Week 9 Thing 23

Maryland 23 was fun. I feel like I was exposed to a lot of new things, which was wonderful. My biggest challenge was fitting in the time to work on it. We had a cram session last Friday and that helped me quite a bit. A bunch of us got together after the library closed to the public and worked for several hours.

My favorite things were creating a character, the Delicious site to hold all my links and playing around on Utube.

I think this program is definately worth doing. Even if I can't remember every single thing I did, I was at least exposed to them and now know something about them. Thank you to everyone behind the program and helping us get through the rough spots.

Week 9 Thing 20 (again)

I was finally able to get onto Utube. I watched several Muppet clips. There is nothing like that group of fuzzballs. I watched an old clip with Johnny Cash singing Ghost Riders in the Sky. Gonzo came riding out on a cow singing Yipee Yi Oh, Yipee Yi Aaaa. It was great!

I'm not watching a clip of Hugh Jackman performing at the Tony's. He's so talented. The man can sing, dance and play the wolverine. What more could he do?

Week 9 thing 22

I'm on section 12 of the Overdrive tutorial. I wish I had known about this months ago when I was trying to help a customer on the phone. This is a great tutorial.

I'm going to spend some time next looking at titles that are available. Once I get my craft room set up with my computer, this could be a good resource for me. I could download audio books to listen to while I'm working. I like the bookmark feature. Right now I use a small cd player to listen to books on CD. I usually listen to the entire CD at one time thought because it is too difficult to try to find the location where you left off.

I noticed you can download graphic novels. Now, that I think could be interesting to listen to. All those voices - I wonder if each voice is done by a different person or one narrator.

Project Gutenburg seems like a great idea. I'm looking at it right now. I can't figure out how to create an account, but they have tons of titles. I also like that for some there is a link to Wikipedia. Although you can't always rely on the information in Wikipedia, at least it may give you some idea as to what the author writes or is known for.

I just downloaded a copy of Call of the Wild from Project Gutenburg. I downloaded a written copy first. Then I tried the audio version. Somehow it jumped right to chapter two when the computer was reading it. I'm not sure I did it correctly.

I'm back on the desk so I have to sign off.

Week 9 thing 21 (and a little of 20)

It is very cool to listen to a children's book being read via a podcast. I checked out the Denver Public Library's stories for kids via podcasts. What a neat idea. The one thing I could not tell is if the entire book is on the podcast or not. I wasn't familiar with the story so I couldn't tell.

I also watched a really bad Utube video (I was able to get on) of Harry and the Potters. The audio was pretty inaudible.

I checked out the 2007 Poetry Slam at the Kankakee Library. That was a great idea. I think teens would really be into participating in a poetry slam or even an open mic night if they knew it would be on the internet. I also got some good ideas from the slam that we could use with out teens.

I went to Podcast.net and tried to listen to a podcast about Disney, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm not sure what I did wrong.

Week 9 thing 20

NOTE: Videos, like music downloads, are bandwidth hogs. It is recommended that you complete this exercise during light internet usage times. If you encounter a problem, try again at a different time of day.


That is the truth. I tried to get on Utube around 1:30 today and couldn't. I'll try back at another time. I have seen the Azalea goes to the library video on Utube in the past, so I've had a bit of a look at it.

Week 18, thing 19

The second site from the web 2.0 awards I checked out was Etsy. It's a showcase for handcrafted item. Wow, what a goldmine. It's like being at an online craft fair. I enjoyed checking out this community of crafters.

Week 8 thing 19

OK, I decided to check out the games link on the Web 2.0 words. I checked out Guess-The-Google. A bunch of images are shown and you have to decide what was typed into Google image to get those photos back.

I played a round and did terribly the first half. I think it must have thought I was dumb because all of a sudden it started getting easier. Anyway it was fun and my final score was 161.

Week 8 thing 18

I now have an account with Zoho writer. I pasted into a blank document a poem I used in a storytime about frogs just so I could see how it all works. I saw how to share if I want to later on.

I'm still leary about having my document on a saving device that is not on my computer - or maybe I'm having a problem with the fact that the place saving it I can't insert on my computer or visually see saved on my hard drive.

Week 8 thing 18

I just listened to the podcast on web based productivity applications. Then I looked at zoho writer and watched a video on google writer. One thing stood out in my mind and I wanted to get it on my blog before I go out on the desk and forget.

I understand about posting the document on the web so invited folks can read it and make edits (if allowed). Maybe this is a control thing on my end, but your document is now on someone else's server rather than a hard drive, disc or thumb drive. What if that server is unavailable or say google looses your file? Wouldn't it make more sense to have your documents on your own saving device? I guess I'm a little skeptical about handing over my document to a service that is in cyberspace.

Once I'm off the desk, I'll come backto thing 18 again and continue exploring. I just needed to get those thoughts down.

Week 7 thing 17

I have to laugh, because it took me 2 tries and help from Christina to understand where the comment I entered ended up on the Maryland Libraries Sandbox. I think I ended up posting my favorites at the bottom of someone elses. Luckily I did find it and deleted it.

Eventually I figured out how to add a comment to the Baltimore County wiki and to add my blog address to the list of favorite blogs. Thanks Christina!! It was fun reading about other staff's favorite things.

http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/Amie%27s%20Favorites (in case I can't locate it later)

Week 7, thing 16

Because I just finished LATI, wiki's are not a foreign thing to me. It feels nice to say that this is one thing in MD 23 that was not new to me : ) I was introduced to them in LATI since most of our work and communication was done on line.

