Ning Badge

Thing 23-Online Evaluation and blog about my experiences

I am trying to finish up this 23 things on a stick project before the 2nd deadline. I did not work on this very much this summer, as we had big projects to do at work and I started car-pooling (high gas prices!!!) and so I didn't stay later after work. I wish I'd had better luck getting some of the things to work in the later Things as I did earlier. I got really stuck on thing 15, as I'm not a gamer, and the downloads and joining was a deterrent. I think there were some really cool things in the program, and I'd like to spend some more time exploring them and reading the blogs to see how others are putting them to work for them in their libraries. I hope I can continue with the Web 2.0 tools as they evolve and new ones come out, as I think it's great what people without web-design knowledge can do with them. Thanks for putting on this project again.

Thing 21-Beyond MySpace-Other Networks

I chose to use Ning for this Thing. I went and made up my profile and my account, but with Dial-Up it was very slow to add any more to it tonight. I will go back in and work on this at a later time to make my badge, etc. I went to the 23 things group and looked around. This Network looks like it will be more helpful to me than Facebook for library information.

Thing 22-Keeping Up

How will I keep up with the Web 2.0 tools I learned about in this learning program? I have taken a two hour course in WebEx since beginning this course. I am setting up a blog for our college website for the LRTC. There's so much to learn out there, and keep up with. WebJunction will be a big help too, as theres' a lot to make use of on that site. I have been invited to Mooseworks, too, which is another Web 2.0 tool that I want to get involved in and learn more about. It will be a fun time keeping up, and I hope the 23 thingsonastick team keeps giving us new items on the page and helping with this task, as you said, the internet is growing and changing all the time, and things we learned this time might not be there next week.

Small Bytes

Small Bytes

Thing 20-My Space and Facebook

I chose to use Facebook for this thing. I went in and registered, set up my profile, added 2 friends, uploaded 5 pictures to an album and wrote on my wall. I will definitely work on this in the future, as our new website at the college is featuring our space in these two networks. I hope that students will use it to see what's new in the Learning Resource and Technology Center or find out some tips information on our IT department.

Thing 19-Podcasts

I have reviewed the podcasts in the 23 things blog. There are some really cool ones put out by Minitex, MPR, St. Cloud State and others that I enjoyed. I looked at the different directories and found them to be downloads, or having to put them into a podcast aggregator that made it difficult to do this portion. I blogged a podcast I liked and it went automatically onto my blog, which I liked. I have a biology instructor who said she was going to put out a podcast for her students, and I think it would be good to add one to our home page here at the college on the Learning Resource Center and our happenings.

Thing 18 You Tube and other Sites

I watched You Tube videos on libraries and other topics and picked one to embed in my post. I watched several and it was hard to pick one for posting, as they are all so well done and interesting. I will definitely work on adding one to You Tube this fall after things settle down. This is too easy!

Thing 17 ELM Productivity Tools

I love ELM! I have used it since it first became available to libraries and have had the Minitex people up to my school to share how it is used with our teachers. I am still using it as often as I get research questions and love when a student gets excited that the resources are there for them to use either here or from home. We already collaborate with the instructors in sharing these tools with their students when they assign research papers, and they do get heavy use. These students are being helped by ELM by getting them their journal articles etc. that they need for their assignment. I went to Academic Search premier, set up an account, and signed up for search alerts for library blogs.

Thing 16-Student 2.0 Tools

I looked at the Research Project Calculator sponsored by ELM and set up my assignment for finishing the MN Voluntary Certification Program. This is a great tool for students, and I have recommended it in the past for my high school students, here at college I know the instructors use Desire 2 Learn and post directions for their papers. I plan to share this with the students this semester when we do presentations in the classrooms on library services. I then used the teacher resources link and opened several of the tip sheets and looked through the list of things they offer and see that it has some great helps for research papers. I will definitely share this with my instructors to see if it can be of use to them when they give assignments.

Thing 15-Online Gaming and Libraries

I checked out Wii Fit on the official website of the Wii Console game. It looks like it would be fun to try. It brings out people of all ages to check their balance, ride an imaginary snowboard, dance, or even box. I think libraries that put these game nights into their program are really thinking out of the box and making going to the library fun. I would like to own one of these myself, it would be fun to play games like tennis when it's -20 outside some winter day, or you don't have a partner.
I tried to enter Second Life and I even looked at it one day but with the download at work not being possible and my dial up connection at home, it made it challenging. I think the library community is good to be involved, with people online much of the time at schools, you could really help them with their research questions.
I'm not into games that much, so the puzzle pirate thing didn't look too appealing. I have played Scrabble on my home computer and think that is a great thing also. When you throw in being on line with it, it makes it even more appealing.

