Tuesday, November 20, 2007

23rd Thing / Final Thoughts

COMPLETED!!!!
I finished thing 1 through thing 22, now there's just one more thing left to do.
Blogging, Rollyo, podcasts, You Tube and Meez;
Zoho, Sandbox, tagging, RSS and Wikis;
These things and more; were not truly a chore. The learning was fun, albeit compressed, I proud of my accomplishments, nonetheless.

For me, the greatest challenge was finding/making time to work on the things.
I must confess that many of the exercises were completed at home. What I enjoyed the most - I'd have to say the tasks that offered creative opportunities/input: Meez, Avatars, You Tube, Flickr. I've always considered myself a lifelong learner, that's what makes librarianship such an appealing profession. I doubt that I will ever be able to drop the vacuum or postpone laundry or cooking to spend hours blogging and the like. I still prefer interacting with people face to face or over the phone. The biggest surprise was the fact that with the exception of adding Rollyo to my blog, I accomplished the tasks independently. I guess my technical skills were better than I gave myself credit for.

Improvements? For my personal situation, more time to work on the things and/or fewer daily, weekly demands/deadlines while working on the things. For staff in general, it might have been a good team building exercise to have had only thing per month coupled with monthly staff meetings (before OR after each thing) to share and problem solve.

Future participation - Absolutely!

Description of learning experience - See above. Learned alot, gained confidence and didn't loose ability to create Seussian verse.

Tanya

22nd Thing / Overdrive & Net Library

This was a really useful exercise because it has real day to day applications since HCL offers Net Library and customers do ask for assistance. Setting up the account and creating a list of favorites was simple. I was surprised by the sheer volume of Cliffs Notes available on Net Library. Here's my favorites list. I've yet to receive an MP3 player since I overlooked turning in my learning agreement (my bad) and need to submit it along with my tracking log. Then I can try downloading.


1. Title: The Colors of Learning : Integrating the Visual Arts Into the Early Childhood Curriculum (eBook)
Early Childhood Education Series (Teachers College Press)
by Althouse, Rosemary.; Johnson, Margaret H.; Mitchell, Sharon T.
Publication: New York, Washington, DC Teachers College Press, 2003.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

2. Title: The Quotable Musician : From Bach to Tupac (eBook)
by Anderson, Sheila E.
Publication: New York Allworth, 2003.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

3. Title: Science Adventures With Children's Literature : A Thematic Approach (eBook)
by Fredericks, Anthony D.
Publication: Englewood, Colo. Libraries Unlimited, 1998.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

4. Title: Themes With a Difference : 228 New Activities for Young Children (eBook)
by Green, Moira D.
Publication: Albany, N.Y. Thomson Delmar Learning, 1998.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

5. Title: Science for All Children : A Guide to Improving Elementary Science Education in Your School District (eBook)
Publication: Washington, D.C. National Academies Press, 1997.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

6. Title: Multicultural Explorations : Joyous Journeys With Books (eBook)
by Heltshe, Mary Ann.; Kirchner, Audrey Burie
Publication: Englewood, Colo. Teacher Ideas Press, 1991.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

7. Title: Social Studies Through Children's Literature : An Integrated Approach (eBook)
by Fredericks, Anthony D.
Publication: Englewood, Colo. Libraries Unlimited, 1991.
View this eBook | Show Details | Remove from Favorites

21st Thing / Podcasts

What I discovered is that the quality of each podcasts varies tremendously based on the voice and/or image of the podcaster. Some are a pleasure to listen to and others; not so much. I was able to locate storynory on podcast.net. It contains a array of children's audio stories. I listened to Halloween on the Pond narrated by a woman with a British accent. A little on the long side. I'm not so sure parents would go this route. It's far more complicated than popping an audio book in a child's cd player at bedtime. Probably the most helpful podcasts I've encountered working on the 23 things were the tutorials.

20th Thing / You Tube

I find a great deal of You Tube to be self indulgent. A little America's Funniest Home Videos, a little the truth is stranger than fiction, a little land of make believe. In terms of library applications, how about ads promoting programs and classes? In my search for something to include, I found I spent the most time looking at music videos and then narrowed my search to find videos of a concert I attended on 11/10/07. I was pleased with the results. It was great to reminisce. I can't believe I successfully uploaded the video all by myself. Enjoy :)


19th Thing / Web 2.0 Awards List

Who knew there were so many choices! Like potato chips, who could stop at only one choice? I sampled Guess the Google under games. This is far more difficult than it seems. The goal is to type in the one word that best identifies a group of google images within the prescribed time limit. No real library application other entertainment. The best part was the challenge of trying to find the right words in time. Worst part ... it's hard!
I also tried the Go Green site. How sobering! I actually dug out last month's BGE bill to complete a personal profile of my family's carbon footprint. Library application --- research, homework, self improvement. The site was easy to navigate and had lots of info. It got a little discouraging to click a few times and see a dollar figure that could be donated to offset one's carbon footprint. I had hoped for more in the way of lifestyle changes, etc. All in all, an interesting exercise. Scrolling down the list of nominees, I couldn't help but notice how many were part of 23 Things.

Tanya 18th Thing

Hi,
Testing Zoho Writer as part of 23 Things. Easy enough to navigate.
Have participated in Google Spreadsheets for children's materials
tasks. Again, pretty simple to use. It felt good to have actually
had experience with the tool prior to working on the assignment.

Tanya

18th Thing / Online Productivity

http://writer.zoho.com/index.do#

Figuring out how to post to my Blog was the most time consuming part of the exercise.

