Week 9 - Thing 23 - At Long Last!!!

I began this journey with much trepidation - i.e. - I honestly didn't think I could do it! But...as you can see, I DID! There were, of course, many bumps in the road, and there are still things I am very "iffy" about, and honestly, some things which are still as clear as mud, but Jaye's SI post when I was about a third of the way through really helped. I began by thinking that upon completing 23 Things, I would be expected to be an "expert" in the things we explored, and was constantly in a state of nervousness because I didn't feel I would be anywhere near knowledgeable enough by the time I finished, but Jaye's saying that this was mostly about the "journey", and about exploring new frontiers (or at least they were new to a lot of us, anyway) helped me to settle down and start enjoying the ride! My favorite thing was making my "meez" during Play Week - it still makes me giggle, as well as feel very proud of myself for figuring out how to do it (including how to post it to my blog!) every time I look at it! The thing which will be most useful to me personally is Flickr - I can't wait to transfer my Paris and Canada trip pictures to it so I can share them with my friends and family! Workwise, I think I will use LibraryThing the most - it will be a great Reader's Advisory tool, both in Children's and Adult. I was very excited about Zoho Writer, which I will most likely be using in both my personal and work life.

A few things which would have made 23 Things easier:

...understanding ahead of time that nobody expected me to be an expert at the end of this program.

...having a better computer-knowledge base before I started - I have come a long way since I started working at HCL, but still have a long way to go! I will keep plugging away at it, though!

...knowing about and being able to use Library 2.0 in 15 Minutes a Day at the beginning of the program, rather than near the middle.

...being able to work in pairs or as a team on the exercises - I often had to seek out help either from co-workers or my son - it would have been a lot less frustrating and time-consuming if I had had a partner to work with on the program on an ongoing basis.

The only thing I have left to do is to complete my tracking log and send it to Jaye. Actually, the format of the Tracking Log is very puzzling to me - since this program is all about technology, would there not be some way to keep track of our progress online? It just seems really archaic to me to be copying URLs onto a sheet of paper when the whole focus of 23 Things is on what can be accomplished using the Internet!

At any rate, I can't say that I enjoyed every minute of 23 Things, but it certainly had its fun moments, and I do have to say that I am glad I did it, although, in all honesty, at this very moment I am happy to be typing this very LAST sentence to be added to my blog for a while!


TTYL,
Kathy

...

Week 7 - Thing 17 - Wikis

Well, I am coming back to this Thing because I started working on it right after the "Sandbox Incident", before it became known that the site was not working properly, and became horribly frustrated trying to get it to work, as at the time I did not know it would NOT! I have not posted to the SI Sandbox Wiki, and so now am moving on!

Week 9 - Thing 22 - Overdrive/NetLibrary

Actually, I began looking at Overdrive (set up an account, etc.) at home when I was attempting to download some "tunes" and a book to my NEW MP3 player!!! before I left for my trip to Canada. My son and I managed to add five songs - it took the two of us quite a while to figure out how to do it using "emusic" because he was used to Itunes - but didn't have time to actually attempt to download the book from the library website. So...it is still checked out to me!, and now that I am back from vacation and he has finished his HUGE outside reading project for his English class, we will have time to download the needed software to his computer (our family's newest), and try again!

I also looked at Project Gutenberg, which seems to have expanded greatly since I explored it several years ago during LATI. I did not actually download a book, though, as I did not have my MP3 player with me. I would have liked to have been able to seach specifically for children's books on this site, but could not figure out how to do so.

Week 9 - Thing 21 - Podcasts

The number of podcasts out there is astounding! I looked at all three suggested sites, and found that they varied greatly in ease of use - i.e. - how intuitive figuring them out/navigating them was! I listened to a book review podcast - very well-done and professional, although a bit too dull for my taste, a children's story - fun! - I could see how you could use something like this in conjunction with an EASY for which we have no audio, and, for fun, Hound TV - this one was terrible as far as reception went - very choppy and difficult to understand and follow. I did add Hound TV to my Bloglines account, though, simply because the path to creating a feed was very clearly marked on podcast.net, whereas that was not the case at other sites. I could see pointing customers to certain podcasts, such as the children's storytelling/reading ones, to enrich their reading experience, but to really use this as a tool with customers, I would have to spend much more time exploring the sites before I would be comfortable recommending them.

As an aside, I found that some of the sites took considerably longer than others (or maybe it was the particular podcast I was trying to access) to make the podcast available to me - so much so that, in several cases, I lost patience and gave up without watching/listening to it.

