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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.