Thing 15 - Online Games

I'm whiny. I'll admit it. I detest online games. I waste enough time online without getting sucked in by games. I'm not a total game Luddite - I've played Super Mario 3 quite a bit, spent more than enough time in the worlds of Myst and Riven, and will flip on DDR on my Playstation II (hey - it's exercise!). But generally, I avoid online games.

I did actually get a kick out of Second Life, although the whole money thing makes me suspicious. I wandered around a bit and chatted with some folks, and had a mentor show me how to change my appearance. It seems that hair is a big, darn deal in SL, so I may try to get my hands on some free hairstyle eventually. It reminded me of Myst/Riven a bit, but with no problem-solving tasks. It was weird to walk around, just for the sake of wandering around. I checked out Northern Illinois University (what a sad week it has been for them) because my dad went there when I was just a wee one, and I wanted to see what they were doing. I also stopped by some art galleries. It's amazing what creative things people are doing in that world.

From the reading, it's obvious that schools are finding success using this type of advertising and distance-learning opportunities, and it might be fun taking an online class in this manner - certainly more exciting than reading article after article and not meeting people face to face.

Took a screen shot, just for the heck of it. Gotta love the tie-dye. I'm KrisKros Smythe online. Maybe I'll see someone on there. Not that I'll spend a lot of time on here. No. No. No. Mustn't waste more time online.

Thing 14 - LibraryThing

I discovered LibraryThing last summer when I was working on organizing my church library. I was starting from scratch, looking for cheap cataloging software, and the first link on Google was LibraryThing. I could hardly believe it. I have about 400 books in the church library (I've got 335 books cataloged).

I led an adult forum at my church on the library early this fall, and explained to the folks who came to the class that about 10 years ago, when our schools began automating, we paid almost $10,000 to use a Union Catalog, which had around a 80% hit rate. This summer, I paid $25 for the same kind of service - and have an almost perfect hit rate. It's rare when Amazon doesn't have a book entry, but having access to the Library of Congress has enabled me to find some really obscure titles. This really is an amazing service.

Tagging books on Library Thing can be challenging because it's wide-open for interpretation. I tend to use the subject guides on Amazon, and have had some luck with the CIP's in books. I opted to shelve books by topics, rather than by Dewey. It makes more sense for a church library, where people are usually looking for specific topics, and the Dewey range is pretty crowded around the 200s.

This summer, the LibraryThing crew was making some adjustments to their servers and the service would be slow or unavailable at times. I haven't had any problems with it for months and I've noticed many enhancements. I just can't say enough good things about LibraryThing. It's perfect for personal collections, and church libraries. I'd love to be able to use it to advertise new acquisitions at the school, but I haven't been able to figure out how to import lists from Follett yet.

The Brainerd UCC church's library widget:

And just because I love tag clouds:

Thing 13 - Organizational Tools

I spend a lot of mind-fixating, puppy-dog-ignoring, housekeeping-eschewing time on the Internet each day. I have to Make. Myself. Get. Away. From. The Darn. Machine. every now and then. I realize it’s probably an addiction, and one I’m not going to give up on soon. But, realizing that about myself, I have also tried to organize my surfing habits so I can access the information I am looking for quickly, so I’m not clicking all over the place and getting side-tracked. Sounds pathetic, but I have found some effective tools to help in my pursuit of Intertubing Moderation. My aggregator (Google Reader) and iGoogle are the most effective tools in my arsenal.

iGoogle is great because I’ve grouped the things I like to look at right on my homepage: weather, Reader link, a countdown to specific events, a to-do list, my gmail account, etc. Firefox also helps me keep organized with its very effective and user-friendly add-ons. I log on to all my email accounts and favorite blogs with one click. I use several Firefox add-ons: Clipmarks, Notebook, Foxmarks, Veoh Video Downloader, and IE Filter.

Google Reader helps me feed my geeky need for political information. I can whip through hundreds of news stories in (for me) a short amount of time. Del.icio.us is going to be pretty handy because I can tag stories easily. I’m forever sifting through starred stories on Reader to find something I’m looking for (which, even though I know I can tag stories, is still easier on Del.icio.us).

