THINGS #23: Final Thoughts

In a way, I am sad that this experience has come to an end. I plan to continue on with the blogging, in order to share thoughts and ideas with others. When I first learned about Library 2.0 and this course, I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to do. Once I got into, it was exciting to learn new things and to share some of them with others. My favorite Things included Setting up the Blog and Avatar, Flickr, Sharing Creations, and Library Thing. All of these Things introduced me to new Things that I wasn't familiar with, but that I really enjoyed. Reading over my blog from the beginning, I can see my learning progress and I can see which Things really impressed me. I think it surprised me how much I actually enjoyed many of the Things and how I would brag to family members and friends of my accomplishments. I connected with others by reading their blogs and comments. It was always good to know if others were having the same problems. I also connected on Facebook and with other staff members at my library.
I can't think of any ways to improve on the program's content, but I did get tired of trying to find my spot on the 23 things blog. I'm sure there are ways I could have saved my spot that I am probably not aware of. I would definitely take a 23 More Things On a Stick course.
Thank you to all who contributed to this large educational undertaking in Minnesota. Library 2.0 - WOW!

THING #22: What Did I Learn Today

I am making a resolution to continue my blog! In it, I will ask the question, "What Did I Learn Today?" This could include anything that I learned for the day, not only technology. I have added ALA TechSource and NeverEnding Search to my RSS aggregator, Google Reader. I have also taken more time to explore WebJunction-Minnesota. These sites will help me to stay focused in my quest for learning. This course has really opened up some areas that I have not explored on my own. It has taught me to take a chunk of time each day to learn something new. We can all learn from each other. I know that I learn things from other staff members and also from patrons of the library. Now I can add other librarians as educators in the online sites I have learned about. I think the key is to not worry about looking "stupid" and focusing on how we can help each other to grow. I have really enjoyed reading the blogs of other participants in 23 things. I hope that other courses of this type will be added in the future.

THING #22: What Did I Learn Today

Apr 12, 2008 2:39 AMBill Vaughan
from Quotes of the Day
"We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong."

THINGS #21: Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

This was another fun "Thing" to do. The Web Junction article on Building a Social Networking Environment at the Library was very informative as to how to go about doing this for your library. Every new idea has to start out with baby steps. You will never know until you try it.
I had already joined the 23 Things on a Stick Ning by invitation. I left some comments for the Pioneerland Library group, which doesn't have very many members yet.
I also added some Ning badges and widgets to my blog.
I explored some of the other social networking sites, including craftster and good reads. Dogster looked like a fun site to recommend to my dog-loving friends and family.
I have been receiving some responses to my invitations in Face Book. My college-age son even said I could be his friend! He made sure that it stated I was his mother. Not to be confused with a peer. It was fun to see how it all works, but I can't say that I will keep it up. I think it will be more interesting to check out the special interest sites such as the ones we discovered in this "Thing".

THINGS #21: 23 Things on a Stick Ning

View my page on 23 Things on a Stick

THINGS #21: 23 Things on a Stick Ning

Visit 23 Things on a Stick

THING #21: Other Social Networking Sites

Visit 23 Things on a Stick

THING #20: Libraries and Social Networks

I registered on Facebook. It was very easy to do. I found three people I knew on Facebook. I have sent them messages asking them to be my friends! Sounds pitiful, doesn't it. I found one high school classmate listed but didn't recognize her name so didn't ask her to be my friend. I did get tired of typing in the security words. I couldn't quite figure out what that was for. I joined the Librarians and Facebook group - instant acceptance! I posted a notice on their wall and found a notice there from a fellow participant of 23 things, so I asked her to be my friend too. I will check back and see if anyone wants to be my friend. I am not sure why Facebook is the fastest growing social network. I know it was easy to register and that might be part of it. I will ask my son who has a Facebook account why he thinks it is growing so fast. I like the idea that you have to ask someone to be your friend. It helps to preserve your privacy. I am not excited about putting lots of personal information out on the web.
I read some articles on MySpace concerning libraries. It was interesting to see the MySpace page for Hennepin County Library. That is something we could all do in our libraries in order to attract teenage library users. This would be a great way to tell them about what the library has to offer.

THING #19: Podcasts

I listened to podcasts on Minnesota Public Radio. I looked at St. Cloud State University and On the Road with Minitex also. I added Garrison Keillor to my blog reader account, Google Reader. I enjoy him and have seen him in person. I added it to my blog because I would recommend it. I tried to download the podcasts from On the Road with Minitex, but was unable to get them to work. I was assuming that you could just click on the podcast the same way we click on videos in YouTube. It doesn't seem to work that way and that you must use other software such as Google Reader in order to listen to them.

