Michelle's Virtual Domain

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2010-06-08T18:01:00.001-04:00

2010-01-06T13:37:00.001-05:00

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2010-01-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

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2010-01-04T16:48:00.001-05:00

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Thing 22: Staying Current

2009-04-06T06:29:00.003-04:00

I have come a long way when I think of where I was when I even started using this blog tool. I have become much more confident in my problem solving skills, especially in trying multiple avenues to fix a problem. I tend to think of technology and its tools as this mysterious, difficult thing that only people with special powers can use. I'm finally starting to feel like it's not. You just have to become familiar with it. That's all! Keep trying and work through feeling discouraged. There is probably a solution.

I vow to incorporate the most useful tools into my everyday life and to keep learning. Also, I am going to try not to use the less useful tools as a way to procrastinate!

Thing 21: Student 2.0 Tools

2009-04-06T06:28:00.001-04:00

Assignment Calculator: http://www.lib.umn.edu/help/calculator/

Wow! Everything is here to help you do an assignment, and I mean everything. I made up an assignment and received a guide to the 12 steps for completing it. The links under those steps are so helpful. Examples: QuickStudies in finding articles, books, and web sites, links to sources for writing help at the University, and citing sources. There is so much here, in fact, that I think incoming freshemen should have to take a required tutorial on it. It could be enormously helpful, but not something you should try to use at the last minute.

I can see a library doing a summer program on research skills for freshmen, or anyone, going to college. It would only scratch the surface and you would have to carefully select the areas you wanted to cover. It might overwhelm.

Research Project Calculator: http://rpc.elm4you.org/ This is clean looking and seems to contain all of the necessary info. I would almost rather start with this tool for college freshmen. The site lists 4 steps to a research project with links under each heading. Yes, this is much more managable. Under Step 4, Communicate, there are even steps on how to make a documentary video. I've pretty much got the research writing steps down, but if I were going to do a multimedia presentation, this timeline would be a good guide.

Teacher Guide to the Research Project Calculator: http://rpc.elm4you.org/support_materials.php Everything is here to guide the educator and media specialist. There is even a section to teach students how to gather information by listening to podcasts.

If the librarian worked in conjuction with a teacher, she could have handouts at the library and be familiar with what the students are trying to do. This makes me think: What can I do to help teachers??

Thing 20: Books 2.0

2009-04-05T15:19:00.000-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ref=books This is a link the the article about literacy and young people in the New York Times.

Some things that struck me: Of course the skills required by online searching and reading are different from those required for sustained reading. Both types of skills are important. On line navigation, reading, and critical evaluation are necessary today, esp. in the work force. On the other hand, sustained reading of "good" literature can lead to insight and growth in the same way that other art forms can.

I was happy to read that struggling readers are aided from graphical cues when reading on-line, and thus might read more.

I disheartened to read that reading for pleasure by young people (of literature) is down. Then I think back to when I was a teenager. I read for pleasure in the summer and on vacations and before homework took over my life. But when school and other activites kept me very busy, I only read what was required. If I had any free time, I would watch re-runs of the Brady Bunch. That's not very productive or educational. Usually I was with my friends, though. It seems that a lot of the time teens spend on-line is social in nature. That just goes with the territory.

What really gets me mad is when parents forego reading to or interacting with their child because they want to go online. That's my pet peeve.

How Libraries Can Survive in a New Media Ecosystem: I wish there was a way to make the PowerPoint bigger and I wish I could hear the speaker. I'm having to do a lot of guessing. But enough complaining.

One of the slides contains a quote of Henry Jenkins and David Weinberger that includes the idea of collective intelligence asserting itself through collaboration. That's fine, but it makes me think of how important it is to have critical reading and thinking skills in order to evaluate your sources. Even when you have those skills, it's hard to know if the person speaking has anything to back up what he's talking about.

One slide says, "Be findable. Be available." Absolutely. Interesting perspective suggested by Rainie: think of yourself as an information hub, node, or link.

Future of the Book: I have to admit, thinking of this makes me antsy. Books seem almost peripheral to what we do every day in the library, especially when it comes to young adults. So much reading for pleasure is online. I wonder if one day, reading books will be considered quaint and eccentric.