Just an aside...

For anyone who might be interested, I actually DID learn to use my digital camera on my trip to Canada, as referenced in an earlier post! It was a lot of fun - I took many pictures that I probably would not have taken with my regular camera, as I was not worried about running out of film, as I did in Paris! I haven't transferred them to my computer yet, so I am really looking forward to seeing them - I did not review them during the trip as I was trying to save my batteries!

I also intend to try to post them to Flickr at some point, but that may be WAY down the line - we will just have to see!

Week 9 - Thing 20 - YouTube

YouTube is an interesting concept. I looked at old TV commercials - Kool-aid, to be exact, which was fun. Library Dominoes was disappointing - I don't know what I expected, but that wasn't it! I also looked at the Categories section, and chose "How to Teach Your Dog to Shake Hands". It appeared to actually be some sort of commercial for doggie treats, but it did show you how to teach the trick, so even though what you may find on YouTube may or may not be accurate - much can be done with PhotoShop, etc. - it could be useful for some things.

All in all, though, I found it to be another one of those places where you could waste a LOT of time, which most people really don't need, as they have too much to do as it is!

Week 8 - Thing 19 Web 2.0 Awards

I chose to look at the Travel category, since I am leaving for Victoria, BC tomorrow! I was already familiar with Kayak, thanks to my Mom, and Farecaster sounded like mostly travel pricing and booking information, so I decided to try Real Travel. On the site, I searched for Victoria, and found what you would expect - hotel, restaurant, and attraction information. Thanks to 23 Things, I noticed a Blogs category, which I did look at --- this was significant because before we started this "journey", I would have dismissed them as something which had nothing to do with me! There were so many pages of them that I decided to try a link to hellobc.com, where I was able to request that a BC-escapes E-guide be sent to my email - nice, since I left it a bit too late to be able to receive a hard copy by mail! I also checked out some more blogs on that site, although there were so many that I barely scratched the surface. I tried searching for something specific within the Blogs on that site, but was not successful - maybe I was doing it wrong, or maybe it just wasn't there - who knows! Anyway, I am off to Victoria tomorrow morning (EARLY!) - hooray!

Oh, yes - I could possibly see using this site in the library as a place to point customers who wanted up-to-date information about a travel destination - particularly if it was near the end of the year and we did not have the newest editions of the travel guides yet.

Week 7, Thing 18 Online Productivity Tools

OK, this was fun, but it is time to move on!

I will definitely explore Zoho Writer more later, though, as well as look at Goggle Docs.


Thing 19, here I come!

Blog Post 3

OK, it looks like you cannot edit a post to Blogger which originated here, so I am going to try to do something a little differently this time, and see if it makes a difference.  I tried to edit my last post so there was a little space between the title and the body, but couldn't do it - when I clicked on Edit Post, what showed up was html, so, if it was possible, I couldn't figure out how.

Trying again, with text moved down a bit on the page to see if it looks any different

OK, I was wrong - you can edit the post, and I finally figured out how!!

Blog Post 2

Oh, my goodness! 

I am so excited!  !!!

I just posted my doc to my blog, AND emailed it to myself, and it was SO EASY!

I am a big fan already!

Woo-hoo!!!

Blog Post 1

Hello, all!

I am excited about trying this, because 1)I never knew something like this existed, and 2)I can see my son using it for his homework (of course, he probably already knows about it, as he has been my "guide" through much of 23 Things. Changing the font and background color was fun, although I thought changing the background color would make the WHOLE page that color!

OK, let's see if I can figure out how to post this to my blog!

Week 7, thing 16 Wikis

I looked at Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day - boy, I wish I had found this earlier! I didn't go into every section, but I did take a peek at the section on Widgets - that, and several other things during this "journey" have mystified me completely, so I hope to look at it in more detail when I have a longer period of time in which I can actually concentrate on what I am reading (I.e.:not on the desk!). I also looked at the Booklovers Wiki - it was interesting to see how an online bookclub works, and to read some of the reviews by readers.