Below is a shot of my iGoogle page. You’ll notice there are 29 days until spring break (come on…that’s important stuff!), it’s about -4º, my to-do list is caught up, and I’ve answered all of my gmail. Time for mindless surfing.

Comments from the Thing 13 blog prompts

I like the online calendars that were linked from the 23 Things blog, but it's hard to beat a good ol' Exchange calendar, which syncs with my iPaq. If I were to pick an online shared calendar to use, though, it would probably be Google Calendar. It's got a clean design, and it's very user-friendly.

I have an online to-dolist on my iGoogle page, but I don't use it very often, unless I'm working on specific projects. The only list I usually make consistently is for groceries, and I still find it easier to use old technology (pencil and paper) and maintain the list on my refrigerator. I tend to use the online to-do list at the beginning of the school year when I'm swamped with things to remember.

Okay, Zamzar? Cool beans. I'm not stuck without a translator often, but I was last week, trying to get an Appleworks doc translated to MS Word. (Nuts - there is no translator for that one!) But, the fact that it includes a Works and Wordperfect translator, and you can convert to pdf, and all of the audio translators...this is really good stuff. I wish I had known about this site earlier. I have use CutePdf quite a bit, and have been happy with that. I've noticed that on occasion, the free pdf makers make smaller documents than Acrobat!

Backpack makes me jittery. I'm not obsessive about planning and listing, and it feels overwhelming, just going through the example pages. I do like the product comparison features with pictures. For those who need this much order in their lives, this site has it all. I'm afraid I'd get stressed out just trying to keep up...heh heh. I'm impressed that I am able to keep up with my calendar and iGoogle page.

I'm amazed by all the organizational tools available on the web. For those who live and breath by a schedule, these are some impressive resources.

Thing 12 - Social Bookmarking II

I just moved this post up to keep things in order, so if you've been here in the last few days, you've already seen this one. I have an account on Digg, but I just reconfigged it to throw Digg blog entries to this 23 Things blog, rather than to my personal one. I love Digg - although I haven't tried any of the others mentioned in the Thing 12 overview.

The Newsvine site intrigues me and I added it to my Google Reader. I read RealClearPolitics every day (obsessively) and Newsvine reminds me of RCP in that it lists articles from a number of sources. Newsvine has a wider variety of topics than RCP, which is dedicated exclusively to political news. Newsvine seems kind of like the people's Huffington Post.

Digg cracks me up because they are just a tad sarcastic when you move around your settings pages. I appreciate a good snark. This is the Digg blog entry I posted today. I was the first one to add this to Digg.

Dan Brown: School-Level Cuts Hit New York City

I added this story to Digg today. Our district had drastic cuts due to a failed levy, and these stories catch me all the time. It's bad all over. I was most struck by this quote: "...they absolutely need a reduction of the standardized testing mania that has gripped city schools. No child's education will be hindered if he takes fewer high-stakes tests. Regrettably, Bloomberg's ill-considered budget cuts keep in place a draconian testing regime while ripping out many of the support struts that enable students to achieve on those tests--and in life.Someday, we will regret leaving millions of kids behind.

read more | digg story

Blog prompts:

• How do you think you can use these tools in your library or at home?

I use Digg to catch what folks are reading the most. It's easy to categorize information and search by dates. I often star stories on Google Reader, but it's hard to categorize them (update: until I noticed you can tag stories!). I think this would be great for social studies teachers - especially those who pay attention to current events. Current events come right to you, and you can blog about what you read. I could see a class of kids, blogging on current events and reading each other's work.

• Do these tools seem to be a productivity enhancer or a productivity detractor?

I like the fact that I can quickly get at the information that I like to focus on using these sites. It is driven by web-savvy folks, so it has a bent toward the young and politically motivated, but I don't mind that. I think it could detract if you start just "grazing", which is easy to do. If you are directed to look for specific topics, these are great tools.

• Have you ever read a story/item as a result of seeing it on one of these sites?

I posted one Digg item I read at the top of this post. I don't use Digg as often as Google Reader, but when I do use it, I generally use it to post thoughts to my personal blog. Newsvine is now in my aggregator, so it'll be added to my daily news dump.

