest to me, such as early literacy and storytimes, and bookmarked a few good sites for my own computer :-) Also enjoyed finging folkstreams again when I looked for folk music. I think it was the most tagged site under folk music. Also I managed to look up Silver Spring Maryland and get onto the Silver Spring Center site, which lists lots of great upcoming concerts, event in SS, including library programs! I see a few festivals coming up on Ellsworth street that I would love to drop in on.
All in all, a fun venture! and now I finally know what del.iou.us is!
Only glitch - the 12 minute intro video seemed to be unreachable, so I'm sure I missed some of the finer points, like how to see what other people actually said about their tags. Oh well, it's neverending once you get onto something, so I'm sure I learned enough for one day!

Thing Twelve

This assignment was to create create my own Search Tool using Rollyo. I enjoyed putting together a list of links under the title "forbabiesindc". I wanted to have an easy access point for links that would be helpful for parents and grandparents (like me) caregivers and professionals to have a grouping of links involving young children. So far I have added sites that concentrate on early child development, early literacy, some nutrition and health, music, as well as sites specific to the DC area with places to go and do with young children. I'm already thinking of more than can be added. Should be alot of fun and very useful!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Thing Eleven

This assignment was to take a look at Library Thing and to add five books to my library. I picked five of the most recent books that I have read - two where children's books, Just Grace, an easy humorous fiction title and 100 Cupboards, a fantasy. I also chose one YA title, Life as We Knew It, a futuristic hopefully scienc fiction story of one family's survival after the moon is hit by a meteorite. I also talked about two adult books, Oliver Kitteridge, last year's Pulitzer Prize winner, and About Alice, a memoir written by Calvin Trillen, a tribute to his late wife's memory.
I found the process alot of fun, if somewhat time consuming, even though I didn't go into as much depth as I could have. I am interested to go back to this site to see how my 'reviews' compare to others, and to get ideas for other books I might want to read.
A lot of fun!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Thing Ten


Well, I'm supposed to be dancing up a storm, but the animation didn't seem to load!
Lots of fun with coming up with an Avatar. Somehow my gray-ish hair turned brown after I thought I had successfully been honest with my aging mop. Anyway, I had been looking forward to this activity and spend way more time than I should have on it! I first used yahoo avatars but wasn't sure how to upload that one, so I went on to meez instead. Too bad you can't see me in my poodle skirt, unless I figure out how to get that up here too! I'm sure I'll be back to play around with this fun stuff.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Thing Nine

I've been having fun this morning plowing around on the web, looking at various library related blogs as well as other sites with RSS feeds. I was very glad to explore MERLIN further, and see how to access upcoming trainings. I'm wondering if I should be trying to keep doing some library-related trainings on my own, after I retire at the end of May. I don't know if I should try to prepare to renew my certification next summer, even though I will be retired. In any event, I'm glad to have some tools at my disposal to look into. I also enjoyed seeing our feed as well as severl other libraries, esp. Howard County. I could spend all day just browsing the variety of things out there.
I also went to a couple of the other sites recommended, but had trouble with broken links for most of them. Is it me? I did enjoy using Syndic8.com and found several sites that I found interesting. I hope to go back to explore some more.I did subscribe to the sites for ALA and for Library of Congress:Upcoming Events. I also was glad to gt a look at the ALSC site and intend to keep track of their blog and wiki.
I didn't do too much with news related sites because I feel like I already have access to what I need. Other areas that I intend to explore further are sites on Early Literacy for children, other young child relates sites, as well as some health information areas and possibly some things involving music.
It does help to be more comfortable with all the things covered in this course and Ill appreciate being able to keep in the loop with library related sites when I am retired.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Thing Eight

The assignment is to learn about RSS newsfeeds and to set up a Bloglines account of my own. I have to admit that I spent some time spinning my wheels because some of the links didn't work for me. I finally got to see some links of videos on youtube explaining RSS and how to set up my account. My favorite Link on learning the process of adding RSS feeds to my Blogline acoount was the blog created
by Preetam Rai:
http://preetamrai.com/weblog/2005/4/25/using-bloglines-or-how-to-keep-up-with-dozens-of-blogs-every.html
which really took me through the process step-by-step.
I have now created my Blogline account and have added several feeds to my page. So far, I have subscribed to 12 feeds, focusing mainly on news, literature, library and recipes! I have already enjoyed reading one article on the latest winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. I am excited with the idea that these feeds will help keep me in the 'know' about the lastest in books, news outlooks and of course, good recipe ideas!
I did try to go to a couple of websites that I like (mostly in the arts) but they don't seem to have feeds at this time. Now, I at least now how to look for feeds in the future and will be on the look for others that I might want to add to my acoount.
One big question I still have though: how to unsubscribe? I already linked to one that I'm not really interested in, but don't see how to drop it.
I hope to talk to colleagues at work to see what they like and if they know more of the ins and outs than I do.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Thing Seven