Exploring Tools:

*DailyLit: I like the free "poem a day" feature. Personally, I would not want to read a book on a mobile device given to me in installments. Even if I had a daily train ride to work every day, I wouldn't want it. Give me the book any time. Maybe that will change as digital natives replace people like me.
*What Should I Read Next? Excellent! For the patron who has read everything and you don't know what to do, try this! Unfortunately, an error message came back after my second search.

What's Next? Keep this in your book marks, both for yourself and your patrons!

Which Book? Do you have the patron who says, "I only want something 'clean.' Nothing racy!" Or (and this really happened last week): "I want a book with a happy beginning, a happy middle, and a happy ending." Go to this site! There are little sliders that you can move back and forth in a range, for example, between "sex" and "no sex" or "optimistic" and "bleak."

Online Book Communities:

BooksVideos.tv Good, but there aren't that many of them.

*Booksprouts What a find. I am trying to start a teen book club, but last week only one member showed up. Another teen wanted very much to come and had even chosed the title, but had another commitment. It would be great if we could have looked her up on this site and at least looked at her comments.

Book Reviews:

*BookBrowse Okay to browse, but how could M.T. Anderson not be in there?

Book Rental:
BookSwim Plans range from $19.98 to $39.94 per month. If this is based on the NetFlix model, it could spell trouble for booksellers, but I don't think it'll affect library use as much (I hope!) College text books for rent is a great idea, but you won't be able to write in them.

Apps for Facebook:
WeRead (Books iRead) Sort of like LibraryThing. I'll stick with the latter.

I think these tools will enhance, not hamper, the reader's experience. In fact, this thing has given me a lot that I can use on the job!

Thing 19: Other Social Media

2009-04-05T10:57:00.001-04:00

WebJunction: What more could you ask for if you need to implement tech. plans or evaluate and brush up on skills? I looked at the webinar archive and found topics divided into Learning, Rural, Spanish Lang. Outreach, Community, TechAtlas, and MaintainIT.

I went to the Rural section, downloaded Wimba Classroom, and was able to get into a webinar about programming developed by the Chelsea District Library. This library was voted Best Rural Library in America, 2008.

Ning: A social network based around people with similar interests.

Gather: describes itself as the “leading social networking and media site for adults, with some of the highest quality user-generated content on the internet.” The format is mostly in debate format. American Public Media is highly involved. This is listed as a site for NPR listeners. When you go to sign up, the graphic is of a couple of well-dressed people at a dinner table. The headline says, "This Ain't Your Kids Social Network". It's for the "over 30" crowd.

LinkedIn: A social website for professionals that allows you build connections with clients, service providers, and subject experts. You can share files and work collectively. I would rather use this site than Facebook as a professional, although Facebook might reach a wider audience. As long as your connections were reliable, this would be a good place to go for specific, business related services.

Articles: MySpace for Books http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6290501.html
An article on Gather.com. It's a site that allows you to publish content and rate the content of others. It looks like a gathering place for readers and writers. Funded by American Public Media group. The site's publicist thinks Gather will do for books what MySpace has done for music. Houghton Mifflin is the first publisher to take part in the site. The site is now hosting a short story contest. It'll be interesting to see if it takes off.

http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/451181 From Web Junction: Building a Social Networking Environment at the Library.
This article gives a vivid example of how an author visit could involve patrons in social networking through comments and podcasts. Promotion of the technology could go hand-in-hand with advertising of the event. That way, reluctant and potential users of the technology would be motivated by connecting with their favorite work and author.

Social web workshops sound like a good idea, too. I can see this going over well with the over 50 crowd.

Social Networking sites that interest me: FilmCrave. I love documentaries and I am always looking for good titles. A few years ago, I saw Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed about Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman to run for president. I was so struck by her conviction and honesty. No one has posted about this one yet.

Finally, I found the top 50 documemtary list. Our library does not have The End of America, but this site did remind me of one that I had wanted to see called, My Kid Could Paint That. I just ordered it.

