Week 10: Everafter--Thing #Infinity and DRM

Today an article from Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black) came up on my RSS feed to remind me of how the muddle in Digital Management Rights has so far not righted itself. Her article took me to a variety of sites, including  Librarians Against DRM, so the blog goes on! I will try to add more next week.

Week 9: Thing #23

There has been an interesting thread on Calibk12 during the last couple of days concerning creative commons versus a physical site. David Loertscher posed the following questions:

If you combine the textbook budget, the library budget, the technology budget, and the salaries attached, at what point does it become cheaper to provide and maintain a virtual learning commons?

In answering this question, consider the safe and free Google Apps for Education, Open source textbooks, the growing number of free ebooks, etc., etc., etc... along side the movement toward blended and online education?

What is the appropriate mix of physical and virtual learning commons right now? In six months? And, how fast is this all changing? And, what should we as teacher librarians be prepared to provide leadership for?

None of these questions carries much weight for me right now--my library had virtually no budget except salaries and maintenance this year--and those are about to be cut, at least partially. A creative commons needs to have funding from somewhere in order to staff and maintain even a virtual site. Students still need a "safe and free" physical environment in which to work, not just digitize their products.

Nevertheless, I see much potential for a creative commons in a world of, at least partial, virtual education. Students are now able to collaborate in ways never dreamed of; thinking this can only go on in the physical proximity of a school or school library no longer is logical. Just as many workers now telecommute--and do so interacting with other employees--students will begin to this routinely. Some of our students are currently taking classes online. There is real potential in going to school, to a building, on fewer days--especially for high school students. We currently encourage them to use cloud based productivity tools and collaboration and project based learning are the order of the day. Or are they? Many of our students do not have access to any digital equipment outside school. Cell phones may become the productivity tools of the very near future--I have had students use them in the library, but they still do not print and are of little use for word processing.

The idea of creative commons is more than freedom of space and time, easy collaboration, and a few million free or inexpensive apps that allow quick access and adaptation. There is an international, multicultural, gender-free, and ageless quality to the world arena where the creative commons fits. It also has some multi-dimensional, untamed, and frightening aspects. Privacy and personal rights are at risk and need to be scrutinized very carefully by each of us.

Ethics is a much bigger issue now than in the past--at least digital ethics. Copyright laws are much more difficult to understand, much fuzzier in concept, for professionals as well as for students of any age. Piracy is rampant and responsibility is nil. Teaching and enforcing rules against plagiarism is mind boggling at times, so finding ways to make it comprehensible is difficult. I was impressed with the Duke publication "Tales from the Public Domain." I have bookmarked it and sent it to English and government teachers.

I started School Library Learning 2.0 fairly early--in the fall after it had been announced. I did not finish it then, but figured I would "someday." In the interim, I have done many, most, nearly all, at one training or another, preparing for a lesson, or just out of personal interest. The most useful part has probably been doing a sustained blog--I have created several for different purposes, but always abandon them after the original event. So, this has been a good exercise for me--especially anything to do with images because I really hate working with them. I got a little more practice.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Week 9: Thing #22--eBooks and Audio Books

My Kindle and I have a personal relationship. Sure, I really resent paying for content that I cannot share. True, I can get the same content on my smart phone. Yes, check out my PC when I am on the road and my Kindle got kidnapped by my husband (he gets his own for Father's Day). If I recommend a book I am reading on the Kindle, he hovers until I am done, waiting like a book vulture until he gets/takes his turn. I occasionally will finish a book on my phone so that he can start something on the Kindle--do not tell this to Amazon.

Of course, there is free content. Project Gutenberg's time has come! What they have been salvaging for the public for decades has now moved into the public forum and it isn't just librarians who know about it anymore. However, I have spent many hours searching through their catalog and found some fairly unfriendly looking texts--obvious formatting problems.... None the less, Gutenberg is free to the public and saving our resources from extinction by maintaining them in a digital format.

