Reflection

My favourite discoveries/exercises on this learning journey was getting to know Flickr, libraries using RSS and finding about e-books, and how to access them.
What I enjoyed the most from this learning journey was playing with the image generator, and finding out about how libraries are using social networks to approach their patrons. It was interesting to see the different opinions people had about this.

This programme has assisted my lifelong learning goals as now I want to try out new things in my life that I have not tried before. For example, out of the 23 exercises, except for 2-3 exercises, all of the rest were new stuff for me- I had never heard about them, and I have never tried to find out about them.
But through this journey that I took, I now know much more about web 2.0, and how efficient theses applications/web sites can be for the librarians.

Overall, I thought this whole programme was very good however there were a couple of exercise (such as podcasts) that took me a long time to figure out how to access the things that I needed to, in order to complete the exercise.
However, I thought this was okay, because it was like a challenge for me to independently find out use these sites.
What I found really struggling was trying to finish the exercise on time, on my own ( I didn't want help unless I REALLY needed it).
I managed to complete all of them by myself, and on time -which I am so proud of :)

Anyway, I think this journey was really useful- I gained a lot of information about web 2.0 and how libraries can relate to them, and I now think that I am capable of using them within the library to help patrons.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH for organising such a wonderful learning journey!

Library and Social networks

I think it is a fantastic idea that libraries have started to use social networking services to reach patrons (mostly teens).
Firstly, its more appealing for the teenagers as they think it's "cool" to use social networking, and secondly because it's much easier and quicker for the libraries to reach these patrons through social networks than any other method (such as mails, e-mails, phone calls etc).

Reading some articles, there has been positive and negative views on libraries using social networking, however I think as long as the library uses it efficiently, and make the whole thing more approachable to patrons, than it will be a huge success.

Plus, I totally agree with what has been mentioned on http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6375465.html about teenagers not receiving e-mails, as most of them contact each other via social networking (leaving a message on their blogs, etc).

As long as the libraries use social networking as a two way connection, then it's perfectly fine. Through social networking, the libraries can introduce new ideas, updates on library news, and information on patron's account etc.

Exercise #21

I was surprised by how easy it was to create a Facebook page.
All I had to do was enter my name, e-mail address and my birthday.
QuizzyLizzy and I are Facebook friends :) and we found each other with our e-mail address.

I also like the way facebook has 'network' which makes it so much easier when looking for someone....However, the network was confusing for me in the beginning as I didn't know what it was used for, until I realised that it was a tool for finding people quickly.

Facebook is really popular among many people, as well as Bebo and MySpace, however I find Facebook more comfortable to use (I also have Bebo, but I don't go on it often.I think if libraries all started to use these social networking services, more teens would start to have interest in libraries and use it more often. Approaching teens through these social networking services would be effective, as it would be more appealing for them.

Here is the link to my Facebook account: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1387283672&ref=profile

MySpace

I searched for Stacie Orrico (singer) under the Myspace tab, and here is a picture of her :D (from http://www.myspace.com/stacieorrico).

I didn't have to login to view her profile, or her picture.

I reckon MySpace is a good social networking service, and it seems very easy to use it because it's set up in a simple way- clearly stating which tabs are for what, unlike many other sites where everything is like a maze.

e-books

I used LibriVox to look for some e-books. http://librivox.org/.
To search for a book, I had to enter the title of the book and the author.
For status, I left it to say 'any'

When I searched for Macbeth by William Shakespeare, I had to download the audio file (mp3) for the particular act of the play, which opened up through Winamp when I opened the file.
I didn't know that I had to download the file in order to listen to it, in the first place.
What I found quite interesting was, that people volunteered to be readers of a Act, and so when listening to it, the voices constantly changed throughout the Acts.
Some of the Act had not been read by readers, so it had a status of available (for volunteers to take over) or assigned (waiting for the volunteer to finish reading it).

