Last one

Looks like I made it! Just in time too since school starts tomorrow! Out of what we've done, my favorite is the Image Generators because I think we need more visuals in the library to attract the attention of our patrons. My least favorite was Library Thing because I really just didn't see the point. That may be because I don't need my personal books to be like a library and I have the library organized with the software and vendors we use. Perhaps there is untapped potential there that I didn't see. The most challenging for me was Instant Messaging. I only managed to have a couple of conversations with one other participant due to the complexity of searching for users, adding them as "friends" and getting those user names correct and everything. Maybe there were bugs with the program I used. I learned a lot- not sure exactly how to express it all. Obviously I learned a lot of new programs- or sites or whatever you call it. I learned how to add blogs as feeds to my igoogle page. That's one that stands out. I'll use that. I'll use the image generator and mashup sites. I'll use Flickr now that I've created an account. I'll use LibWorm occasionally to keep up to date with library news. I think it was a good use of my time overall and will help me provide better service to my patrons.

Thing 22

Since I am a school librarian, having all my staff trained in 23 Things isn't really something I'd "do". That would be only my clerk. But I could see being a facilitator/administrator for the whole campus. I definitely think there are Things they know nothing about, even though our district is a technology rich one. Our superintendent had made it one of his goals to enrich our students' education with technology, so we have a plethora of laptops available to our students. What we need now is more support staff-- oh, I mean, ideas for how to intertwine technology into daily lesson plans. And with the competitive principal that I have, I don't think it'd be hard to convince her to embark on a project like this over the summer. I DON'T think they'd go for it during the year!!! I really think that's non-negotiable. Well, I'd have to enlist the aid of our campus Instructional Technology Specialist to do this, so I'd need to make sure she had done it all as well. So that timeframe isn't unreasonable in that aspect. I'll put it on my list of things to do, and see if another one of librarians gets one started in the meantime... Oh, but wait, some of these things were VERY library specific. How do you adapt them to teachers?

PODCASTS!

Wow, I feel so cutting edge- I've already made one! Go me! Sometime last year the idea came up and after one of my fellow middle school librarians made one and shared it, I decided it was time to create my own. I grabbed a book I'd reviewed and wrote out something, recorded it, and added music. It was easy! Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to put it here on my blog. I thought it turned out really cool. I played it for several classes when I was doing booktalks last year. I have to admit though, it felt weird to have no image whatsoever on the screen while they listened to it through the projector. I want to work on that detail.
Ok, so about my experiences browsing other podcasts this evening. I really like the idea that I saw of including a transcript with your podcast. That actually gives the audience two ways of getting the info, so that's smart. I was drawn to checking out how other middle school libraries are using podcasts. Obviously booktalks is one great way. The one school listed as using podcasts had broken links, so bummer on that. But i checked out the school that was middle and high combined and they had awesome examples. The audio tour is a great idea- the merchant librarian in me thought, how smart! I may have to do that. In fact, all those instructions I constantly have to repeat- I could just make a podcast and then have an FAQ page on my website... Another good idea was the interview where the teacher and librarian collaborated on recording students doing radio plays. The idea was cool, but having the two of them talk about how they did it seems more effective than a written out lesson plan. I wanted to check out one library's series on online resources- that also seems like a really good use of podcasting. But those weren't loading. bummer. I hate it when technology doesn't work. But I'm seeing at least that there are a lot more options out there for podcasts in my library and I'm inspired to try a few of them out.

You Tube

Well, if you're going there just to browse, you might as well watch our video at the Book Cart Drill Team Competition THAT WE SHOULD HAVE WON! I'm not bitter.
For allowing us to post such videos many would find unimportant, I applaud you You Tube. Man, and guess what I learned playing around out there, they are making a movie out of Hunger Games. Score! I LOVED that book. They have a few trailers out for Catching Fire too, so that rocks. Let's see, I also did a search for Banned Books Week- in preparation for the upcoming celebration. I found a video Katie Couric did that I might use. I also got another idea for creating a video of the top ten challenged books. I may try that. I also did a search for Yalsa and found two interesting things: videos on a gaming exhibit at ALA and a program called Teen Book Drop. Interesting. I REALLY need a Flip video camera for the library! I have been inspired by You Tube today to make a promo for Java Makes Me Jump and maybe book club too.

Update on Lib Worm

It worked today! I was shocked. Now I'm disappointed. Looks like I'll have to sit around at night and read library news instead of playing webkinz. Darnit.