Thing 18: Facebook and MySpace

2009-04-05T07:01:00.002-04:00

I am going to visit MySpace and various libary MySpace pages. I just tried to sign up, but I haven't received the link in my email yet. In the meantime, this is what some libraries are doing:
Alachua County: In January, they had an African American Read-In with leaders in the community performing readings. What a good idea.One of their videos shows there digital book mobile. Wow. In another, homeschooled children show how they use on line library resources like databases and Ask-A-Librarian while outside on their farm. They also show the kids doing farm chores while listening to downloaded books. What a great promotional tool. In the teen area, they have a Shelfari, a bookshelf that allows you to click on the book displayed and see a synopsis and reviews.ACLD teen scene has 55 friends. One of them is Teen Ink. Teens can click on their link and upload art there that they want to show. Pretty cool.

Jacksonville Public Library: The Teen Department has some cool programs. One that I like is the Call of the Wild book discussion and movie with Klondike bars.Their disclaimer pretty much covers everything.The winner of their Ask-A-Librarian You Tube contest did an incredible job with animation.The movie trailer for Inkheart looks great.On the randomized Friend Space, one teen was called himself Juan Badd Azz and one Friend had a photo of her giving the finger. I imagine that monitoring and removing inappropriate things would be one of the drawbacks of having a MySpace page. It could get tricky.

Pasco Libraries: Here is an example of a MySpace page being used to rally support the library in hard economic times. A large headline proclaims that, due to dwindling funds, this might be the last year for Battle of the Bands. They ask for help from sponsors and someone comments that he will be starting a petiton to keep it going. Participants are talking to each other about music and who's playing.

AskaLibrarian: Has links to LitFinder, Florida on Florida, and Net Library. You can find out about many other libraries by clicking on on of thier 1,972 friends.

Though I am not very interested in using MySpace for myself, I can see what a great marketing tool it appears to be for libraries. How much traffic there is, I don't know, but I got excited looking at all the programming. For someone who hasn't been to the library in a while, this is a great way to see how libraries have really changed.

Facebook may be better to join for professional reasons, but I am really not interested in posting a bunch of stuff about myself. I don't know why I'm so private when it comes to that.

Thing 17: Podcasts

2009-03-25T08:28:00.002-04:00

Something I did not know: Podcasts are different from other forms of digital media in that they can be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded when new content is added.

You need a "podcatcher" to capture the shows. itunes is one example.

http://podcast.com/: You can look up podcasts by subject. I started listening to a few: one from the Economist, one from Bloomberg news, one from the Onion, and a few from Entertainment.

http://podcastalley.com/ doesn't really appeal. Not so user friendly.

Yahoo Search: Mostly music here. Why am I having a hard time finding what I want?

Here is a very interesting news story I heard yesterday: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102243287

I think I prefer www.podcast.com in terms of searching. However, I just tried to sign up, then went to sign in, and was unable to do so. Errrg. I have spent too much time on it. In addition, "webpage cannot be displayed" keeps coming up in the middle of everything. I am going to put it to bed for now.

Back agian (the next day). I am going to have to leave podcast.com behind. Though I've signed up, I can't sign in. I get a message that this acct. is not active at this time. When I try to sign up using the same email, the system won't let me. I tried using a different email. I hit submit and nothing happens. I downloaded the newest Flash. Still nothing happened. ERRRRGGGHHH. I'm going to podcast alley.

I'm going back to podcast.com because the podcast I want isn't available, at least I can't find it on podcast alley.

My Yahoo mail is still down, but I set up an acct. using my work mail. I got in there and finally activated it.

I tried signing up AGAIN. This time the only thing I did differently was to say I had a certain kind of cell phone. It let me in!!! ??? Oh no. It is again saying my acct. is not active. I don't see where to go to remedy this. I left a comment.

Back to podcast alley. I signed up, but now my Yahoo mail page won't open so that I can activate my acct. This is by far the most frustrating Thing.

My Yahoo mail is still down, but I set up an acct. using my work mail. I got in there and finally activated my www.podcast.com acct. FINALLY. Here is my link!

Despite the frustration I've had with this, I am very enthusiastic about doing podcasts with the teens in our library. Specifically, I would like to use it with our book club and with a poetry group that is starting up.

Thing 16: YouTube

2009-03-21T06:27:00.003-04:00

This is a claymation made by Nick Park in 1989. He interiewed people in England about their living conditions and then had their voices coming out of these animals in the zoo. I love it.

