Week 10

Partcipating in the 23 Things has helped me learn things I propably wouldn't have tried on my own. Some of the things I will use and some I won't. Learning the terms is great and will make a huge difference when helping customers. The things I will use are: downloading media, podcasts, Flickr, Youtube, and LibratyThing. I need to get better with Tagging and del.icio.us and Social networking. I really didn't like Library Elf. Its good to know about avators, image generators and blogging but I doubt I'll do/use it much. Working in a library environment requires us to keep up with current technology so I'm really glad we did the Library 2.0. I needed the motivation to learn. I guess we still have 20 thing left to learn.

Week 9 #22 Downloadable Media

Although I have not listened to any downloadable media I know some of our patrons love it. When I took the digital media training we practiced downloading items and it was pretty easy. I was surprised to read about Librivox being completely run by volunteers and how much they have available, I think it was over 1000 items. My guess is downloadable media will become more and more popular with time. I'm almost ready to buy a MP3 player but I haven't yet. HCPL has a good selection of downloadable media and our site is user friendly. I can recommend it to parents, although I love Tumblebooks best.

Week 9 # 21 Podcast

I added a RSS feed to my Bloglines for a podcast talk radio program. At certain times you can hear interviews with authors/business people/entertainers ect. It may be useful, or at least interesting at some times. I doubt I'll use it much.

Week 9 #20 Youtube

Its great to watch ordinary people doing ordinary things and making it funny. I am copying an ad for a reuseable bag from Chico Bags. It may not work. It has a man dressed up in a bunch of plastic grocery bags like a monster lose in the city. Pretty silly but fun. I love to watch the singing dogs too.

Week 8 #19 Zoho

Zoho is great. It was so easy to set up an account and it looks like so much fun. I played around with it and as soon as I need to create a document, I'm going to use it. I love the little faces.

Week 8 #18 Social Networking

I've looked at myspace and facebook before. I can't believe what people put on there. I think its a real danger but I guess I'm old fashion. All my kids have pages somewhere out there somewhere and they're all in their 20's. I'm just not into other people opinions that much. I liked the ratemyspace site. It was fun to see other peoples ideas. I guess its good to know all of that stuff is out there.

Week 7 #17 Technology

Slow down. Thats what I would like to say about technology. I just can't believe how much stuff we can do with todays technology and for the most part I think its great. I love the impact its had with healthcare. For me I'll spend more time with Flicker. If I had more time I might explore more but for right now I'll become familiar enough with the terms to keep me from looking clueless. Now its time to comment on someones blog.

Week 7 #16 Wiki

I took a look at some library wikis and really liked Book Lovers, its easy to read and a pleasing design. The Library Success could be of use. I found a cool one on the Muppets. I did establish an account and started getting a bunch of unnecessary e-mails. Wikipedia is a neat concept.

Week 6 #15 On Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

I don't have my library science degree, but if I was getting it now, I'm sure it is changing fast. When I read "Into a new world of librarianship" I related to what Michael Stephens was stating, "the library is human". Libraries aren't just buidlings with books, they are alive. Libraries are "transparent". We have to be open and fast when it comes to making decisions. I hope we can continue to attract young people to the profession, especially men. The profession should be changing just as fast as the technology. The impact of technology is now, its rethinking how we do everything. But....what about the past? Where will we store history, artifacts, documents? I understand the debate. I certainly don't want the library of the future just to be labs of computers. How boring is that?

Week 6 #14 Technorati

Everyone seems to be getting on the blog bandwagon, I see them everywhere now. I'm starting to get a bit overwhelmed with all the sources of information. Blogs are reinventing the way we do lots of things. I sure feel sorry for people who don't have access to computers because these blogs are very powerful. We all know knowledge is power. I explored the popular blogs and found them pretty interesting. Advance searching is tricky for me. The library system is smart to get us all familiar with all this information.

Week 6 #13 Del.icio.us

I now have a clearer idea what Del.icio.us is all about. I did set up an account and enjoyed reading all the tags on the ihcpl account. I can see the benefit of tagging for someone who is doing research. Managing all the tags looks like it takes some skill. Since yahoo acquired Del.icio.us it should be around for a long time. The Slacker Manager was very helpful in explaining the terms.

Week 5 Post 12 Elf

Elf
Keeping track of my library items may be a good thing. Although, Harris County sends reminders out when items are due. I'll see how I like it.

WEEK 5 POST 11

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jalarson

I created my Library Thing account and added 5 books. This seems like a handy way to keep track of books I've read or books I want to read.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2271/1519306803_7bc9fbc997.jpg?v=0

Week 5 post 10

http://avatars.yahoo.com/



This was fun! I just watched tv show this weekend where an avatar solved a crime. So now I know how to do it.

Week 4 post 9

After exploring some different newsfeeds, I found some easy and informative and others not so. Forget Snyndic8, don't know how to use that one. I liked the Technoruti newsfeed. I read an article on students burning their school uniforms in the UK then was able to tag other articles on high school protest. From there I found a blogline called ParentDish which had some great information, even an blog about how people share info about libraries. I like to go to CNN and click on their blogs. They have a great one written by a doctor. Lots to explore, over whelming amount of material available. I can see how people spend a huge amount of time on their computers. I hope they exercise their bodies has much as they do their mind.

Week 4 Post 8

Today I subscribed to 12 bloglines. It was fun to read all the different kinds of
blogs. I was most interested in the nutritional one which has very current journal articles of nutrition.

Week 3

I have now downloaded pictures from Flickr, used masher to make my name, performed an edit using pixer and created a trading card. Hurray!

Ladybug

Alice

Happy Halloween

Privacy Protection Online

September 18
Just finishing reading all the material about privacy/protection. It does make me feel uncomfortable about just being out there for people to read. I don't really believe anybody can be anonymous in USA. We are followed from the time we get a birth certificate. I'm not saying that is bad, but just the way it is.
The Top Ten Ways to protect your privacy online is helpful. I realize I don't know much about all those available practices.
I wonder what will happen in the future......instead of finding diaries from family members ,will we just get all our info from online journals?

September 17
Off and running, I mean hiking, with my first blog experience. I feel so powered. If only I knew what to say.
Looks like its going to be interesting learning what the rest of the world probably already knows. Gee, my kids will sure be proud of me.