Week 9: Wikis August 17, 2008

Thing 17:  I read about and looked at the library wikis. I discovered a wiki called series binder that has booklists of the series of books categorized by genres. It is a great resource! I bookmarked it using my Delicious icon on my toolbar! Things are connecting! This will be a great resource in my library as students are always wondering the order of series books, what comes next, what we do and don’t have, etc. This wiki was done using Mediawiki. I read how wikis work and the article on the ban to wikipedia by Middlebury College..for use in citations.  But it is a great starting point for information. I looked at some of the library wikis and then the wiktionary and the sikihow. Watching Colbert’s videos online were entertaining. I especially liked his interview with Jimmy Wales.  What is the reality?

Thing 18: I took the PB Wiki Tour and then the commoncraft video on wetpaint wikis. I was wondering if I could use these Common Craft videos to introduce some lessons in school to 5/6 students. I did go to the Vermont 23 things wiki at PBWIki and logged in. I made a book comment and then tried adding a link…success! I tried adding a page about favorite hikes…it took a bit to make it a link on the front page, but I did it.  I did look at the history feature also.

Also, of interest to me, was the wikimatrix and the choice wizard it has to help you choose the wiki software that may work best for you. Wikis are great for information but I think you need to read them carefully and just use the information to get you started. They are great for focusing in on something you are looking for, but at the same time there can be a lot on a page if there are too many links and sidebars. I find myself going off on tangents and not staying on task.

Week 8: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati August 16, 2008

Thing 14:  This week has increased, yet again, my technology vocabulary. Not only do I need to use these words more often to remember and understand their meanings, but I also need to practice what some of these vocabulary words represent in order to not only understand how they work but to get an idea of how they can benefit the school library environment. I did watch the common craft video on social bookmarking and then they tutorial on Delicious. I tried searching “school library instruction” on Delicious and loved the results as compared to Google. Because these are bookmarked already the results were of much better quality and more specific to what I was looking for versus the huge range of results I get on Google. I then set up an account on Delicious and added my own bookmarks. I now have the tag at on my Internet Explorer page.  I looked at the Vermont 23 Things delicious page and then created an RSS feed to this using my account in Bloglines (that was good practice!) I would be very interested to learn/see more how libraries are using this in their schools.

Thing 15: Technorati, another new vocabulary word, was an interesting site to peruse. Again, I think I could have spent much longer there and also found myself getting easily sidetracked. I used it more as a search tool.  I played around with the items on the front page. I was assuming the “tag cloud” was the speech like bubble at the top of the page…otherwise, I did not find this. It is amazing the amount of information and reading that can be done…and what is of value and what is not? what is true and what is opinion or gossip? I did not claim by blog and set up a watchlist yet.

Thing 16: I tead the library Web 2.0 information and the following five articles.  I made a copy of the list of references for future use. I would like to read more about Library 2.0 specific to the school library environment. I have to agree with the balance of technology and the real environment of the library and the people in it.

Week 7: Play Week August 14, 2008

Thing 12: Wow! Creating an avatar was fun! I am going to try and download it to this blog….we’ll see!

Yeah! It worked! This reminds me of the characters I saw my kids creating when they got their WII.

Thing 13: I took a look at Library Thing and added 5 books to my list…Stephenie Meyer’s books! Thought I would put these under “teenage girls’ series.” I also asked them to get back to me on how this would work for the library. They mentioned it’s connection to OPAC. I would like to know more about the “widgets”…not too sure how that works. This looks interesting enough to explore further.

Week 6: Catchup Week August 12, 2008

I am finding that taking time to learn these new things on the computer can be very time consuming and sedentary. To master the use of these technologies would require quite a bit more experience and practice to truly comprehend their value and function. In realizing this, I think this course is great to expose myself to what is out there. Even if this doesn’t mean that I become an expert at it. Even having time during catch up week hasn’t made me this expert, but until the value of the “thing” becomes real will I truly understand and invest the time to know it. On to the next week!