For some reason, my eyes can find the "about this video" box. However, I did find lots of videos that were knock-offs. I like this one best.

Thing 15: Rollyo

2009-03-20T07:07:00.001-04:00

I tried Rollyo. I honestly don't have much use for this Thing right now. I practiced making one called Michelle's News. I only put three websites in it. Here's the link. http://rollyo.com/index.html I didn't find the site all that easy to use.

For someone who is online all the time and has to keep track of many sites on different subjects, this could be helpful. I'm not that person. For me, it is helpful, though, to look at sites that others have grouped together. Maybe I could learn more about sites that might interest me by looking at those.

I could see a group of people in a library using this collectively. If I'm an expert on home repair, someone else on law, someone else on dog breeding, we could all consult each other's rolls when a patron has a question. Patrons, too, could create their own rolls for each other.

Thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

2009-03-20T06:16:00.002-04:00

I chose iGoogle for my start page, probably because I use Google for most everything else. The widget that would be most helpful to me is the calendar. What I'm finding odd is that every time I open my homepage, it looks like something different is there. Now my calendar is gone, but there is a YouTube featured video of the day. Where did that come from?

The virtual "to do" lists seem more trouble than their worth. However, Backpack looks like something that really could organize and increase productivity. Everything is all in one place! That would be a great work tool.

A good school tool for me would be MyStickies. That could come in really handy when you're looking through tons of research and just want to draw attention to bits and pieces. I can thing of many times when I could have used that.

Thing 13: Library Thing

2009-03-16T17:04:00.003-04:00

I didn't find any conversations about my books, but I did read about a member who has 500 movies in in Netflix queue.

Not much is happening locally, but I did see our branches on the map.

Thing 12: Wikis

2009-03-16T16:01:00.003-04:00

I think that the St. Joseph's Public Library System wiki is an awesome example of what a library can do to meet users where they are. There is so much, yet it's all relevant and organized. I think a lot of information overload is caused by the fact that, yes, there are lots of great sources out there, but they are recommended here and there and you end up with a huge pile. On the SJPLS wiki, you can see all kinds of info on, e.g. biography, and it's all easy to look through. You don't get lost because it's all consolidated.

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki: Wow! Great, but overwhelming! I feel so behind in all things library! I found this, though: a link to a blog called EZ Library Programs for all ages. You have four categories with which to search: Topic, Audience, Program Type, and Cost. I chose "food," "teens," "instructional" and "$21 - $40". I got a result of 3 programs. Two were about microwaving, and one was called, "Sushi with Hostess Cakes and Other Creative Ideas." I never would have thought of that one! This site has everything imaginable having to do with librarianship: This one has been bookmarked on Delicious!

Thing 11: Social Media

2009-03-16T14:57:00.003-04:00

My favorites of the selections are Digg and Newsvine. For me, these tools can be either a help or a hinderance; it all depends on my self-control. The tools could be very helpful in that they aggregate all of the most popular stories and let you see public reaction to them. This could help at the reference desk. Another thing that could be very helpful to me personally is the "Gaming" category on Digg. By looking at the top stories, I can moniter trends and see what's up with the "youngsters."

If I lack self-control, these sites could be a big time waster. I can see myself procrstinating by looking at ridiculous entertainment gossip or at a topic on Newsvine called "Odd News."

Thing 10: Tagging and Delicious

2009-03-09T13:37:00.000-04:00

I learned about Delicious long ago, but signed up just now. So far I am signed up for a Hollywood gossip blog (my favorite stupid vice) and a computer training site called CustomGuide. I set up a subscription list, used the tag "technology," and instantly had a ton of sites.

Delicious would be really handy for those in large libraries who have rotating desk schedules or share computers. Also, the ability to group topics is helpful.

Right now, I don't have a network to share sites. I'm looking for good sites on how to deliver instructional presentations if anyone knows of any! Thanks!

Thing 9: Sharing Slides, Photos, Databases

2009-03-09T07:33:00.000-04:00

For someone who does slide presentations often, Slideshare is a useful place to store everything and see what other people are doing with design. Slideshows have come a long way since bulleted lists! I watched a few shows, but didn't they didn't have audio so it was slightly frustrating.