THINGS #19: Podcasts

Garrison Keillor: Lake Woebegone

http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/podcasts/xml/prairie_home_companion/news_from_lake_wobegon.xml

THING #18: You Tube & Other Online Video

You Tube is very popular at our library. I see kids watching videos on it everyday.
I chose Funny Kids for my video. I started out searching the subject Reading a Book and it morphed into funny kids. I enjoy watching Funniest Home Videos and this is similar. This was an extremely easy "Thing" to do and very fun to watch the videos.
We could use video You Tube on our library web site just to add something "fun".

THINGS #18: You Tube- "Funny Kids"

THING #17: ELM Productivity Tools

Information available through ELM seems to be very extensive. I did some searches and tried some of the activities listed. I tried to create a search alert in
InfoTrac Student Edition. I was not able to set up an RSS feed to Google Reader.
I tried many times and it always said, Oops, try again in a little while! While reading comments on this tool, I discovered I wasn't alone in this problem. I also was unable to view the videos either at work or at home. I also tried to set up a web page in EBSCO. I was able to save articles to my folder, but wasn't quite sure how to import them to my web page. After all my efforts, I think I need to take a course specifically on ELM in order to feel comfortable suggesting it to our patrons.
I have used it in the past just to search for information and I feel it could be a very valuable tool for many people.

SPELL WITH FLICKR

SPELL WITH FLICKR

THINGS #16: Assignment Calculator & the Research Project

I browsed the steps of the Assignment Calculator and the Research Project Calculator.
They seem to be great tools for conducting a research project. They would give students a step by step guide for doing a project. Two of the downloadable handouts that I thought would be helpful to have in the public library are: What's My Angle?
Generating Topics and Research Questions and Generate a Research Question based on
Personal Interests. I feel that selecting a topic is one of the most difficult parts of a research project. Any project is manageable when broken down into doable parts. We could have used the Research Project Calculator to do 23 Things on a Stick!

THING#15: Online Games and Libraries

I was finally successful in downloading Puzzle Pirates. I tried Bilging, Carpentry and Navigating. I was a neophyte in the first two and didn't have enough experience to be the navigator. I also tried sailing but someone was already at that post.
My captain seemed to be pretty patient with me, but did keep telling me to leave the ship! I don't think I made a very good pirate!

THINGS #15: Online Games and Libraries

So far, I have not been able to download Puzzle Pirates. I am not a gaming fan so I do not feel too bad about this. I was willing to give it a try, however. I just checked again and it is 28% downloaded so we will see if it completes.
I did watch the video on Second Life. I do watch the kids that do gaming at our library. Some of them are very involved. We also have a Tween Center that has
X-Box and Wii games available for fifth through eighth graders. So far, it has not been extremely popular. I think it will take off more in the summer time when we have much more traffic in the children's area. Puzzle Pirates is now 62% downloaded, so I will check back when I have had a chance to play it.

THING#14: LibraryThing

LibraryThings has been one of my favorite "things" so far. It was really
interesting to add books to My Library and put it on my blog. I added books from the series that I have been reading lately. I also went into some of the groups listed that were of interest to me. The books from My Library were not extremely
popular, compared to some well-known authors. There were a few reviews about the books I put in My Library.
LibraryThing could be used in many ways in our library. We could add our new books to our website. It's alway interesting to see the book covers rather than just a listing of new material. Since I am a Children's Librarian, I am interested in ways of using this site for children. Recently, I was asked by a student why we didn't have a summer reading program for her age (junior high). Perhaps we could do something with LibraryThing. We could create a library account and the students could add their favorite books. They could read each other's reviews. It would be an online book club that could be accessed from the library or from any other computer. They could earn rewards or prizes for putting their reviews online.
I use Amazon a lot in looking for books that are about to be published. Patrons are always asking for the latest book by a favorite author. LibraryThing would be another great site to recommend. It would also be a way for individuals to keep track of what they have already read.

THING#14: Library Thing

THINGS #13: Online Productivity Tools

I chose igoogle for my home page. I like the features it had. It will probably not stay as my permanent home page at home as my husband has the Wall Street Journal as the home page. We will see who wins out! I added the countdown feature to my blog, but couldn't get it to countdown! I noticed from comments that others had this problem also. I did it twice and had the problem both times. Any suggestions?
I also added a calendar from Spongecell to my blog. I can see where that would be a nice website for keeping others up to speed on things happening or coming up.
I tried Remember the Milk and added something to remember. Apparently, you can send this to your e-mail to remind you or check the site itself. I wasn't too impressed.
I think that many of these online productivity tools could be useful if you spend all your time on the computer! I don't think a lot of them will be applicable for me at this time. I did take the Backpack Tour and checked out many of the other sites. I think if you stuck to one site that you found helpful, you would become very familiar with it and it could be useful. I don't enjoy registering at all these sites in order to try them out. Maybe, I am just getting overwhelmed with all that is out there. I'm sure we will all pick and choose the sites that apply to our jobs and lives.