Thing 11 - Social Bookmarking

Tagging: I opted to tag my Flickr photos rather than the Blogger entries. Perhaps it’s because most of the posts are similar in nature, or perhaps it’s because my creative mind has not been activated by my Caribou Lite White Latte with a shot of raspberry. Either way, I was not inspired to tag those posts. If I do, they’ll all say TechStuff. Boring. I did tag my pictures in Flickr, because I use those pictures in a number of ways and it’s handy to be able to pull up the ones I need.

I use tags a LOT on a LibraryThing account I set up for my church library. In fact, the physical library is organized around the tags on that site. I believe this site will be featured in another Thing, so I’m not going to spend much time talking about it here, but the tagging function of LibraryThing is awesome. I love using the subject clouds.

I just have to pause a moment because I’m feeling a little fahrklempt (which is a much funnier word when you say it, rather than spell it). Del.icio.us ROCKS!! I’ve been avoiding using it, even though I see it everywhere, because it’s “just one more thing to maintain.” I played with it for a few minutes and fell in love. I like the fact that the buttons are on the toolbar, and you can tag items immediately, rather than having to click through pages to use a site like Foxmarks. I won’t give up Foxmarks because I like having my personal bookmarks follow me around in a familiar interface, but I love the tagging feature on Del.icio.us. I star posts in Google Reader, but it just dumps everything in a pile. I went through all of my starred posts and added tags to them in Del.icio.us. (UPDATE: I LIED!!!! On a hunch, I searched the help files on Google Reader. Lo and behold, it lets you tag posts, and add them to Digg and Delicious. Whoopee!! Jumpin’ up and down. Now I’ll be off to tag my Reader posts for a bit).

The tag cloud in Del.icio.us made me a little woozy – I found some really useful sites in there. This is site is going to be my new best friend. Typing that word over and over is annoying, though. I always forget where the periods go.

For students and teachers, I like Pagekeeper. It’s got a clean interface – Del.icio.us is obviously a free-for-all and most teachers like a little quality control (at least at the elem-middle level). Our media specialists have been amassing lists of links for students, but there are so many more on Pagekeeper. I could see this - if not replacing - greatly enhancing the list of links. It’s also handy to be able to search other teacher’s sites for links, and see how many they have gathered. I, of course, added this to my Del.icio.us bookmarks because it’s so FREAKING COOL. Sorry. Latte time.

I checked out FURL, and it has one feature that I really like – archiving tagged pages. I am debating whether to start an account on FURL, rather than Del.icio.us, but I gave that one such high marks (note previous “FREAKING” tag) that I don’t really want to start over. FURL did lead me to Colbert’s Wikiality – The Truthiness Encyclopedia. That’s a big plus, for sure.

The social bookmarking .pdf was really valuable. The lack of oversight and possible political/personal slant of tags are certainly relevant issues in a library (and I’m thinking about the hours I pained over my graduate cataloging class). Without having used it with students, it’s hard to judge, but these sites seem to offer great productivity enhancement. Or yet another way of killing valuable time strapped obsessively to the intertubes. Whatever.

Thing 10 - Wikis

I have to admit that I am an unabashed user of Wikipedia. I know about the issues surrounding reliability and accuracy, but I have been impressed with the depth of information I've found. The occasional "interesting" edit makes me chuckle, and it's amazing how quickly bad/inappropriate edits are found and corrected. Wikipedia enthusiasts are RABID about the site. The beekeeping wiki shows one downfall or wikis - lack of participation means a dirth of information, and the site is disappointing without an active base of users.

I would discourage kids from using Wikipedia for most current events or controversial topic types of reports (unless the purpose is to analyze content for bias), but some of the old reliable stuff - animal reports, biographies - is covered well on this site. It was interesting to compare the Minnewiki information with the Wikipedia information on Bob Dylan. Wikipedia has much more in-depth information, many endnotes and more off-site links. It's a great catch to find a site about Minnesota musicians, though. I think we have to teach kids to be discerning consumers of information, and banning the use of Wikipedia seems pointless to me. A better practice might be to have students make comparisons of information to determine the reliability of the information they find there - which may be too much work so they would CHOOSE not to use it!

