Congrats to our Grads

Our first round of grads, there will be many more to come!

Brian's Library Blog

Debbie Deliberates

Karen's Page

Lyon's Den

Tammy's Library Page

Welchanator

Slacker on Del.ici.ous and Tagging

Jan pointed out that Slacker Manager has a great article on del.ici.ous and tagging.
Outline:

1. Make many marks
2. Sir Tag-A-Lot
3. Use the inbox
4. Mix ‘n match
5. Stalk other users
6. Get it to go
7. Move it around
8. Explore more

for the complete article go here

Suggestion one thing -29

I'm working with Robin to create a list of lessons for Phase Two. You didnt' think you were really done did you? :) Somethings we're thinking about: virtual communities, advanced Flickr, advanced taggin or any of the ideas listed below!

Final Thoughts - lesson 28

Some lessons have definitely been more interesting and/or fun than others. Given how much we're trying to learn and how busy the staff is there often isn't time to deeply explore many of the lessons. We were able to lay a basic foundation for knowledge and learning about each of the areas we touched on and participants will have their blog and the LL2 blog to refer back to if they want to further explore any area. Reading and commenting on the other participants blogs has been a great learning experience and a lot of fun. I'll definitely continue to do so and I'll still be posting here about Web 2.0, Learning 2.0, and Library 2.0 items I come across!

ebooks - lesson 27

Creating my account in NetLibrary was easy, as was locating the books I was looking for. I searched for books on Photoshop and digital photography, separately. I know there always seems to be some talk about "real" books going away and everything being digital. I think it's highly unlikely unless the digital book readers are designed to look and feel more like a "real" book. There is something basically comforting about holding a book in your hands that you're not going to get from reading it a cold machine. That said, digital books make a great supplement to the libraries collection. Books that you wouldn't read from cover to cover (reference type) can easily be accessed at home to learn how to do that Photoshop edit without going into the library and checking out the book. How convenient!

Podcasting #26

This maybe my least favorite of all the lessons. I "get" podcasting, I just can't get into listening to them. I like audio books so I don't think it's the format, maybe the content? I know of several knitting podcasts that are really popular (Cast On, Lime & Violet) and I've tried to listen to them, but just can't get into them. Maybe a different subject? If you've got a suggestion I'd love to hear it!

That said, I do see the usefulness of them. Essentially with very little money invested anyone can publish their podcast about anything they like. Many of the same advantages blogs have.

You Tube - lesson 25

The MP3 Players are here!

Yep the MP3 players are here! We ended up getting a different brand that we had first selected but the functions are the same. I'm going to use this post as an MP3 player facts to answer some of the questions I've gotten about the players. Please feel free to ask questions either in person, sent email or leave a comment!

We ended up with the Creative Zen Nano Plus in blue. You can read Amazon reviews and comments about it here.

• 1GB Capacity¹ - stores up to 500 songs
• Directly record music from any audio source with line-in
• Tune in to 32 stations and record voice memos with built-in microphone
• Fast music transfer with USB 2.0 interface
• Simple drag and drop music and data files, no software needed
• Store data files such as photos and presentations
• Reversible LCD for left or right handed operation
• 4 Band EQ (Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock) - settings to make your music sound better
• Weight: 0.8 oz without battery
• Up to 18 hrs of battery life

Frequently Asked Questions:

Does it allow you to create folders or playlists?

• Yes it does. You can create and name folders anything you want using Windows Explorer.

If you're listening to a book on tape and turn it off, does it bookmark the spot so when you turn it back on you're right where you left off.

• Yes it does. However if the battery dies I don't think this feature would work.

Get an email when you get a comment

A couple people have asked me how to do this. You've got your blog, people are leaving comments but you often don't notice until days or weeks after and you don't like that. You can set up your blog to send you an email when someone leaves a comment. Here's how:

1. Sign into your blog
2. click on "Settings"
3. click on "Comments"
4. scroll down to the line that says "comment notification address" enter the email address you want to receive a notification email at
5. click "save settings"

You'll receive an email each time you get a comment.

Lesson 23 Google Labs

One of my favorite tools in Google Labs is Page Creator, it's a simple WYSIWYG webpage creator. You get 100 mb of space for free. No paying someone to host your site, no complicated software to learn, no address to register. It's free and in 5 minutes anyone can have a site up, all you need is your Gmail login. My website created with Google Page creator. I've been using this for my personal webpage since it came out months ago. They've made some great improvements and I'm surprised it hasn't graduated from Labs.

Google Reader looks interesting, I'm definitely going to take some time to play with it, especially since Robin mentioned the tagging aspect of it. Of course it's so new that it wasn't even available when we were designing this program!

I'm also going to be investigating Notebook too.

Lesson 21 - Online applications

I've been using a number of the online applications from google for awhile now. I've used Docs at two training classes where a computer with internet access is available to take notes. Robin and I have collaborated on a number of documents. The collaboration aspect is great because you don't have to worry about everyone having the same software or version of the software, you can see the revisions made and who made them, and easily revert to an earlier version if need be. Plus you can save your document as a PDF.

Lesson 19. Explore search engines

Mooter was the most interesting search engine. I like how the clusters display basically helping you narrow down your search. I think it would take some getting used to. I think my favorite new to me one would be Kartoo. I really like the visual mapping of the sites and keywords. I'm definitely going to spend some times playing with it. One thing I noticed on all the search engines I looked at is they have "sponsored" or paid links show up. While I'm all for businesses being allowed to advertise I think most people don't realize that "sponsored" means advertisement.

Lesson 20 - Library 2.0

Ask me what Learning2.0 is and I can tell you. At least you better hope I can since I helped design this whole program based on it. But ask me what Library2.0 is and I'm not sure I can be as concise. I have an definition, I have a lot of definitions, that's the problem. There are so many definitions of Library2.0 out there it's hard to decide which one(s) are correct or which one(s) I buy into I guess. I get the idea of it. I think. I found this paper to be very helpful and interesting read. Of course at 30 pages, its not concise, you're not going to get a definition in a nutshell, but you might get some new insight.

State visited - week 7

get your own map

comment management

I noticed some of our participants are having problems with spam comments on their blogs. You can help prevent this by turning "word verification"

1. Sign into your blog



2. Go to your "dashboard"



3. click on the "settings" tab



4. click on "comments"



5. scroll down



6. where it says "show word verification for comments" select "yes"



7. scroll to the bottom of the page and save settings

While you're on that page you can also enter an email address so that you'll recieve an email when someone leaves a comment on your blog. Be sure to save settings when done

image generators - wk 7

Make your own

RSS - wk 6

I have been using Bloglines for awhile now. I have to say that using feed reader saves a lot of time. Rather than book marking all the sites I like to look at and visiting them everyday to see if there is something new I can just go to one place – Bloglines. I have 192 feeds in my Bloglines account. I also take advantage of the folders options and have folders for library, knitting, friends and for the participants in this tutorial! It makes it so easy to see when anyone posts something new and helps me respond in a timely manner. I really don’t know what I would do without it! It’s a great tool for library staff to follow the great library blogs out there!

week 5 flickr mashups

I made the trading card for my mash-up. Fun and so easy to do!

Wk 5 Flickr

I’ve been using flickr for my personal photos for about 6 months. I even upgraded to a pro account. Pictures hosted on flickr work great with my blog and I really like how easy it is to share them with family and friends, and they can even leave comments if they have a flickr account! I tag all of my pictures with the month and year they were taken plus with the subject. It’s so handy if I’m looking for a picture of my dogs, all I have to do is click on the tag for their name and all of their pictures are right there.