Thing #23

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

Bloglines, Image Generators and Rollyo

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

The popularity and continued growth of social networking sites were a big surprise.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?


I thought the format was great and the pace was fine. I would have added an exercise about metadata, how it fits into rss, xml, etc. And would have liked to use MediaWiki instead of PBWiki in Thing #17.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Greatly enhanced my ability to stay current in the library field and to be one step ahead of my patrons

And last but not least… If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?


Definitely looking forward to it !

Thing #22

I am certainly looking forward to downloading eaudiobooks from NetLibrary and Overdrive for the first time. The NetLibrary demo (for audiobooks) was very informative about how to 'sync' to the portable device using Windows Media Player, etc. I've set up an account and had used NetLibrary's ebook features before.

Thing #21

My favorite podcast directory is Learn Out Loud. The ways that libraries are using podcasts are so innovative. I liked "Meet the Databases"at Fairfield University and "Stories for Kids" at the Denver Public Library. I added a podcast feed to my Bloglines account and am looking forward to listening to a few more.

Thing #20

Cute pandas! And lots of 'em.

Quick note...There is definitely an application for this. A few years ago Michael distributed an instructional video on how to set up wifi in the branches. This would have been perfect for it. I can't help but wonder how the LCPL internet filter works on these videos. Seems to me it might not catch objectionable material.

Thing #19

I looked at the Web 2.0 awards for mashups because I didn't really have a clear understanding of them. According to Wikipedia they're websites or applications that "combine content from more than one source into an integrated experience." That seemed to cover everything from the library's web page to its databases. Then I got the sense they were more like robots that scan the web for specific rss feeds, tags, etc. and/or they're applications that are combined, like in Google's Map of the Stars. The Web 2.0 awards for "mashups and more" went to JudgeJohnRoberts, Ning, and LivePlasma. Well, LivePlasma seemed like a visual search engine so I plugged in the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" and got suggestions like "Wall Street," "Rogue Trader," and "A Kiss Before Dying." (?) Next I went to Ning and it looks just like MySpace. Finally, JudgeJohnRoberts - the 1st place award winner - seems like a newsvine for the legal community with just a little relevance to the good judge. Was about to give up the ghost when a friend of mine suggested I check out ProgrammableWeb...considered the prime site to go for mashups and information and advice. Light dawns.

Thing #18

Overall both Google Docs and Zohowriter seem popular and useful but the response time in Zoho was terrible. Maybe they were doing maintenance to the server or there was a lot of traffic, but I got the old "Microsoft Error Report, Don't Send" box a couple of times. Google didn't have the Templates feature that Zoho had :( nor the "create your own poll" feature (a great tool if you want some quick feedback on an idea), but it did have a better response time. The only "bug" I found in Google Docs was with the Quote button. When you create a quote, then do a preview, then go back, the page you were working on disappears. With Zoho I tried creating a couple of presentation slides and I think the screen resolution of my computer was off because I couldn't fit the page onto the screen. With more time I'd try to import a PowerPoint presentation into Zohowriter and get the slides working. Good to know about both of these tools.

Thing #17

I added my blog to the wiki - some of us had to remove the brackets in order to get the links to work - and added The Chart House to the Favorite Restaurants. At first the restaurant reviews seemed all over the map but then I remembered most were in North Carolina, thus the references to Charlotte and Chapel Hill. This was an interesting collaboration that PLCMC has with the Museum of the New South.

Thing #16

I can think of several ways a wiki could be utilized, especially if an end-product, like a policy/procedures manual, were in an edit stage and required the collaboration of several people. Also, readers advisory, research guides - well, everything that was described in the "Best Practices" section. The Wiki Farms and the Wikimatrix were helpful tools to store away for future use.

Thing #15

Blyberg's definition of Library 2.0 said it best for me. It "simply means making your library's space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs." I do agree that the problem of authoritative vs. non-authoritative content is one that needs to be noted but most librarians know the difference, and I think we can assume that bloggers and flickr users have already made the distinction too. The idea of Web 3.0 and Second Life now doesn't seem any more amorphous or daunting than Web 2.0 is. Thank you, LearningAtLCPL

Thing #14

When I searched for "Learning 2.0" in the blog posts, there were over 2500 hits and about 200 when I searched the tags. The Flickr photos also showed up when I searched on "L2LCPL". I found a tool that tracks the number of blog posts containing a specific search term...for example, here is a chart of the number of posts that contain Libraries for the last 30 days.

