Reflections

Thinking back, I have to honestly ask myself what did I expect from doing this. I did not feel at all like I knew enough about Web2.0 to even carry on an intelligent conversation. So to be able to identify some of the "things" that are out there was a good beginning. I thoroughly enjoyed some of the playing (avatars and rss feeds) others I found to be a struggle to get through (the sandbox). I learned that the Zoho writer could be helpful to me in my current position...I also think that with a little more refining I will do better with RSS feeds. The thought that kept coming to my mind over and over through this excercise was how much information is readily available. I could spend hours researching and following up on ideas.

My thanks go to the Eastern Shore Library system for allowing us to join in. Also to our tech person at SCPS who challenged us to do what we expect from students daily - LEARN!

audio books

I perused the top 100 list of books and found some interesting titles. I did not want to download them to my computer - I would never listen to them there and I am old fashioned in that I just don't get as much out of listening to a book as actually curling up and reading it. Some of the more interesting titles included:

Grimms Fairy Tales; The Raven; Alices Adventures in Wonderland; Amusements in
Mathematics; the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...many that I read in my growing up years!

Podcasts

I found a really neat pod cast talking about the power of focus. In fact it said that the ability to focus (concentrate) is the determinant of success or failure. Concentrating on one subject at a time has been the secret to success (paraphrased from Charles Dickens' autobiography)....obviously Dickens hasn't worked in the education industry!

I have now found it all!

I was reviewing some of the award winners. I found Judysbook.com which had a multitude of money saving coupons for lots of different things - such as Sandals vacation, $25 off airline tickets, etc.

But the really big thing - and the reason I named this "i have found it all" was I found a website called cocktail builder which you list the contents that you have on hand and it will tell you what cocktails you can mix.

I have now seen it all - these activities continue to amaze me with the information avaialable.

Zoho!!! It has clicked!

Here is the link to zoho. this is something I really can see myself using!



http://writer.zoho.com/index.do?docId=what-I-can-do-with-zoho

Week 7 Wikis are a real possibility

This lesson has been frustrating. I couldn't get my blog to post to the sandbox (talk about not being allowed to play in the Sandbox)! I was excited to learn about Wiki's and can really see a way to use a wiki for a Central Office reading list. We are often given articles to read and they keep getting lost in the piles of paper that each of us have on our desks. A reading list on a wiki as demonstrated in the demo would be a good collaborative tool for A&S or Central Office or both.

Week 6 - coming down the stretch!

As I worked on the week 6 activities, I was struck with how the librarian of my childhood has really had to change and adapt to be today's librarian (although I doubt any of them are still working).....This tagging really went over my head Technorati....well I didn't do well with that either. But when I read the Library 2.0 and its stories about how the power for research is now in the hands of individuals, not the librarians, I was really struck with the changes that I have seen in my career. No longer do we have to search through pages and pages of print material - info is at your fingertips and you can tag and sort it at you leisure. And today's librarians have to be teachers - how to access all of this. No longer are you searching card catalogues hoping to find that "golden article" that told you what you wanted to know. And I wondered....have educators dedicated themselves to the same principles or are we clinging to teaching the same way we did 10 or 2o years ago?

Rollyo me over!

I went to the Rollyo site, not really knowing what to expect. I picked the "usual" searches for me: reference; business news; top news. But in keeping with my intent to try and "play" I picked travel and hotels and chic shopping. Amazing - I could not believe that I typed in "cheap Hawaii vacation" and got lots of websites and information....This is amazing and I can definately see me using it again.

Its is fun to play!

I have had so much fun playing with the online image generator. I created a really cool avatar....but I can't get the image to my blog. I found that I could play with the image for hours....it was almost the same fun I had as a young girl dressing my Barbie dolls!!! Wait a minute - did I say play....maybe I really did find some time to play around a little. I found this fascinating and could really lose myself in it..but reality and responsibilities keep interupting the fun!

My Books

I got my image on - check out the golden egg. I am now searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I got my library books listed and have the link at the bottom of my blog. I am slowly coming along.

I am certainly glad I am not being graded on this!

Halfway there!

Thing 10: I am trying to get an online image here....we will see how it goes

RSS: Really strong stretch

I have set up my blog lines account...and I added a few feeds. Of course, I added Reuters so that I would always know what was going on in the world. And I added a dog lovers....there was a feed on how to teach your dog to cross their paws - mine already does that.

I have to be honest and state that this is really a stretch for my brain - I can have feeds for anything I want at one website - and it is always up to date. I want to add more and more and more because there are so many "things" to keep up with. I used the favorites list that came up on the sign in page to choose several - now I have to figure out how to add and delete them! I plan to add some education ones so that I will learn some really new things.

And just so you all know - I did look for websites for accounting and auditing (thinking I would get some to keep me more up to date on changes) and all I got were job postings......maybe I need to perfect my search techniques.

Flikr: Let's Flash 'Em!

While exploring Flikr, I found many pictures of many interesting objects. I think this is a really neat way to share pictures among family members. Since my family has had a couple of "new additions" in the past few months, this would be a neat way for all of us to upload our pictures and share them among ourselves. Since we all have digital cameras we can share our pictures together in our pajamas at the computer!

I have also been learning more about blogs. My nephew and his wife, who are living in Kenya, have a blog set up to record their adventures - this works well for them as they don't have to do mass emails to update friends and family. They post on their blog and we all check it out. This was particuarly helpful during tense political times in Nairobi with all of the civil unrest.