Facebook!

I have been on Facebook for a few years. I love it. It can become somewhat of an addiction, but I have tried to not let it get to that point. I have found a lot of old friends from high school and new ones. I love that Goodreads links to my profile, so that I can share the latest books I'm reading. Putting pics up (for only my friends to see) is a great way to let people see what's going on in your life. I also love seeing other people's pics also, what a fun way to stay connected. Facebook has fun quizzes and applications you can add. I'm sure there's much more to Facebook that I don't even know about, but for the purpose I use it for, it's great. I recommend everyone getting a profile, it's really simple! (I even got my Mom of Facebook!).

My Summary

I was interested in doing this program when I first heard about because I knew there was so much out there on the web that I did not know about. But as it progressed, I found it harder to stay on track. The slow Tuesday nights at DP were a good time for me to catch up. Overall, I have found bloglines by far the most useful for me, personally. I now have a blog, which I never thought I would have, I can find images of flickr, roll my own search on Rollyo, catalog my books on Goodreads (which I prefer over LibraryThing) and much more. It was definitely worth the time that I have put into learning 2.0.

Dowloadable Audiobooks

Downloadable Audiobooks...are something I have never done. I have now read through the tutorials and know how to do, but since I'm lacking an mp3 player or CD discs I am not going to be able to actually complete the process. But in general, I love audiobooks. I have started listening to them last summer when I wanted to tackle the Harry Potter series, and Jim Dale was a hard act to follow. All the other audiobooks have paled in comparison, but I still listen. It's a nice way for me to read children/teen books on the long drive up to DP twice a week since those books are usually simpler to follow. If the plot is too complex, I find it hard to concentrate and drive at the same time. I know many customers love our downloadable audiobooks, and my only wish is that they could download them in the actual library.

Podcasts

I've never listened to podcasts before, so this was something new to me. There's no way I would sit with headphones for an hour and just listen to something on my computer, but that's just me. I found a podcast that was under the "fiction" and it was old time radio drama's. That was pretty neat. Here's the link:http://fiction.podcast.com/show/8818/Old-Time-Radio-Nostalgia/

Libraries could use this tool to do instructional podcasts on topics like how to place a hold online, or what's needed to get a library card. I could see this a very useful tool for the library.

Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZHoHaAYHq8- This is the link to "Conan the Librarian" video I found on youtube. I love youtube. I have found really great math tutorials from actual teachers and professors. You can use youtube as a radio, by looking up a music video to listen to or watch television shows and movies. There's so many options, not all are good! But overall Youtube is a really great tool to find things in live video format.

#19 Award Winners

I looked at the winners and was interested to see that some of the other learning 2.0 things we have previously learned about were on the list like Flickr, Delicious and Google Docs. Cocktail Builder was fun, but not really applicable to libraries along with Im Cooked, which I really loved because I love collecting recipes and video recipes are even cooler. The one that I thought would be most useful to libraries was the Revolution Health. This website is very easy to use and the articles are from mayoclinic.com and clevelandclinic.com, which are reputable sources. I would think that the way the library could utilize this tool would be to add it in our web picks section under health.

Google Docs

Currently I am using Google Docs for two different things. I set up a Google Docs to keep track of my workouts. I haven't really updated it since January, but when I was using it, I liked the idea that I could add things to it from any computer that I was using. I am also using Google Docs to put in the miles that my team is doing for the EWU Ironman challenge. Everyone submits their miles and they are added to a Google Doc. It seems to work really well.

http://www.eagleironmanchallenge.com/summary This is the link to Ironman Google Doc.

Wiki's

I'm pretty sure everyone knows about Wikipedia...the usefulness and dangers of it. The idea of a wiki, something anyone can add too without having to know how to write code, is a fantastic idea...in theory. As one of the tutorials said, "If you're a control freak, wiki's might not be for you." And I feel that I may slightly fall into that category. The idea of anyone being able to add what they want is a little frightening to me. I'm not sure if they have ways where you can decide who becomes a member to be able to post, I really don't know the logistics of setting a wiki up. But I can also see the usefulness of these. Collaborating on a specific subject with other people that hold that same interest can really be a great resource. I feel that this would be a great way to set up reader's advisory lists, by actually letting the customers add the books that they enjoyed to a specific genre list.

Learning/Web 2.0

Wow, I haven't posted in a while...shame on me. Well I'm on # 15 and I will now write my response to the articles I read pertaining to learning 2.0/web 2.0. Reading these articles reminded me of just how much we do rely on this technology now to aid us in our jobs. I feel that it is important to keep the library "human" as one of the articles said, because that is one of the reasons libraries have been around so long. It is a place people can come to to interact, learn, enjoy a storytime and talk about books. Learning 2.0 will let us serve our customers in many new ways, but we must keep the human side to it.

Thing #14

Technorati...basically a search engine for blogs. I can see that if you are really interested in blogs this could be a useful tool...but I'm not. You can search through keyword or tags, which are subjects people attach to their blogs. It's interesting to explore the most popular searches tool because you can start reading about topics you would have never thought of looking up.

Delicious

So I have finally learned about Delicious. I really had no idea what it was before that tutorial. It's kind of like bloglines...but for websites instead of blogs. (I think). Anyway, I can see how that would be useful to access on any computer.

strange

I just saw that I am a follower of my own blog...that is strange. I don't know how that happened!

Rollyo

My Rollyo search is all about finding recipes; something I do a lot online. I added four websites I use a lot. I feel that this could come in handy when you are searching a specific subject/field in depth or that you need multiple sources for a specific subject. The link to my Rollyo is: http://www.rollyo.com/search.html?q=cheesecake&sid=515075

Librarything

I started my librarything account about a year ago and never really used it. I found www.goodreads.com and liked their format a lot more. But I added five books to my librarything account and here's the link: http://www.librarything.com/profile/cam_1986

Library Thing

I started an account with Librarything about a year ago and have very rarely used it. The book catologing website I use now is Goodreads. I really enjoy it.

URL

Here's the URL for the Image Generator I used.

http://dummies.book.cover.txt2pic.com/

Image Generator

Here's my Image I created. I don't have the best creativity so this assignment wasn't one of my favorites. But it's good to know these things exist. I did have trouble getting the image into my blog, so Christina helped me by telling me to just save it to the desktop first.

Oops

http://www.bloglines.com/public/Crystal2100

This actually the link to my Bloglines, I had to go in and change my privacy settings first.

RSS Feeds

http://www.bloglines.com/public/USERNAME

So that is my public link to my Bloglines account. Hopefully that worked...Anyway, I love the concept of RSS feeds and Bloglines. It keeps all of your favorite blogs and websites in one convenient spot, but it also overwhelms me. Now I feel obligated to keep up with all of this information. There's just so much that the internet offers, it's hard to take advantage of it all. Overall I really like bloglines, and once I cut mine down to a managable size I will feel more at peace with it. Ha!

Hmmm....

So I thought I had the picture attached to the blog...but that didn't seem to work. So here's the URL to see the pic of Prague.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ediweissmann/3232344378/

Flickr

So I have been playing around on Flickr. The "interesting/last 7 days" search is really a neat way to see some random pics. I love photography so I think this site is great. It's definitely all about the organization! The picture I picked is a view of Prague. Out of all the cities in the world, this is the one I want to visit most!

I would say the hardest habit for me would be "view problems as challenges," because sometimes problems frustrate me and it's hard to view them in a positive, constructive way. I would say that "play" would be the easiest habit because messing around on the Internet can be a lot of fun!

So this is my first post ever on a blog. I'm a total beginner, so I'm glad that SCLD has decided to introduce us to this 2.0 world.