To me, wikis are almost like blogs that everybody can use and add to instead of just the owner. It's a way to communicate in one place as apposed to email. I'm not sure I see in for libraries just yet. I think it could make a great community bulletin board to post events and happenings. Maybe that could be somehow tied into the library website????

I looked at some of the wikis of other library systems. I want to go back and look at a couple of more to get a better understanding of how they are using them.

Week 6 think 14

I just finished checking out Technorati. I wasn't all that impressed. It looks like a place to search other people's blogs, but only if they've allowed other people to see them. I'm not comfortable putting mine out for the public by adding html for the spider's to search.

I did enter the mdlearn2 to see what others had said about the Maryland 23 program. I saw a few finished blogs. From what they wrote, it is going to be a great feeling to have completed all 23 things. I'm still working to get there.

Week 6 thing 13

http://del.icio.us/alee1974

I tried out the site del.icio.us . I listened to the podcast and could not figure out we would need to use this site. I asked Paula and she showed me how she has hers set up. Basically this site creates a "favorites" list that you can access on any computer. Ah, the light turned on and now I can understand the purpose behind delicious. The link for my account is above. I added so far links for stamped card ideas and sites for comfortable shoes that I've purched in the past.

Week 5 thing 12

Yup, I'm still working on week 5. Today I set up a Rollyo on scrapbooking. http://rollyo.com/kermit1974/

I think this tool can be useful if you have a favorites box full of links on one topic. This tool condenses all the links into one location under one topic.

Week 5 thing 11

http://www.librarything.com/jswidget.php?reporton=alee1974&show=random&header=1&num=5&covers=small&text=all&tag=alltags&css=1&style=1&charset=&version=1

Above is the link for my LibraryThing. It's not pretty. I thought there was a nicer way to attach the link, but I haven't figured it out yet.

I have my account set up with LibraryThing, but I have'nt entered any books yet. I'm due back on the desk in 5 minutes so I'll have to come back to it later. My plan is to use LibraryThing to keep track of books I have read. Since I'm not really a book buyer, I probably wouldn't have many to put on, so I think creating a list of books I have read is a better option for me.

Week 5 Thing 10

Wow! What a cool thing to play with. I really liked creating my own avatar. I had fun picking out the different things to wear and the various pets you can have. Picking out the backround was hard - there are so many.

Now I'm going to see if I can put my avatar into some kind of graphic or photo.

Week 4 thing 9

Tonight I checked out Merlin. It took me several tries and the help from Christina to paste the RSS link into my newsreader. I'm not sure if I'm even using the correct lingo. Anyway, I was able to find my way back to my newsreader page on yahoo after I logged in - that was a good thing since I was worried about it.

So far I see Merlin as a way to ask questions and get a forum going. At this point, I don't see a use for it for me just yet. I'll keep checking it out though and see what else it offers.

Week 4, thing 8

Wow! I found a Muppets podcast. I added it to my Bloglines newsreader on Yahoo. I also signed up for the Library Journal newsreader and a scrapbooking newsreader. It took me a while to figure out how to do it and honestly, I'm not quite sure how to get back to my yahoo page where my newsreaders are located.

I'm listening to the Muppet podcast right now - it is truly amazing.

Hopefully this will be a fun way to get news on library stuff, scrapbooking and the Muppets.

Week 3 Thing 5, 6 & 7

OK, Robin worked with me and I got the trading card posted. It's on the site and not with the text, but at least I got it there. I learned that I have to go to template and then to page element to add a graphic to the blog.


Take 2

Hopefully this one will post correctly. I'm trying to attach a charcater I created on the M & M site, but it is not working properly.

Anyhow, I looked at flicker mashups and 3rd party sites. Not wanting to post a photo of myself, I decided to create a character on the M & M site and post it instead. I also used it for my trading card.

Week 3 Photos & Images

Thing 5 I am currently looking at Flickr and taking the tour. I'm learning about the different ways to set up the photos - collections, sets and the organizr (I hate that they can't use correct language). It looks pretty simple to set the security level on the photos to prevent people from seeing your photos or to allow people to see your photos.

Personally, I'm a snapfish and shutterfly user when it comes to digital photos. With those programs you upload the photos and then send notice to those you want to share them with. The photos can never be seen by the public.

There are links all over Flickr. I feel like the page is one giant maze with about a billion places to turn. I'm forever clicking on the back button so I can go back to where I started. In some ways it is overwhelming.

I'm back on the desk, so I'll log off now.

Week Two Thing 4

Thus far I have set up my blog, viewed the pointers from lifelong learners, added my first post and added a few photos of Kermit the Frog, registered my blog and am attempting to track my progress.

Today I printed off the BCPL version of the MD 23 things so I can use it as a checklist. I was using the tracking log, but a co-worker told me ours was different and we didn't need to use it. So I'm going to try the BCPL version. ( I played with colors and fonts this week too ; )

Thing 2 - lifelong learning

I just finished watching the tutorial for 7 1/2 Habits of lifelong learning. I'd have to say one of my strongest is reading. I like to read to learn new things. I'm a visual learning though, so to really "get" what I'm trying to learn, it helps to see what I'm learning.

I also like having tools. I'm a scrapbooker and I have lots of tools to create my pages. From punches to cutters to fancy edged scissors to cool paints and markers - I have it all.

Week 2 Things 1 & 3

So, today I set up my blog. I immediately messed it up by clicking the wrong thing. But I managed to get back on track and even posted 2 photos of Kermit the Frog on my site. Woo Hoo! Onward!!