17th Thing / Learning 2.0 Sandbox

Tanya
Nov 20, 4:29 pm
Logged In User
Not sure I did this right, but I certainly tried. My topic Favorite Walt Disney World Rides and Attractions.
http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/favorite%20Walt%20Disney%20World%20Rides

I found this exercise to be unclear. Wasn't sure what I was searching for or trying to accomplish.

Monday, November 19, 2007

16th Thing / Wiki's

Prior to this excercise, I was familiar with wiki's and had used Wikipedia.
The articles explaining wiki's were excellent. Easy to understand with lots of
background and information. My favorite on the list was the Book Lover's Wiki
developed by Princeton Public Library. I also enjoyed exploring cooking tips and
recipes on the SJCPL subject guide. I tried searching the UBC Health Wiki with
less than stellar results.
Library developed wikis that provide info and/or reviews are a perfect blend of
resources and technology.

15th Thing / Web 2.0 & Library 2.0

So much to think about. Reading these articles gave me an even deeper appreciation for our forward thinking LTS staff and Administration. All of the
technology upgrades, changes, Koha, helping customers to help themselves, even
this training opportunity, are designed to move the library into the future. I
do think we serve a very technologically diverse population. There will always
be users who are leaps and bounds ahead of the pact and users who lag far
behind (just last week, a thirties something parent was lamenting the lack of card catalog). Ideally, the role of libraries and librarians will be to remain flexible in a ever changing workplace and embrace lifelong learning to keep pace with the majority of library users.

14th Thing / Technorati and How Tags Work

For me, Technorati was somewhat overwhelming. There is just so much information
and the pages have such a busy appearance, with varied colors, font sizes
bold and standard print, etc. I found the advanced search to be the most helpful
tool to compare Learning 2.0 in Blog, posts, tags and directory. On the evening
I searched there were 666 posts tagged Learning 2.0 (is there a message in that
number?). The results did differ, but the few blogs I read weren't as interesting
or helpful as the blogs on the HCL participants page. The top blogs on the evening
I searched were Boing, Boing, Tips to Help You Make Money and Techcrunch.

Friday, November 16, 2007

13th Thing / Tagging Delicious

By the time I arrived at thing 13, the original del.ici.ous tutorial had been disabled.
I watched the u tube video, which I preferred over the beginner's guide. The several habits link was useful, though I think it would have been more meaningful had I reviewed it after experimenting with del.ici.ous. Although I did not create an account, I did explore a number of bookmarks under how-to; specifically decluttering. Some are positively addictive with so much interesting information.
I can see how this would be a very helpful tool for info sharing and I may very well
spend more time with it after I've completed the "things."

12th Thing / Rollyo

Another really interesting tool. I used Disney/travel as my subject and
typed in a few topics to search. It took me a while to recall and input
my sites, so there is a time investment in the beginning. I did have
some difficulty adding my Rollyo to my blog and had to ask for assistance
from a colleague.

11th Thing / Library Thing

What a cool tool!
A great way to keep track of storytime themes, booktalking titles, etc.
An interesting way to connect with others and find recommendations.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

meez

Meez 3D avatar avatars games

10th Thing / Online Image Generators

Virtual paperdolls. What fun! Yahoo! Avatars U.K. & Ireland

9th Thing / Merlin and Feed Finders

Merlin was interesting. The fact that is it local makes it more relevant to me.
The training calendar was useful to learn about.
I explored several feed finders, no real preference (the voice on the technorati site
was a little difficult to understand at times). It seems to me that one would seek and follow RSS feeds for a particular topic of interest. As I plow through the things
I can't help but marvel at the amount of time people can and do spend on these sites. Personally, I find it easier to get my news via television or radio so that I
can be cooking, folding laundry, etc.

8th Thing / RSS feeds

Setting up the Bloglines account and subscribing to RSS feeds was easy.
While I see how they can be useful for library and business applications,
I don't envision myself taking time to access or read feeds on a regular basis.

6th Thing / Flickr Mashups and third party tools

If only I had the time, I could experiment for hours. I am new to digital cameras.
Just purchased one this summer. I did take the time to upload a few photos.
I suspect the Kodak picture maker software that we tried on vacation at Epcot
this summer (ever wanted to turn your face into a flower or furry creature?)
was an example of these applications.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

2nd Thing / Lifelong Learning

I've always said that one of the best things about working in a library is the opportunity to learn something new each and every day. 23 Things is my second extended online learning experience, my first was 9th House. In terms of the 7.5 Habits, habit 7.5 is easiest for me. I learned long ago that experimenting and trying things out can be educational. Related is view problems as challenges. Most librarians, especially those who work with young people tend to be quite resourceful. Habit 5, creating a learning toolbox is probably the most challenging for me as time constraints and the need to multi-task limit the amount of time I have for advance preparation.

7th Thing / Any Tech Blog

Wii & hand held video gaming systems.
Pros - These gaming systems have helped make technology second nature to today's kids. If properly selected and monitored, they can enhance learning. They are terrific travel companions and enhance eye-hand coordination.

Cons - Gaming can become an obsession, reducing time available for other pursuits such as reading, physical activity, imaginative play and conversing with others.Cost can be prohibitive ($30-$50 per game + cost of the system) and unlike traditional board games like Monopoly or Scrabble, kids either master or become bored and have a continual yearning for the next new release.

Bon Jovi @ Prudential Center - Newark, NJ - 11/09/07

See photo

5th Thing / Flickr

Exploring Flickr was fun.
Looked up Jersey stuff.
JBJ @ Pru Center on 11/9
Then followed a link to an article about Cindy Czesak, Paterson Public Library Director (worked for her as a library page eons ago).

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Never too late to begin

Off and running with 23 things.
Oh the learning I'll do and the fun I'll have.

tmjerseygirl