Legal issues lend a foreboding overtone to collectors of eBooks. As I illustrated from personal experience, it is difficult to share content. Moreover, one publisher has recently put libraries on notice that eBook purchases will expire after a certain number of checkouts, supposedly reflecting a similar demise that occurs with print and digital on-ground materials. Considering that the purchaser or borrow must bring his own container to the well of knowledge, there is a certain outrage on behalf of libraries.

Every delivery system of intellectual property has always been transient. Parchment deteriorated and was hard to come by. Mold corrupts print, heat warps wax, vinyl, and plastics, needles scratch away sound.... eBook delivery will change too, giving way to other media. At that time, the eBook and audio delivery of the moment will change and publishers can recharge for content with the new media. This is a time to be wary, to protect user rights and to encourage access.

All that said, I am reminded of the power of the access we have to such amazing public domain works as Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal digitized and copywritten for presentation to the public through the British Library. It could be sitting on the shelves of a very few academic or museum libraries...unavailable, even unknown, to the general public. Who knew that Jane Austen created her own History of  England--and viewed in her own handwriting?

The advertising on Read.Print is a bit overwhelming. I think this is the point where reading online becomes unlikely, at least for me. Interacting with the text is a very personal, inverted sort of exercise. When icons, advertising, and formatting become so obvious, for obvious reasons, that they detract from the contextual interaction, the reaction is negative. Profit is the motive for this site--fortunately, no one needs to go here.

Some of these resources offered audio as well as print. At my house,  we love audio books and I have found apps for my droid phone, computer, and, now, Kindle. The quality of Kindle audio has been poor--digitized and hard to listen to. So, imagine my pleasure in finding Audible--and then going to eHow to discover that I can download AudibleManager software to my computer, download the audiobook(s), then transfer to the Kindle. It will be my next Kindle adventure.

Week 9: Thing #21--Podcasts

Podcasting offers teachers and librarians numerous options for both push and pull operations. As suggested, I went to Podcast.com and looked for podcasts that would appeal to me. Since I am an NPR and CSPAN junkie, I am now in newstalk heaven. Access to Cartalk no longer depends on being in my car doing errands on Saturday or Sunday morning as I can get the a podcast download anytime. It just shows up in my RSS feed.

While I enjoyed  "Circulate This: Stories from the School Library," I felt it was preaching to the choir--and that it is too long to use for outreach to students, teachers, or the community. Perhaps it should be broken into sound bytes and added, by speaker, to websites or presentations. It does, however, serve as an example of what could be done using student and parent voices for advocacy.

I found great resources at places like the Library of Congress (curricula) and Edutopia (how-to-ideas). I also made certain that everything I tried, or liked worked will at my site--while I can download iTunes at home, the site is filtered at my school. We just recently got access to YouTube--after years of missing a great resource. Using podcasts as a teaching resource--pulling content--offers content or publishing on demand that can be accessed by students twenty-four/seven. The breadth of the content is, well, breadth-taking.

However, podcasting is not just a pull technology. Teachers can also use it to create content in the classroom, by having students collaborate to make presentations in a 21st Century environment. For a library site, book reviews are an obvious use. But tutorials can also be student-created--using an OPAC is much more interesting if it is a peer voice explaining it. Classroom projects, available to classmates, family, and the world give dignity and purpose to learning--again in the time shift that the Internet provides.

I spent a great deal of time looking at podcast directories and listening to various uses for the technology. Video is so easy to upload now that it seems a bit mundane at times. But still, driving down the road listening to Car Talk on Thursday gives me great pleasure.

Week 9: Thing #20--YouTube

March of the Librarians YouTube, 2007

As I watched this YouTube video, I was taken back to the Painted Desert productions that augmented the curricula of the 50s and 60s social science classes where I learned pretty much of what I know today about wildlife and geography. Now, of course, we have similar topics over-covered at Imax theaters where I have been bored numerous in a larger format about fish or alligators. While librarians watching March of the Librarians were no doubt amused, anyone else would have been catatonic. Gotta wonder what alligators in Louisiana would think about watching themselves and their habitat interpreted on the big screen?