Week 6, Thing 15 Web 2.0 Perspectives

My take on one of the points in the second reading...Librarian 2.0 plans for their users:

I agree that we really need to increase training opportunities for library users in the areas of word processing, especially for our older customers, and internet use (not just Google, but Web 2.0, such as what we are being exposed to in 23 Things. We do offer classes in how to use our on-line catalog and our databases, but very few take advantage of that, since most people can figure it out on their own. However, more and more often we are getting questions about the above-mentioned areas, some of which we can answer, and many of which a lot of us cannot, as we are part of that group of older individuals who NEED the training. 23 Things has helped me to at least become aware of many things that are out there in "Internet-land", but much of my comprehension of these "things" has been superficial, since a) I do not really understand much of what you would need to know to fully participate in the "things', and b) in my limited time in which to accomplish 23 Things, I have not been able to add to my background store of computer/internet knowledge sufficiently TO participate fully. That said, I do NOT think the training which I am referring to should be given by our current information staff, but rather, it should be done by our IT staff - it would not be possible with the current staffing, but it could and should be expanded in order to accomplish this.

Week 6, Thing 14 Technorati

Technorati - boy, oh boy, I don't think I will ever have much use for this site! First of all, it took me a while to figure out that I had to go to Advanced Search to find a place to do a keyword search for Learning 2.0 in Blog posts, tags, and in the Blog Directory. I found: 4,362 results in Blogs, 28, 941 results in Tags, and 675 results in Blog Directory. Interestingly, I tried doing a search for "Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0" in Blogs, and got 675. Reading them was very interesting - I will save my comments about them for "Thing 23" - the wrap-up! I really did not find a whole lot I was interested in in Top Favorite Blogs, Top Searches or Top Blogs. What was surprising was a)a lot of them were in other languages, which I had not even thought about, and b)many of the blog titles appeared to have very little to do with the content, which led me astray more than once.

At any rate, moving on...!

Week 6, Thing 13 Del.icio.us

Boy, I am feeling more incompetent by the minute. I looked at The Several Habits of Wildly Successful Del.icio.us Users, and also at one of the other tutorials. I thought I had a bit of an idea of what this was about, but THEN I went to the PLCMCL2 account in the Discovery Exercise and tried to make a connection between it and the tutorials, and I was totally lost! Huh??? I did not see any of the tags or comments we were asked to comment on, so I gave up on that for now. Maybe I will try to set up an actual account and see if it makes more sense.

OK, I set up an account and bookmarked a few sights, and NOW the lightbulb is starting to go on! I can see how this tool would be useful for research purposes while you are involved in a project - you could access bookmarked sites both at work and at home (but could you access your bookmarks from a public computer at the library or at school? I THINK so, if I understand the premise correctly, but I will have to try it. If so, this would be VERY useful for my son, both for individual school projects and for group ones!!!). I don't quite see how this is a "social bookmarking" site, though, unless you have hours and hours to sit at the computer exploring what other people have bookmarked for no other reason except to while away the time in the name of fun!

Maybe I will explore del.icio.us further later, but for now, timewise I need to move on to Thing 14!

Week 5, Thing 12 Rollyo

Boy, I must be missing something here! I created a search roll (Travels with Kathy), but can't quite figure out why this is useful. Unless I am doing something really wrong, it looks like you still have to type the URL into a searchbox within your search roll, so why is this easier/better/any different than using Google to do the same thing? I can't figure out what URL to use to link to my search roll, so I am going to try to add it directly to my blog.

OK, no clue - I'm moving on to Thing 13!

Week 5, Thing 11 Library Thing

Hey, this is pretty cool! I loved being able to just put in either the author's name or part of the title, and having it brought up through Amazon - the jacket photos really helped, also, as I KNEW I had read ONE of the Little Lady books, for instance, but couldn't remember which one - the cover jogged my memory! I think I will probably use this to help with Reader's Advisory, both in Juv and Adult, but particularly in Adult, as I so often remember the storyline in a book I've read, but not the title or author - having the picture there will help my recall, also.

Well, I will try to post a link, but am not sure if I know how, so here goes:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kathymb2007

Well, the URL is there, but no hyperlink - I guess I will have to figure out how to do that!

On to Thing 12...

Week 5 - Thing 10

Alright, I couldn't leave this alone (maybe a life-lesson from my dog, Washington?!?), so I am going to try this again! (And don't ask me how this "meez" ended up beside my post, rather than in it, which is what I was trying to do! Who knows? I may get it figured out yet!)

Week 5 - Thing 10 - "My Meez"

Well, as you can see from the post below, I somehow actually managed to get my "meez" posted to my blog, but a)I have no idea which of the couple of things I tried actually worked! and b)when I tried to edit the post to add this text, I couldn't figure out how to do it, so this is now a separate blog entry! I tried some sort of chalkboard, and also a "My Little Pony" generator, both of which I was able to do, but then could not figure out how to add to my blog, so when DK suggested "Meez" I thought I would give that a try! It was fun, and I might go back to play around with it again!