Google Docs Thing

I have been using Google Docs for years! But not regularly until the past six months. Again, the Maverick committee forces me into Web 2.0! We use Google Docs to share our nomination forms with each other and keep our list of reading and nominations updated using Google Docs. So there's a regular word-type document that we use and also a couple of databases- or are they spreadsheets- still a little fuzzy on the difference here. Also, our group of middle school librarians has shared things using Google Docs. I already have a list of contacts established for my Google Docs. However, it does not always work smoothly. Sometimes people don't get things you think you sent. Sometimes I have trouble logging in and I'm not the only one. The way you accept a document doesn't always work smoothly- sometimes after following that link, I don't see all my documents pop up! I tried organizing my stuff into folders, cause I do manage quite a few documents there. I got them into the folder I created, but they were still in the full list. Wel, then what's the point of the folders? I don't know. For this Thing, I explore the Templates section. That was new to me. So I used a couple. One for a photo scrapbook gave me lots of problems. I could only get one photo uploaded to it. The rest failed. from the web and from my computer. frustrating. So, what I don't see using Google Docs for is creating documents- especially after reading the blog where they advertise adding features that are readily accessible to me right now. But I see it's value in sharing and co-editing documents.

Wikis

I am not completely new to wikis. I have used wikipedia a bit in the past. Also, for the Maverick committee, I've had to use our wiki for discussion purposes. For some of us librarians in Irving, we made a wiki and used it a bit. My analysis thus far is this: Wetpaint is a terrible tool! #1 I got a virus while I was using it! #2 the annoying moving ads. #3 Difficult navigation #4 can't create pages with the same name, even as subpages? I dont' know the tool we used in my other wikis, but they work much better. Maybe that has to do with the whole account making aspect of it. I like the idea of it, but not completely sold on the ability of others to edit something you put up. For that, I like Google Docs better cause it's more collaborative in nature. In looking at wikipedia (origami article) I can definitely see how toes get stepped on in this process.

Thing 17, pt 1

Not working for me either. on two computers. After reading the blog posts, sounds like I'm not the only one. I'll try back I guess... It's a shame- I was planning to look up "graphic novels" to see what buzz is out there to help me with my Maverick reading. And banned/challenged books cause that's always interesting to me. Seems like a great tool to use when you are looking for info on a current topic or maybe doing research? If I can get it to come up, I'll bookmark it.

As of 8/15/09, I STILL can't get into this.

Library Thing

I just don't see the point. I added 15 books. Now what? Am I supposed to rearrange them? No, I have them by size and I quite like that. Search them? I really don't forget what I have. Catalog them? No thank you. I'll leave work at school. Hmmm...I read the articles. ISBN check? seriously? Is it that hard to look up or remove dashes? Am I supposed to share my library with other people? Not gonna happen. A lot of these are autographed copies! What am I missing here? Maybe I'm just a really bad librarian. Oh well. After 15 things, surely I can dismiss this one as completely irrelevant to my life. I never will get that hour and half of my life back though...

Not DIGGing it

Well, I'm just not a fan of the news. If you know me, you know I get all my news from either magazine headlines or my husband. So I don't really intend to use it. However, if I was going to try and find out about something, that might a place to go look. The idea of the people deciding what's important instead of the media is good. I like the change of format. The comments are a lot to slog through to find anything useful. Not a big fan of that component. Oh, yeah, since I was at school, then a lot of stuff was blocked. hah! fun!

deli.ci.ous

Bookmarks. I love bookmarks. I am a bookmark queen. I think it's part of me being a librarian. I need that kind of organization in my life. I wish everything could be this easily organized and stored. Now, I will elaborate somewhat. This is a bit of a repeat of a prior blog. My preferred format is to keep my bookmarks organized in folders on my laptop. But of course, the idea of portable bookmarks has its appeal. So I worked on my tagging to help me organize the bookmarks I already have. I added more as well. Didn't do anything beyond adding a couple of tags. Anyway, I think delicious is great. All about keeping it up to date periodically as a bookmark backup.

