Old garden in the fall

 
Here is a corner of the Kent garden in its' fall glory.

Atheist Rock Climbing

Yeah!I managed to post this to my blog!

Learning 2.0 Reflective Exercise

As many times as I may have grumbled and felt like these lessons were too long and too much, I am glad I had the opportunity to be exposed to all of these different web based "things". Most were fanscinating (Flikr, YouTube). Some were obscure and useless (mashups), but cool. Some were useful (LibraryThing, Deli.ci.ous, Wikis, online software). Many could be used to make the library a more up to date and interactive place (wikis, blogs, podcasts, custom search engines). Some were a little creepy (created worlds for social networking, MySpace).

Social networking was definitely something that understanding the psychology of it a little more would make that lesson a more meaningful one. Maybe having some teens do a podcast about MySpace and Facebook and why they are so into it could be a starting place. One lesson a week would have been a little easier to keep up with (podcasting one week, YouTube the next). I think a lot of people dropped out when they got behind becasue they felt like they just couldn't keep up.

Val, one of our Learning 2.0 Advocates, was always very helpful. Sometimes it still wasn't that easy to figure out (why did some of the pictures I put in my blog get cutoff, how do you attach, embed or othewise connect to things).

All of this was surprising. Spending time on the web is just not a prioiity and it was great to be gently prodded into the opportunity to take a look at these fascinating things.

Tagging, more work on tagging, spending more time with LibraryThing, figuring out a way to use Deli.cio.us, using Wikis to plan a family get together. My kids and husband thought it was so cool that I had a MySpace account. That creeped me out and was my least favorite excersize. While these things may not have changed my life, but they sure opened up a lot of areas I had never gone and should continue to explore.

I would definitely do this again and recommend it to others. There is just so much out there! A continuing ed version of 27 things/2.0 would be a great thing. Since I didn't know about any of this stuff in the first place, I really don't know of anything else you could have covered. But, thanks for asking.

The "Right" Way to Embed a YouTube Video

Martha and Helen and Valerie helped figure out how to embed a YouTube video so that you get the fancy arrow button. I went back and put in my "Atheist Rock Climbing" video and put it in the "right" way. I also embedded "Ninja Librarians" in this post as a practice.

That's a load off my mind.

Podcasts

I went to PodcastAlley to look around. I first clicked on "Environment" under "Pick a Podcast Genre". There are a lot of people interested in that topic. Then I put in "Non Verbal Learning Disorder" under "Search for a Podcast" and was pleased to find a plethora of podcasts which I will have to spend more time with at a future date. My daughter has this problem and it could be a new source of information. Finally I entered "Library" in the "Search for a Podcast". A nice long list appeared. It is just like any search list where some of the podcasts have more to do with libraries than others. It appears to be in order of relatedness. Before I figured this out, I went to the description of a podcast called "The Art of Drink" wondering what than had to do with libraries. Well, you can add to your personal "library" of mixed drink recipes by downloading there weekly drink recipes and instructions. The library could certainly give step by step directions on how to do something downloaded onto an MP3 player in the form of a podcast. Here's an idea - each week there could be a podcast made available on the website for people to download and use at the libary for using the data bases, searching on the net, using government documents, searching for relatives, using self checkout, etc. Next, I investigated "Dublin Castle". This was a tour of an Irish castle on a podcast that included a look in the castle's library. A library tour could certainly be a downloadable podcast. Then I finally landed on "Library Geeks" where "librarians, geeks and geek librarian geek out about libraries." They haven't posted since January. I listened to parts of a couple of posts. Not very interesting or informative. I moved on to "LibVibe". Much more up-to-date and interesting, newscast format covering a variety of topics. None of these had RSS feeds. So off I went to Podcast.net. This was much easier to use than PodcastAlley.com. I went to "Hennepin County Library - Teenlinks Podcasts" because I used to live in Hennepin County. The RSS feed connection was easy to find and use. It was also easier to listen to the podcasts. What a great way to get teens involved in the library. The teens actually did the podcasts.

YouTube

Wow, ok. So I tried looking around on YouTube. I went to the "Categories" tab and then to "Travel and Places" selection. "Atheist Rock Clombing" popped out as something that looked interesting. CapnOAwesome and his buddy were rock climbing somewhere out near Grand Coulee. A little geography lesson, a little rock climbing and a little discussion on Atheism thrown in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IDESu74qUQ

The possiblities here are endless. The library could certainly make use of this for teaching people (staff and patrons) how to do various things like searching the catalog, logging on to a computer, using data bases and so on.

I can't get rid of the video clip I posted the wrong way. I think I have figured out how to post it the right way, but we will have to wait and see. If you click on the red x above, it will take you to the video, but it doesn't look very pretty or professional.

Webware Stuff

I went into Webware under "Social Network & Groups". I liked the idea of Domystuff (domystuff.com). People can be so dishonest on the web I would worry about people's motives. Still I sure would like help moving dirt in my new garden. . . 30 Boxes (30boxes.com) looks a lot like our room reserve software. Could we just have made use of something on the net like this? I suppose this might not be possible since we are an institution, but perhaps we could even use it withing the branch. Then I found Mii Editor (miieditor.com) brought to us by Nintendo Wii people. I had fun making an Avatar (see results above). I still have a hard time navigating and finding things like the female hair. When I find a site/software that makes perfect sense to me I will trumpet it to the world. Probably not very useful in the library world except for fun.