Feedback

I think this was a great course. I took one similar to this a few months ago but I really like how this was laid out. There were tons of hands on activites to do and I learned so much. I would definitely recommend it. The only problem I had was trying to get around the filters that blocked out some of the content. But that was a problem at my end and not yours. My favorite part was playing with the mashups.



I would like to thank you for letting me participate. It was very nice of you. I truly feel that this is the best web 2.0 course I have taken. You did an excellent job of putting it all together.

Week 9, #23 Copyright

I just managed to get to a computer that would let me play a u tube video and watched the Fair(y) use tale clip. I can only imagine the amount of work that went into making a video from clips of Disney films. It was a cute piece and really explained the basic premise of copyright and fair use. I would have liked to see more detail about exactly how fair use is applied but I can see that it would have taken forever with the format that they used. Copyright and fair use is definitely something that librarians, teachers, and students need to be well versed in.

Week 9, #22 ebooks/Audio ebooks

I checked out the World Ebook Fair site at www.worldbookfair.com. It lists in one place several different providers of ebooks over the Internet, the first being the Gutenberg Project, which provides free ebooks, unlike the other providers who charge a membership fee. The Gutenberg Project is a great asset. Two years ago I was working at updating resources for the media center of a very small private school and included the Gutenberg Project in my recommendation list. It is a great way to expand a school library.

I also checked out Librivox at http://librivox.org which includes free audio ebooks from the Gutenberg Project. Lots of people love to listen to audio books while commuting. My mother always has an audiobook in her car CD player. This is something she would be interested in because it isn't always easy to find a good audiobook at the public library.

Best Places to Get Free Books is a site found at http://www.friedbeef.com/best-places-to-get-free-books-the-ultimate-guide/ This is a great site providing links to free ebooks, trading real books, etc. Someone obviously put in a lot of time and effort on this. I could easily spend hours on this site.

Week 9, #21 Podcasting

When I first heard of podcasting, I assumed this had to be utilized with an Ipod, which I do not have. I am not a big music listener and will probably never own one. Obviously I was wrong about the whole Ipod thing. I couldn't seem to get any of the given sites to work correctly but I did search out other sites on the web that offered podcasts and listened to a few. This is an excellent tool to use in the classroom. Students love technology and videos. Offering a podcasting choice while giving out project options would surely be a big hit.

Week 9, #20 TeacherTube

I had no idea this site existed. I know a lot of people watch UTube but since I have excessive filtering on my computer, I myself have never actually seen any of them. But I do know that schools block this access as well. So it seems to me that TeacherTube is an excellent way around this block. The videos seem to be relevant and although the are not all educational, they are at least non objectionable. TeacherTube is an good way to let the students work in a medium they enjoy while maintaining the control necessary in an educational setting.

Week 8, Thing 19.1 Florida Electronic Library

Because I do not live in Alaska, I could not access the Digital Pipeline resources and chose to look at my state libary website, the Florida Electronic Library, found at http://www.flelibrary.org/ I have used this site several times in the last few years, but are finding now that there have been some changes, both good and bad. There is a new section with digitalized historical photos and documents, which is nice. However, instead of searching each database individually, there is now a PowerSearch button. Granted, it is a pain to search each one, but the PowerSearch button didn't seem to work no matter what I did. In addition, there are sections for Florida Memory Project, AskALibrarian, WorldCat, Kids Stuff, and Teacher Resources.

Florida is really pushing their electronic databases to K-12 public schools which is nice because middle school and high schoolers don't really understand exactly what scholarly research consists of. When they move on to the community colleges and universites, they are woefully confused.

Spring Break

Completely irrelevant- here are photos of my spring break. Since we live near the beach, we drove the 10 miles and stayed at a hotel on the water. We had a nice time and enjoyed the weather. The day after we checked out, it turned cool , but it was hot while we were there.

Week 8, Thing #19 Library Thing

Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com/) is a fantastic tool for book lovers and for libraries. I especially loved the virtual library where you can list your books and even their covers. This is a great tool for small school libraries. Using Library Thing, the students can access their school library's holdings while at home. I also like where I can bring up my own catalog on my cell phone. This could really be a big help at a book store. I was surprised at how social this website is. I am a person who likes lists so that was the first application I thought of but apparently everyone else was quick to pick up on all the social advantages, such as book clubs, groups, and community events. This site is so easy to use.

Week 8, Thing #18 Online Productivity Tools

I chose to use Zoho Writer. I had never heard of it before and I'm really impressed. It was easy to use. What immediately came to mind was the potential to make group projects much easier. The worst thing about group projects is getting everyone in one place to put all the pieces of the project together. Using Zoho Writer, everyone can be in different locations and still actively work as one. I can really see this as a tool in high school or college.

Week 7, #16 Wikis

I find wikis a great idea. There are so many people out in cyberland who can contribute. It is a shame not to listen to what they have to say. Wikis are the perfect way to learn from other people's experiences. I really found the convention information wiki interesting. It allowed users to add maps of the area, restaurant recommendations, etc. Basically everything was included that a visitor would need to know by those who had been there before.

I was very impressed by the use of wiki pathfinders on library sites. Having constructed pathfinders before, I am well aware of the amount of effort and time that goes into making one. Allowing patrons to add to and construct pathfinders not only frees up the librarian for other duties, but will probably result in a more thorough pathfinder. The same can be said for community resource wikis. All in all, wikis are a great idea in the library.

