Week 11 - #'s 21, 22,23

Do I detect a note of irony in your "great sadness" message? I, too, am tres, tres sad...
Videos and podcasts ahoy!
Love YouTube, with which I am fairly familiar (I've got a crush on Obama.) This assignment did give me an excuse to spend quality time searching for a clip I viewed months ago and was not able to find again. Eureka!!! I found it. I won't tell you what it is, because it's a tiny bit embarrassing. The thing is , I can't remember how I originally came upon this clip, so had to spend some time trying search words/phrases until it surfaced.
For #22, I viewed the video on CommonCraft entitled "Podcasting in plain English." CommonCraft is a useful site, and this segment enlightened me on what POD stands for (personal on demand - who knew?) Anyway, the simple rule of create, subscribe, and take it with you was helpful.
I then went to the podcasting tools portion of the lesson, where I found a directory. I chose religious podcasts, then selected one on discussing questions of faith - agnostic and atheistic. Yes!!! Very interesting.
A summary of my thoughts on Vermont's 23 Things is as follows:
The practice on downloading and uploading photos was valuable. There are a million steps, and they vary, depending on one's computer and its settings and capabilities. This is an example of the more you do it, the more you can remember it. I would say that rule holds true for all computer activities, for me anyway.
I had trouble with the lessons/activities which involved registering or subscribing. For one thing, I simply cannot remember all my user names and passwords. For another thing, there is a limit to how much I want my name and info floating around in cyberspace. As it is, people have tried to track me down using my old stage name, and have succeeded occasionally. This I don't want.
I can see how it would be easy for anyone to get sucked into doing stuff online the live-long day. From a professional standpoint, knowing how to help library patrons get information is necessary and wonderful, but what is the quality of the information they are accessing? Some of the sites I visited were not up to date or the information was of a highly subjective bent. It takes time to sift through all of this stuff, and to make assessments.
In terms of the program itself, I would say (think I mentioned this before) that the lessons take longer than the suggested 15 minutes per.
It was fun, though, seeing how much is out there. Thanks for setting it up, Mara!

Week 10/ #'s 19 & 20

Here is a problem I'm having with the Vermont's 23 Things site. When I click on the highlighted (clickable) site links Mara has given I get an error message: "Easy tiger. This is a 404 page. You are totally in the wrong place." This has happened numerous times. My solution is to get out and go to Google, where I type in something pertinent to the exercise, then find links to sites.

Moving right along - for #19, I went to About.com's spreadsheet page. There I browsed through the Excel 2007 guide, which I found somewhat less than wonderful. It seems to consist of illustrations with no explanatory text. I spent about fifteen minutes clicking through the steps, but the Beginner's book on Excel we have in our collection is much better. I trust that the course offered in WebJunction - if I can register for it - will be superior. I also looked at Yahoo's calendar site, which seems much like Google's.

For #20, I found the Web 2.0 Awards site by googling. I chose the Guides and Reviews category and went to Yelp, the winner in that category. I selected Burlington from the list of cities, and scrolled around in Restaurants, Shopping, and finally Arts & Entertainment, my true area of interest. Results for Burlington were dispiriting: Sunset Drive in - 3 reviews; Echo Center -4 reviews; Made boutique - 1 review; Firehouse Gallery - 1 review; Flynn Theater - 1 review; Ethan allen Homestead - 1 review; Flynn Center for Performing arts - 1 review; Flynn space - 1 review; and Discover Jazz - 2 reviews. I didn't go on to page 2 - too depressing. This is the best we can do in Burlington?!! Perhaps there just aren't enough people in the Burlington area who want to write reviews for this site?

Week 9/ Thing #18

Wikis continued...
On the Vermont's 23 Things Wiki at PBWIKI I added a favorite restaurant to the Favorites page, then linked my blog to the Favorite Blogs page.
On the Wetpaint Wiki I added a favorite book on the Favorite Book page. Whoopee!
I find this is taking quite a bit longer than the suggested 15 minutes per item model. I did not have time to thoroughly peruse all the entries by Vermont librarians. I think I will continue to use the wiki I know best- Wikipedia- for information on the fly. Lack of verifiable empirical evidence notwithstanding, it's a boon. My very favorite "pedia" source is The World Book in hard cover. Nothing like sitting in a chair and holding an actual book, written by actual experts, and edited by actual professionals.
As far as other wikis (and there must be millions by now) I probably won't be able to keep up. Maybe when I retire?

Week 9/ Thing #17

Read Mara's text, then viewed the video. Cute, but what's wrong with emailing or phoning, again? Wiki is wave we must ride?
I use Wikipedia all the time, thus truly related to Colbert's piece. Truth is what we make it!!
Nancy Purl's BookLust site is interesting. I like her on NPR, though don't always share her taste. I was looking for some book discussion repartee, and what was there was okay, but there wasn't much in the way of current commenting or editing. The links to other review sites are current (NYTimes, e.g.) Again, I didn't sign up, though I would certainly suggest the site to a patron if asked. As was noted in Mara's set-up piece, and in Comedy Central's sketch, the validity of what's in a Wiki is far from certain. For that reason, the "pedia" kinds of Wikis, no doubt, are far less reliable than something like Nancy Purl, which is meant to be opinion.
Hadn't given much thought to the "open," as opposed to "closed" wiki. If you knew the provenance of the allowed contributors you would know a lot about the reliability of the site.

Week 8/ Thing #14

Took the tour of the Delicious "learn more" site. "Social bookmarking" is the product, which would enable me to get to my bookmarks from any computer; organize my bookmarks through tagging, as the list grows; and to share my bookmarks and tags with friends and unknown others. I didn't join the site, because I don't want yet another user name and password, and I don't want to share my email address with anyone else, if I can possibly help it. I did find out I can discover the most popular blogs/tags without joining. today's is "How to sen email to any cell phone."
Technocrati doesn't have a tour, but I Googled to find out that it's an "Internet sarch engine for searching blogs, competing with Google and Yahoo." As of June it contains 112 million blogs and 250 thousand tagged social media sites. Yikes. Again, I didn't join.
We do have LibraryThing,, Delicious, Technocrati, et al, bookmarked at our two circ stations, so if I need it to help a patron or myself, I can go there. There was an intriguing ad on Technocrati about how to earn $6000 dollars from a personal blog...wonder what that's about!
Read a few blogs about Library 2.0. New paradigms (remember that term?) do seem to create different opinions. Change - as our president-elect said - is coming. The only question is which change? Is all change benficial? Obama avowed that he isn't against all war - just dumb war. I could use that logic. I'm not against all change - just dumb change.

Week 7/Thing #13

I've been getting an error message when I click on the links in the lesson pages. I then find the sites by Googling or typing in URL's. Wonder why?
Anyway, I found the site for LibraryThing and took the tour. I don't understand it. Why would I want to catalog my books? I don't actually own many; I borrow 'em from the library! As far as reading reviews, I can barely keep up with the New York Times reviews. For my own reading I like to read the Times and The New Yorker and go from there. I can see what new mass audience stuff (fiction & non) is coming in and tell patrons when they inquire, but for the literary novel and important non-fiction I rely on those two sources and NPR.

Week 7/ Thing #12

By now, you've figured out that I am on a rampage. The 23 things have invaded my psyche. My blog now contains my picture on a magazine cover. Not sure how I did it.
On to thing #13