My school district only lately allowed the use of YouTube. The County Office of Education had for decades provided a film library (need I say Painted Desert?) and then offered United Streaming/Discovery Streaming. Eventually, they were forced to recognize that YouTube and public media offered more content with excellent quality for free and they turned on access--just last year. Discovery Streaming will be a thing of the past next year as budgets tighten and younger teachers go first to their computers or iPhones to find content. Recognizing change and adapting to it is one of the challenges facing educators and librarians. Providing 24/7 access to information is only beginning to become a goal in my school district, which has been thinking 8/5 for quite awhile.

I looked at a lot of library tutorial because I see a need for them in my library, but found only a few that I thought were appealing. Examples of YouTube videos that I might model because they were brief, yet offered great information:

One I did like: The Library Minute: Top 5 Resources for Online Students

Most were either cut and dried (practical), or just too cute. Like a lesson plan, there needs to be a good anticipatory set--but the entire tutorial cannot just depend on that. Several had very good, or eye-catching, introductions, but then when into  dry and boring screen shots with moving cursors and typed instructions. A little goes a long way. Another concern: Very fast pictures, fast-talking speakers, fast, moving through instructions. Or slow, droning voices, moving endlessly forward. Just because it CAN be done does not mean that it SHOULD.

Animoto is embarrassingly easy to use. I "created" a sample using a few images on my computer: unfortunately there is no noticeable logic or sense to it. It was made from odds and ends of pictures on my hard-drive, several of them from Flickr and stored side by side in the folder. I chose a theme, clicked and downloaded, added a song from the Animoto inventory. I am looking forward to using Animoto--it fits my style.

The uses are astronomical both because it is so easy to use and because it can be so appealing to given audiences. The possibilities abound for use for advocacy, for advertising, for tutorials, for family photos. I am going to get serious and do an MLA citation Animoto for Senior Project next year. And a family album. As mentioned before, I am photophobic and hate (or am frightened by) photo/image/video. I can take 'em, I just cannot manipulate them. This looks like scrapbooking on steroids, but I will try it.

Honest, I'll fix it.

Week 8: Thing #19 Check Out LibraryThing

I love LibraryThing. I have a lifetime membership and many books on my virtual shelves. Scanning barcodes from my cell phone to LibraryThing has become a whole hobby. At Costco, I scan to see if I read the paperback title, released again because of the author's newest hardcover title. How many times have I taken a "new" title home, just to realize, seven pages in, that I know this book? Share books with friends? Look at lists of books catalogued by other readers. Mobile LibraryThing is my absolute favorite cell phone app.

Early Reviewers is a great resource and I have received several books--the books are free, members request the titles they are interested in owning, and magically, if you win the lottery, the book comes in the mail. Book recipients are asked to add a review to the selection. What fun. This year, they offered SantaThing--members can sign up to send books to a secret pal and receive books back. It did not go off without a hitch--in fact, people were still receiving their books in late February. The tags, book cover searches, all personalize my site--and make it useful to others. Mining lists from other users is also a great way to add to my library. At this point, my LibraryThing represents a short list of my lifetime reading and has little to do with my physical library, either at work or home.

LibraryThing now offers catalog enhancements, available by mobile, to holdings in libraries all over the place including Los Gatos, CA. On their record the LibraryThing.com entry for the Glass Castle looked like this:

Reviews from LibraryThing.com: Enhanced Content:Editorial Reviews
 see reviews/add a review 272 reviews (  ) 

According to the Bowker article on "How Libraries are using LibraryThing," libraries can subscribe to packages and services that can add value to library records., including reader's advisory, tag-based discovery, and patron and LibraryThing reviews.  This is the short list--many other enhancements are available. The implication is, I think, that the user/patron can be more in control of their own searches, less dependent on the library staff to decipher MARC record content and searches. Whether that results in better information for the patron will decide on long-term usage.

