Week 9 #22

Digital books are the coolest thing ever. Yes, I know I just said that I do not like pod casts, but this is different. Last week at my monthly book club some of the ladies were telling me about downloading the books and listening to them while they did just about everything. They love this library's digital collection This is something that I have passed on to many people and will probably start to do myself. I frequently listen to my book club books while I am working in my office. But now I will not have to wait for them to come in from another branch. Also, my uncle spends a fortune on audio books and lugs them around the world since he travels for his job. I told him about this service and told him to give me all the money he saves to download the books for him.....He just laughed and gave me some m&m's instead. Oh well, I tried.

Week #9 21---podcasts

I guess I am old fashioned, but I am not a pod cast fan. I feel over inundated with information as it is. I like to go for walks and work in my office without listening to anything. Also, I am much more of a visual learner, I like to read about things not hear about them. I can see how this is a great technology for people to use. Some people like to listen to music, others to programs and even books. So while this technology is really cool (and I do think it is really cool) it is just not something useful to me. I know teachers put lessons on it, you can download the news, you can listen to music. Maybe someday I will catch up and join the podcasters of the world. Just not now.

week 9 #23

I am not officially finished because I will have to go back and do the podcast and overdrive lessons from home, but I thought I could at least start to talk about my ihcpl experience. I really go to spend some quality time seeing what is out there that might fill my own need or library patron's needs. I have learned about what I like and what I dont. Even the things I might not like, I have learned to see how they might be used by someone else. I was really surprised that there was not a lesson on igoogle. I love my igoogle page. In fact, my igoogle page encompasses many of the applications we learned here. I will keep on thinking about my experience and share more later.

Week 9 #22

Again,,,a place marker. I will try this one from home

Week 9 #21 Podcast

I cannot do a podcast from this computer, but I will when I am on a computer that will let me. I just wanted to mark my spot so I dont get too out of order.

Week 9 #20 you tube

I love youtube. On my igoogle page I have it set to give me a list of highlighted videos every time I log in. This one came in last week about the same time I got off the phone with my sister. She was very down about being too busy all of the time, so I sent this one to her to cheer her up. How can anyone have a bad day when they have seen this. I like to look up old songs and scenes from tv shows and movies. My husband has a recent addiction of looking up music videos starring legos people instead of real people. Some people have too much time. Youtube can be very useful as far as viewing lectures, instructions or news segments you may want to look at more in depth. WE can keep up with what others are dong in the library world through video and not only text. Students can film projects and play them in class. Students can review speeches and other valuable sources as well.

Week 8 #19 zoho is soooo cool

This is really cool. I will use this. I have teacher friends who tell thier students to use this program because of limited time in the public school computer lab and software at home that is not compatible to that of the school. I think I will start using this for my personal documents so that I can access them or work on them where ever I am and I dont have to drag my laptop around. It was so easy to create a spreadsheet inside of my documents and I really like the way I can customize my own templates too. It is complete with all of the formatting tools.

week 8 #18--Social networking

HMMM.....Mixed feelings about this. Patrons are using social networking sites, my friends and colleagues are using social networking sites. I like to look at social networking sites to see what other people are doing, but really I have very little interest in actively using them. I have created a myspace page because a friend from college told me to. So I looked up other friends from college and i guess I am on their guest list or friends pages, but then they all started talking and emailing and then a mystery dude "brad' started bugging me. I think it was nice to get everybody's contact information, but I would rather email them separately or create a yahoo group for us than expose myself to all the creeps. I like to have friends in real life too. I like to go places or have them come over. Not necessarily to just chat on the computer. I can see how this would be cool for people who do not have super active lives with constant activity already. Maybe I am old fashioned but it is not for me. However, I will keep up with it so that I can assist others.

week 7 #17 My thoughts on technology

I love technology and I hate technology. The internet has been down at my house for two weeks thanks to the phone company!!! I realize how much I depend on the internet when it is gone and I love the services, but I have become dependant on them so when it doesn't work I am helpless. I have no idea how much money I have in the bank, which bills have been paid or who won the cowboys game last night. I cannot track my UPS packages, I cannot see next weeks lunch menu from home, but most importantly I am not connected to my office email 24-7. But the cool part is that I have survived this 2 week internet famine. I have visited the library after my shift and on weekends, I have gone to friends houses I have had to go out of my way to get plugged in, but I have done it. So I feel confident about using most aspects of technology, computers, cameras, you know...useful tools. However, I cannot figure out the remote at my house. I cannot change the tv channel. I cannot change the volume and I have trouble with the dvd player. At some point I want to conquer these too.

