Week 10 Exercise #23

My gosh, it's over and I am in one piece, none the worse for wear, and feeling pretty full of myself. When I go help folks with some of these different skills will I have to peek back and get a quick review, sure. Will my heart be pounding again as it did when I first began, absolutely not! How good to feel so impowered. Favorite discoveries, lets see: digital media ( I can't believe I'm saying this!); podcasts; avatars (super fun); Zoho Writer, Flickr, and surprise, surprise, social networking. I enjoyed sitting down and putting my head together with follow co-workers and puzzling through some of these exercises. Best of all I like knowing that an old dog can be taught new tricks and that there is a whole new wonderful world waiting OUTSIDE of the tortoise shell!

Week 9 Exercise #22

I admit it. The downloadable media topic is the one I was most fearful about. It took me a while, but I now think that I understand the idea of retrieving the appropriate operating system that will manage the type of information sent from the digital library (OverDrive) down to one's own computer. I also get that you can then transfer this information to some other device to be viewed or heard. I know that there is a tutorial that shows you how to do this. I almost wish that there was some sort of visual schematic that would graphical illustrate this for me. You know, the whole idea of a picture being worth a thousand words.

Once I got over this fear, I actually became excited about digital media. I really love how user friendly the site we use is. I've mentioned that I will be traveling next year and I found tons of stuff (ebooks) that I would like to look at: Fromer's Florence and the Best of Tuscany Day by Day; Frommer's Portable Florence; and my all time favorite Rome For Dummies are just to name a few. I hated Libriox you can only search their way or the highway. Wowio is somewhat friendlier, but still, does not compare to ours.

Week 9 Ecercise #21

How coincidental! While doing some research for my trip next fall I came across a podcast about Nice, France This occurred on Sunday. Well here it is five days later and my new iHCPL assignment is to learn about Podcasts. Armed with podcast.net, I now have a whole new travel library at my disposal. Professionally, I am now able offer suggestions to our families regarding stories, literature, child development, and more all via podcasts.

Week 9 Exercise #20

YouTube can be great fun. My clip came from a Comcast commercial. How appropriate that it dealt with turtles and computers. There are times that I still feel like a technological "Slowsky" but I've come a long way from where I began. I think that there is a place for YouTube on library websites, especially if they are clips of your own creation. Great for program promotion!

Even Turtles Use Computers

Week 8 Exercise # 19

Now here's something that I think that I'm going to like. I especially like the idea of being able to give up my flash drive and store all of my documents here. Talk about any time, any place. I am difinitely going to bring this to my college student's attention. Something tells me, however, that he probably knows about this already! Oh, by the way, I originally wrote this in Zoho Writer and sent it here to my blog!

Week 8 Exercise #18

I stopped and visited many of the social networking sites and I'm trying really hard to overcome my discomfort with the whole idea of it. Yes, I had great fun at HGTV's Rate My Space and I'll probably go back and investigate it some more. My problem, I think is my own need for privacy. I don't quite understand why people feel the need to talk about themselves or share pictures that they took. I get the value of sharing information or contributing knowledge that would benefit others. But, why talk just for the sake of talking?

Week 7 Exercise #17

Email and the ability to contact anyone, almost any place in the world, is perhaps the greatest technological advance that I can think of. It has allowed so many of us to keep in touch without the long distance fees connected with telephone usage. I do miss the personal aspect of hearing someone's voice, but the frequency with which I can contact them makes up for it.

Week 7 Exercise #16

I'm surprised. I actually think that I like this wiki concept. It seems to be kind of like a blog that many people can share in. This might be a good way for our Kids Corner to get information out to the public regarding our individual storytime programs and other activities that we offer. I'll have to speak with our director and see if we can go "farming" and start up a wiki of our own.

Week 6 Exercise #15

I 've read a lot of the articles offered. I really think that I got the most out of the references listed under the Wikipedia publication on Library 2.0.