Another development of interest:  Koha and Evergreen are just two of many open source online library catalogs available to small libraries. I checked out the offerings available at the Sitka, Alaska library, which uses Evergreen.  The catalogs search all sorts of media, and list a variety of relative hits, offering less expensive OPACs and circulation services to smaller libraries. The interface is appealing and efficient, though a little slower than what I am used to through either my public or school catalogs. Seems like a wave from the future.

I also belong to Goodreads, which I use for more of a book club atmosphere, sharing current reads and recommending new favorites to old friends. It has a cozier interface, though advertising is becoming an issue.

Week 8: Thing # 18--Online Applications & Tools

I have had a Zoho account for several years but have not used it in a long time. First it told me I wasn't registered, but then it found me and hugged my password. I have spent much more time recently in GoogleDocs, because that seems to be where our district is headed, and because I have taken some Infopeople training using it. I went back in to Zoho today and am very excited about the numerous offerings. The Zoho Writer interface is clean and  easier to use than Google Docs.

The real power of these online applications is collaboration. Our school has implemented some project based learning classrooms and is encouraging PBL throughout the curricula. We are beginning to use Google Docs in some classes, a radical change from just a couple of years ago when our district technology department actually forbid us to use it. An example of how backward thinking a forward thinking group should be: Our school network went down. We were still able to access the Internet, but could not save work to the network and we all received an emergency notice. I sent a message to our staff recommending that they use Google Docs instead, at least temporarily, and save their work in the cloud. Next morning, I received a scathing message informing me that Google Docs was unauthorized and that it was wrong to recommend it "for security reasons." I could never figure out how it was less secure to lose work than to put it on Google Docs​

Some of the links for this assignment are no longer working, so I was unable to see:

BTW: Here’s a Zoho-created document (viewable as a webpage) about some of the beneficial features of Zoho.

~or~

Here is a short list of web-based productivity applications – Note: This list was authored in ZohoWriter and exported as HTML.

​I was unable to download OpenOffice.org  because of tight school district policy, but what an opportunity this is. The interface, as far as I could tell from screen shots, looks friendly. Thier policies--free, no license fees, available for anyone to "use it for any purpose - domestic, commercial, educational, public administration" should make it highly desirable to economically challenged groups, like schools. They claim that it is compatable with other productivity tools. I tried to look at their Policies and Terms of Use, but I got an error message, which would concern me if the company association were not Oracle.

Between GoogleDocs, OpenOffice.org, and Zoho, I really like Zoho. For use at our high school, we are faily committed to the GoogleDocs suite and so I support its use. They should be aware, though, of other applications, what they will do, what they may or may not do better for diffierent purposes.

I looked at the Google Sites tutorial on YouTube (just opened at our site--unavailable for years). Then I went to the website to explore--the tutorial was from 2008 and it seems even better. My TAs are going to be assigned to create a collaborative Library Advocacy page--which will be interesting because they do not share a class hour and many do not know each other. Several of our teachers assign website creation for projects and this is a a great resource. The short personal success stories on the main page are a real hook for students and teachers and make this an easy sell.

Week 7: Thing #17--Add an entry to the Sandbox

It's true. Dead links make me frustrated. I found this assignment tedious and frustrating, probably because it just seemed all over the place and there were links that no longer worked. Still, I found some fun things to do, very apropos. We are currently using Inspiration to produce a flowchart for a WikiHow skill/direction. The list of online, free Web2.0 applications just became my next step in the assignment. I played with several of them to see which might fit our school's needs. In fact, I have been advocating Inspiration--and got a grant to install it several years ago. For planning writing assignments, a project, a presentation, it is a wonderful tool. But having it at school and not at home is one of the difficulties of the digital age--providing access when and where it is needed.

As I looked through the list of flowchart creators, I got really excited. The one I chose required a registration process that ultimately failed. Then I found Webspiration--and since I am, at this moment, teaching some students to use Inspiration (an old version)--it was a great find.