Thing 14 LibraryThing

I checked out LibraryThing and made an account, added 4 books from my collection to it and added some tags. I put in my profile and added HTML code to my blog. This looks like a fun tool to have and add to for months and years to come. It will be nice to be able to see what's happening in the Library World from my Local connection to LibraryThing. I also added it to my del.icio.us account so I can get to it from there as well.

Thing 13- Online Productivity Tools

1. I love how Web 2.0 is making it easier to work on the internet. I went to Google accounts and set up my homepage to have all the things I now use from taking part in this program in one place. I picked my background and all the internet options I wanted. I added the countdown widget (to vacation!) to my blog. This will be a more personalized view to my internet searches, which I like.
I looked at the other homepage makers and decided on Google as I have other accounts there. Simplify!
2. Calendars-I went to the article on calendars and read about them. I wanted to try MSN but y0u have to sign up there too, so opted to use Google's. I entered my activities and events for May and love how easy it was. I like how you can invite others to your calendar and they can put their input into it also.
3. To-Do Lists. I read the articles and created an account with Remember the Milk. I am going to start using this as a way to communicate with my family for things we need to do each day/week and they can login and cross things off, or add as needed. With gas prices so high, knowing if someone can pick up something for you will be a great thing. This would also work with co-workers who are working on projects together to add input and ideas.

Thing 12-Do you Digg?

1. I went to all the sites listed in the instructions and checked them out and how they were designed and layouts etc. I liked Digg and I think it's great how you can find out what others are reading or into. I am a library worker who goes back to the days before the internet was here, and we definitely "scanned headlines" to cut out articles for the vertical file in case someone someday might want to look at it. Most of those things could be tossed, if they haven't already been. This is so cool that things come to you, and you can search by tags to find whatever topic you are interested in.

2. I read the article from the Washington Post on the Google earnings as it relates to our Web 2.0 training. I shared it using del.icio.us. Now that I see how my sharing a site works with my del.icio.us account I can start adding my favorites and bookmarks to my account and access them from any computer,not just at home. Very cool!

Thing 11- Tagging and del.icio.us

l. I think this is a great way to organize your photos in Flickr. We did this in thing 4. Now I went to manage my posts and tagged in one of them as instructed. This is a cool addition to my posts. Now if I want to learn about something in one of these types of tools, I know I can type in words and a tag will come up linking me to that word. Cool!
2.del.icio.us- The 8 minute video was a good overview of what it does for you.
3.I looked around the Minn23 site and saw all the tags there are and how much information it has. I RSS'd it and will go there often to keep up with how it is being used in libraries.
4.I explored the site options and saw what others had been visiting and their comments.
5.I set up my del.icio.us site and will work on putting tags and my bookmarks on it. Looks like a great way to organize!

Thing 10- Explore a wiki

I read the links and watched the videos about Wiki's. I added an entry to the 23thingsonastick wiki and read through some of them. Wiki's have been around awhile already, and I can see where it's a great thing for people to make up a website using a wiki rather than using Dreamweaver or other website development software. They look fun to use for Book Reviews or other information related to research. On a personal note, it would be fun to use to collaborate with family and friends on projects such as trips or party plans.

Thing 9-Collaboration Tools

Edit a famous document-I looked at Zoho Writer and Google Docs. These look like they'd be great tools to work together with others on projects. I especially like the fact that you don't have to be online in GoogleDocs to do it. I wasn't able to add words or changes to the site they referenced, so wasn't sure what I was doing wrong. I spent a lot of time looking at this, viewing the video and tutorial in Google, and I think I'll use this and share it with others who I collaborate with on a newsletter. I love how it took the document and put it out there rather than all the paper trail that email attachments make. Computers seem to have added to our paperwork rather than the other way around it seems to me. When you are working with private data however, these tools would not work. I will definitely explore GoogleDocs now that I have an account and try out some of the ways others are using it.