Tagging

To me, tagging has use, but not to the extent that it's currently touted as having. Or maybe I should qualify that I mean that for my life personally. Let's start with delicious, which is where I did first see tagging as an option. Back then, the main idea behind the site was just having an online place for your bookmarked websites so that you could access them from any computer. Still useful, although in no way replaces bookmarks the normal way. And since I'm such a big user of those, then the tagging is irrelevant to me. I use folders instead. The organization behind the tagging is there. what I don't really subscribe to is the sharing of tags. Apparently a big part of delicious now that I'm missing out on. Oh well.
For me, tagging became useful with Shelfari. Once you get a whole bunch of books, it's helpful to be able to organize them. The way that you can do this in Shelfari is only with tagging, as far as I know. So I tag my books when it's convenient for me. I don't do it for anyone else to use.
The other site I use tags with is blogging. This blog will be tagged for any reader to have access to my plethora of knowledge- or opinions. I know this can be useful because I know of blogs that I need to be able to search. OK, I haven't done this yet. Not sure if it'll work. I need to look for trailers on Naomi Bates' blog, and if I can search and go right to a blog entry for that book, it'll save time. NOw if the tags don't allow that to happen, then I'll be frustrated and know that we have a long way to go.
I see the use of tagging photos- especially in a site like Flickr so you can find pics that fit your need quickly. The real reason it works here is cause you can't just search the "whole text". Without text assigned to it, how can you make a match with a search? That must be why Google Images is so darn popular. Too bad the kids don't realize the copyright issues at stake there.
So that leads me into my philosopy on the whole thing. It's like keyword searching in the library. Extremely useful cause it saves time and allows those less educated to be more successful. Why not? Yeah, semantics need to get worked out. Us experts don't need to be the ones doing it. Power to the people! An analogy to consider: is a site or object without tags like a book without an index?

I've joined Twitworld- I mean Twitter

HALFWAY DONE!!!! OMG! Gosh, I'm so much more comfortable blogging than tweeting. I'd really prefer to call it twitting cause it just sounds so darn funny. If you want to check me out, follow me, whatever, then I'm @lionslib or something like that. I spent the majority of my time tonight on Twitter finding people to follow. The sky's the limit seems like. Not sure the last time I heard about Twitter- maybe when I saw my kids' school district marquee advertising that we could follow them on Twitter. So I am following them. And of course, the school district I work for. That only seems fair, right. I do like the idea of keeping up with someone or getting news in small snippets- it fits my theory of there is just too much information out there and I must seriously limit what i allow into my overpacked brain. But what was more fun was looking for authors online. Don't know why but I knew Scott Westerfeld would be there and I was not disappointed. A-mus-ing. Stephenie Meyer- if you can figure out which is the real one, will you let me know? Hmmm my judgement of Twitter's place in my life is postponed until further exploration can be done.....

IM

If you'd like to chat, contact me on yahoo messenger. My name is rockettlibrarian.
Now I'll go ahead and make a few comments about IMing.
#1 Web 2.0? IMing has been around for like 13 years! What??!!
#2 I have a phone with text messaging and email- why do I need to IM?
#3 Another inconvenience is that you have to be logged in at the same time.
#4 The abbreviations are cool, but I don't know many. I'd like to learn more of them.
OK, that's it for now.

ning

Ok, I can see how Ning might have more appeal than facebook because of the capability to personalize things. But the ads! Some were a little racy. And the search results too- I thought I'd look for a swing dancing community- oops found some other kinds of dance too! Ultimately, I don't see the use in joining a group like that unless you are trying to get in touch with people you used to hand out with or looking for tips on where to go dancing. I'm not anymore :) Another search I tried was library. Again, nothing I'd spend time doing. The one I saw that was most promising was for Dallas Chrysalis. This is a religious organization that I once was very active with but have lost touch with. So I thought what a great way to get back in touch with everyone and get a heads up on current events they are planning. DENIED! It was an invitation only group! Now what. rrrrgh.

more on facebook

Oh I can get so lost in facebook. But honestly I think my first impression of it still sticks-it's mainly a time drainer. Joining groups- as directed- has lead to this one main concern: why do I always have to "allow access" for these groups/applications/organizations/whatever to all my photos, info, friends, etc? I don't think that is always necessary and it's like this huge red flag every time. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, that is most likely why my district doesn't allow us to use facebook but blocks it. They said it causes problems to your computer. Which is one reason I didn't spend much time with it. I don't have much of a change of opinion about it thus far. Nonetheless, I joined ALA, six degrees of separation, and We can 10,000,000 Christians on the Internet. The last two wanted me to send out invitations to friends to complete joining, but I didn't. I also accepted several invitations from friends for Causes- now that seems like a more worthy use of Facebook. Oh, and a scrapbooking interest group. That looks promising as I think you can fancy up your photos. Despite about 90 minutes of this, I STILL have 94 requests to deal with....... Do they find out when you "ignore" your invitations and whatnot?

facebook

Oh, Thing 8- so easy! I love you! I wish you were all this easy!! In fact, it was so easy, I did it last summer! My husband just recently started his account, though, and he's been using it more than me. I, oddly, had no issues whatsoever with providing all my info- probably because I sought out facebook first and I knew it was it was viewable only to chosen friends. I am happy to announce that I have 123 friends (ok they call them connections and what I'm doing is bragging). I have even denied requests of people that I think are just friend surfing and don't really know me. What I've used Facebook for: finding friends- especially from high school, email/messaging, posting photos and to kill time. I have periodically been distracted by little games or applications- like trying to steal Twilight characters from my friends. It is truly a new and bizarre world. My one real insightful comment here is that it really has to be way cooler than myspace. EVERYONE gets in trouble with myspace. I never hear that about facebook. So must be true, huh? I will definitely enjoy Thing 9 and getting to know some of the lesser used aspects of facebook. Oh yeah- it was and still is blocked at my work/school.

