Thing 22:Staying Current

My progress through the 23 Things has been slower than others and did not meet the original NEFLIN April 15 deadline. I wonder if I had had the advantage of theStudent 2.0 tools at an earlier date, I might have made the first deadline. Just kidding. When I told someone that I misscd the April 15 deadline, they very kindly remarked that if I had made it to Thing 16, which I did, it was something and at least it was all mine. Thanks again to that colleague, since they gave me the encouragement to carry on. Luckily, our library district encouraged it's staff to soldier on just for the experience. I must say that I couldn't have done it without the encouragement of the Adult Services staff at ACLD. They gave me advice and assistance.

Looking back on the first of the "Things", when I was not even sure how to register my blog, I have come a long way from that nervous moment. Now, I can read a little HTML and look forward to experimenting with it in the future. In retrospect, I have really enjoyed the whole experience, and, learned so much. The NEFLIN 23 Things were challenging in a way that was not too threatening and allowed the participants to learn at their own pace. The results are pretty amazing. When I go to my exercise class, populated by young women thirty or more years younger than myself, and I can say I have a Facebook site, the ones who know what Facebook is, are absolutely surprised. Others have no idea what a "Facebook". When I suggest U-tube to them to see how to do a particularly difficult exercise known as a Burpee, they don't seem to realize what a great tool it is.

I have also found out that having a Delicious account is valuable as a backup. I have moved around a lot between January and April and Delicious is turning into a real rock in the river of change. The news reports I receive from Reddit and Digg are unusual and they do not seem to make it to the mainstream media. The image generators were a lot of fun to manipulate. I still want to add a sequence mix of the images of the demolition of the Carstairs grain elevator to my blog. And, yes, I intend to keep up my blog, at least for a while, just to let my children see what I have been up to, and work on manipulating HTML to make cool images.
Lastly, I will return to many of the sites mentioned in the 23 Things, keeping my notes for reference and lengthening my list of sites on Delicious. Thanks Neflin.

Thing 21:Student 2.0 Tools

Wow. Both the Assignment Calculator and the Research Calculator are great tools, not only for college students, but for junior and high school students who show up at the reference desk and ask the reference librarian for suggestion on all sorts of topics.I will probably bookmark both sites. These two sites, along with their user guides, suggest common sense tips to direct any information search. I think either one of them could be modified, and added to the Science Experiment Page of any public library website. Maybe there is such a site out there for the public school elementary/secondary crowd but I have not found one yet. It is always helpful to explore new ways to guide, present and organize the information students need. Every student presents librarians with new opportunities to explore and different obstacles to overcome. It would be great for students who are new to researcing essays to be able to have a skeleton to hang their research on. Good for librarians helping them too. When it comes to helping students at the reference desk, I will take any hlep I can get and taior it to the student.

Thing 20: Books 2.0

I have a new cell phone and checking out BooksinMyPhone I saw a diagram of my very phone. It is exciting to know that I could download a book to it and read from it when I need to amuse myself while waiting for an appointment. I could read Middlemarch and let George Eliot's elegant prose calm me down.But would I settle down at night with my phone, or a Kindle, if I even decided to buy one? Would I even borrow a Kindle? Not likely. But, maybe this is the attitude of an older, shall I say, a more mature person. Just as many library users really like audio books on the self contained Play-Away devices instead of going online and going through the hassle of downloading an audio book, technology is way ahead of most mature readers. As to the younger folk, I personally think it would be great if they were plugged into a great YA book instead of Eminem.This opinion is shared by the parent referred to in the New York Times article, who is just glad her daughter is reading at all and not too concerned that all of her reading is done on the Internet. I guess I am willing to settle for any reading rather than holding out for the ideal of just contemplative and detailed reading from a book, even though the the esperts are sure that reading alters the circuitry of the brain. The article is full of interesting contradictions. Low income students who are given Internet computers raise their reading scores. Yet, educators deplore the trend to bit-length information, and, in their opinion, the lack of cognitive and lengthy contemplation that book reading fosters. Then, they alude to the fact that a lot of jobs are going to be computer or Internet based. You can't have it all.

Thing 19:Other Social Networks

I had a lot of fun hacking my way through the social network jungle. Web Junction and its usefulness to librarians was familiar to me since last year I tried to participate in their online class on library service to Spanish speaking patrons. I got a taste of what it is like to take an online class. Ning has a fair amount of depth but Gather seems too new to have a well stocked list of interests. The Ning participants were more knowledgeable about their individual adventures and interests. I tried putting in "Knitting" in both Ning and Gather and got the best return from Ning. Browsing through the Educational social networks gave me the idea to pass these on to my sister who is a professor of elementary education. She is always looking for ways to keep up with her young students. The What's on My Book shelf site presents a unique way to network: trade books with others. For public libraries, LinkedIn, the social network for aspiring business people could prove a helfpful resource in helping the public with their job applications, and goals. After this long slog through the social network environment,I loved the windup of this section with the humorous article from PC Computing. I thought the writer's comparisons of various social networking sites to a list of his favorite bars and his evolution away and out of them was spot on.

Thing 18: Facebook and MySpace

I have a presence on Facebook. A much younger colleague asked me to sign up so we can communicate after I retire. While signing up I found out I had another friend on Facebook. Surprise, surprise! This really made me feel a little more up to date...almost with it. Facebook is famous since Iran banished it and maybe it will become even more au courant. I see that Facebook's modus operendi is to bringing in more and more friends. this would work well and could be used to spread the word about library book clubs, discussion groups and young adult programming.

Thing : Podcasts

Checking several of the podcast directories, it becomes apparent that there is a lot out there and quality varies a lot. I saw one podcast on growing english garden peas that seemed to have just photos but the commentary was so charming that it made up for the lack of visuals. Unfortunately I was not able to
Podcasts (with visuals)are fun to make using CaptureFox but scripts have to be honed to a fine polish or they are blather. I am working on editing and rehearsing a podcast on using the financial database Morningstar and, since this is even ever changing medium, I have to extemporise on the results of the fund screener and this is shifting ground.I am delaying posting my finished product as it is polished up. Myfirst attempt produced a 13 minute presentation. This was way to long. However, I have learned so much working on this. I hope to get it onto our ACLD website for our library database user to access.
For now, I am adding a buddhist podcast to my blog...should be interesting.
http://podcast.com/show/6751/

Thing 16: Discover You Tube and other sites

Libraries have posted several advertising videos. This is one of my favorites because its not too loud and it has the soundtrack from "Spirited Away" on it. I can't believe how quickly I was able to add this to my blog. I will never make the April 15 deadline but I want to add one more "thing" just for old time's sake.