23 Things

Woo-Hoo!! Last post!

2007-09-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

My reflection of Plans 23 Things...

My favorite excercises were Flickr and LibraryThing. Of all the things we learned about during this program, those are the two I think I will continue to use the most in the future... Although I also liked de.lici.ous and find myself using that more than I thought I would.

I am not sure that it affected my lifelong learning goals at all. I do love to learn new things, and especially things that will be useful for me in the future, but really I think I things I learned about here will just enhance my personal life at thins point.

I was surprised that there were so many online programs that I was not familiar with, and so many that I can see myself using in the future.

As far as changing the program, I think it was great - very well organized.

If you offered another discovery program like this in the future, I would definitely participate.

Excercise 22 - Net Library

2007-09-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

Net Library is a program I am already familiar with, as we have a subscription through our library. I think it is a great program, although I prefer to read books on paper rather than on a computer screen.

Podcasting - Excercise 21

2007-09-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

I have an iPod, which I love, but I have never actually listened to a podcast on it. When I listen to podcasts, it is usually online through my computer. Most freqently, I search for podcasts through iTunes, becuase I am familiar with that program. The podcast I listen to most often (I am a little bit ashamed to admit this) is the one found on the Grey's Anatomy webpage. They normally review the last espiode, give an interview with one of the cast members, and give you a clue about what might happen next week. Other than that, I haven't really gotten into the podcasting craze... although I might look into it now.

Excercise 15

2007-09-25T08:22:00.001-07:00

It was interesting to read about what people feel the future of libraries is going to be, and it will be interesting to see how that matches up with what happens in the future...

Excercise 19 - Web 2.0

2007-09-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

Just the short list of the Web 2.0 Winners was overwhelming to me... I have heard of a few of these applications before, but most were new to me. One program on the list that I use regularly is Pandora. It's great! It's like an online radio station. You just type in the name of a singer or group that you like to listen to, and Pandora finds music that is similar to that style. As it goes along, you can tell the program whether you like the music it selects and it will customize your listening experience even more. And the best part: it's free!

There were also several other programs on the list that look very interesting to me and I plan to look into them in the future.

Technorati - Number 14

2007-09-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

This was a really difficult excercise for me because I am not sure what exactly I should blog about. I can definitely see benefits of using technorati, especially if you are into reading other peoples blogs - it would be a great way to keep track of which blogs have new posts without having to visit every site. At this point, I do not visit enough blogs for this to have a practical purpose for me. I can not really see how this is useful for a library, so maybe that is where I am having trouble...

YouTube

2007-09-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Here I go, out of order again... This is excercise #20

I loved YouTube. We are getting ready to move to Japan, and I think this will be great for personal reasons - I will be able to upload pictures of my daughter to share with our family back in the states. I have already been experimenting (see video below).

The things I love about YouTube are 1)it is so easy (and quick)to use and 2) My family can view videos without creating their own account. I am sure there are negative aspects of YouTube also, but for now, I am very excited about the site and anticipate using it a lot in the future.

Excercise 16 &17

2007-09-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

I am going completely out of order with these excercises now.

Excercises 16/17 were about wiki's and how they can be applied to libraries today. I added my blog to the PLAN wiki, and my favorite vacation spot.

I have actually used wikis before, in college in one of my LIS classes. My professor set one up and members of the class were required to contribute to it. It was a neat idea, but I didn't see any practical purpose.

I have also used Wikipedia. While I realize that anyone can add to wikipedia so it is ovbiously not 100% accurate, it is a great resource for finding information quickly.

As far as how wiki's could be useful in a library setting, I am not sure I see a lot of practical applications. It could be neat to have one in conjunction with a book club, where members could reccommend their favorite books, or even just one for favorite books, but beyond that, I don't see a lot of uses for this particular thing.

I have gone a little bit crazy with a lot of the activities on here and I am having a lot of fun, but I think it is safe to say I won't be setting up a wiki anytime soon.

Del.icio.us

2007-09-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

Back to #13 -

This is my network badge for del.icio.us. I was, initially, skeptical about this. I didn't think it would be useful to me, until I started using it. We have several computers in my house, and it would be nice to be able to save and sort the pages I like. After using it a bit, I see that as I am browsing the web, I would be able to click a button, add a few quick tags, and save the website to my site, accessible at any computer. It was very quick and painless. This would help me as I am researching information about whatever my current interest - I would be able to easily keep track of and organize any information I think might be useful.

As a former student, I can see that it would also be very useful as a research tool, especially for students using public computers since they would be able to access this where ever they log in.

I think I will continue to use this tool in the future.

Google Docs

2007-09-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

I think I like ZoHo better than Google Docs... It seems to have more options and be a little bit more user friendly.

I am going to try to publish this now, from Google Docs.

Woo-Hoo! I am having so much fun :)
(I was going to insert an emoticon, but I don't see that option here in google, so I guess that is another feature I like about ZoHo)

By the way, this is excercise # 18 - I am out of order because I was looking for one I could do on a government computer :)

** I could not get this to post to my blog from google docs - I copied and pasted it into a regular blog post. Hopefully that is something I can figure out in the future :)

ZoHo

2007-09-05T12:36:00.001-07:00

This is my attempt at using ZOHO writer to publish something to my blog.