Thing 6

Oh woe is me! I am only on thing 6. 23 seems SO far away.......
Ok, I'm done with my drama queen moment. As I plug along, I found this one really easy because I was already following a few blogs and I already had my accounts all set up, so it was pretty well a done deal once I went to the link. Easy peasy. I added all my buddies NT 23 blogs. And I added the reader to my iGoogle page. DID YOU? This session is really beefing up my iGoogle. Now if you're reading this, then you probably like me and you should add my other blog to your reader so you can keep up with what I read. And I just did a book trailer that I posted there. The URL is:
http://mybrainistoofull.blogspot.com/
Now, what I'm not sold on yet is all this tagging and seeing what other people like, but I'm keeping an open mind. That's just me trying to limit the amount of info coming into my brain- cause if you didn't already know, it's too full.

Disney mosaic

Disney mosaic,
originally uploaded by Rockett6.

Here is a mosaic picture I made of our recent trip to Disney World. It took me hours!! Literally! I was using Big Huge Labs and I had a number of problems. But I hung in there and here is my finished product. There was definitely a lot of slowness on the Internet's part last night. Might be this whole program.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Image Generators

This was an interesting exercise. I like the potential here. I definitely see this as a way to spice up my orientations....
One thing I've noticed with making photo modifications using these free programs is that you really have to deal with a lot of advertising. Although annoying, I will deal with it for a free program. And also because I get so frustrated with the continual need to update your software or get new programs altogether. That is absolutely inexcusable so I think Web 2.0 is a huge improvement in that sense.

Part 2

Ok, I was just checking on that first one to see if it really posted like I thought it would. I'm not real sure I experiences the full capability of mashups tonight. But I did like what I tried and I will definitely try it more. It wasn't quite what I expected. I thought it would be more creative really. Hard to explain. Two I played with are things I didn't post cause I was kind of disappointed. One was the spell with images mashup. I could only save the html of it. I wasn't sure how that'd show up in my blog. I made it for use with my book club anyway, so I'll have a chance to use that again later. My other experiment was the caption on a picture. I liked the idea cause I've had a specific need for that when doing my booktalks. But it was not at all what I expected. It was really intended to be used for speech bubbles! That's not cool. Or not what I wanted anyway. I made one, but it's not that impressive, so not posted. Thus, you have learned of tonight's endeavors.

Thing 4

Flickr mashups
attempt 1
This is my son in a Warhol picture.

Flickr Fun!

I'm on!! Now let's compare. Snapfish was the first web-based photo organization system that I used in an effort to share my photos. I've lost touch with it. I probably didn't attempt to utilize it's full features. Not much of a comparison I suppose. Let me try harder. Everything was by albums. Which was usually organized by date- by me anyway. Oh, difference- the first thing I noticed about Flickr- you can't edit those photos once you have loaded them! Yikes! Sorry for the sideways stuff! Although it was always so slow using Snapfish, I did edit them that way quite often- usually just rotating them and maybe re-ordering them. As far as organization in Flickr goes, I need to experiment more. I tried to mark favorites, but it appears you can only do that with other people's photos... I did like the ability to share your photos with anyway and, of course, see anyone else's on Flickr. I like the sharing concept. Tagging is different. I'm still considering the usefulness of tagging for me personally. I compare it to indexing of course as a librarian. But my photos are usually pretty well organized already... Oh that reminds me of another computer photo organization system I've used- Memory Manager by Creative Memories. Of course, that is more of a personal thing- not a sharing thing. Which is usually what I'm doing with my pictures because they are usually of family! I'm not so sure about putting my family out there on the net for anyone to see and/or use! Well, I could go on and on, but I that's less time to play....

Web 2.0 and library 2.0

Wow. Am I ever overwhelmed. I didn't even realize there was a library 2.0. I mean, I knew things were changing- and A LOT- but 2.0 huh? That's big. People ask me what I think is going happen to libraries with more computers in schools. Well, ha! Here's your answer- never underestimate a librarian's ability to adapt! I am truly fascinated by learning these concepts. And excited- because I get so frustrated with monopolistic companies like Microsoft. I am so glad that we are finding a way to outperform them. I really like the idea of developers needing to recognize our intelligence as well. MAYBE- if we're lucky- it'll lead to more intelligent people overall...

New blog for 23 things

Just realized I can't use my old one!