Thing #13

I was intrigued by the WTF (Where's The Fire) tab in Technorati, thinking it would point to what are the hot topics and why. But it turned out to be more or less experimental, with posts in many cases more than a week old. On the other hand, Delicious was a treat. I started looking at the popular tags, found one for music that led to Pandora, a site I already knew about. That lead to the discovery of some similar free-listening sites like LastFM and FineTune. Seems there is a lot of social music networking as well. News was of course another popular tag and that led to links to Slashdot but, better yet, Newsvine which had an interesting Chat Lobby that could be browsed, and a Live Newsvine ("live view into everything going on inside of Newsvine. When content is added, voted on, or commented on, it will show up here immediately.")

Thing #12

This is a recipe searchroll that uses epicurious, foodnetwork,
foodsubs, recipecontests, and recipesource:

Select...Recipe SearchSearch The Web

I found the "Explore" tab interesting although I don't know how Rollyo decides on the "Searchrolls of Note" (I mean, Starcraft? Metal Music? Guitar Tablature?) Textpattern, though, was neat for online publishing and web development. The Reference searchroll used Wikipedia, Brittanica, etc. but I had to navigate through the ads and "sponsored links". A pretty neat tool for specific searches and information that needs to be up-to-date.

Thing #11

My LibraryThing was very cool. I particularly liked linking to the suggestions like the "Special Sauce Recommendations" and the "Similarly Tagged" books. Also viewed some of the groups such as Librarians-who-LibraryThing, Brainy-Thrillers, and Site Talk. Liked the author and tag clouds, and the Zeitgeist section. About the only problem I had was getting the widget into the main text of my blog. Unless I read it wrong, the Javascript has to be inserted as a page element into the template and can't appear in the Posting section. (Oh, yes, had another problem with the other choice widget...the one with the search box. Gave up after an hour. The widget got into the sidebar fine, but the search results were screwy.)

Thing #10

Cute exercise.
This image was generated
at Custom Sign Generator.

Thing #9

Found an interesting selection of news and political feeds at C-Span. TopicX.net was my favorite of those that were listed at Learning 2.0 because of the zip code feature. I thought Syndic8.com could have used some work in the "Categories" section; i.e., the content of some of the sections.

Thing #8

I had already set up RSS feeds in my email account, mostly news like Reuters and BBC. Here's the link to my public bloglines account. I went to the "Feeds" tab and then found "Quick Pick Selections" and also added a few. Will probably do the selections again, bringing in some more interests and deleting a few of these. Played around with the public v. private feeds, so there are 10 showing and 2 that aren't. Right now this exercise is reminding me of the movie "Something To Talk About."

Thing #7

Added a comment to one of my colleague's blogs. I find myself rushing through these "things" a little bit because I am busy with other "things." Nevertheless I hope to finish! As far as a blog comment regarding technology, I think the hardware advances are going to be quite remarkable in the next 10-20 years. These photos by NEC are quite interesting, especially this one.

Thing #6

I used one of FD's Flickr Toys and here is the month of February:

Thing #5

Fortunately we keep the branch photos on the G-drive so it wasn't hard to find a few. Used one of the Flickr toys (I think it was a Mosaic Maker) to combine the photos into one.

Here's a different photo from Flicker:

How I did it..got into Flickr, clicked on one of my photos, went to the link for "see different sizes," clicked on thumbnail, then cut-and-pasted the html code that was shown to "link this photo to other websites," added a paragraph tag to format the blog post somewhat

Thing #4

Found the database on the G-drive, found the Forms section, updated the record, etc.
Am keeping the AskAway link here so it doesn't get lost: lcplaskaway.blogspot.com ). Putting it in "Favorites" is only as good as the computer you're currently sitting at.

Thing #3

Some of these LCPL blogs look great - a very creative group ! I'm using mine not only to map my progress but as a way to keep some relevant links together in one place. Stephen Abrams (Stephen's Lighthouse) is considered a Web 2.0 guru, so I've taken some of his links and posted them on my right navigation bar so I don't forget them. With this blog, I had a little trouble signing in until I found I had to use the Google Beta sign-in (even though I'm not using a Google mail account).

Thing #2

Lifelong learning habits:

• Begin with the end in mind
• Accept responsibility for your own learning
• View problems as challenges
• Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
• Create your own learning toolbox (books, technology, etc)
• Use technology to your advantage
• Teach and mentor others
• Play

Easiest for me is to accept responsibility for my own learning. Hardest is to view problems as challenges, and not just problems.

Thing #1

Tina and I listened to both Doug's and Stephanie's podcasts. It was helpful receiving Cindy's email about what exactly was required to complete Thing 1. I hope we continue to receive these to coincide with each new thing, so that we know exactly what the minimum requirements are. Otherwise we could really get carried away.