This would be useful for libraries who do a lot of teaching. One person chould make the presentation, and then others could use it.

This is what I did with Picture Trail:

I picked size "XL" for the pictures and haven't been able to figure out why they are still so tiny . . .

Thing 8: Communication Web 2.0 Style

2009-03-01T15:16:00.000-05:00

New innovations all the time, e.g. wifi capabilities which allow you to see a map and locate people on your buddy lists (I think that's a little creepy, personally.) Meetro is a service that encourages people in the same area to communicate with each other. It never occurred to me that a gadget would try to introduce me to someone I didn't know.

Some popular ones: Google Talk, Yahoo! Instant Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger.

I added the gadget below so that I could start instant messaging.

I'm now reading an article from May, 2005 of the Smart Libraries Newsletter that Innovative Interfaces Inc. is including IM in their Millenium library automation system. Patrons will be IMed when their information is located. Sounds good. It looks as though other vendors and integrating IM into their software as well. I didn't know that Google has an instant messaging service for certain information, either.

Google Talk is not working for me. There's a gadget on my homepage now, but when I try to add an address, it gets stuck on the "loading. . . " screen. I'll try Windows Messenger.

2) Web Conferencing: I like the idea of using web conferencing to learn software applications. I find it so hard to learn computer skills from a DVD, much less a book. I imagine that the skills of the presenter have to be very good.

Other notes: Meebo is an IM aggregator that allows you to chat with all accts. at once.

Twitter: Called a "micro-blogging" tool. I am amazed at the ways people can use their time with this stuff! The scary part is that people can look up what you've twittered. Employers are using twitter search to check on applicants. I just want my privacy. I bet if this technology had come around when I was in my early twenties, I'd be all over it, though.

Thing 7: Online Image Generators

2009-02-15T16:16:00.001-05:00

I wish I had a real sign like this for Teen Lounge. I would also like this text to be next to the sign, not under it.

On the right is a picture of my dog after being put through the
"Warholizer" at Big Huge Labs. (She's a medium-sized mutt.) I think kids of all ages would enjoy seeing images of themselves like this.

A lot of the stuff on the generator blog is just plain silly. Here is a surrealist compliment I generated.

"In your presence even my shadow acquires the sensation of touch. "

Okay. That's enough for today.

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

2009-02-15T15:29:00.000-05:00

I went back to the mashup I've used before to see if it had improved any. Called retievr, it lets you choose a color and draw a shape. It then matches what you drew with Flickr photos. It is still pretty ineffective.

I went to check out Montager, but there was a warning that it may crash your browser. I'll try something else.

Check out this lush purple. It is by eason at http://www.flickr.com/photos/eason/35585494/sizes/s/in/pool-31917163@N00/. I found it using the color fields color pickr. If you're into color, go here! There is also a slide bar that allows you to adjust brightness. But, the great thing is that there is a slew of categories to pick your images from.

This one, by funkandjazz http://www.flickr.com/photos/phunk/6173317/sizes/s/in/pool-49503134345@N01/http://www.flickr.com/photos/phunk/6173317/sizes/s/in/pool-49503134345@N01/ , is from graffiti. ( A few Google ads along the side might be useful to those who need graffiti removal services. Ha!)

I just spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME on findr. This site groups together photos by tags. For example, I picked Tokyo and then narrowed it to Tokyo + Harajuku, then narrowed it to Tokyo + Harajuku + portrait. I got some wild photos, but I gave up looking for one that could be shared. This is addicting! Frustrating, but addicting!

Then there are your truly useless mashups, like clockr. Wait! I take that back! At first the numbers weren't changing, but now they are. Still useless, but cool.

by spell with flickr

Thing 5: Flickr

2009-02-15T13:09:00.000-05:00

I've enjoyed looking at photos on Flickr for some time now.

I want to give full credit to the person who took this photo, found after a search for the items under "Cerrillos, NM". It was done by Oceandesetoiles. Here is a link to the picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocean_of_stars/2550067047/sizes/s/

I searched for many photos and found many I liked, but the many of them were copyrighted "All Rights Reserved." The above photo was marked "Some Rights Reserved," meaning I could share it if I wanted to. I'm glad, because I like it.

