THe end!

The journey has been slow and thorough, yet fast and just scratching of the surface. I guess that sums up my experience of Library 2.0. When I started this program, I wondered if I would ever be able to make it through all the steps. Some of the lessons sounded quite daunting, like Technorati, Podcasts, and even the idea of blogging. Most of these terms were totally foreign to me. I now know what they are, which I feel is very beneficial to me. As for being proficient in them, that is debatable. However, with technology changing as we speak, I think it would be hard to be proficient with anything on the web. The best we can do is keep on trying.
I am glad I participated in the program. It has given me an opportunity to surf the web, and give me some confidence in doing so. I have always been apprehensive about doing or going anywhere on the internet. My family is part of the 29% of the people who do not have internet in their homes. So, I have never had the opportunity to do much searching. This has been a real handicap working the Computer Center. I still do not feel confident in my searching abilities, but I do know a lot more than I did in January.
The program was well written, and covered everything thoroughly. The only thing I found that would be more helpful was to have a few more explanations on how to the simple things. I think having the more in depth classes is covering the gaps that may occur. The only thing that might need to be expanded on is the tagging lesson. That one left me totally frustrated, and I still am not comfortable with it. I do plan on attending your "in depth" class on it.

My thoughts on Netlibrary

I have always been curious about e-books, but never took the time to explore this part of the library. I found it very interesting and fairly easy to navigate. I did do the tutorial which explained a lot. The one thing I don't understand is how you check out a book and how exactly you view it. Do you just access the library and read it on the computer? I was surprised at the content. I expected a lot of genre stuff, and found mostly reference and non-fiction items. Is that just what I searched, or is the majority of the collection non-fiction? Again, my age is showing, for I really would miss curling up with a book, or if doing reference, I would miss the tactile experience. However, on the other hand, being able to make notes and bookmarking pages, it might be easier to find a certain reference you were looking for. I guess, depending on the use, e-books could be very helpful.
The other area I was curious about was how to look up audio books. I put in a search for audio books, but I came up with a lot of regular books with the words audio and book in them. I thought the tutorial did a great job of explaining how to download them, and I was interested in the 3 week check-out. Do you have to return them somehow, or do they self destruct???
All and all, this was a very helpful lesson, and one I have always wanted to explore, but never took the time. But, as usual I think I go away from the lessons with more questions than answers. Of course, that is a good thing, because before the lesson, I didn't know enough about it to have a question....

I pod, U pod, we all pod....

I was not impressed with podcasts. I am not a radio listener to begin with, so I know I personally will never use this area of the internet. I did find some useful pods when I typed in Library news. Not so much the pod itself, but how it could be beneficial to a school or library to do a "cast" on upcoming events. One would have to have a personality that is contagious, and a very good speaking voice. I could see how this media could be used in that way. I had a great deal of trouble trying to listen to stuff on the Podcast.net link. It kept locking me up. I would never use this, just because it was so much trouble. It could be the internet today, it could be the operator--that's me--pushing too many buttons, or it could be the link. Either way, it was not a positive experience. I did have much better luck with Yahoo Podcasts. I was able to move around the site, without locking up my computer. I found very little that interested me. But, that is personal preference. I am more of a visual person, and most of it was auditory. I had a misconception of what podcasts were. I thought they would be the little cameras that are mounted on individual PC's, and just show your daily life--or something like that. I wasn't aware they were basically radio broadcasts. I did find an interesting one with NPR-about children's books. I did an rss feed on that one. Well, that is it for today. Two posts in one day. Pretty busy day!!!!

You Tube

I enjoyed this lesson. I found several really cute videos of animals. I was able to put the one of the otters on my blog. There is a really cute one of a duck feeding the fish. It is so adorable. You can view it now at http://youtube.com/watch?v=xPxDw7ajfGE (Hey, I did it, I actually made a connection to a URL address)
I thought about the question on application to a library. I feel it might be used to post short clips of different programs on our myspace. How would the process go? Would you first have to post it to youtube, and then import it like I did with the otters. Or, is there a way to just post it from our video camera??? Other than that, I saw no real application. Am I missing the boat? Are there otherways to utilize this technology?

Love is.....

This is just sooooooo cute

This one didn't work.....but if you don't first suceed, try, try again. The second worked, yeah---thanks Robin.

Web 2.0 Awards-Needs a second opinion

I found very little on this link that I wanted to pursue. After much perusing I decided to try the videos. I clicked on Video daily motion, which was in first place, and was told it was blocked for porn. I clicked on Meta cafe, #3, and by the looks of it, it should have been blocked. So that left the 2nd place one, which was youtube. I enjoyed the videos I found here. There was an adorable video of 2 otters, swimming side by side, holding hands. I really enjoyed that one. There were several other animal ones that caught my fancy as well. Of all the exploration I have done here, the different search engines, online image generators, etc. I really feel that Bobbi and Robin picked the best to illustrate their points.

