Thing 23

Well - I knew once I needed to get ready for the start of school the 23 things would end up on the back burner and sure enough it did. I made it through many of them and enjoyed learning about all of the technologies - so many I had heard about but never tried. I still plan on finishing the 23 things when things at school settle down. I am not sure how I will apply all that I have discovered at school but I hope to continue building on what I have started. I discovered a few things about myself along the way - that I am more of an introvert that I knew and that putting information out there for all to see is very difficult. I hope to use some of the image generators to punch up the newsletters for school. I stopped at the Wiki page partly because of getting ready for the new schoolyear but also because this one seemed more daunting, but I plan to get to it. Thank you so much for putting this together it was challenging and enjoyable and a valuable learning tool.

100 Places to Connect With Other Bibliophiles Online | OEDb

100 Places to Connect With Other Bibliophiles Online | OEDb

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OOOH - it did work - what a nice surprise!

Library Worm

This is another one of those sites I found a bit overwhelming - too many sites to sort through. I looked at the feed categories and subjects andfound that they were more general and when you clicked on a link (I tried school libraries) pages and pages of links came up. On one of the sites there were over 500 pages and there is no way I am willing to go through all of those - I suffer from information overload. Using the phrase search I typed in Teen Read Week using all three options - any words, all words and exact phrase - better results more manageable but still a large number of sites to comb through. I need to learn how to refine my searches but this will take time playing around with the site. I do have another site that lists 100 places to connect with Bibliophiles Online. I like it because it is a manageable number for me and the sites are grouped into categories such as book collectors, blogs, librarians etc. It does include links to several sites we have explored during 23 things such as Ning and Librarything. Here is the URL:
http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/100_places_to_connect_with_bibliophiles_online

I tried using the share this link to put it on this blog but it didn't seem to work. I will have to work on that option.

Library Thing

I am completing the 23 things in order and was anxious to get to this thing which I found very interesting. I wasn't sure about cataloging my library especially since I don't have much of an "adult" library, I get most of the books I read from my public library. So I decided to catalog some of the hundreds of childrens books I own (from having taught pre-school for many years) eventhough I thought others on the site might think this was strange, but then again there is a group devoted to children's fiction so maybe not. The cataloging was pretty easy to do but it isn't something I would probably continue. I looked into some of the groups and joined the Librarians group - many of their discussions looked interesting and helpful, such as the one on what to recommend to those girls who have finished the Twilight series. The I See Dead People's Books looked interesting and would be something to look at again maybe when I am retired with lots of spare time. Overall one of the most helpful sites so far for a small school librarian.

Digg

I watched the video about Digg, took the tour on the Digg site and visited the frequently asked questions section like I have usually done during this process to try gain a better understanding before registering. On Digg I felt like there was so much information and so little time. I think my husband would like Digg more than I will. He likes sitting with his laptop and exploring different stories and subjects. He has been very reluctant to join in this 23 things adventure mainly because of security concerns. I found the site interesting but there were so many stories I could be there all day and since I still don't enjoy reading from a computer screen as much as paper in hand I tended to feel more information overload with 20 story lines on a page. I thought the Facebook connection might be helpful since I wouldn't have to set up another account but only if I could find a way to narrow the scope but then again narrowing the scope significantly defeats the purpose of Digg in some ways - doesn't it? For now I think I will just check out the site to see what it shows but not sign up. I am still not comfortable posting my ideas for all the world to see so I would probably not comment anyway. (Is this a generational thing- my kids have no qualms about posting their thoughts for all to see?)

Delicious

When I mentioned my next "thing" to my husband he was not at all sure about doing this from home. Security issues so I went to school - (probably needed to go anyway) and created a delicious account from there. The bookmarks from school are the ones I am most likely to want to look at from another computer so it actually made sense to do it there. I was able to import my bookmarks and add a couple of others I had seen this summer. The time consuming part was editing the bookmarks to add the tags and I admit I didn't get through all of them but did get the most frequently used tagged. I think this is a site I will use and it will make my planning easier since I can access this easily from home now.

