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.