Week 7 #16

I love wikis. Especially wikipedia. I have never edited anything, but I use it a lot. Of course not for any research or important stuff that I should be reading journals or academic books for. What I like to look up is about people in the gossip papers. There are all sorts of cool links to photos and places to scoop up even better gossip. I also like to look up movies to find out what the actors names are. I am terrible with names.

Week 6 #15--I LIKE IT!

I read several of the articles about web2.0 and Libraries 2.0. I am liking what I hear. It seems that most of the Librarians are in agreement that the library of the past is no longer useful and we must keep up to keep from facing our own demise. The web has changed the course of how information is created, stored, gathered and evaluated and we must come to terms with this a create new ways for information users (EVERYBODY) to be able to hunt effectively. We have to see what our users want and what ways they are looking for it. We must stay on top of technology as our users are so that we can make sure that we dont become archives instead of Libraries. We must make our users comfortable with our systems and methods of communication so they are not discouraged form using our resources and become googlites. However, we really need to look at what the patrons want, not what the library staff wants or we will make ourselves obsolete. I think that this program (ihcpl) will help with that realization across the board.

Technorati Week 6 #14--Feeling too plugged in

Technorati is cool, but a little freaky to me. Fist off, I looked up my own bloc which had like a four millionth something rating and that made me sad. I wanted to be at least in the first one million. Then I was nobodies favorite site, so I called my husband and my sister and told them to make me a favorit so I can feel more loved and special. Then I saw that there was a full copy if my whole blog up there. Maybe I am being a little possessive, but its my blog and I really dont want it displayed this way on technorati. Not that it is private or holds great screcrest. I just found this to be irritating. Then I looked at the popular blogs where I found several about paris hilton. OMG!!!!! so many people with so much time and nothing better to do. Then I looked at the WTF (which I know to stand for something else than 'wheres the fire')...Users should not send messages to thier mothers that include WTF...apparently this has several meaning. Anyway. There were insane blogs about things I dont care anything about, such as a blog about people with extra breasts. I mean really..... So if you are trying to look up somthing or find someone it is cool, but its not for me.

Week 6 #13---Del.icio.us

This is the coolest thing ever. I am going to use this and spread the word. My bookmarks are always so disorganized, but this way I can keep them organized and with me at every computer I use. I love it. Also I can see what other people are tagging and how they are used. This is really a supercool tool! I am soo excited!!!

Week 5 #12 in week 6 or is it 7

I am sorry that I am getting behind. It is the busy season at the refdesk here at cy-fair. I tried out the library elf. I think it is really cool, but not for me personally. However, I will recommend it to patrons who are not as familiar with the library system. Of course I work in the library. I know how to check my accounts and chances are all of my overdues are in my office or my car and I can run out to get them when I need to. I can see how a busy mom with several kids and several library accounts could benefit from this service. I will start to tell them about it.

Week 5 #11 Library Thing and Readers Advisory

How cool is this!?!?!?! We can talk about books and read reviews and swap them as well as rate them ourselves. What a great addition to reader's advisory!!! I think I will send this link to my book club members. I want to know who rated 'where the wild things are' with 1/2 a star. I could not find where to go to see who rated what and how. Does anybody know about that?

Week 5 #10 generators

Ok I guess I did get the bighugelabs from FD toys. I love playing with this kind of stuff. I tried MEEZ for an avatar. It was fun, but it really slowed my computer down. I made some cartoons and now I am going to make a 'for dummies' book cover. I really find this usable. We get students of all ages in my library who have assignments to create a comic strip about the war of 1812 or something similar, to create a book cover describing the book they have to do a report on and other such assignments. The teachers rarely tell them about these sites. Now I feel like I have a big secret too to help them with this part of their assignments. It seems that the more programs that are out there that allow us to give 'pretty' presentations, the prettier the teachers require them to be. I am very glad I could learn about these tools. As for the rss feed, I have thought about it for a while and my feelings have not changed much. I feel like I am constantly in the face of information overload and the rss feeds only provide a faster way for us to become even more overloaded.