THINGS #13: Calendar

<a href='http://www.spongecell.com'>Powered by Spongecell</a><a href='http://spongecell.com/boxed_calendar/4451'>View Calendar</a>

THING #13: Countdown

THINGS #12: Do You Digg

I registered on the news media site, Newsvine. I chose an article from the New York Times on the neglect of newborns. It was easy to post the article on Newsvine by copying and pasting the URL. You also could add tags and summarize the article.
I then searched the subject to see where my post went. My article was in a list of sites about newborn neglect and it had my name as part of the address! Way cool!
I can see uses for this tool in the library and at home. If you are sharing information with someone on a certain topic, you could recommend articles for them to read this way. You can add them as a friend so they can view your site. Students doing a research paper together would find it helpful.
I feel these sites could either enhance productivity or detract from it. It is
easy to get sidetracked with all the articles listed. Oh, this sounds interesting and pretty soon you're reading it. If you stuck to your original subject, you probably could enhance your productivity by only reading those articles that are applicable.

THING #11: Tagging and Del.icio.us

Thing #11 was another fun thing because it is just another way of searching for information you are interested in and managing the information that you find.
I can definitely see the potential of this tool for research assistance. Instead of maintaining files of information you might need, you can bookmark the information and go back to it later as needed. This eliminates tedious copying and filing.
You can add all the tags you want as a cross reference. Del.icio.us makes it possible to access this information from anywhere. You do not need to bring all your files along for research. You can access it from any computer.
I am not sure how our library could take advantage of tagging and del.icio.us.
It looks as if other libraries have used it to bookmark articles that they feel would be of interest to the patrons in their library.
I did have trouble with tagging or labeling in our blog. It turns out my computer was blocking it. Once I figured out how to remove that block, it worked just fine.

THING #10: Wikis

This was a fun and easy thing. I enjoyed posting a new comment to the 23 things wiki
and reading the comments by others. Some of the images were huge! I thought the article "using wikis to create online communities" was especially helpful.
I do think the possibilities are endless. My comment on the 23 things wiki was to establish a library wiki which could be an anonymous suggestion box for the public.
Of course, you would have to introduce them to the wiki and what they could do with it. It seems like more and more people are willing to do things online, such as renewing materials or requesting materials. They like the convenience of doing it from home. A wiki could be the means to improve library service by those wanting to make suggestions, but not if they have to publicly state their suggestion.
I can understand why many teachers ban Wikipedia as a source. Perhaps it could be allowed as long as it isn't your only source. Reliability increases with the number of sources giving similar information. I mentioned earlier in my blog how my son added to wikipedia with some humorous information about a friend. His comments didn't add any "reliable information" to wikipedia.

THING #9 Online Collaboration Tools

I was unable to edit the 13 colonies document in Google Docs. It said the requested URL could not be retrieved. In reading other blogs, I am not the only one who has
not been able to do this. I did enjoy reading the editing that had already been done(very creative). I did register on Google Docs but was still unable to retrieve that document. Any suggestions? I played around on the site and listened to the video. It gives many suggestions for applications. It could be a real time saver for those editing documents and sending them back and forth in emails. I even tried to upload my blog to Google Docs, but was unable to do that also. The Founding Fathers would be astounded if they could see the way we write documents today.

lutefisk23

THING #8 Share Your Creations

Sharing photo creations was really fun. I used Picture Trail to add a picture to my blog that zooms in and out. I originally tried to upload five photos. I did it three times and nothing was saved. I finally uploaded one picture and that worked!
This is a very fun site for me as I am interested in doing photo albums online.
I scrapbook in regular albums and would like to try scrapbooking online. This site gave me ideas for possibilities. This site was easy to use except for my uploading problem. This would be a good site for photo fun for library websites also.
I would definitely recommend it to others.

THING #8 Share Your Creations

THING #7 - Web Tools Continued

I used instant messaging at work today to talk to one of my coworkers who is also doing 23 things on a stick. This is the first time that I have used it. I don't think it will become something I will do a lot of. I can't foresee that it will be a well used reference tool, but I may be wrong. The librarian would have to sit on his or her computer all day in order to be able to use it.