Thing 8-Share your slide decks, photos or presentation slides

This was a fun one to do. I used PictureTrail. It was quick and easy to make the slide show once I had my pictures uploaded. I can see using this as a fun way to highlight new titles, or show off photos from a program that was held. Wasn't sure where to cite the photo credit so I put it here:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ju_Kr2IkZNgiGr4jB1b9yuPIagAJKT9BPIE532bSoZFyqdM6oB2WV_fo7BoOzer4YKZ_RwsOcBEx16iGOLFdwYxckNoIrxgARSVZmKlpChBtbNe9n-Fr_i00Nn5To8T68nivsNWA6Pd-/s730/23Things

Thing 7-Online Communication Tools

We use Groupwise to schedule meetings and classes now, and I find it useful for printing out the week's activities in the ITV rooms I schedule. I went to Doodle, Meeting Wizard and Meet-O-Matic and tried out their sites for scheduling a meeting. They all looked easy enough to use, and I would definitely try one out next time I want to figure out the best time for everyone to meet.
1. E-mail! I watched the video Inbox Zero by Merlin Mann and was quite impressed. This is my problem too, I really need to follow his advice with the 5 actions to take each time you are in your in-box, especially for my personal email. I posted a link to both items.
2. IM- I can see this being a better way than email to do on-line reference questions or let a patron know when their ILL has arrived.
3. I viewed the video on SMS, read the article and agree that we need to get with text messaging as a way to interact with our patrons, with mobile devices as prevalent as they are, knowing when you have resources available to you immediately is a great idea, with gas prices so high, people want to make as few trips as possible and as I learned in an ITV conference the other day that young people would find out something from you in "a couple of days" if you emailed them, SMS is instant.
4. My supervisor and I participated in the Minitex webinar on Academic Search Premier. We learned how to navigate around in the site, and how best to help our patrons with their searches. It was a great tool for interactive, collaborative help on this database. I have taken other Webinars as well, mostly through College of DuPage Teleconferences. These are also great ways to learn about library topics as well as asking questions, via telephone or email.

Thing 6-Online Image Generators

I went to the link, Trading Card Generator and put together a trading card using a picture I took on my way to work one morning. This would be a cool thing for students/teachers to use to acknowledge each other, or parents and grandparents to make cards for their children/grandchildren to show support and pride in their accomplishments.

Thing 5- More Flickr Fun

I checked out the flickr site and learned about the services that programmers have added using the API feature of flickr. This is just so cool, that there are so many extras to this free program. I checked out some of them. I also added a link to one of the mashups and plan to make some cool photo mosaics with my photos that are on flickr already.

Thing 4- What's Fun About Flickr?

I used Flickr to upload pictures to the web to share with family and friends. I added descriptions, and rotated some of them. It's nice that you can choose how people use your photos, and to keep them private if you want. I also went through the pictures on Flickr from 23thingsonastick. Lots of fun going on in our area libraries, and it's neat to see it on the computer, without having to drive!

Thing 3-Learn about RSS

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is a great way to keep up on favorite sites and their postings. I added 6 feeds to my Bloglines account and it was simple to do, as long as you remember to scroll to the subscribe button. This is a wonderful time-saving device for busy librarians (or anyone) to use to keep up with their information needs. It would be great for teachers to have the students work come to them when ready for reading, grading time, etc.

Thing 2-What is Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care?

When Web 2.0 evolved after a brainstorming session between Tim O'Reilly and MediaLive Entertainment in 2005, it became clear the the Worldwide Web was in for a big change. We now have Wikipidia rather than Britannica Online in the first generation of the web. We talk of blogs when before it was personal websites, etc. It is a fact that the web is now not just a tool for looking up information, it is a tool for web-based services to help people perform their jobs.

When I think of Library 2.0, I think of how we can change our old habits and evolve the library into something relating to today's Web revolution. We need to get people into the library, just like Web 2.0 kept people from abandoning the web after it seemed to have burst its bubble. In my library space, I see people using the computer stations far more than books, so we need to keep our databases current, and keep upgrading our website so students will go to it for more information. Perhaps we should promote Online Reference Services on our webpage along with the library catalogs and ILL. I like the idea that we could set up a MySpace page and have a student or group of students manage it. I think this would bring in more interactions from the students as well.

Thing 1-Set Up Your Own Blog

I read the information in the 23 things on a stick introduction page and started by registering for my blog page at blogger.com. I had trouble coming up with a name, so I just used my own for this blog. I guess I'll have to get my thinking cap on and get creative!

23 Things on a Stick