Thing 23 - Reflection and completion at last!!!

What a relief to finish this in time - my impending vacation added a little pressure to finish early - but who am I to complain? I'll be playing in the snow or ice or puddles as the case may be. As my staff will tell, I am a big supporter of Learning 2.0 I think this has been a great opportunity to learn, play and understand what is available out there. I am very glad that administration has supported this endeavor.

There has been lots of frustration - but that is technology for you. Frustrating - but then you get some really cool stuff, too. I have learned all sorts of interesting programs that will help me both professionally and personally. Out of this program I have now created my own hiking blog, which has been a lot of fun.

I am an archivist, journal writer and tracker of details by nature. I've learned several online tools that can keep track of a lot of these things for me. I will be exploring Wikkis and Library Thing, I am using Delicious regularly and my RSS feeds are keeping me up to date on what's going on. It is all about connection and community and Learning 2.0 showed me the possibilities and expansion available through the internet.

I have not had a computer at home, because I spend my workdays on the computer, but I am now inspired to buy a laptop. There is just too much to explore that I need to do on my own time.

One of the things that I have enjoyed most about the program is reading the blogs of the staff in my department. It's given me a new appreciation for them. I laughed, I cried, I closed my eyes. I learned many interesting things I wouldn't have known otherwise. Ashour has taught me about middle eastern geography and history; I saw great pictures of the Azores from Danny and learned about Francis' family background. I enjoyed seeing Tamara's wedding photos and knowing she is the proud owner of leopard geckos. I liked Randy's wry, humorous observations, Femi's concise summaries and enjoyed watching Judy bloom through the program - struggling, but persevering and finally finding some fun at the end. Neil's blog was entertaining and creative throughout and it was fun to follow the twists and turns of his mind.

I appreciated how the staff came together and helped each other. Neil helping Femi and Randy; Ashour helping me. I think our discussions during staff meetings were helpful as well.

Technologically, I feel I am always running behind and with Learning 2.0 I feel I actually got ahead of the curve - or at least caught up to the ball - for a moment. I know I've just scratched the surface but I'm excited about starting to do more digging and 2.0 gave me some good tools.

The one downside of the program was it's shortness in length. Rather than a 9 week program, it should really be a 9 month program with time to really explore the tools in depth. Having group discussions about how it is relevant to us personally, as a unit, department and library is also very helpful. Keeping track of all the signons was a constant problem for me.

I will be coming back to Learning 2.0 and exploring the exercises in more depth. I am going to explore creating a Wikki. I would definitely encourage you to offer programs like this all the time. I appreciate the efforts of the Virtual Services Team in reading the blogs and answering questions. Great job.

I have more to say - but I am out of time and out the door - so for now. I'm done!!!!!

Questions on audio book collection.

I went back to try and find something in our ebook collection on the sjlibrary website. I find this very confusing. I keep putting in titles and nothing comes up. How is it possible to browse the collection to see what is there? It needs a much friendly interface or some more directions. It would be good to have a class for library staff on understanding how this site works.

Are audio books available as podcasts available through this collection? That would be really cool. One of the women in one of my book club has to listen to books - it would be nice if she could do it over the internet. How do you access the audio book titles to see what we have? I am interested in fiction titles. I look forward to hearing from the Virtual Services Team. You are doing a great job of answer questions and monitoring the blogs.

Week 9, Thing 22 - World Ebook Fair site.

Didn't have much time to explore this site. It looked like a commercial site to me. One time fees, suscription fees. When I searched for some specific titles they weren't listed. I went to the free download pages - but th downloading of the ebooks looked complicated and since we can't download or add plugins on staff computers, I didn't even attempt it. That's all the time I have for this site. And that I finish week 9.

Week 9, #22 - e-books, audio books

First I went to our website to search for ebooks. It was not clear how to get to the audio books. I like to listen to audio books - so it would be cool to find out how to do that.

With e-books there are many disadvantages to paper copies. I sure wouldn't want to read a novel online. So I tried to think of factual books that might lend themselves to ebook format. First I looked up California hiking. Three books came up - one which was for northern california. I opened it up - but each page was slow to load, it was hard to fine any interesting hikes and I didn't see pictures.

Next I tried cookbooks - thinking that would be a great topic for ebooks. None found.

I tried to find books on Rwanda - found an interesting one - a SJSU ebook. It wouldn't let me open it without an additional plugin that I couldn't download.

Finally - decided to look at the most popular ebook - Ireland Adventures. I love Ireland. The book was somewhat easy to use - but it's a toss up of buying a paper copy and copying the relevant pages as compared to slowly trying to go through the ebook to find pages to print.