My next search was for Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
The search produced a page with downloadable chapters in mp3 files or ogg files.
Here, what I liked about downloading the mp3 files was that you could choose between 64kbps or 128kbps.
Oliver Twist was also read by a different reader for every chapter.

Overall, I think it was quite easy to search for classic books and it's really cool to be able to have access to them through Internet instead of having it in hard copy. And LibriVox is free to use too.

Podcast

Podastpickle.com http://www.podcastpickle.com/cast/1273 and Podnova was where I look ted to find some pod casts that related to libraries.
For both sites, I came across pod casts on book reviews, and occasionally some audio books where I was able to listen to a particular book, for free.
At first it was a bit difficult to look for a podcast that I liked although I used tags as a shortcut, as lots of them did not seem very relevant to what I was looking for.
However, after searching through a couple of pages I could find a couple that I liked- which I also added to my Bloglines account.
I tried Podcastalley.com as well, but I think it asked me to join up and also to pay.
Podastpickle.com and Podnova does not require you to join up or anything. Very simple.

I think the two sites that I have mentioned above, are quite useful as I can listen to the reviews of a book before reading the book. As for audio books, they are very good as it means that I can always listen to the story as I do some other work. (Allows me to multi task)

You Tube

I like going into You Tube to listen to Grease- Summer Nights - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blcvkFqeKac
it has always been my favourite song, and I often go to You Tube to see this part of the movie.

For videos related to libraries, my favourite one was 'Another music video...just a little different :-) from The best of library videos blog: http://libraryvideos.blogspot.com/.
I liked this because he sings his story and it's more catchy to listeners. Plus, I can relate to it quite well as I'm a student myself. XD
I think that if libraries had some videos that showed how the library function, it would be more appealing for the people.
They will know who to look for, where and how to look up key information.

I also like The Amazing Library 101 Challenge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXy35Bvnq18, posted on http://www.infotubey.com/.
This was a game, that involved using the library and approaching librarians for help.
By making it a game, people involved in it would've learned a lot about libraries from this, and also the people who watch this will also learn quite a lot on libraries.
I think if we had something like this at our own library, many people will be learn a lot about our libraries too.

I think making a video on NSL featuring how to issue a book on the self check machine, what is needed to join the library, how to use OPAC etc, would attract more patrons to the library. Also, for those who are too embarassed or shy to come up to the desk to ask, can refer to the videos when they need help.
And it's also free to upload videos on You Tube!

You Tube also shows all other videos related to libraries when you enter 'libraries' for searching.

.Docstoc

.Docstoc is a site where many people upload professional documents for others to refer to.
Under 'Home' there are many tags to choose from.
I clicked under educational and .Docstoc showed me some more tags that were related to education.
In general education, .Docstoc produced many many documents in all areas of education- starting from mental disorders to individual subjects.
The documents are all uploaded in different files such as doc or ppt files, and when I clicked onto the title- the documents/slides came up.

I think this site is very useful for me because I can refer to this in my teaching.
For example, I know what ADHD is, but through looking at the document that is uploaded on .Docstoc, I now know much more about it.

For the libraries, I think .Docstoc will also be quite useful as if a patron comes into the library looking for information on a particular subject, then the librarians can use this site to see if there are any extra information on the subject, if there aren't any books in the library.

Because .Docstoc only has professional documents, I presume they have all been checked and edited to make sure that they have the correct information in it, as .Docstoc is all about having 'professional' documents.

Zoho Writer

Zoho was very simple to use.
At first, I had to join up (which wasn't a big deal).
Joining up again, was very simple.

What I like about Zoho is that its almost the same as Microsoft Word so it wasn't very hard to use.
Zoho is unique and special as it allows the document to be done online, instead of saving it into the computer's hard drive and then having to go back and search for it.
Under 'my docs' it has all the documents that I have made after signing up on Zoho.
This means that I can have access to the documents anytime, anywhere and it also means that I won't have to worry about carrying around my USB all the time.
Zoho also lets you to put a link to the document which I think is really cool and handy. If I put a link on my document to go to my blog, then people who come to see my blog will also have access to my document, and they can even write comments.