Libraries have certainly evolved over the centuries, but I think that we are being coming even more "user centered" than ever before. In doing so, we need to remember that there is a huge variety of populations out there and considerations need to be made for all.

Week 6 Exercise #14: Too Much Information

Now I am overwhelmed and I'm sticking my head back into my shell. What am I supposed to do with all of this Technorati stuff? Search for a blog this way or that way. Please, enough!

Week 6 Exercise #13: How Del.icio.us!

Hooray, something that I already know about! I have been using del.icio.us for a while now. It comes in very handy getting back to sites that I've bookmarked to help answer questions while at the reference desk. Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the social aspect of this tool yet. I'll have to work on that.

Week 5 Exercise #12

Initially, I thought to myself oh boy, Library Elf, just something else to clutter up my email account. Well the surprise was on me once I realized that not only would the elf keep track of my library account, but the accounts for every member of my family. Now here's a tool I can live with! Good-bye overdue books!!

Week 5 Exercise 11: LibraryThing

Today I learned about something really useful. It's called LibraryThing. It's allowing me to create my personal catalog of books that I have used, or am considering using, with the children in my bookclub. Melanie taught me how to add a page element on to my blog. Now I have both a link to my Library Thing and a visual! Here's the URL to my collection:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rovisco

Week 5 Exercise 10: The New Me

If only it was all this easy! This exercise was certainly the most fun of all.

Week 4 Exercise 9: Bloglines Can Boggle Minds

This exercise was all about managing news and information and allowing yourself to keep up with stuff that interests you. I definitely see the advantages to this. Right now, it all just seems a bit forced. During the normal course of searching, I would expect to come across blogs, or other items of interest, and yes, I now know how to subscribe to them. Arbitrarily, looking for feeds to hook up with, in spite of some of the tools offered, was a bit of a headache. What I really like about all of this is that I now understand what some of the new terms I've been introduced to mean and so I now know what other people are talking about!

Week 3 Exercise 6: Just Plain Selfish

I love it! This week we were asked us to investigate Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools. One of the ones I explored was trip planner and in doing so, I have discovered my new best friend. I am hoping to travel to Europe next fall and am delighted to have this new research tool at my disposal.

Week 3 Exercise 7: Lolcat

Lolcat
Originally uploaded by rovisco0314

Okay, this was hard to do. I wanted to create a lolcat but the online photo editing sites that we were given didn't given me the option that I was looking for. Of course there is definitely the possibility that I just didn't know know where to look for it. I did a google search and found fd's flickr toys. I hope that was the right thing to do.

Who are you looking at?

Alright, maybe I'm not feeling so grouchy after all. I've added (and edited) this photo all by myself

43840495_8bb428074a_m
Originally uploaded by rovisco0314

and actually, I'm feeling pretty proud!

Week 3 Exercise 5: Who Says Two Heads Are Better Than One?

Who Says Two Heads Are Better Than One
Originally uploaded by rovisco0314

Does this mean that I now get to have two headaches instead one as I wrestle with techology? I hope I make it!

Week 2: It's Scary Out There

I've just finished reading information on online sharing and safety. If I didn't know enough to be cautious before, I certainly am now. The video connected with "Think Before You Post" was the most eye opening. Its message really hits home. At home, I am posting to a board on a cruising related website. After reflecting on what I've learned about about today, I don't think that I've made any miss steps while on that board. I know that I will be posting there with a more vigilant eye in the future.

Peeking Out

So I'm a little nervous here. It's time to peek out of my shell and that's the hardest thing about this whole process. I have learned something new though. I didn't realize that a blog can allow others to repond to whats been posted. I wonder if the way that this has been set up will allow postings to happen? I don't think that I've done anything special with the settings. I guess that I will have to play around with this a bit. The good news is that my office mate is awfully good with blogging. The better news is that she is quite patient, and that's a good thing. Boy do I hate typing!