Two great wiki ideas that I found included a wiki on the school library page to allow students and teachers to make selection suggestions for print and materials. The other idea was to use wikis to create pathfinders--a really solid idea as they could be shared with teachers who could edit and add to them as necessary.

Week 7: Thing #16--Wikis

Several of the wikis listed on the Week 7 list stood out for me. St. Joseph County Public Library's Subject Guides:  Wow! What a great resource. This is an outstanding reason to create a wiki--using a collective brain to recommend books. Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki is a practical resource for new and experienced librarians. Some, like Welcome to the Blogging Libraries Wiki probably offer great information, but the format is so uninviting that I just couldn't love it.

I have participated in creating wikis for group assignments in the past. but I have never set one up for the library. I can see that the calendar function, survey, and discussion board, would all be outstanding resources for the classroom and for the library. The ability to put links on a navigation column--and the ease of the navigation bar--all create a very friendly environment on the Westwood wiki found in the Sample School wiki. Wiki: A Beginner's Look is a really useful, user friendly resource/idea bank that is ready to go for students and faculty. I also really like the wiki for WebJunction: the ability to organize so many resources in one spot, without the stress of a website....

I am going to have my Library TAs create a wiki after reading the PLCMC Information Core Competencies  on wikis. Then I think we will create one together on TA Core Competencies at NHS Library. At this moment, I have Library TAs working on an Inspiration outline and concept web based on a WikiHow project. They are to complete one of the projects, then put it into Inspiration, showing what they had to do to accomplish the project, with more details than in the WikiHow. Students are uploading pictures of their projects and some are bringing samples. A few are including pictures from Picasa or Flickr for their presentations. It seems like a perfect segue.

Week 6: Thing #15--Perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and the future of libraries

Social media brings people together. Just look at Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya at this very moment. There are too many news articles and blogs discussing the part social media is playing in revolutions to mention or even read. I looked at several, including these two:

Libya, Egypt, Bahrain--they just want to be like us. Iain Macwhirter Now and Then

Can social networking overthrow a government? Peter Beaumont February 25, 2011 - 12:27PM

In an article from Next: The OCLC Newsletter titled "The Thoughts of Nine Experts About Our Increasingly Online Lives," Paul Jones (one of the experts) says:

If libraries and museums act on their heritage as places for intellectual improvement and social interaction and cultural cohesion, there is a great future for them. If they act as warehouses for cultural treasures as interpreted by the dominant culture, their days are numbered.

They may be numbered anyway. The gathering place, where information is gathered and exchanged, is treasured by the human race, but is frequently excoriated by taxpayers and tax collectors. As we see gross assumptions that students no longer need reference material because everything is available on the Internet and pundits declare that, somehow, 21st Century Skills will save us all if students just have access to technology, it is really questionable whether libraries can survive. Explaining to a dubious public that we are busier than ever is an ominous task, unless we are explaining it to the public that uses the library. There are great examples of librarians leading the technology charge--I'd like to be one myself. Advocacy will be everything.

In the face of revolutions without leadership, I think I see the face of the same anarchy that followed the French Revolution. In "Books in Time," a Carla Hesse article about the eBook, technology, and literacy, written approximately fifteen years ago, she states, among numerous amazing forecasts:

What appears to be emerging from the digital revolution is the possibility of a new mode of temporality for public communication, one in which public exchange through the written word can occur without deferral, in a continuously immediate present. A world in which we are all, through electronic writing, continuously present to one another.

I attended the CSLA Conference in Sacramento last fall. It is usually my first stop to look for ideas on integrating technology into my curricula. CUE came to Napa early in the year and met at American Canyon High School--our new tech rich site. Digital responsibility, social networking, collaboration--all considered 21st Century Skills--were the order of the day. Looking into the near future, or even the now, according to the Horizon Report, electronic books and mobiles are what to look for. Slightly down the path, we need to be ready for augmented reality and game based learning and gesture-based  computing. My cell phone seems to be using the last, my grandson is heavily into games for math, and augmented reality--well, aren't on the fringes of that? The "augment" feels more like an equitable access than a future based technology.