Lastly, I like it how Zoho allows you to insert EMOTIONS!!!

(One more thing- I just found out while typing this... Blogger doesn't have the underlining text function! I was trying to underline EMOTIONS...oh well, guess I'll have to use bold instead).

Rollyo

This is a useful site as I can add/view URL's of the sites that are relevant to the search topic.
I really needed some maths resources, so I typed in maths under the search.
The results showed me lots of sites.
Then I added my own search roll by editing the current (adding more URL that I have on my favourites) and then I clicked save.
Its very simple to use, and the positive thing about rollyo is that it is made public- so that everyone can share the resources of a particular topic.
Therefore, I think that Rollyo will become more popular over the years, and soon many people will be relying on Rollyo.
(By the way, joining up was very easy-all I had to do was enter a user name, password and my e-mail address. Rollyo is also another free site!)

http://rollyo.com/lemonholic/ this is the link to my searh rolls.

Library Thing

Finding books on Library Thing was simple.
All I had to do was click on Add books to your library (from the first page you are in after loggin into Library Thing-home page).
Then under the search, I typed in the title of the book and the results are displayed in the box on the right. These results are from Amazon.com.
The books are added to my library when I click on a title (from the results shown by Amazon.com).
A good thing about Library Thing is that if you can't remeber the full title of the book, just type in a section of the title and the results will surely find the book you want.
For example, for the book The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory, I typed in The other boleyn and the result from Amazon.com showed me The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory.
Also when I go into my library, I can give the books ratings and comments for other users to see.

The thing I like about Library Thing is that everything is made public (unless you edit your profile to be made private) which means that I can share my favourite books with other people in the world, who has a similar reading tastes to mine and in return I can also see theirs.
Library thing is really useful in my opinion, because I can read the book reviews made by other Library Thing users to find a interesting book to read.
Plus, joining up is free!

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Lemonholic - This is my library catalogue.

Image Generator

http://www.tagsmaker.com/- This is the site I used for the image generator.

This site is so COOL and EASY to use!
No joining up, and simply a few clicks on the mouse and TA-DA! Its all there!

I first thought of uploading a photo of my puppy, but I couldn't as tags maker wanted a photo that was at least 300x150 pixels (and all mine turned out to be too small).
So instead, I chose an image that was already uploaded on tags maker.

All I had to do, in order to produce my own stylised image was:
1) Choose the image that I wanted to use,
then scrolling down to
2) Type in the text that I wanted on my image.
3) Choose a font (there are millions!)
4) Choose the font colour (12 different colours)
5) Choose the font size
and lastly,
6)Choose the text position

http://www.tagsmaker.com/your_image.php?cod=upload/63c97e849a2b2eb2490e578b5a9bea40.jpg (This is the link to my image I created through tags maker)

Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki

Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki is cool!
I signed up a few days ago as I was invited to by someone. Back then, not knowing that this was part of the exercise- to add our blog's URL to the 'favourite blogs'.
It is so cool that we have our own sandbox where we can add little entries in the appropriate page.
During this, I accidentally added a quote in the fav recipe page and was shocked when I realised this- as I thought that we wouldn't be able to delete anything.
HOWEVER! Ta-da! deleting it was as simple as typing it in the first place.
Thanks to this, I could delete it before anyone read it :p
Another wonderful thing about sandbox is that we can add entries to an already existing entry.
I imagined it to be like all other sites where one entry would be on one page, another entry on the next page etc etc.

library wikis

What I found interesting was that library wikis had specific services to groups of people such as for the disabled, older adults, teens, poor and homeless, distance learners..and many more!
For the older adults, there is a programme to teach (train) about technology to those people.
As well as that, they also have a site called Info Eyes- where the disabled people can talk to librarians on live on the Internet!
I think having section with book reviews (public access to read and write) will be a great application for the libraries, as many people will use this application when they are in the library.

