Another Thing

Talking with other media specialists, I am always amazed at how different their work seems than my own. I know that elementary library media centers are much different than middle school media centers, not to mention high school media centers or public libraries. Regardless of the differences, there is a basic foundation that all libraries share in common. Libraries deal with information, whatever the media may be. Every librarian/media specialist brings their own unique perspective to the work. The 23 Things provided a great opportunity for librarians and media specialists to have a place to share their ideas and learn from others about how to best meet the information needs of our patrons.

Thing Twenty-Three: One Last Thing

In a word- learning. 23 Things on a Stick was all about learning new online tools. I would participate in programs like this in the future. I had many favorite things. I enjoyed starting my own blog, and linking pictures, videos, and other bloggers to my blog. I enjoyed learning about RSS feeds, NetLibrary, tagging, collaborative tools, and many other online resources too numerous to mention. 23 Things on a Stick was much more than 23 Things. It was a learning experience that deepened my knowledge of online resources that I can use for the rest of my career.

Thing Twenty-Two: Staying Current

There is so much information online, and the Internet is constantly changing. It is impossible to keep up with everything, but I will try to keep up by continuing to use the tools that I learned through 23 Things on a Stick. For instance, I now have a gmail account and plan on using some of the various tools available through Google. I also have a blog. I now am more aware of Web 2.0, Library 2.0, RSS feeds, aggregators, webinars, etc. This program has helped me become more knowledgeable about the online world, and will benefit my career.

Thing Twenty-one: Other Social Networks

Online social networks can be good if they focus on a group with similar interests. The social network can be a great place for the exchanging of ideas and information. That said, I think the 23 Things on a Stick Ning would have been better served to ask about favorite books than to ask about marital status.

I think WebJunction is a great social network for library media workers in Minnesota. I attended a WebJunction session at the MEMO conference in Brainerd and was intrigued by the webinars they offer free to members. I think as the online technology improves, WebJunction will be an invaluable site for librarians to learn and discuss new technology and trends.

Thing Twenty B: MySpace

I chose part B because I am not ready to start up a social network account. I thought the MySpace pages of the Denver and Minneapolis public libraries contained a lot of images and little text. The pages seemed to have a lot of flash with little substance. I did like that the Denver page contained links to websites that can help teens with homework, but I did not like that music played automatically on the page. The schools where I work do not allow access to MySpace. Some argue that students care about MySpace, and we should allow them access to what they are interested in. Based on what I have seen and heard about MySpace pages created by teens, I disagree.

Addendum: Now that I have learned more about Facebook, and now that my wife has joined the social network to keep in contact with her friends, I have changed my mind about student access to online social networks. As teachers, we should allow students to have access to social networks in schools so that we can teach them what is acceptible to post, and what is unacceptable (i.e. personal information, bullying, illegal activities).

Thing 19: Podcasts

I like how easy it is to link a podcast into my Google Reader account. I linked a half dozen podcasts that focus on books to my account. My favorite podcast is The Writer's Almanac. There are a great variety of podcasts that cover a great variety of subject matter; the podcast directories were very useful.

I have some experience creating podcasts through Audacity, and look forward to using it as a teaching tool. I look forward to teaching students how to create their own podcasts.

Thing 18: YouTube

I happened across this video on YouTube, titled "Angry Librarian," and had to check it out. I chose to post this video because it made me laugh. It's pretty good library humor.

I can see using videos to help students see what the library has to offer, and to help explain library procedures.

Thing 17: ELM Productivity Tools

The search alert is a great way to follow an issue you are researching. It is also a great way to teach about the differences between magazines, academic journals, newspapers, and books. We can also teach that the information being sought helps determine what type of sources should be used.

I was not a big fan of the EBSCO page composer. I did not find it user friendly, and could not see the changes I made until previewing the webpage. There are definitely better sites to help compose a webpage.

Proquest is a great research tool. It is useful for teaching students how to refine a search. I think it is wonderful that Proquest is available to the public for free.

NetLibrary, like Google Books, represents the future of reading. I think it is fantastic to be able to type in a word and to search for it in an entire book in a matter of seconds. It is a great research tool, and it allows you to write notes online. Imagine having access at home to every book and every periodical article that was ever published (and still exists). With the Internet, we now have this capability.

Thing 16: Assignment Calculator & Research Project Calculator

I can see how the Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator can be a great benefit to middle school students and older. The calculators do a good job of breaking the research process down into steps, and provides many useful links to websites that can aid the research process. I thought the supporting materials in the teacher guide were useful, and could easily be reproduced for students. However, I work with elementary students, and think the Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator are too advanced for them. It would be good to have a research calulator more geared toward younger students that could help show them how to break down the research process into simple steps.