Google Labs and beyond

I found the Google Labs very interesting. To see some of the things they are working on, and being able to comment was great. My favorite "in processing" tool is the one "Google Suggests". I have trouble coming up with the correct word or words for searching. I have an idea of what I want, but not always in the terminology that others use. This gave you some ideas on what else to search, and connects you right to that search. I hope it graduates from the lab to the main Google sight. I know it would be very useful to beginner Internet users, that are not quite up to par on the jargon, or how to write a question. I really didn't have any major problems with this tool. I hope it doesn't get dropped. I also explored some of the graduates-many of which I was familiar with. Google maps, and Google definitions as well as the phone book. I liked the sounds of Google alerts, and may choose to sign up for it, if I find something I wish to know the latest news about.

Well, I have been exploring some of the web-based productivity applications. At first I thought why would I use these features, if I had Microsoft office. Then I read a little more and realized that you could do a great deal of this work from another location, or if you were doing a group project, it would be easy to collaborate in real time. Both of these applications made sense to me.

I tried to look at Jot Spot- but found that Google had recently bought them, and they were busy upgrading, so I couldn't get a look at that one.

I looked at 30 boxes, and realized I would not like to publish my personal life on line in that format. So, that was a negative one for me.

Zo-ho, Thinkfree, and Google all seemed to offer the same services. Just in a little different format. I think, if I were to subscribe to one of these I would pick Google, mainly so I wouldn't have to have another name and password. It is kind of nice to have all the resources available in one place.

I do have a question about all of this "stuff" (flickr, myspace, wikis,etc.) What is the reward for all of these internet advantages. Do they get a monetary reward by using adds? Do they just do it for fun? What is in it for them???

Searching Search Engines

Finally, I am on solid ground. I have had some exposure to Search engines, through Summer Institute, and our own Staff Day programs. I found all of them fairly easy to navigate. It took a little getting use to the "clusters". Personally, when searching for something, I prefer to get the list of my "hits", and not get distracted by the cutesy. Anyhow, I searched Mooter, Clusty, and Yahoo. My usual search engine is Google. I found all four of them similar, once I got past the clusters on Mooter and Clusty. It was interesting that of the three, only one URL showed up in the top 5 of all three. My search was for "crockpot recipes". Southernfood.about.com/library/crock showed up on all three. Mrs.Dash.com showed up on 2 of them from the sponsor end. I thought I would have more similar hits. I guess the "spiders" do investigate different links, and therefore would give me different hits. It opened my eyes, as far as branching out and checking more than one search engine. I did try one more search engine, after reading a blog posted by one of our bloggers. They mentioned dogpile. com. I really liked that search engine. It combines google, yahoo search, MSN search, and ask. That is very convenient to get them all in one fell swoop.

Web 2.0

Well, here I am on Library 2.0. I am not too sure what I am doing on Library 2.0. To me, it is very, very confusing. However, I do not think I am alone in this observation. To me it sounds mainly like a proposed blue print on where Libraries are going, but not really how they are going to get there. I am concerned about patrons who are not able to jump on the band wagon of change. Many of our older patrons are not as resilient; they need to be shown how, even if it is only a click away. This statement doesn’t totally agree with Rick Andersons, reliance on user education. “But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons. One-button commands, such as Flickr’s “Blog This,” and easy-to-use programs like Google Page Creator, offer promising models for this kind of user-centric service.” If it takes a map to get to the one-button command, then it is still going to be confusing. (I found this to be so on some of our lessons) Many of the older adults rely on the printed materials. Many have a great deal of trouble navigating the web. I personally like the fact that I can verify my source with written materials, some of what I get off the Web is questionable.
I do agree with this statement made by Rick, “No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist.” We need to take our time and not jump on the band wagon with both feet. Think it through, and not “shoot from the hip”. As the population gets older, the computer literate will eventually become the seniors and then maybe the 2.0 will be beneficial. (But then it might be the 3.0 or 4.0) But let’s not run with this quite yet. Baby steps sound good to me. Change is fine, as long as it is necessary, not reinventing the wheel, and implemented slowly, so as not to lose those who aren’t quite as computer savvy as the people leading the 2.0 revolution.
In conclusion, I feel like I have rambled on in a very unorganized manner, however, that is how Web 2.0 made me feel. Rather unorganized, and not sure of where I was heading.