Week 6: Thing #14 Technorati, Tags, and SEO

My favorite thing about technorati, ASAP is that it recognizes multiple word tags. The no-space tag allowed by Delicious always irritates me, so any application that uses comma delineated tagging appeals to me. The tag list is really helpful and, of course, I love tag clouds. I checked up on Barack Obama, found some great blogs, but found myself, unwittingly of course, on a travel blog, which was advocating a new webpage that helps find least expensive airfair.

I am now a registered blogger at Technorati. I cannot wait to see if I show up in a search--the tags I use may or may not be the ones that get search by people who need to find my information. I searched Ask.com, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, as well as Technorati for "School Library Learning 2.0." All search engines returned better results than Technorati (0). The search engines were pretty much a dead heat--all returned several hits, including the main site and either Week 6 or 7 or both.

I have added a bit of knowledge about using title tags in search engine optimization (SEO). What I have always taught kids in English classes works on the web as well--be specific, be thorough. Now, it is a bit depressing to think that I might spend days and weeks writing an article for a blog or website that will just be scanned by readers, but that is just what I do all the time. Better make it good, better make it quick. Teaching students to very carefully consider content on the web, to evaluate it and synthesize it, becomes all the more a serious concern--teaching them the difference between what takes close reading and what can be quickly digested is a problem for every classroom today.

Week 6: Thing # 13--Delicious and Tagging

I have had a Delicious account for several years now--long enough to be greatful that all the dots have been removed. Long enough to be sorry that it was taken over by Yahoo, because students need to get a Yahoo account in order to create a Delicious account now. I have taught studnets to use Delicious as their bookmarking system because it travels with them. I also recommend that they add tags directly associated with assignments, such as the teacher name and course description. Someday, when they are trying to remember resources used in a previous assignment, it may be easier to remember that that was in schallon's class, or economics--thus schallon or economics become a tag. Meanwhile, they learn to use other useful tags--and how to use search terms to search the web. My Delicious account, schallon, has 380 useful bookmarks. Thanks to tagging, I can find what I want. Thanks to Delicious, I can take them wherever I go, though I miss the toolbar buttons to take me directly there.

I love Delicious. I have passed the wealth on to many teachers and students at my site and will continue to do so. However, I intend to migrate my bookmarks over to Diigo someday soon, but I can barely stand the thought of keeping up to sets of bookmarks.... I especially like Diigo's enhanced offer to K-12 and higher ed educators so that they can create student accounts, free from non-educational advertising, made useful for their specific teaching curricula. The accounts have to be applied for and approved, but might very well  make it worthwhile to migrate over. Diigo also allows for highlighting and sticky notes (other things as well--I've just been checking it out in a workshop).

Week 5, Thing #12: Fun 'n' Games

I love Wordle and have found it to be very useful for all sorts of things, from bookmarks to birthday cards to certificates (I used significant events and people to create a great certificate of lifetime accomplishment for my father's 85th birthday). Library TAs use Wordle to make cards, graphics for display, and bookmarks. Use it, play with it, love it.... I created the Wordle below when one of our teachers retired a couple of years ago.

My TAs and other students play with FreeRice.com in starts and spurts. It is a great vocabulary builder and it is a self-motivator. There is something mesmerizing and compulsive about it (don't tell anyone that I do Farmville). Students like it, it feels as if they are accomplishing something, so I like it.

Rollyo I had never heard of...the idea of a personalized search engine was just too good. I decided to try developing a travel site for future use (not too future...).

1. Made an account.
2. Added URLs--slowly. I got way too interested in looking at the places and venues. I probably should have chosen a topic like "dyspepsia".
3. Finally, I copied and pasted travel sites recommended by Rollyo because visiting travel sites was taking over my world.