Having never used the program before, I am not sure if it is something I would like. I like learning about new technology, but as I am already very familiar with MS Office, I am unsure if I would want to use this program. It would save a money over having to purchase software though, which could definitely be a plus. I wonder if this is similar to Open Office? That is a free program I have heard of, but do not have any personal experience with.

One thing is for sure - there is a lot of technology available that I have never been exposed to before and I am seeing a lot of great applications for these programs, both within a library and in my personal life. Everyone should be required to do these 23 things!

Ok, now I am off to try to figure out how to post this...

Rollyo

2007-08-31T14:10:00.001-07:00

Not sure how I feel about this one - I am trying to think of potential uses... I can see using this on webpages I make to search within the website, or using it within my homeschool. For example, if I want Madison to do research on butterflys, I can set up a search engine that would only retrieve content from websites I deem safe, and I would be able to control what information she finds on the internet. It would make more work for me, but it would also allow me to feel more comfortable with my children learning to use the internet.

So here is the "Rollyo" I made - the pages I included were about homeschooling in general, and about the specific method of classical homeschooling...

Librarything - Again...

2007-08-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Here is another cool thing you can do with librarything.com - make a widget (shown below) which will link to the books in your library at amazon.com. Now here is the really cool part - if you set up an amazon associate account, you will earn a percentage of the sales price (4%-10%) when someone orders from your link. So check out my books and order some!!

Librarything.com

2007-08-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, my inner dork is about to really show. I am so, so, SOOOOO excited about this website. Not joking. I used to be a teacher and have 500+ childrens books at home, which I "cataloged" into a Excel spreadsheet with title, author, publication date, awards won, etc, so that I would know exactly what books I owned and be able to loan them out to my students. Now, I am no longer a teacher, but I am about to start homeschooling my daughter, and I think this would be a great way to keep track of the books I own, and I will be able to access the list from anywhere. I wonder if I could access this page from an iPhone (when I get one....) And it will be much, MUCH easier to add new books. Now I only need to recatalog the 500 books I have in storage...

Here is a link to my catalong online - http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mrsamy

As of today, there are only two items, but I will be adding more.

Slide.com

2007-08-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

Another image generator I found is slide.com Using the photos you have online (at flickr, but also at many other websites like myspace, facebook, etc.), you can easily create slideshows to post on your blog/website/etc. Here is one I made with random pictures of Madison:

What a cutie!

2007-08-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

I created this image with the Big Huge Labs website - http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ It was really fun to play with now that I have uploaded a bunch of pictures into flickr and can easily access them.

RSS Feeds/Bloglines

2007-08-31T10:37:00.001-07:00

Here is a link that will *hopefully* take you to my RSS feed at Bloglines: http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?html=1&id=mrsamy

This was a really neat excercise. I had heard the term RSS before, but had no idea what it meant/how to use it/how it would be helpful. Even after starting the initial assignment, I was skeptical. While I do spend a lot of time on the internet, I didn't realize how much of it was spent going to websites that could be used with Bloglines. Lately, I have been looking into homeschooling my daughter, and have been frequenting a lot of blogs to read about how different moms homeschool. By using RSS with bloglines, I can now have all of those blogs centrally located and save myself time by logging into one account to check all updates. My mother also has a blog and frequently complains that I never read it. I added her blog site as well, so when I check in on the blogs I like to read, I can see if she has updated without any extra work.

So, in conclusion, although initially I felt like this was probably going to be a waste of my time, I see RSS as a very helpful tool for people who spend a lot of time on the internet, especially those who read blogs/daily new articles/etc, and I will most likely continue to use my bloglines account at least periodically in the future.

Anything relating to technology???

2007-07-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

That is a broad topic... I enjoy doing the activities included in PLAN's 23 things, and although I consider myself to be a pretty technologically savvy person, I am actually learning a lot.

As a former teacher, some of my favorite webistes are brainpop.com and unitedstreaming.com. These sites provide videos that can be used as a part of a lesson plan. There are literally thousands of videos available that make learning more fun.

Another website I like is atomiclearning.com. It provides short, managable tutorials about hundreds of different software programs. It requires a subscription but is really helpful in learning new software.

Mappr, etc...

2007-07-19T16:16:00.000-07:00

I was disappointed by Mappr because it only included US locations. Hopefully at some point, it will be expanded to include all countries.

The color picker mashup was pretty impressive though. I can see how that could be really useful to people in graphic design jobs/etc.

I really liked the poster maker feature at Big Huge Labs. I could have a lot of fun with that, especially in a teaching environment.

Amy Allen the "hot blue jedi"

2007-07-19T16:13:00.001-07:00

Amy Allen the "hot blue jedi"
Originally uploaded by xfileed916

This is not me... but since we share the same name, and her picture came up when I searched for myself, I thought this would be as good a picture as any to add to my blog.

I think this is a really cool feature of flickr that I was not aware of. I have had blogs in the past to share pictures with my family, but went to designing my own website because it took too long to upload the pictures. This was surprisingly fast and easy. Now I will have to try adding some pictures that I have taken...

Flickr

2007-07-19T16:10:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.