Thing 15B: Second Life

I watched the video for Second Life, and checked out their website. I cannot think of a place for online games in the library, other than for patrons with idle time who are using the library computers. When I think about virtual reality I think about a person whose head is completely enclosed by a large helmet so that it looks like their head has turned into a television. This is the image that I thought of when I first heard of Second Life.

Thing 14: LibraryThing

I like the ability to create your own reading list. For my list on LibraryThing I chose Minnesota authors who I had the privilege of meeting. I think the best uses for LibraryThing would be to catalog books in a personal library, to create a reading list of books read by an individual, or to create a wish list of books that an individual wants to read. I can see how this website can be of great use to both book lovers and librarians.

Thing Thirteen: Online Productivity Tools

I am a big fan of iGoogle, and enjoy having a customized home page with links to the weather, current headlines, and news of interest to me. I like how easy the page is to set up, and how you can easily move things around to set up the page however you like. I also checked out the Google calendar. Again, I liked how easy it was to use. I checked out the Backpack website, but did not join because I already receive many of the Backpack functions through Google. I like the ability of accessing many different applications from a single starting point.

I joined Remember the Milk, but will not use it much until the I run out of scratch paper and pens. I also checked out the Zamzar site, and I thought it to be a very helpful resource. Time will tell if the applications in Thing 14 help me to increase productivity, but they are definitely useful things that I am glad to be aware about.

Thing Twelve: Social Media Sites

I researched the social media sites and joined Mixx, then posted a BBC article on global warming onto Mixx and tagged it "climate change." Personally, I cannot think of a reason why joining a social media site, such as the ones listed under Thing 12, would be of any more benefit than receiving an RSS feed from my favorite news sources. I do not see the value of joining a community where the only prerequisite to membership is to have an email address. Voting is very important to the social media sites; voting decides what stories, videos, podcasts, etc. are deemed the most important. I would rather think for myself and decide what news stories are most important. I do not want to be a part of a "community" where you have online conversations with anonymous people. The comments posted by users on the social media sites that I read were mostly short with little thought. That said, I can see the benefit of having a select group of people, such as an English class, have their own social media site in which they select stories of interest to them and have discussions about what they think about the stories.

Thing 11: Tagging and Del.icio.us

I tagged my posts and thought about how tagging goes against the Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal cataloging systems because anyone can tag anything with any word they want to, without any catagorization system whatsoever. I checked out Del.icio.us and found different tags for the singular and pronoun form of the same word, such as "wiki" and "wikis," or "library" and "libraries." Standardization of terms would not be such a bad thing.

I thought the Del.icio.us tutorial was interesting, and like that you can view other's reading lists. It is a great research tool, as you can seek out online sources that people with with similar interests have tagged. Also, if you have to travel and/or will be using a variety of computers, it is a useful place to bookmark sites that you want to have access to.

Thing Ten: Wikis

Many of the wiki pages seemed convoluted and confusing to navigate. I was overwhelmed by all the links. Some of the wikis provided little information other than the names of links.

On the 23 things on a stick wiki, I added "Welcome to the" on the front page, and changed the font type and color. I had to play around with spacing because the words kept overlapping each other when I saved.

With wikis, as with blogs, anyone has the ability to publish anything they want, and it will be accessible to anyone in the world with Internet access. With so many wikis, and so many authors, I am reminded of what a univiersity professor remarked when asked if he was going to write anymore about reference. He said, "No, definitely not. A lot of what gets published these days is just dropped into the ocean and doesn't even make a ripple."

Thing 9: Collaboration Tools

I thought Google Docs was easier to use for the simple fact that it took awhile before I was able to figure out how to load the document into Zoho Writer for editing. I thought both Google and Zoho were easy to use once the document was ready for editing. In both programs I added the word "apes" any time the Declaration of Independence referred to people. The Google Docs changes that I made are viewable to others on the Internet, but the changes I made using Zoho Writer are only viewable under my login. Both programs are useful for sharing documents that you want someone to edit. At my elementary school, we have a shared network drive which provides editing capabilities similar to Zoho Writer and Google Docs. I place a document on the shared drive that I want all students to have access to; students all open up the same document, and I walk them through the changes that need to be made so that they learn how to edit.

Thing 8: Share Your Photos

There is so much fancy technology for people to play around with images, words and sounds. I think online slideshows are useful if you have a variety of Powerpoint presentations that you would like to preserve. I would recommend this tool to teachers who give Powerpoint presentations. There are many fancy ways to present photos (see the montage of Yellowstone pictures that I made using Mosaic Maker), however, I would hesitate to recommend any of them for classroom use because they each require you to set up an account. A definite drawback to the 23 things on a stick is the number of new accounts (along with usernames and passwords) that are required in order to use the tools of the various websites. I think the online database can be a useful tool for librarians and teachers. An individual, or a class, can create an online database of useful information they want to catalog and share with the world. Efolio is an interesting new form of resume, although I am reluctant to share my resume with the whole world.