I love the concept of a wiki - open adding and editing of a document, exchanging ideas. It reminds me of being able to cooperatively edit Zoho/Google Docs documents. It seems that a few of the library wikis are more a collection of links in directories, which is fine for pointing out information for "tech-challenged" folks. The St. Joseph County Public Library system and Library Bloggers wikis fit that bill. I don't know if they would be any more beneficial than a good ol' Google search, but I haven't spoken with these folks to see if they value their wikis. The Webjunction article espouses the use of wikis for subject guides, and I have to admit that teachers (and our media specialists) have collections of links we use with kids. Using a wiki is much easier than having to update a website, so I can see how that is valuable. By the way, love that WebJunction site!

I'm much more enthused by the BookLoversWiki. It kind of reminds me of Book Crossing (although that site has a different purpose and is not a wiki) in that people can leave reviews of books. I would love to set up a book review site - in fact, I already know which teacher I want to talk to about it!

This is the wiki I started for favorite books. I still have to think through implementation. I haven't decided whether to just have staff add books, or to open it up to students. I have to think about posting issues. I really like the Zoho apps.

I do like the Library Success wiki because it supports library advocacy, which is an area that we began looking at last year. There's a lot of great stuff on there, and it would be nice to see the school information expanded. There's a blurb at the bottom that a Minnesota media specialist used to gather information, rather than offer information, but in there was a nifty site for teens reviewing books. Good example to start a new wiki from.

We've never been able to encourage media specialists in our district to engage in discussions on forums set up to share ideas. I like the wiki that the Albany staff uses. We have a portal, which seems to work in a similar manner, although it's a little less like a wiki, and more like a "library" in that you check out a document to edit and then check it back in. Still, it's nice to see documents and information listed in one place, rather than having to chase them down.

Last thought: I edited the 23 Things wiki - I added a bit about accessing images on the "Content" page. The red is me:

• For the Flickr assignment, not everyone has a digital camera so some tips on how to use a scanner in a library or private resident would be appreicated - perhaps an overview of image search engines would be valuable also (including copyright issues)
  

Thing 9 - Online Docs

I must be exuding bad karma. I created accounts on both Google Docs and Zoho, but I could not get Google Docs to post to this blog for love or screaming at my laptop. As you can see below, Zoho posted it with the original formatting. I'd have to say that I much prefer Zoho. There are a lot of handy tools, it's much more full-featured than Google Docs, and they have a database! I liked Zoho's export function also. It gave me more control over which blog I wanted to post to.

This is the link to the Google Doc. It's the same document as shown below. I do like the fact that both services export into a number of formats and programs. I'd recommend this for kids who don't have Word - or who have a Mac at home - but PCs at school.

Blogging question: What would the Founding Fathers think?

I think the Founding Fathers would be discouraged that our schools are being financially gutted. (Yep, I'm ona roll...) I would hope they would appreciate being able to hear from the people in such an immediate manner. I don’t know that our CURRENT legislators always appreciate that, but it’s empowering to know that often new technological tools have made a difference.

Posted to this blog from Zoho (not worth reading, unless you're trying to develop middle school library policy. I just think it's cool that Zoho tossed it into my blog):

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Students

Forestview Library/Media Center (LMC)

We welcome students who are respectful to people and property.

LIBRARY HOURS:7:40 AM –3:45 PM. The library is open before and after school for book checkout and independent reading.

AGENDA BOOK: Your agenda book is your pass to the library. You must bring it with you to be admitted to the library. You must sign IN and OUT at the circulation desk and keep the agenda book visible while you are in the library. Misbehavior may result in being sent back to class (teachers will be notified if a student is being sent back.)

BOOK/MAGAZINE CHECK OUT: You may check out up to two books and one magazine. If you have any overdue books, you will not be able to check out a magazine.

The “Don’t’ Do This!” List:

Game playing/IM/chat will not be allowed on any computer in the building.

Backpacks, coats and jackets are not allowed in the LMC.

Keep our computers and library clean! Food and drinks are not allowed in the LMC.

Library Media Center Staff

Ms. Kelly

Media Specialist

Mrs. Bruchhof

Media Secretary

Mrs. Wennerstrand

Media Assistant