Tagging

After reading the Wikipedia article I can see the benefits and some of the concerns with tagging. I think students would find it helpful to have books tagged with terms they may use rather than Librarian terms. I work in a small private school library that includes grades K-8th and much parental concern. I have often wished I could "tag" books with something similar to what they do with TV shows - Mature content, language etc. or find reviews with this information since I cannot read every title. It is an interesting idea but like with everything else you have to select carefully.

Twitter

I have heard about twitter all over - on the morning news shows, the baseball games, the radio, in the newspaper but I don't know of anyone who actually has a twitter account so I thought "cool - I will be the first!" Signing up for the account was easy. I also watched the video and checked out the help page. Finding a twitter to follow was a different matter. I thought I had heard that the classical radio station in Dallas (WRR)had a twitter but I could not find them. I then tried our local library - no luck there either. I then tried Keller, TX and lots of different twitters popped up - none I was interested in though. I did finally find the City of Keller and a couple of others that I thought might be interesting. I don't know if I will be able to do this on my phone and checking my twitter account would be one more thing to do so I don't know if I will use it as it is meant to be used - as an instant update. And honestly I am probably not that interested in what anyone is doing on a moment to moment basis. I can barely keep up with what I have to do!!

Thing 11

Instant messaging is the one thing I have done before. When my oldest daughter went to college the cell phone coverage was spotty and expensive so I learned how to instant message and we would frequently chat in the afternoons. This went by the wayside when cell phone plans became less expensive and included the area where she was going to school. I was quite proud of myself when I went to log in and remembered my user name and password even though I set up the account 10 years ago and haven't used it in over 5 years. My user name is pastamama2 (given to me by my kids) and I am using AIM. I know we downloaded the software when I originally set up the account but I have not updated it and the AIM express from the browser seems to work just as well. The home page does seem to be much more cluttered with ads and other stuff that I find it more distracting than I remember. I do need to try to use the abbreviations more often- my kids said my instant messages read more like letters and so therefore are not very instant.
I thought the post by another North Texas 23 participant who used IM with other librarians while trying to help a patron was a great strategy.

Thing 10

I watched the tutorial about Ning and that didn't seem too complicated but then I read the article about Ning and their use of networks and that made me think twice. I wonder just how many of these social networking sites there are and it seems belonging to them would take a huge amount of time. I did search several areas of interest - libraries, book clubs, quilting, education and even for home inspection (my husband's occupation). The number of possible networks to join was overwhelming 5,000+ for some networks. Some are recognizable such as ALA and I would feel comfortable joining them but then there was the Second Life Librarians network that was not what I expected. I find it tedious to go through and view the different networks to see if one is a good match. Since I didn't set up an account I can't compare it to Facebook as to ease of use and quality of information.

Thing 9

Finding friends in facebook. This is in some ways easier than I thought it should be. I added my kids and a friend I knew participated in Facebook but when I actually typed in names of many other friends I discovered none of them are on facebook. I have had a couple of friend requests but have not responded yet - I am still contemplating how many people to include and whether I really want to include people I only know through other people or casually - some feel the more friends the merrier but I am not sure I agree. I am still more likely to send a private message than post something on the wall for all to see. I joined one group - the Texas Library Association and became a fan of the Texas Rangers. I am still looking at other groups to possibly join such as a quilters group or perhaps a book club. I think belonging to several groups or becoming a fan of several things will be more information than I want to sort through on a daily basis. My daughter says she just ignores the postings from all of the various groups she is a fan of - but what's the point of joining if you are just going to ignore it. I guess I am still not really with it ....

Thing 8

I had heard all about Facebook mostly from my kids but had never looked at it. I was a little more intrigued when a friend said she had joined and was having a great time connecting with her old high school friends but still not enough to do anything. It was easy to create the Facebook account not as easy to navigate the site - again too much information with ads and pictures and different options all over the page. I did not put a lot of information in my profile partly because of the privacy concerns but also because part of me wonders who really cares about my favorite books. It seems like such a ME generation thing - I find it hard to believe that people really want to know what I'm doing today. I did enjoy looking at friends from high school who are listed in Facebook and I discovered when typing my own name into the search box that there are 20 pages of people who have the same name. I guess this is where more information in the profile can be helpful - I may go back and add my maiden name to mine.