My map-at last!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I really, really wanted to do this exercise- just to see how much of the US I had covered. Finally,I was able to do it. However, I was not able to do it with the URL. I saved the picture to my computer and then uploaded the picture. Every time I would put in the URL, (ten weeks ago I didn't even know what that was) I would get a white box with part of the address in the gray writing area. I'm not sure what was wrong, but I do know there is "more than one way to skin a cat". Just put the Pinball Wizard philosophy into effect (hit a brick wall -go the other way). So, if someone can tell me what was wrong with trying to load the URL- I would greatly appreciate it. I would like to know how to do it both ways.

Well, here is my Map!?! Since I couldn't find the link to make one, I get to make something on the online image generator. Guess what I made --a game of Wheel of Fortune. ( my fortune will be the M240 player if I ever make it to the end). Of course, it is beyond me on how to make it actually work. I guess maybe that will be in the more advanced lesson.

Fun, Fun, Fun now that I have conqured: generators

Well, this was a very interesting lesson. I really liked the "feed" that you gave us in the tutorial. I was able to do a rebus note, color some virtual eggs, and put a new picture on my desktop. I liked doing it, but of all the choices on the list, these three were about all that interested me. I attempted to google image generators. Found several sites I thought I would enjoy going to, but could not load any of them. I did find a site at www.tweakyourpage.com/Generators/Scrolling_Image/
that I enjoyed going to. I found a glittery Hello sign which I was able to load onto myspace. I felt like I really, really accomplished something. This lesson will be helpful to me if I need to make some catchy signs, or to amuse some friends in an e-mail. I am glad I was introduced to generators. A lot of this information I will probably not utilize, but it has given me more confidence in surfing the web. (Which, until now was the big,black hole in the super highway)

RSS feeds

Well, I have been away a long time, mostly because I had a lot of work to do, but some, because there was an awful lot to cover in this lesson. I still do not feel proficient in it, but I do understand what it is and how you would use it. At first, I was somewhat confused on what kind of internet sites would qualify. Everything I wanted to access said it could not find a feed. Then, after talking with Bobbi, I realized that most of the feeds are connected to Blogs. I do not use the internet that much, so I was really hunting hard for RSS feeds. I did find the links to feeds folder in Blog Lines very helpful. I tried Feedster, Topix. net and technorati, and found them fairly easy to navigate, after I realized where the feeds were. Setting up feeds could be helpful, if you wanted to keep in touch with several people at once. Bobbi explained to me that she has all of us on her feed, so that when we publish to our Blog, she knows there has been a new addition. This could be very helpful in many situations. I am curious as to how she did this, since we do not have feeds set up???? Well, I think I am ready to move onward and downward to Play week.

Mashups-smashups

I enjoyed Flicker, but I didn't see any application for the map and mntagr. I guess if you had time to be creative, it might be fun...but what would you do with the end result??? I really saw no use for these. I am not into being creative with pictures in an abstract way. I like the image to represent the image that I see. After the collage is made what do you do with it?Now that I have stated what I think, I guess I want to know if I totally missed the mark or what???? Please let me know.
As for the 3rd party apps. I liked some of what I saw. A lot of it was what I have in software on my computer. I think it would be very helpful to someone who had internet, and did not have access to these type of tools found in their software.

Sunset in Hawaii another flickr post by me

Sunset in Hawaii
Originally uploaded by amyandscott.

I found somebody else's photo, and decided to give it a try. I am really into sunsets this morning. However, this one tickled my memory from about 33 years ago. That is REALLY tickling my memory.

Flickr the picture!

Sunset
Originally uploaded by knowsdebi.

What a beautiful way to end the day!! Of course it is 9:10 in the the morning, but I can dream. Well, I have discovered Flickr, and find I really like it. It is very easy to navigate, and to load your pictures. Right now my biggest problem with this program is remembering all of the logins and all of the passwords. Before I started this journey, I had a hard time remembering all the pass words for work, now I am in overload with passwords and logins.....
I am wondering about privacy again, though. I understand I can restrict the people who see my stuff, but I am very private, and don't want anyone hacking into my stuff. (Although, I guess they would have to be desperate, for if they wanted to waste all that energy and time in hacking, they would probably pick a more interesting site.)
I was wondering if you can post more than one picture in an entry. Hmmm.... I might have to do some more investigating.

Flickr

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

Technorati

Well, after going back to review and make sure that I had posted all the blogs that needed to be posted, I found I had missed this one. Actually, it was kind of good that I missed it, for after going through the entire lesson, and then revisiting technorati, I found it made a lot more sense. I used the tag of cooking, and stumbled upon a lot of sites, and I guess, personal blogs. I found it was much easier to navigate around this time. I guess I need to do it a couple of times, in order for it to penetrate my mind. I am also finding that blogging is coming much easier. I seem to be able to find this site much faster, and from different access points. It is all good, but just very slow going.