I've struggled with the concept of stealing bandwidth. If you click on the "add image" icon in the "Compose" section of your window and then on "Learn more about using web images," there is an explanation. It includes the following: ". . . you shouldn't use an image location that is hosted at someone else's expense without their permission. . . because every time your blog loads, the image is loaded from their server, and this person likely incurs an expense." I'm not sure if I'm using the above image correctly. I saved it to my desktop and then took it from there using the

"add image" icon. If anyone can shed some light on this, I would appreciate it.

In the meantime, here is a picture that I put on my own Flickr account a while back. I got the text in there using a drawing program.

BTW, one of my favorite features on Flickr is the World Map. Go anywhere in the world, and look at the pictures that have been uploaded from that area. You might see some guy showing off his newest piercing, but you may also see some unique perspectives on a particular place.

Thing 4: RSS

2009-02-13T07:06:00.000-05:00

I've never followed blogs or websites consistently, but here goes. I choose Google Reader as an aggregator.

http://www.epnweb.org/ This is the address to the Education Podcast Network which brings together podcasts on education and learning. There was no feed for this one.

I am now following four blogs, all belonging to my co-workers. We are all working on the 23 Things. In addition to those, I am also following a blog called Library Storytime and David King. David King talks about tech in libraries, social networking and such, so that would be a good one to keep an eye on. I also signed up for feeds for the Huffington Post, Google News, and TED.

Thing 3: Blog Search Tools

2009-02-06T06:26:00.000-05:00

Though blogging is "firmly entrenched in the mainstream" according to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere, I am pretty much still on the outskirts. I have two blogs of my own now, one for class and this one. As far as contributing to other blogs, I am what they refer to as a "lurker", someone who hangs around looking, but doesn't reveal themselves. Sounds creepy!

I am going to record here Technorati's definition of the active blogosphere: "The ecosystem of interconnected communities of bloggers and readers at the convergence of journalism and conversation."

“Video will also become increasingly important to convey complex messages that are often lost in text - while audio will continue to fall away to this new medium, save those 'casts with high production values." This quote by Chris Pirillo made an impression on me. I'll be learning how to do podcasts in one of my classes. Maybe I'll see about video, too!

From Technorati: Blogs are not just personal diaries.

I started exploring by going to the subject list. I clicked on Real Estate (under Business) and ended up following the advice of a blogger to listen to a radio show featuring Peter Schiff. I looked under celebrity gossip and didn't find anything compelling. Literature didn't suck me in, either. I tried the videos section, but that didn't grab me. I can watch only so many Christian Bale remixes.

One of the exercises for Thing 3 is to do a seach in Technorati and compare it to a search of another database. I chose Google Blog Search. I looked up chemical injury. I was a little surprised to find that Technorati did not yeild all that much that was relevant. I tried clicking on the box that allows you to choose "most authority," and still got results that seemed "silly" to me. Maybe, because I'm in school, "authority" means something different to me. I believe that the way that authority was defined in Technorati, was the number of links to an external website in a blog. That's a different type of authority than what I am used to thinking of. Google Blog Search seemed to yield more relevant results. In fact, the Search Engine Journal does give it higher ratings for relevance than it does Technorati. What's the authority of the Search Engine Journal? It is difficult to know which sources to trust!

The Google Blog Search is now not letting me in for some reason, so I'll have to postpone further comparisons.

Technorati allows for sorting of various types. In addition to how much authority you want to choose, you can also choose language, whether you want to search photos, blogs, or videos. I am highly sceptical of blogs when they don't cite their findings. But, it is fun to see the blogging trends. For example Blogpulse lets you compare, for instance, blogging on auto loans, college loans, and mortgages. Mortgages was by far the most active, spiking in mid Novemeber 2008.

Interesting fact: Some people are profiting of their blogs. Mean annual investment is $1,800 and mean annual revenue is $6,000.

Thing 2: Library 2.0

2009-02-03T10:26:00.001-05:00

The way I understand Library 2.0, based on Web 2.0, is that it involves a shift from static viewing/reading to interactivity. Another idea that often comes upregarding library 2.0 is that it meets users where they are (not necessarily in the library).

