Week 16: Wrap-up Webinars & Final Posting

I most enjoyed finding and learning how to use Library Thing and Shelfi. I least enjoyed the social networking units. In any event I learned a good deal about a lot of different Web 2.0 applications. I certainly would not be afraid to take on a project involving the use of any of the tools we looked at in 23 Things Kansas. Getting through all of the lessons was a bit of a struggle but few things worthwhile in life are not. Following is a week by week recap of parting thoughts, to wit: Week One: Blogging I don't think I'm ever going to become a regular blogger. I have from time to time in my life attempted to keep a diary or journal but these sporadic efforts have always fizzled out. Week Two: Online Communities Facebook is not my cup of tea. As I previously wrote in this blog, I trend towards "Social Interaction Overload" rather easily. I seriously doubt if I will retain my Facebook page after the end of this course. I think the security issues surrounding Facebook are too great. Once they get a handle on these maybe I will reconsider but I doubt it. Week Three: Online Meetings Besides being great for interactive distance learning, Infopeople, SirsiDynix, BCR, Wimba (WebJunction – Kansas) and Opal were all very good archival resources for prior CE sessions. Week Four: Photo Sharing Not being much of a photographer Flickr probably won't be of much use to me in the future. At least not for photos taken by me since I don't even own a digital camera except for the one in my cell phone. Several of my relatives use Flikr rather often so having an account may make it easier to see their photos. Thus, I may hang on to the Flikr account for awhile to test this hypothesis. Week Five: RSS and Feed Readers I'm still not sure if I'm going to be able to make much use of the Google Reader I'm going to have to "play around" with it some more before I make up my mind. I have a terrible time keeping up with the newspapers and magazines I subscribe to. Perhaps, in time using this tool I'll be able to drop some of those subscriptions and save a little dough. Week Six: Tagging and Social Bookmarking I think I'm going to really like using Delicious. I doubt I will use it much for "Social Bookmarking" but I can really see it being handy for accessing my personal bookmarks from any computer anywhere anytime. Week Seven: Microblogging I'm dumping my Twitter account as we speak. Talk about "Social Interaction Overload," this is the most worthless waste of time ever conceived. Well maybe not the most but it has to be in the top ten. Week Eight: Cloud Computing I started using Google Docs to keep files related to various projects I have been working on so that I can get access (assuming you have internet access) from different computers ( home, work, the library, etc.) without having to haul around floppies or flash drives. While I rarely work on anything requiring collaboration any more, I can see how this would be very useful. I'm also using Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta which appears to be very similar to Google Docs. I haven't decided which one I like better yet. Week Nine: Instant Messaging Hate it. Want nothing to do with it. I would rather talk on the phone. And I hate telephones. Week Ten: Video on the Web As I previously wrote in my blog: I am never going to be the next James Cameron but I think if I had to I could (with a decent camera) shoot a video and edit it into something worthwhile. This ability would be most useful in preparing in house training on various circulation and other library procedures. Week 11: Break – Wunderbar! Week 12: Screencasting Like the video on the web tools these tools will be very useful in preparing training materials Week 13: Slide Sharing Ditto my comments from weeks 10 and 12. Week 14: Library Thing, Etc. I really love the Library Thing and Shelfi. I am using them regularly. Without 23 Things Kansas I don't know if I ever would have discovered these great tools. Week 15: Wikis I had been familiar with Wikis for some time before coming to 23 Things Kansas. Never the less, it was interesting to revisit them. Week 16: Wrap-up Webinars I was unable to sit in on either of the wrap-up webinars live. I did however; listen to the archived webinar from Wednesday, April 28 (morning). All in all in sounds like everyone thought this course was well worth the effort. That is a sentiment with which I concur. I am looking forward to trying to get some of the tools we studied implemented in the library where I work.

Week Six: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

I have often been dismayed when at work I wanted to access a particular web page that I had bookmarked on my home computer but could remember its URL exactly or even what its name was.  This often led to an extended Google search to find the web site I was looking for and a great waste of time.  Delicious sounds like it could be a great solution to that problem.  Like our mentor who wrote "the use of the word social made me a little nervous,  I wondered if I was going to have to talk to strangers or mingle."  Since sociability is not my strongest suit, after reviewing the lesson materials and the Delicious website, I was greatly relieved to find out "there is none of that with social bookmarking, and you don't have to be social if you don't want to."  Thus, I hope you will forgive me if I am no more social with my bookmarks than absolutely necessary to accomplish this week's activities.  I registered for an account under the user name and uploaded the bookmarks from my browser.   I could not add the buttons to my browser at work so I'll have to do that later when I have my personal laptop  I have been using delicious regularly for several days now and except for my usual security concerns I like it.  I bookmarked the Purdue Owl APA Formatting and Style Guide  tagged it and sent it to rbrown3.  Finally, I created a tag bundle called Formatting and Style Guide.

Week 15: Wikis

For Activity #1 I elected to edit my hometown's (Derby, KS) page in Wikipedia.  The only thing I edited was a reference in footnote 3 which was in error.  I corrected the name of the magazine from Parenting to Family Circle and inserted a link to the referenced article on the Family Circle website.  I accomplished Activity #2 and here is the link to my 23 Things Kansas wiki page: http://23thingskansas.wetpaint.com/page/Terry+Hamblin.

Week 14: Library Thing, Etc.

I created accounts on Library Thing and Shelfari.  After 14 weeks I think that I've finally discovered something I can really make use of.  I really like the cataloging ability with Library Thing and I really like the "I Plan to Read," "Reading Now" and "I've Read" lists on Shelfari.  It seems to me that these functions are easier to use on Shelfari than on Library Thing.  Since I now have accounts with both I think I will use Library Thing to catalog my own library and Shelfari to keep track of my reading lists.  I look forward to having some "spare time" to play around more with both of these websites.  I wish I had had my personal library cataloged on Library Thing when my house burned back in 2000.  It sure would have made it a lot easier to settle with the insurance company.

Week 13: Slide Sharing

­­­­­­For this week's project I chose http://www.slideshare.net  as my slide sharing website.   In the interest of time I selected an old power point presentation that I created for an MLS class.  After signing up for an account I found it very easy to upload my slide show which can be viewed at http://www.slideshare.net/tdhamblin/a-brief-history-of-law-books-law-libraries.

Week 12: Screencasting

I started working on this week's lesson on a computer at my place of employment, the Derby Public Library.  Since I could not download Jing! to the library's computer I thought I would try  Screentoaster.com.  I am no prude but I must say I was a bit taken aback by the very pornographic "suggested videos" that popped up right under the Screentoaster.com demo screen.  Thus I decided to wait until I could bring in my own laptop and download Jing!  Having done so, I successfully downloaded Jing!   I then sat down and wrote out a script for my screencast along with the screen shots cut and pasted into the script.  Once this was done, after a few false starts, I successfully capture my screencast.  Unfortunately, it was sans audio.  I thought my laptop had an internal microphone but apparently not.  Thus, I was unable to capture my captivating commentary which somewhat diluted the experience when I played the screencast back.  Anyway, I now know how to make a screencast and if I can find a microphone somewhere to use with my laptop I will re-record the screencast with audio and post it.

WEEK 11 BREAK

Nothing to post for week 11.  Yea!