Thing 7

One of the reasons I started the 23 Things was to learn about the RSS feeds since a listserve that I am on is moving to RSS this summer. I am still not sure about either the Blog reader or RSS feeds. It seems you end up with so much information. I am still looking at it to see if I can delete the irrelevant information or save the items I want to look at again in a way that doesn't involve going through everything. But I did add the list serve and hope that it works when they make the shift in July. So far it looks like it will.

Thing 6

I found the Blog reader easier to understand and install than Flickr. I was able to add subscriptions with ease and added my niece's travel blog, a library list serve that I generally receive through e-mail and my son-in-law's football blog. I also searched for additional blogs but found this to be quite time consuming checking each one out to see if it was one I would like to add. I agree with the video that having all the blogs and web sites on one page is easier than going to each individually but I can also see where this could eat up a lot of time. Before I would go to the site only if I wanted something in particular or had extra time but with all of them on one page it will be easier to visit each one - which may actually eat up more time. This will be a time will tell option.

I tried another flickr spell and am adding some text to see if it will work. Fingers crossed. It worked but I don't know what I did wrong the first time and I probably won't be able to figure it out - so confusing.

Thing 4 - I think

I was able to post the Flickr spell of Thing 4 but not add any text - do these have to be done separately? When I added text the first time I just got the boxes with X's but without text I got the images. I am not sure where to go to find the answer to this. I think I will look at some other blogs to see if they have image and text.

Thing 4

Thing 5 again

OK so thing 5 didn't turn out exactly as I thought - didn't think the text would run along the side of the image since it didn't look that way in the preview but at least I have a picture! Yeah!

Thing 5

I hope this will show up on my blog as an image. If so it went much better than thing 4. The instructions that were on the image generator page were helpful. I have not given up on thing 4 and will try it again after playing with thing 5 a bit more - maybe it will give me some insight to the Flickr Speller.

Thing 4

I tried to put this in the title box but that didn't seem to work. The first time I tried to copy and paste the image I got an error message. I then tried to save it to my computer but got another error message when trying to upload it to the blog. And since I don't really understand the error messages I tried again and this time it did appear to work. Guess not - when I went to preview all I see are boxes with red X's and the name of the image. Back to the drawing board. It may be something that is set on my machine and I will have to talk to the IT department (my husband) to see if he can help. I will keep playing with it but I am starting to feel like I am in way over my head!

Thing 3

Just went to the Flickr site actually first I went to the link about how libraries are using Flickr which led me to the Swem Review of Technology which led to Flickr for Newbies. I find that is one of the problems with all of this information and the ease of access - it never ends and it is hard to know when to stop or where to go next... it can go on and on and on. I then took the Magical Feature tour on Flickr and went to the FAQ. I enjoyed looking at the pictures of libraries and grandchildren and found a picture of a card catalog which I would love to show my students since they just look at me with blank faces when I talk about card catalogs. I will need to continue to look at this site to see how I could possibly use it in our library.

Thing 2

I just finished viewing the first video for Library 2.0 and thought this isn't too bad. then I went on to read the blog and ran into all of those acronyms and terms that I really don't understand. I thought I would press on to the webpage about Web 2.0 and that one really was really difficult. All the time thinking that I am not sure how I would ever use this in my small private school library. Not wanting to give up I watched the shiftedlibrarian video and that one I enoyed and could relate to - it made sense to me and I think some of my fellow teachers would enjoy it. I read today that the Boomer generation of women have been the last to get on board with all of the new technology and networking, I must say that I fit that stereotype but hopefully not for long - on to thing 3.

New Blogger

I am not actually sure what to do or how to begin. I have only seen one other blog but in trying to keep up with the students I serve thought learning a bit more through 23 things would be a great opportunity in a non-threatening environment. I hope not to be so tech illiterate by the end.