At any rate, I am at home, not at work, right now, and am not sure what all else this week's "assignments" entail, so I guess I will come back to this later. I was just frustrated because I couldn't get my "meez" to post at the library yesterday, and decided to give it another shot! Go me! (although I still don't know how I did it - I may try another one later just to see if I can retrace my steps!). At any rate, all for now!

Week 5 - Thing 10 - Image Generator - My "Meez"

Week 4, Thing 9 - Merlin, Feedster, etc.

Well, I located Merlin, looked around, and was able to add Merlin to my Bloglines feeds. I then started to try using Feedster - no easy feat. I started by searching for blogs, feeds, etc. from my daughter's college - nothing, unless I was not searching in the best way. I then searched for Halo 3, and got several feeds - xboxspace, Christian Science Monitor, Tactical Games - to name a few. I figured out how I would add xboxspace to my Bloglines feeds (not that I really wanted to - just wanted to know if I COULD do it!), and then started trying to comprehend the Widgets - "Greek to me", so I am moving on from Feedster. I then looked at Technorati - different because it only lets you search for blogs - I tried again to search for blogs having to do with MICA - found several in which it was mentioned, but none I was really interested in, although I didn't go down the whole list. I then tried searching for a rather obscure blog I knew existed which my daughter was required to post to for one of her classes a year or so ago, and WAS able to find it, so I guess it could be useful for looking for something you might know the title of, but not the web address. All in all, I can't see myself using a "feed-finding" source very often, but you never know, now do you?

Week 4, Thing 8 - RSS Feeds

Well, I got the account created - easy - and finally got the Feeds added. The particpants' blogs feeds were easy to do, but the others were a bit harder. There is also a question of how often I will actually go to my Bloglines account to look at it - with everything else I have on my plate, I honestly doubt it will be a top priority. Even when I was getting Unshelved in my e-mail, it got to the point that I was mostly just deleting it without reading it because I didn't have the time. I really wanted to add the PLCMC's Readers Club feed, which is one I probably would have made a point of going to look at, but it said there were no feeds available for the site when I clicked on Subscribe, so...either something was going on with the web site, or I was not doing it correctly - hmmm...which do you think it was? (Smile!)

Goffin Cockatoo at 1 month old

Goffin Cockatoo at 1 month old
Originally uploaded by nybird

Trying this for Bonnie!

Chihiro

Chihiro
Originally uploaded by fofurasfelinas

Trying again to make sure I have it!

Small Dogs Rule!

Small Dogs Rule!
Originally uploaded by mngl

Just trying this!

Week 3 - Thing #7 Technology Post

Digital cameras - I actually have one (and have had it for a while), but have yet to figure out exactly how to use it. My kids have both tried to teach me, but they move way too fast for me, and then get frustrated when I can't keep up! I have tried to read the manual, but I only get so far, and then it stops making sense. So...my goal for the time between now and when I go to Canada in mid-October is to figure my camera out so I can actually USE it on my trip!

Since I have now discovered flickr I am anxious to transfer all the pictures of my trip to Paris from my home computer (put there by my daughter for me! - thanks, Becca!) to that web site so I can share them with my friends and family. So far, I have only managed to find the time to move ONE, which is the one you have seen twice now - both as a photo, and then as a poster, so hopefully I will have more to work with in doing 23 Things later!

Off to comment on someone else's blog!

Week 3 - Thing #6 Flikr Mash-up FDToys

My creation
Originally uploaded by kathymb2007

Boy, this is way cool! I can't believe it is free! It did take me a while to figure out how to do parts of it, though!

Week 3 - Thing 5 - Explore Flickr - a

IMG_1391
Originally uploaded by kathymb2007

August, 2007! I had an absolutely wonderful time, and would go back in a second!

Week 1, #2 7 andf 1/2 Habits Lifelong Learning

The hardest: Believe it or not, it is play! I have a hard time relaxing when I know there are things on my plate that are undone!

The easiest: Begin with the end in mind. I am all about planning to get where I want to go! I do need to work on viewing problems along the way as challenges, rather than crises, though!

Wow, it worked! (Week 1, #2 again!)

And I even figured out how to do it again!

Week 2 - #3 Set up blog, add first post

OK - Here I go! I feel like I am really in over my head, but hopefully I will have a much better understanding of - well, maybe not ALL things new on the net, but at least some things new on the net, anyway! My only experience with blogs so far is looking at my daughter's posts from her class blog, so this is totally new for me. Well, here goes my first try at actually posting!