Happy Halloween

For all those who like to celebrate it:

Happy Halloween!

Week 7: Technology, oh how I love thee

Email is the first time technology made a significant impact on me. I used to write my best friend often, but as time went by the letters became fewer. However, with email we may email anywhere from three times a week to three times a day. It has allowed me to stay in contact even though we are separated by over a thousand miles. Then came playing online games where we could play cribbage or hearts together. It enabled us to have real time communication.

Ah, but then came other online games where I began playing with people from all over the world. Some of these people I’ve played with for over five years now.

And paying bills online! How fantastic is that? No more writing checks. Online chat help. Email alerts. Online movie times, news, fanfiction, shopping, book reviews, and information galore! An iPhone that lets me have access to the Internet ALL THE TIME! Including maps so I never get lost again!

Oh, and um, yeah, lots of information valuable for work related stuff, too.

Week 7: Playing in the Wiki Sandbox

Wiki's can be a good tool. However, the thing that makes it beneficial (anyone can go in and edit) can also be a negative (anyone can go in and edit). Although Wikipedia CAN be a good source, too many people use it as the ONLY source.

Wiki's can be a good resource sharing tool. I can see how a group of children's librarians could get together and form a wiki to share favorite websites, music, or books that they use for storytimes. However, something like that would work best if lots of people participated instead of just one or two. Or a group of writers get together to share resources and tips.

I posted to several areas to the iHCPL Sandbox wiki. It was easy. It didn't take long to figure out how to make the links work. I did notice that not many people made any comments on the links that they chose. It would have been interesting to hear why it was a favorite book or what was great about the food at the restaurant.

Wiki's can work, but it takes a group effort to make it work well.

Week 6: Technorati and Beatboxing

I went to Technorati and did a tag search for Learning 2.0. When I did a keyword search to show all posts that contain ALL the words Learning 2.0 and searching in all blogs, I cam up with 6,885 results. When I did a tag search for Learning 2.0, I had 666 results. A Blog Directory search came up with 683 results.

I did a popular search and looked around the Top Favorited Blogs, Top Searches, Top Blogs, Top Videos, Top Movies, and Top News. There was a wide varitey, which I thought was interesting, but not unexpected.

I did, however, find this really cool video of the Sesame Street song with a beatboxing flutist.

Week 6: Del.icio.us

I was using a program called Linkagogo that is very similar to Del.icio.us to store bookmarks to sites online. It was wonderful because I could keep my same bookmarks from computer to computer. I could bookmark sites from home to use at work. I set up a Del.icio.us account as well. At first I was disappointed because I much preferred the folder system that Linkagogo has. But after learning to bundle the tags, I liked it better.

On a personal level it is great because I never have to worry about losing my bookmarks. On a professional level, it is great because... well... I don't have to worry about losing my bookmarks. I can link all the sites I like to use best for research.

The first video was a little fuzzy, but the second video with the two sisters was absolutely wonderful! Besides being cute, it also gave a nice simple explanation of tagging.

Week 5: Library Elf

Library Elf was easy to set up an account with. I can see how this would be very helpful for people who have more than one library account. I chose to not have notifications sent to my phone, but it's nice that it is an option.

Week 5: Library Thing

Using Library Thing was very easy. I decided to start adding some of the children's books I have at home (it was done from memory... so it's a short list). I started with just a couple of my favorite authors and will add more later.

On the right side of the screen it will show a random book from my Library Thing account.

Food for Thought

From http://preview.text2logo.com/3.htm I was able to change my text and make it a little more interesting.

Use It Wisely

I went to http://monolpoly.game.cards.txt2png.com/ and created my own Monopoly card. Of course I HAD to use the Get Out Of Jail Free card since it was my favorite.

I played around with the message a little bit. Making the message too long is a big mistake. You either have to make the words very small (which loses aesthetic value) or part of it is cut off.

Week 5: Avatars

The avatars have been the hardest topic to date.

It was too difficult to decide which one to use! And far too difficult to stop once I started. Choosing just one was an absolutely impossible task. So I did a couple. This one is the tarot card I made from the following site:

http://tarot.card.reading.txt2pic.com/

Maybe if I hadn't gone to http://www.imagegenerator.org/ and started going through that long list it might not have been so difficult to decide.

Oh, I also have a weeme (from weeworld.com) on the right hand side of the screen. You may have to scroll a bit to see her... er... me.

Marian the Librarian

Week 4: Feedster

I checked out Feedster, Technorati, Syndic8, and Topix. I liked Feedster (located on the right with wii information) and Topix. I liked Feedster for posting a link to my blog to keep me up to date on my topic (and the newest video game information is so vital!), but I liked Topix best for browsing.

Week 4: Bloglines

I went to Bloglines to choose RSS feeds. There were many interesting things to look at on many different topics, so it wasn't difficult finding ones I wanted. I also added the iHCPL Bloglines search to one of my feeds.

I put a few of them on this blog (look to the right). It took a little bit of searching to find the Feed URL.