I am familiar with the general notion of RSS feeds because of the iGoogle home page for my own computer, which has a tremendous number of possible RSS feeds. I had never worked with them before, though, other than adding them from those that Google offered.
I added feeds about three of my favorite things: Tuscany; Shetland Sheepdogs; and chocolate using the Bloglines search function and was surprised how user-friendly it was. I liked the ease of use, the convenience of your interests gathered in one place, the enormous choice of feeds and the time that they save.
I already use this technology in my personal life, as I mentioned above. Professionally, I can see using it as one stop shopping for library-related websites, blogs and journals. New materials received, library news and programs planned could be disseminated to our patrons by RSS.
I can tell there is more for me to learn about RSS and Bloglines, so I intend to spend more time investigating them.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
23 Things Overview
My favorite part of the 23Things exercise, to be totally honest, was exploring and learning more about YouTube, as it was the most fun assignment and one that we might use to reach people who don't use the library. I learned about a few features I hadn't known about, such as the channels and message capability.
Zoho Wiki was the most surprising and perhaps the most interesting of the Web 2.0 sites that I
visited and would provide a handy way for collaborating on a system-wide project with mutiple participants. One of the people at GB has already used it to gather suggestions for activites for his stay-at-home vacation.
I don't believe that 23Things has changed my lifelong learning goals. I have always wanted to continue to learn the newest developments. It has helped teach has taught me about tools like blogs, YouTube and ZuloWiki that I very well might be using in my life-long learning journey.
Flickr was one of the bigge surprises, as i didn't know it was so feature rich, with additions such as maps, items you can have made, and the comments you can add on your photos. I have a hunch I'll be spending time on it.
As far as what could be done better next time, I'd allow for more time. It definately took many people more than the alloted 90 minutes a week to finish. I also would redo the Technorati discovery to somehow make the site easier to understand. I believe it was a worthwhile project, though, and am glad PBCLS offered it.
Zoho Wiki was the most surprising and perhaps the most interesting of the Web 2.0 sites that I
visited and would provide a handy way for collaborating on a system-wide project with mutiple participants. One of the people at GB has already used it to gather suggestions for activites for his stay-at-home vacation.
I don't believe that 23Things has changed my lifelong learning goals. I have always wanted to continue to learn the newest developments. It has helped teach has taught me about tools like blogs, YouTube and ZuloWiki that I very well might be using in my life-long learning journey.
Flickr was one of the bigge surprises, as i didn't know it was so feature rich, with additions such as maps, items you can have made, and the comments you can add on your photos. I have a hunch I'll be spending time on it.
As far as what could be done better next time, I'd allow for more time. It definately took many people more than the alloted 90 minutes a week to finish. I also would redo the Technorati discovery to somehow make the site easier to understand. I believe it was a worthwhile project, though, and am glad PBCLS offered it.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Overdrive
I tried to listen to an Overdrive book at work, but security on the computer at work prevented a complete download of their Media Console, so I had to do this discovery exercise at home. I found it easier to download the console, locate "Fahrenheit 451" , check it out and listen to "Part One: The Hearth and the Salamander" than I expected, although I did have to back out and then return to Overdrive after the Console was downloaded.
The audio quality was fine and the person who read it does a good job, but it would be be better to have several people provide the voices, although I realize that's seldom done.
The only issue I have with audiobooks is that I'd prefer to hold and read a book than listen to a very lengthy recording. Burning the book to CD and then playing it on a long drive would be distracting, but downloading the book to an MP3 player to listen to on a walk might be a possibilty. Too bad I have an iPod.
A portion from Overdrive's description of "Fahrenheit 451" is: "The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires, and he enjoys his job. "
The audio quality was fine and the person who read it does a good job, but it would be be better to have several people provide the voices, although I realize that's seldom done.
The only issue I have with audiobooks is that I'd prefer to hold and read a book than listen to a very lengthy recording. Burning the book to CD and then playing it on a long drive would be distracting, but downloading the book to an MP3 player to listen to on a walk might be a possibilty. Too bad I have an iPod.
A portion from Overdrive's description of "Fahrenheit 451" is: "The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires, and he enjoys his job. "
Monday, July 7, 2008
Podcasts
After listening to the podcast of The Frog courtesy of the Denver Library I turned to Podcast AlleyI was surprised and pleased by how many library related podcasts there were. I had some trouble getting the first couple book review lated podcasts to work - I ended up with nothing at all or HTML. I did get the Stephen King podcast to play and started listening to The Green Mile, which is located at http://feeds.feedburner.com/StephenKingBookClub.
You Tube
First I searched for library videos from my home state of Minnesota and found a rather cute video from the Eden Prarie Library about common misconceptions about their library. Best of all it's hosted by a teenager, so maybe it will reach some of his contemporaries. You can find the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi78YJ1CD4Y.
There were 1,980 returns for my favorite dog, the Shetland Sheepdog, and if you'd like to fall in love with this breed, take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me46O63yT0g.