Week 6, #15 Web 2.0/Future of Libraries

After reading Rick Anderson's "Away from the Icebergs", I was a little concerned about his nonchalance regarding user education. Coming from a college library, I see so many of our patrons who are struggling to conduct the library research they need to do well in their classes. There is not a day that goes by when I am not helping a panicky student, especially with electronic databases. There is simply no way most colleges can provide all the journals their students will need and the electronic databases are the best way to meet this void. But these databases are not always user friendly. Using these databases can cause anxiety to beginning students. I disagree with Anderson that we need to quit spending so much time educating our patrons. In order for high school or college students to be efficient researchers, they need to know how to find the information they need and the web alone simply will not fit all their needs.

Library 2.0 means to me that we must always stay on top of new technology and web applications. It seems like we are fighting an uphill battle, especially with our younger patrons. There will always be a young person out there who knows a million times more about computers and the web than we do and there is simply not enough time or money to match that knowledge. But as long as we are doing our best and constantly striving to keep up, we are doing a good job. Gone are the days when the web was a solitary experience and we need to embrace this change or we are going to fall behind. If we are convinced that a library is only a depository of books than we are going to become antiquated.

Photos

These are pictures from where I live.

Week 6, Thing #14 Technorati

I am really learning a lot about blogging. I used to think a blog was just like an online diary. But they have evolved to be so much more. Sometimes it is hard to tell them apart from an ordinary web page. When I first looked at Technorati I didn't have high hopes because their layout is unappealing. But when I started to really explore the site, I found that I could find blogs on practically anything and everything. The way you search seems to make a big difference. Searching for keywords in blogs brings up many more hits than searching by tags. I think the users of Flickr seem to be tagging more than other sites, like Del.icio.us and Technorati. Tagging is a great idea because Library of Congress subject headings are often confusing and limiting for most library patrons. However, the tags are only as good as the contributors and if no thought is put into a tag, then it will be useless. So I guess I feel that there are definite pros and cons regarding tagging.

Question About Commenting

How do we post comments on other people's blogs? I keep trying but I must be doing it wrong.

Week 6, Thing 13 Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is an excellent way to gather all of your websites into one page, easily accessible from any computer. You can access any of your bookmarked sites from any computer, not just your own. It reminds me alot of bloglines because it keeps all your favorites handy in one spot.

Week 5, Thing 12 Voice Thread

This is an wonderful tool for classroom use. Kids love to produce clips and show what they have learned. Not only can they teach as a group, but they can also illustrate at the same time. Using Voice Thread is a great way to get them to collaborate together. Parents would be very impressed with how professional their projects turn out.

Week 5, Thing 11 Web 2.0 Award List

I explored all the genealogy sites listed on the awards list, since this is a hobby of mine. I was really amazed by what I found. I always think of genealogy as lists of people who lived long ago. But all of these sites are more interested in those living now and exploring their lives together as a family unit. These are a great way for distant family to remain connected. I was impressed with all of the sites. I especially liked the way you can add video or set up chats between your family members. I also checked out Library 2.0 on Ning. This is a great site. I found so many groups that I would want to follow. This has a lot of potential for networking when members cannot meet often.

Week 5, Thing 10 Online Image Generators

I used http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/ to make these which I would use for signage in a school library. These were very easy to make and a lot of fun. This assignment took me about an hour because I kept trying other applications. It is amazing that there are so many choices.

Week 4, Thing 8 and Thing 9 RSS Feeds

I love using Bloglines. I started using it for news items relating to college libraries and it kind of took off from there. Now I have all sorts of items on my account, such as weather advisories (for our non stop hurricanes), job advertisements, and even Hollywood gossip. I finally had to go through the other day and weed some of them out because it was really getting out of hand. The three leads I read pertaining to college libraries are the Kept-Up Academic Librarian, ACRLog, and Chronicle: Wired Campus-Librarian.

Week 3, Thing 7 Technology

Technology has a lot of really great things going for it and I know our society would practically collapse without it but sometimes I wonder about our lack of privacy. I just discovered the website http://www.zabasearch.com/ and what I found was scary. Anybody can find out everything about any of us and I am not too sure that is good. So while I love technology most of the time, there are also times it really makes me wonder if we truly understand what we are creating.

Week#3, Thing #6 Mashups

I used the trading card program and found it really easy to use. In fact, I was amazed at how easy it was. I just uploaded the picture, picked a couple of options, and there it was. I will definitely spend some time going through these options.

Week #3, Thing 5 Flickr

Although I still have not found time to get to another computer that will let me upload photos onto Flickr, I did find this photo online that is copyright free. At least this lets me practice!

Week #3 Things

This week is turning out much harder than I thought it would. My computer time is spent on a PC that is heavily filtered and allows us to browse "acceptable" sites only 5 minutes at a time before we must push the quota button and start over. I can access Flickr but not upload pictures. Now I have to wait until I can get to another computer to finish week 3. I will really have to get creative to do what I need. Always a challenge!

Week #2, Things #3 and #4 Using a Blog

Wow, I have never created a blog before and have barely even read of any them. I will have to say that the whole process was pretty confusing. I am finally starting to figure it out now. I did enjoy picking my avatar and spent way too much time on it. It was kind of like playing with paper dolls, changing outfits and looks. That part was definitely fun. I put a welsh corgi dog in with my avatar because my own welsh corgi just passed away and she was a huge part of my life. And she doesn't mind being in a raincoat because in Florida it rains all the time!

Week #1, Thing #2 Lifelong Learning

I am a big believer in life long learning. I completed many of my graduate classes over the internet as my university was too far away to make traveling practical. I think the easiest part of life long learning for me would be my confidence level. I feel that I can learn anything I need to if I apply myself.

The hardest part of life long learning would be to play. My life is so busy and filled up with everything I have to do that finding any time for myself is hard. I have been making an effort lately to take some time to relax but so far, I am not doing such a great job.

Test

This is a test entry. I have no idea what I am doing!!!