Two impressions from the Steve Abrams video: 1) in order to learn this stuff, you have to be immersed, actively learning by doing, and 2) you will be most successful if you are engaged.

To be fully engaged is a challenge, I find, because we are so very busy. However, as Abrams points out, you have to make a commitment to find those fifteen minutes a day.

John Blyberg's blog post: Interesting to me is the "peer-to-peer" ideas that Blyberg speaks of. He says that libraries are going to need to "pool their resources." I wonder how that would work.

The Ongoing Web Revolution, article from Library Technology Reports: Director Josie Parker of the Ann Arbor District Library reports that, after two years of blogging and commenting, there was only one case of profanity (by a patron). Wow.

Thing 1: Overdue!

2009-02-03T08:57:00.000-05:00

Ignore any posts from 2007 when I first started the 23 Things. I am starting over!

I have done a blog before for class, but used it just to track progress, not really to interact. I will take it a step further this time and actually comment on others' progess. Feel free to do the same to me!

RSS feeds and image generators

2007-11-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

I went to www.bloglines.com and set up my own rss feeds. I was a little frustrated when one of the sites I wanted did have a feed, but when I tried to move it over, bloglines told me that it did not. But, I added it to my own computer instead. Yay!

I also learned about image generators. I made a picture of my dog look goofy (Sorry, Mange!) and I played with the homespun analogy generator and came up with "I'm as grumpy as a sunburnt goose on a fish hook," among others.

My Arm is Numb

2007-11-20T09:58:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to learn about mashups and Second Life this morning. I tried to participate in a mashup which allows your flickr photos to be placed on a map. However, the second party had no information on their website on how to do so. I'm wondering if it's something you have to pay for. I emailed them to please explain a little about how the two applications work together.

I tried another mashup called retrievr. This site allows you to draw a picture and then it retreives flicker images that resemble what you've drawn. It is very crude in that what you draw usually ends up looking like a big blob. If you're looking for retrieving something specific, it's not very effective.

I tried to go to another mashup, Big Huge Labs, which allows you to take photos from flickr and make inspirational posters or press badges, etc. However, when I put in all the information and pressed "create," nothing happened. I think it may be something with my computer, because the same thing was happening in Second Life when I tried to sign up there. I had been interested to see how much a press badge or poster would cost.

Last week, I went to a mashup called Zazzle. On that site, you can make a sticker out of a flickr photo, but it costs $4.95. Yikes!

Flickr

2007-11-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

I just spent a LONG time on Flickr. I now have my own pictures to share. The only hard part was figuring out how to make them display in the right order. Hooray!

43 Things

2007-11-11T14:36:00.000-05:00

43 Things is a website where you vow to do something, like learn Chinese, lose weight, learn Library 2.0, or anything else you want to set your mind to. One person vowed to break his Internet addiction.

My husband just told me he is going to download some clothes into the washer and upload some out of the dryer.

I think I'll change this font.

By the way, don't let yourself get discouraged when trying something new, like learning all this stuff. It just took me so long to realize that the little pencil down below is what allows you to edit a post.

Tracking Progress

2007-11-10T12:27:00.001-05:00

I decided that I am going to track my progress here instead of on the 43 Things website. I like this interface better. I'm still learning how to get around there and communicate.

I found my way back!

2007-11-10T07:02:00.000-05:00

Wow! I had to try so many names and possible passwords before I finally got back into this thing. I was rushing and playing when I signed up and then couldn't get back in.

Note to self: username is your email address, not the name you use to display on your blog!

I just played around with background colors and fonts and I like it better now. Yesterday I went to a NEFLIN by Mickey Boyd, "Gentle Intro to IT". He mentioned that most MySpace pages look like somone threw up on them. I had that in mind when I picked my colors.

Ta Ta for now!

Breaking News

2007-11-03T15:24:00.000-04:00

Hello, and welcome to my blahg! I've never done this before. My husband and dog are napping. I don't know how with those Blue Angels about to land in our living room.

I think one of my assignments for this posting was to write down a learning habit that was easy and one that was difficult. Easy for me is to teach others, hardest is to use technology to my advantage. Those dang manuals are so long!!!!

Now, wasn't that fun?