WEB 2.0 AND LIBRARY2.0

In this modern world, web2.0 is becoming increasingly popular and ideal for many people.
Library2.0 according to Wikipedia(2008), is defined as a: "...model for a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users. The focus is on user-centered change and participation in the creation of content and community". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_2.0)

I think this will mean more learning and training for everyone who uses the library (librarians and patrons).
My opinion for Library2.0 is that, more people (esp. those that don't come into the library often) will be wanting to use the library more often as it becomes easier for them.

From the article "Away from the “icebergs”, Rick Anderson says that we need to find new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually. At a minimum, this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web); even better, it means integrating our services into their daily patterns of work, study and play.
This means that patrons will find it more convenient as they don't necessarily need to come into the library so much, because they can do almost everything on the web.

I think that the libraries (including the North Shore Libraries) will be very different to the libraries we have now, in approx 5-10years time.
I imagine that most services such as options to purchase from an online bookseller, displays of availability in any geographically proximate library (John Riemer) could possibly happen.

We are still collaborative, customer friendly and welcoming, however we lack those characteristics as mentioned above.

I personally think that our current libraries are doing a very good job, and it is already very easy and convenient to use for all people, however I believe that if a little bit more of services are made available, it would "attract" more patrons into using the libraries.

Technorati

Technorati sounded quite complex when I first heard about it, but actually it isn't as complex as it sounds!
Firstly, I had a look around Technorati and explored the different tabs/tags.
Its very handy that all the blogs/blog posts are separated into different categories which means that I can choose the ones that I want to read, instead of scrolling down millions of blogs and blogposts to find something that I want to read about.

What I found funny was that when I searched for Learning 2.0 through the blog directory, nothing came up. However, when I searched Learning 2.0 in blog posts I came up with thousands!

This time I explored poplular blogs, searches and tags.
I came up with the search results of a topic I choose from popular searches (I choose olympics) but what suprised me was that for this, it also showed my a list of all the different tags I could search by other than "olympics". I recall that this was not shown when I searched for Learning 2.0, because in order to find other tags; I had to actually click into a post and scroll down to see the tags that were related to the blogpost.

Del.icio.us

I think that Del.icio.us is an excellent tool that enables people to quickly and easily bookmark their page.
I like the way how Del.icio.us works by tagging, and especially the fact that everyone can see what you have bookmarked.
Like what the man had said about Del.icio.us on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU,
making Del.icio.us public is a fantastic idea, as it means that you are sharing your information with everyone else in the world who shares the same interest as you.

Also if you are looking for information on a particular topic, then through tags and user names of other people from Del.icio.us that have bookmarked specific pages from the web, you can find information on the topic that you are researching for, more quickly.
As well as that, you are able to see comments written by other users so this can also become good information.

Therefore, I think that Del.icio.us is useful to know as it comes very handy at times you need it the most.

RSS(2)

For me, Blogline was the easiest place where I could search to find a feed.
I used the search box on the top right hand side of the page, and searched for a subject under 'search for feeds'.
After doing this, Bloglines showed me a list of different blogs/website that related to the subject matter I had typed.
On the page that showed the results of my search, and under the names of the blog/websites it said 'preview feed' and 'subscribe to feed'.
All I had to do was to click on 'subscribe to feed' and then 'subscribe'.

Another way to locate a feed is by searching for the post.
On the search box, by entering the keyword of what I was looking for, Blogline came up with pages that was full of posts relating to the keyword which I had typed in.

RSS (1)

Firstly, making a Blogline account was really simple- all I had to do was enter my e-mail address, a password and confirm it through my inbox.