The features I most like about You Tube are the different ways to sort returns, that's it's democratic in the sense anyone can participate, that you can see videos from around the world, that tagging is allowed, that viewers can rate the videos, and that there's a huge variety of contributors from a young kid to the Associated Press. I like that the possible postings are almost endless - I even found the recent Wimbleton.
YouTube features could probably benefit a library in a number of ways. Most obviously, a video could provide publicity for the library and you could could continually update what's new at the library. Book talks could be placed on a site like YouTube. Perhaps some of the best programs outside speakers and staff have done could be archived on YouTube.
Drawbacks would include the same democratic nature that I sited as a positive, in that there are many videos not worth watching because of the content or the poor quality of the videography.
The sheer size could be considered a drawback, too, in that there is so much available to wade through. One drawback that they've already experienced are people posting malicious pranks that are then copycatted.
There were 1,980 returns for my favorite dog, the Shetland Sheepdog, and if you'd like to fall in love with this breed, take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me46O63yT0g.
The features I most like about You Tube are the different ways to sort returns, that's it's democratic in the sense anyone can participate, that you can see videos from around the world, that tagging is allowed, that viewers can rate the videos, and that there's a huge variety of contributors from a young kid to the Associated Press. I like that the possible postings are almost endless - I even found the recent Wimbleton.
YouTube features could probably benefit a library in a number of ways. Most obviously, a video could provide publicity for the library and you could could continually update what's new at the library. Book talks could be placed on a site like YouTube. Perhaps some of the best programs outside speakers and staff have done could be archived on YouTube.
Drawbacks would include the same democratic nature that I sited as a positive, in that there are many videos not worth watching because of the content or the poor quality of the videography.
The sheer size could be considered a drawback, too, in that there is so much available to wade through. One drawback that they've already experienced are people posting malicious pranks that are then copycatted.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Web 2.0 Awards: imcooked.com
imcooked.com is a useful and fun-to-use website that could be even better with a few tweeks and additions. The videos must make the cooking experience more interesting because of the added dimension and the people you'd get to meet. Also, you'd be able to see if the recipe turned out like it was intended to. If it didn't, you could probably chat with people in one of the groups to find out the reason why it didn't turn out the same way.
The search function seems to return good results and there certainly are a lot of tags for many of the recipes, which would make them easy to find. I couldn't find a way to add your own tags, though. Perhaps the person submitting the video can tag or I may have overlooked the way to add them.
One drawback I see is making the video. Most of us are far from professional videographers and it would be a challenge for us to make an attractive video of the quality people are used to from watching cooking shows on televion.
imcooked.com also,in my opinion, should include a written copy of receipes to accompany the videos without having to resort to e-mail to obtain it.
I don't see the concept of imcooked.com translating to libraries unless people wanted to create short book reviews.
All-in-all I give imcooked.com 4 our of 5 stars.
The search function seems to return good results and there certainly are a lot of tags for many of the recipes, which would make them easy to find. I couldn't find a way to add your own tags, though. Perhaps the person submitting the video can tag or I may have overlooked the way to add them.
One drawback I see is making the video. Most of us are far from professional videographers and it would be a challenge for us to make an attractive video of the quality people are used to from watching cooking shows on televion.
imcooked.com also,in my opinion, should include a written copy of receipes to accompany the videos without having to resort to e-mail to obtain it.
I don't see the concept of imcooked.com translating to libraries unless people wanted to create short book reviews.
All-in-all I give imcooked.com 4 our of 5 stars.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Zoho
Zoho is a pleasant surprise, although I still a few questions about some of its functions. Why would someone want to redo their last action? Undo I can understand. What do they mean by "insert layer" and what's a bookmarklet as compared to a bookmark? That said, Zoho seems good enough that I might even give up Microsoft Word for it. I am impressed with Zolo's relative ease-of-use and intuitiveness. It didn't take long to locate and learn the basic functions. It also has a rather attractive interface.
Zoho dis take a little getting use to, being a web based application. When I went to save my document,I was expecting it to ask me which location to save to!
I am not an expert on Microsoft Word, but Zoho appears to have some functions and flexibility that I couldn't find on Word, such as the capability to import more types of documents and websites. I noticed it also has support for a number of languages. Word might to, but I wasn't able to locate it. Word probably has some functions that Zoho doesn't, but I couldn't find any that I'd use.
I wish that we had Zoho when I was in school all the way from grade school through graduate school because it would have made the group projects we had to do easier more convenient and more fun.
Zoho dis take a little getting use to, being a web based application. When I went to save my document,I was expecting it to ask me which location to save to!
I am not an expert on Microsoft Word, but Zoho appears to have some functions and flexibility that I couldn't find on Word, such as the capability to import more types of documents and websites. I noticed it also has support for a number of languages. Word might to, but I wasn't able to locate it. Word probably has some functions that Zoho doesn't, but I couldn't find any that I'd use.
I wish that we had Zoho when I was in school all the way from grade school through graduate school because it would have made the group projects we had to do easier more convenient and more fun.
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