Usefulness for class projects, research papers, etc.--amazing!

I also designed a Mini-Read Poster. Easy, fun, I am going to have each of my TAs and Library Teen Advisors Club (LTAC) create their own. We can post them on the library bulletin board--and on our library blog.

Travel IQ is a a great way to teach capitols, flags, etc. I sent it along to the staff and confessed that I completely bombed on my efforts--but I can see hope for finding my way around Canada in the future.

Week 5, Thing #11 Web 2.0 Awards List

I decided to try Mozy because I had used it briefly in the past between my home and work computer, but when my computer at work was updated, the Mozy download was wiped off. I have left it alone (for almost a year), thinking I would try it again. Besides, I also suspected that administration would have a discussion with me if they noticed it on my hardware.

I logged on to Mozy only to find this great "free" resource had become successful enough, or large enough, to charge customers for the storage. Several reasons I really liked it when I was doing the trial included backup against hard drive problems, access to my work documents from home, and the potential to share my work with a family member or co-worker.

Mozy is not as attractive when an minimum annual home use subscription fee is$109.89. While that allows the user to download to three computers and offers a maximum of 125 GB, a portable hard drive becomes very appealing. For business purposes, it is a great deal more attractive because it could save on the purchase of huge storage computers, space to house them, and employees to service them. Since I am not on that end of our school network, I have nothing to compare--but I strongly suspect that cloud environments like Mozy will be in our future.

I went to LinkedIn and linked in. Of course I have an account with quite a number of friends and colleagues, but I went out and found another librarian to add along the way. I found that I had already joined Library 2.0 at some time in my past, so I updated my profile and added a post.

Week 5, Thing #10 Play around with online image generators

Created in ImageChef

 
Never one to brag about my prowess with anything artistic, I find it really intimidating to have to display my "gifts" in a public forum. I have found Wordle very useful for creating word "pictures" and Image Chef offers a similar tool. I will use some other editing tools throughout the exercise, but working with images always leaves me somewhat stressed.

Week 4, Thing #9

Searching Bloglines for RSS feeds and useful blogs is time consuming and I did not find library resources easily, though technology resources are rampant. Evaluation is up to the consumer as they are often listed by most recently added, most popular, and all time popular. Sometimes the user can see the number of times a widget, feed, or blog has been uploaded, which is of some help, but searching for specific types of resources is very limited and the user (me) has to go through a lot of frogs before finding a kissable one.

I went to Topix and was impressed that it brought content from my locale instantly with just a click. However, it also brought very annoying popups that were really a pain to get rid of. Our newspaper does have a website and local forums and updates that can be subscribed to--so I put that on Bloglines and iGoogle. I really prefer iGoogle (have I said that before?). I searched CSLA on both Bloglines and Google--and Google found it, but Bloglines did not. I would be interested in hearing from Bloglines users about why they like it.

Uploading too many is probably a worse decision than uploading too few. On my Google Reader I had only a few rather dependable feeds and blogs and still I do not get to them all. Now sheer mass may prevent good use. Going through Thing #9 has added numerous feeds and blogs that will no doubt astound and confound me.

On Edublogs I found Free Technology for Teachers, listed as the 2010 Edublog Awards Best Individual Blog. It is a great resource and went on Google Reader and into Delicious. At Syndic8, I found the least attractive, most user unfriendly site I have seen in a while.

When I searched Google Blog, School Library Learning 2.0 came right up--a real improvement over some of these sites. No one was talking about School Library Learning at Blog Pulse, but the site came up asap,

I love the widgets/gadgets available, tools for almost any trade, especially mine.

Week 4, Thing #8

I used Bloglines for several feeds, searching through some recommended on School Library Learning 2.0 and some recommended from within Bloglines. Google Reader is in place on my iGoogle page, so several of the feeds overlap. I am used to Google Reader and do not see a reason to switch unless Google starts charging, goes out of business, or otherwise fails. I have used Reader for several years and depend on it to bring me updates on all things library. While I was at Bloglines, I spent time in NetVibes as well. I felt they were feeding me content--much of which I did not like--and I had to delete material before looking for what I was interested in using.