I'm back after being busy with lots of other things - library and family related, not to mention problems rememebering and resetting my password!
The assignment for this week is to write about something that I like about technology. As far as what I use at home, my three top favorites are
1. the ipod
2. Digital camera
3. Facebook
I'll focus on the ipod. My daughters and son-in-laws bought me an ipod for my 60th birthday and it has been a treasure. It's wonderful to be able to download music and copy music from my own CDs to my own little device. I love to have it along to listen to in the car and at home or wherever I am. I especially appreciate having music at my fingertips for times of stress. For example it was great to have my music keeping me company while in the dental chair for seven long minutes while I was getting an impression for a crown. It also helps to make household chores easier to enjoy while moving along to good music. I now have lots of music on hand when my grandchildren are over, so we can dance along to their favorites. Oh yes, and my ipod also makes a great alarm clock!
I have also enjoyed getting the knack of putting my music on the ipod for children's programming. So nice to be able to have everything so ready to go for my CuddleUps programs, where everything moves so fast. I'm glad to have had training at work to learn to to creat playlists so that I have music ready to go for many programs. Gone are the days of having to rewind music from cassettes. Thank goodness!
I know that there are still many features of itunes that I have yet to explore, but even from the little that I have mastered, I feel enriched.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Thing Six

This time I got to explore a little more and try out some Flickr mashups and 3rd party sites. I felt like I barely touched the surface of all there is to see - and to understand. I really thought that Montagr was really lovely. By choosing a word or subject, the application finds many pictures available in flickr with that tag and combines them into a mosaic of squares. It reminded me of like quickly making a beautiful quilt. My favorite two were mosaics of flowers and of snow. It was fun to see the whole mosaic and also beautiful to click on each individual square to see the details of each picture. I think that Montagr is one of the easier mashups to understand. I've been trying to see if I can copy a couple of pretty Montagr images to this blog but haven't mastered it so far.

I did begin working on the suggestion of working on a Librarian Trading Card, but still haven't gotten too far. I plan on going back to work on my card again soon. I spend way more than the 45 minutes allotted, but still feel like I don't totally understand how to make the mashups function too well. At least I know have a good idea of what a mash-up is though - a combination (hybrid) of featuresf from one application such as flickr with that of another to make a mixed or mashed web application.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Thing Five
Flickr!! Wow, I hadn't realized what this was, other than seeing pictures from various branches posted on our library's website! It's very interesting! I was happy to see how great Wheaton's children's room looked in the pictures. I'm afraid it's much harder to keep it looking so good since we aren't staffing the children's room due to budget constraints. It's a reminder to me, though, to give even more attention to the looks of the room and to make it more inviting and easier to use for our customers. Hopefully we can use Flickr in other ways to engage our public's interest in our library.
I enjoyed looking at some other library sites, including Boston Public Library where I worked in the late '60's. I plan on going back to explore more library sites. I'm hoping to also find some useful photos of room, desk, and furniture arrangements in other libraries to brainstorm some things that would be good ideas for us. I would also love to see some storytimes on video! (maybe youtube will be a better source.)
I'm excited to see the potential for using Flickr for sharing my own photos. I hope to create a website myself as a way to sending pictures of (what else) my two grandchildren, Isaiah and Liana. Nice to have the time to sit down and play with the site on this blizzard-y afternoon.
Also enjoyed looking at some videos, especially some clips from a concert featuring my favorite people, Bernice Johnson Reagon and her daughter, Toshi Reagon.
Thing Four
Hopefully I have my blog registered. Sent an email to Kate, so that my blog can be posted. However, with the snowstorm swirling around us today, it will probably take a few days to get that part done.
I have my tracking report in progress.
Thing Three
Actually this was the first thing I did - following the directions. For some reason, I was most intimated about whether I would figure out how to set up my own blog, so I'm glad that's done! Of course it wasn't hard after all!
I enjoyed reading a little of what others have posted to get an idea of what people do. I guess that as time goes on, I'll try to make the site my own a little my own. At least I've got a picture up!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Thing Two

Just finished watching "The 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners." I always think of myself as being interested in so many things and wanting to constantly be learning new things about all kinds of things in the world around me. So, I was kind of surprised and disappointed to see that many of the 'Habits' were things that don't come easily to me! For example, my first instinct is to view problems as problems! It takes me a little bit of talking to myself before I begin to see them as 'challenges' that can be an opportunity for growth and problem solving. Also I do often lack confidence in tackling new things, especially if I have not had success or experience with something similar to them.
I believe that my strengths lie in my ability to create my own lifelearning 'toolbox' and to accept responsiblity for my own learning. I do love on-line trainings and now that I have successfully gotten started with '23 Things' I am very excited to really dig in! ( With the current snowstorm that we are in the midst of this week, I will also be 'digging out!')

Thing One

I'm FINALLY getting started! I'm new to much of this, so I'm really looking forward to learning more about all of these THINGS!