What I like about RSS and news feeds is that by adding the name of the blog or the URL to me feeds, I can check on the updates of those places that I have added; very quickly.
By clicking onto 'feeds', and then on the name of the blog/site it will take you straight to the site showing the recent updates.
Now I can use RSS to check the latest book review, see what songs are in the top lists, and to check out some recipes as one of my hobby is cooking.
I think libraries can use RSS for many reasons. For example, it is more fast and convinient for librarians to just click on their feeds to go to a specific website rather than typing out the address of that site.
As for the NS librarians, we can do the same- to go straight to the NS city council homepage rather than going from the library homepage, and then to the council homepage (as I had been doing previously).

Some library related blogs are the 'NYT>Books', 'The Shifted Librarian', and the 'Publishers Weekly -Best Seller News'

Good Water

Ever heard of 'The Good Water Company'?
I recently found out about this company. What makes this company so special is the fact that they use renewable resources to make the bottle (corn).

http://www.goodwater.org.nz/

If you go to this site, you can gain access to the information about the company.
Everytime a bottle of Good Water if sold, a proportion of the money goes to the education of young Kiwis having a relationship with the Sir Peter Blake Trust.
The site also has information on the retailers, where to buy the water and so on..
It also says that the company will come to collect your empty bottles so that is can be reused .

What I like the most from the site, is that there is a short video clip which shows a bottle being made. Pretty cool right?

The Good Water relates to 'technology' as there are a number of processes that needs to be done in order for the bottle to reach you-which involes the use of machinery to make the bottle, delivery...etc.

If you have time, why not go into the link above and find out more on the Good Water Company?

Flickr Color Pickr & Montagr

In technology, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2008).


Firstly, in my opinion Flickr Color Pickr is a really useful tool,
as if you are looking for photos that are of a specific colour all you have to do is
click on the colour you are looking for, and SWOOSH- its all there!
VERY easy to use. Also by scrolling down the bar, you can get photos of different brightness.
(ie: pick a colour, and then use the bar and scroll right down to get very bright photos, and scroll right up to get photos that look dark).


Montagr is AWESOME!
By using photos uploaded on Flickr, you can create a photo mosaic with them.
I have seen a couple of face images, and when you move your mouse over the photos in the photo mosaic, you can see the photo enlarged. When clicking on a picture that is in the photo mosaic, it leads you to the photo mosaic of the picture that you have just clicked on.
Montagr is a fun and interesting application.
If I happen to upload any photos on Flickr in future,
I shall try making a photo mosaic of my own!


The exercise states that I should be talking about one of the applications, however I found both of these very interesting so I decided to talk about them both :)

Flickr

Flickr is another site that I have never used before, but like Blogger it didn't take long for me to understand how Flickr works.

I like how Flickr has "tags" which makes it much easier to look for a specific 'group' of photos.

It is also good that people who don't have an account to Flickr has access to the photos as well because this means that people can enjoy looking at the photos without bothering to make an account for themselves, just so that they could look at photos put up by other people.

I have been looking around Flickr, firstly clicking on 'explore' and then by clicking on different tags to see different photos.

During this, I have come across some interesting photos, which I would like to share with other people.

Here is the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthropovisions/2709146007/

interesting shape of the clouds. Never seen these before. For this image, I clicked on "sky' for the tag.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oliviamair/2709276393/

a satin bowerbird. Strange eyes..doesn't look real.

The tag I used to find this image was 'nature'

Blogger

Setting up a blog through Blogger was very easy.
I like the way how I can choose different templates for my blog every now and then.
Unlike other sites (blogs) that I have used in the past, Blogger lets me use different font colour and style, which I reckon is very cool.

I was a bit confused with using Blogger in the beginning, as I didn't know where to click to post a comment.
It took me a while for me to realise that I had to click on the top right-hand corner if I wanted to post a comment!

Other than this little confusion, I think Blogger is an easy site for users of all age group!
I shall start recommending Blogger to all my friends now :)

testing out a different font colour

gosh the weather is so bad lately..
wish summer came sooner

Blogger

my new blog :)
never knew about Blogger until now..
its a cool site.
im liking it!