Using feeds on a school library or classroom website could be very useful. Articles about the latest technologies, the state of many school libraries, author information, and world news made available directly to followers and patrons in a format that appeals to them....

Most of my web content is not clearly differentiated between my professional and private selves. I see a need to do that.

I have not used an RSS feed for personal interests. I think it is time. I went through the Google Reader tutorials to get up to speed. My iGoogle account is set up with a calendar, Google Docs, Reader, weather, calculators, etc. I don't feel any reason to make my interests public immediately. I might do that on a separate page, or by making certain feeds public. Sharing economic, health, travel, and local and national news with friends and family members often gets shortchanged because of time; we will have to get on board.

At the end of the Discovery Resources a suggestion was made that we post about Google Gears. I realized that I had nothing about Gears in for quite awhile. According to Wikipedia,

On February 19, 2010, the Gears team at Google announced that the development of Google Gears had stopped, as they are working on bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5. Although development of new features has ceased, Google are planning to continue supporting Gears until they have developed a "simple, comprehensive" method for users' data to be migrated to HTML5 features.^[29]

Last summer (or was it spring?), I took an Infopeople course on Cloud computing, looking at a variety of apps. I have been using Delicious for years, but suddenly the glories of Diigo are being paraded by folks in the know. It will be sometime, if ever, before I migrate to Diigo. As with many things, a little added convenience may not make up for the time it takes to teach the fingers to do the walking. And, who knows, Diigo may be bought out by a bigger brother and turned into an app less applicable.

Week 3, Thing #7: Tech favorites--Kindle; Droid phone; LibraryThing; Good Reads

I love my Kindle. In the doctor's office, in the parking lot, I read, I download, I Gutenberg books. If my Kindle is not with me, I use my Droid...and still I read, purchase, and read some more. If the battery is low (phone, never Kindle) I make my way to a computer and use my Kindle PC app to continue reading. In fact, my husband has my Kindle now, reading Unbroken. I am considering hijacking the book to read on my desktop or phone. I do have some ethics, though, and do not want to cause him unwarranted confusion--consider leaving your book at 4400 and coming back to 331 or 5207 (the Kindle excuse for pagination).

Another joy:  Uploading book titles into LibraryThing via the barcode reader app on my phone and sharing books with others. I use Goodreads with friends and family--it feels more like a book club, cozier....

Week 3, Thing #6 More fun with Flickr

So, I went to Trading Card Maker and spent a little time creating a card. I think students would love this and I am going to have the Library Teen Advisors do it tomorrow.

We are currently running our Amazon.com Wishlist book donation drive. The students could create cards advertising our event--and create trading cards for themselves. Our motto is February is Library Lovers Month:  Give Your Library a Little Affection. Check out our Amazon Wishlist and consider donating a book. Visit the NHS Library website for more information.
Sample trading card:

Week 3, Thing #5: Explore Flickr

Enticeing new books--just what a library needs!

Using Flickr to create pictures on blogs is fairly easy. I fiddled with my Flickr account for a while and then uploaded a variety of pictures to Flickr. I found it easier to upload pictures to posts from within the blog, but got some fairly ungainly results when trying to arrange the various elements. Later, when I read the instructions and actually looked at the post toolbar, I realized that better results amd balance could be obtained.

I love Flickr photostream. What a great tool to use on a blog. Cannot decide which picture to use? Use them all. I played with the pictures on the blog and am still a bit frustrated with arranging elements so that they are balanced and attractive.

Week 2, Thing #4. Let's try it again.

Actually, I'd like to get on to the next twenty things.... As you can clearly see, I have been here before. I have read all the material--even the updates. I have a blog--even several, if you count what I use with students. I have an avatar, though my coloring is getting a bit grayer than the original.

I registered the blog with CSLA Library 2.0.