Thing 7: Communication Tools

I am a big fan of email. It is great communication tool; I use it throughout the day, every day, at work. I think it is the best way to communicate with someone during the work day without having to interrupt the work they are currently doing.

I am not a big fan of IM. It reminds me of Orwellian Newspeak. Why do they have to make acronyms for everything? Does it really save that much time? I think an IM conversation takes away from an individual's natural voice and character. However, I do see the usefulness of IM; it is a great way to communicate with someone live (as long as the conversation is not a bunch of acronyms). I found it amusing when the article said that a common question during an IM conversation with an online librarian was, "Are you real or are you a robot?"

I am even less of a fan of SMS. The article mentioned that libraries need to adapt to SMS users, but I don't completely agree. Librarians do not have to learn a bunch of acronyms in order to more effectively do their job. As a librarian, if I ever receive a text message reference question, I may ask "Are you real or are you a robot?"

I think web conferencing is a great tool for learning. It combines audio and visual in an online presentation, and can be viewed repeatedly. The learner can go over certain parts of the presentation that they didn't understand clearly the first time through. I attended a Minitex webinar on Library 2.0. The past few years I've completed university coursework in which the lectures were performed through webinars. The biggest drawback to webinars is that the communication is one-way. It is a much different type of learning environment than a traditional classroom because there is no (or very little) dialogue with the speaker. The learner must have an interest in the subject, and must have a good background knowledge of the subject, or they will quickly lose interest. Also, the speaker must be effective. However, webinars are a great tool for distance education, and the technology is sure to improve.

Thing 6: Online Image Generator

I think it will be fun to teach historical figures by having the students create trading cards for them, including dates and statistics. Big Huge Labs includes many fun tools that are sure to become even more sophisticated as the technology improves. It is fun to play with, just as video games are fun to play with; I caution against too much focus on the images at the expense of the words. I noticed that most of the tools that I used did not require much writing.

Thing 5: More Fun With Flickr

Thing 5 presents many great tools for students to learn about media and advertising, among other things. Students can create billboards, magazine covers, movie posters, etc. and market to a specific audience, or try to create a certain mood through the images and words that they use. Students will be more engaged because they will feel ownership of what they create while learning. Another example would be to learn about calendars by creating them using their favorite pictures from home in Flickr Big Huge Labs . This is a resource that I will definitely share with the elementary teachers.

Thing 4A: Explore Flickr

The photograph that I copied from Flickr was taken by gandy1941.

The image can be found at http://flickr.com/photos/gandydancer/2080710416/sizes/o/

The photograph is of my grandfather's sister and her daughter. When I searched Flickr, I was pleasantly surprised to find a collection of photographs tagged with my family name. I would have never seen this photograph of my great aunt and her daughter were it not for Flickr. Online photo-sharing websites provide a great opportunity for librarians to help preserve history through photographs. I think librarians should work with local historical societies to help catalog (tag) old photographs into an online photo-sharing website. What a great tool for researching the history of a community and its people. Librarians should reach out to the community to bring in their old family photographs in order to digitize them and tag them with family names and places. Online photo-sharing is a great tool for genealogy. Work must be done soon, because many of the names and places of the photographs only remain in the minds of elderly people.

Thing Three: Learn About RSS

I used Google Reader to subscribe to the RSS feeds of some of my favorite websites. I think it is a great information tool, and is more useful than putting a website under "Favorites." I watched the Common Craft video, and was intrigued by the comparison between the "old slow way" of going out and finding information, and the "new fast way" of having the information come to you. I was disappointed in how the "old slow way" was given a thumbs down in the video, and dismissed as "wasting time." With millions of people blogging today, it often happens that people write opinions about things of which they have little background knowledge, and it seems that they simply write things off the top of their head without putting much thought into it. These people don't spend enough time "the old slow way" researching an issue and building a knowledge base before developing an informed opinion. That said, I look forward to going online and finding new online information sources the old slow way, and linking to their RSS feeds.

Thing 2.0: Library 2.0

At the two elementary schools I currently work for, there are separate rooms for the computers and the books. The students refer to the room full of computers as the computer lab, and to the room full of books as the library. As a media specialist, I spend the majority of my time in the computer lab, and students refer to me as the computer teacher. The media secretary spends the majority of her time in the library, and the students refer to her as the librarian. To the children, it is plain and simple- a library is a room full of books, and a computer lab is a room full of computers. I am skeptical of anyone who uses the word library without referring to a room or books. Library 2.0 seems to have much more in common with the computer lab. I am afraid that if we replace the traditional meaning of the word "library" with a new meaning, then the traditional library (a room full of books) will slowly disappear.

First things: Getting Started

Hello, and welcome to my blog. My avatar is holding Plato's Collected Dialogues in his right hand, but he hasn't finished reading it yet.