Okay - I just saw a link to the audio books. It took me to an alphabetical list. I found something interesting - though it wasn't clear if it was an ebook or an audiobook. When I opened it I got an error message.

That's enough exploring of our library's ebook website. No wonder our patrons are frustrated!

Week 9, Thing 21 - Podcast.

I am racing to the finish line here - only one more thing and one day to finish it in!

I liked the podcasts. I searched and listened to some NPR podcasts. I then went to the Library Channel and found several interesting podcasts. I started listening to one on Copyright in an Academic Environment - a topic always of interest. Of course, I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing, but knew I wanted to come back. I bookmarked it on delicious and then added it to my google reader account. It wouldn't work at first until I clicked the RSS button and copied that whole thing into my Google Reader.

This was a quick painless lessons and I will definitely be exploring more fully when I have time.

Week 9 - Thing 20. You Tube- 3s a charm.

I wasn't able to edit and text to my last You Tube video. It was from the SF Peace March on Sunday. I was marching and dancing in front of that Samba band. Now I am going to try and paste in this clip about library work outs. very 80s. Thanks to Ashour for his assistance. It was not clear at all how to post the video from youtube into my blog. Well let's see if it works:

Week 9 - Thing 20. You Tube- revisited.

Week 9 - Thing 20. You Tube

You Tube is great I have used it before. Can I post the chosen video by just pasting the URL? We'll find out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k8BKX2eQ0Q&mode=related&search=

Let me post this and see what happens. I thought this video was fun in a dated kind of way. If this doesn't work, it means I have to sign up with You Tube. Hate keeping track of all these signins

Week 8, Thing 19 - Library Thing.

I had already explored Library Thing on one of the earlier lessons. Since I am a big reader, track all the books I read and belong to two book clubs, I will find this a very useful site. I hadn't seen the "un-suggester" before and got a kick out of that. There seems to be even more to explore on this site, but I will need to come back to it. Once again - out of time. I found it interesting how other libraries are using the site. It's a convenient way to attractively suggest books.

Wikki's Re-visited.

So I went and actually tried to create a Wikki. I used Peanut Butter Wikki. No it is not as easy as making a peanut butter sandwhich. I still don't understand how the whole thing works. It' is the late on a friday afternoon problem. Next week I will need to finish 2.0 and I will make it.

Week 8 - Zoho Writer Continued.

Well, Zoho writer led to some new series of frustrations. Obviously my first attempt at posting right from Zoho Writer didn't work. I then saw the post to blog option. This led to an annoying discovery. I don't know the login and password to this blog. The computer automatically logs me in from my office, but I won't be able to access this from any other computers.

This led me to a series of help questions and emails to myself from Google trying to find the username and password. It didn't recognize my account.

Question for the Virtual Services team or anyone reading this who can assist. How do I find the username and password for my blogspot account?

As far as Zoho Writer is concerned. I can see the advantages of not having to purchase Microsoft Word and having access to all your documents from any computer. I like the little smiley face icons, but as I was playing with it. I ended up getting repeated error messages. When I posted an image - it was not previewed and overly large. Once again I would need more time to really explore this software. Or is it webware? Good to know it's out there.

Week 8, # 18 Zoho Writer.

http://writer.zoho.com/index.do

I'm not sure if this will display or not. My first failed attempt, followed by a successful one.

http://writer.zoho.com/index.do

Week 7, #17 Wikki Sandbox.

I went to the the Learning 2.0 sandbox. Added to the vacation spot list and looked at favorite book recommendations. I added a page for hiking. I usually don't have one favorite anything. Wasn't feeling too creative - but I think we need some more creative categories. I get the general idea here and I'm now ready to test creating a wikki and seeing how it works. I need to go back and watch a few videos, then I will make an attempt.

Week 7, #16 - Wikkis

I enjoyed reading the various library wikkis and have added a few to my RSS feeds. I liked the Stanford library site for book recommendations, the Library Success wikki from a management standpoint, the ALA Conference Wiki gave me ideas and the Albany County staff wikki seems that is a good method to keep track of staff procedures.

We have discussed creating an Access Services wikki, as the head of Local Arrangements we may create a wikki for IUG in San Jose and I can think of several personal uses - including for my book clubs as a way to track and rate books.

Next, I want to create my first wikki. More on that later.

Week 6 - Network Neutrality video

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

This is an interesting little video I got off one of my copyright sites.

Week 6, 13 Library 2.0

Library 2.0 - I read all the articles - though I didn't get to the main conflict on the topic. I think Library 2.0 - means that we are more interactive, responsive to the needs of our patrons and are poised to become integrated into the digital world. Define the new role of libraries.