Health Alert

My creation
Originally uploaded by r_botkin2000

This has nothing to do with the assignments, I just thought I would share.. bighugelabs.com is the coolest thing ever. This is what happens when 2 three year old boys lock themselves in the bathroom together. I always to know to take the camera with me when I hear giggles behind a closed door. It is a good thing that our house is for sale and we have to keep everything spic and span clean until it sells. Aren't boys charming?!?!?!?!?!

Week 4 #2

I tried it. I think today is not a good day. I played with bloglines for a while, but then I tried to post my blogroll and I guess I already forgot my log-in. So I will have to try this again tomorrow. I did play with the tools. More later!

Week #4 in Week #5

You know, that work thing kind of got in my way and I just didnt get to my ihcpl assignments...Silly job!

So I registed for bloglines today and played with it for a while. I can see why it is useful for some and I am glad to know it now, but right now I am feeling a little too plugged in and for today, it is not my cup of tea. However, there was a time when I belonged to several yahoo groups and kept up with several blogs. I would have loved this then. When I was adopting my youngest son the group I was with lived all over the world and we became very good friends over several yahoo groups, we go to know each other through blogs and rarely did we communicate by phone much less in person. We are now still all friends but the messages are more individually lined up. So Maybe one day I will feel like this is necessary to me, just not today.

Cubes

Ok, I am thinking Christmas ornaments. I used Big Huge Labs to make picture cubes. I sent the link to everyone I know so they can make cubes too. I saw that they offer several other things like cards and calendars. One thing I do enjoy is playing with pictures. Check it out, there is so much more to see. Does anyone know a place where we can make jigsaw puzzles out of our pictures, That would be excellent

Spaghetti Face Hugs with flickr

Sapghetti Face Hugs
Originally uploaded by r_botkin2000

I love flickr. I have helped many patrons with this site, but never took time to really use it myself. As you have figured out by now, I have great subjects to photograph so I have a real-life application for this. Also, one of the library cameras lives in my office and I have always saved photos on a shared drive. But now with my new knowledge of flickr, I can use this too!

With flickr I can show the world how two brothers share the love,and the sghetti sauce!

Posting with links to our fav stuff

I think we are supposed to make links in our blog, so I will do that now. Here is a list of some of my favorite things to do.
Visit the Houston Zoo!

Visit Moody Gardens and have lunch with the dinosaurs

Fingerpaint..Its not just for paper anymore

Kermit has a left handed banjo

Frodo and Gandalf will be out begging for candy as they are practicing for halloween. It seems there is a shortage of tootsie rolls in Middle Earth and they plan on saving the fellowhip with a large supply of Sugar. Yes, I will force all blog reader to look at pictures of my kids.


Did yall ever notice that Kermit plays banjo left handed? Well I did not either, my father in law did. I bet if he noticed that, he surely has noticed the dust on top of my firdge. I presented you with some of my favorite things, Kermit and Willie. Now to the safety on the internet. I feel pretty good about it. I pay for everything I buy through paypal. You cant just go out and give strangers you credit cards or checking account number. Be smart. Pay through a secure service to a reliable vendor. Dont go to creepy chat rooms. This is a good way to find some more than interesting friends. Dont believe all the pop ups that say you won. You didint. DOnt reply to notices from your bank that you need to update your passcodes. You did not win any money from England, Ghana or Nigeria, especially if you dont know anyone there. Think about the internet like a carnival. You want to ride the ferris wheel, but all the vendors and hawkers are trying to get your attnetion and money while you are walking all the way to the back of the fair to ride the ride YOU want to. Ignore the others trying pull you off your path and keep going in the direction you wnat to .

Let the Blog Begin

I am doing the iHCPL training. I have figured out that I can have many blogs by using the same blogger account. It took me a while to remember my passwords. I do a blog for my kids too. I find blogs helpful and I have used them in real life. They are a way of finding people with similar needs or interests and hooking up with them to help each other out along they way. The blog I keep for my kids allows family from all over to see thier pictures and hear their stories without having to email everyone. I am not interested in blogs full of ramble and list of favorite breakfast foods, unless they include a reciepie for cinnamon scones (with icing)