Reflection

I am always humbled whenever a student knows more about something technological than me. This program was an opportunity to better understand 2.0 technologies. Some of the "things" I was already using or had used in the past, like YouTube, IM, wikis, podcasts, blogs, Flickr... In these cases, the "thing" was a refresher or gave me new insight into how I could use it in the library environment. Some of the "things" I personally did not like. I am not, for example, likely to visit Twitter very often. However, I felt it important that I know what it is and how it works so I can better understand the mainstream. A few of the "things" I've wanted to explore for a while, but never got around to until now- like Facebook and Delicious. I didn't think I had enough time for Facebook, but I've learned that it makes keeping in touch very efficient. I will definitely keep up with my Delicious account- I'm adding and tagging websites all the time. The image generators were a lot of fun. I used one to create an image for our school library website. Some of the other "things" I didn't see a need for now, but filed away the information for later. One technology that was not on the list was widgets- like Animoto. This might be something to consider for the future.

My Own 23 Things

When I began this program, I was working in a high school library. Now I am about to open a new elementary school library. I could certainly adapt the 23 things to both scenarios. Many school librarians offer professional development to staff. Many of the 23 things would be very useful for teachers, who, in turn, could pass the learning on to their students. In teaching these "things" to teachers, we are also helping them to better understand the students who already use these technologies. Were I still at the high school level, I would pass the knowledge on to my two co-workers. At the elementary level, I will pass it on to teachers during staff development and to students during weekly lessons. Sometime during this year, I will probably cover blogging, wikis, tagging/Delicious, image editors/generators and podcasting in some capacity.

Podcasts

I've never been a huge fan of podcasts. I had a professor who gave a few podcast lectures and I didn't seem to get as much from them. I guess that I'm just not an auditory learner, which I realize does not reflect the rest of the world. I was not very impressed with the school library podcasts- some were taking forever to load, some were missing altogether. One school library had some audio trailers for books that appeared to be recorded by students. The quality was okay. I moved on to the other library podcasts. Sunnyvale had a good quality lecture on podcast. (I didn't listen to all 75 minutes.) The storytelling podcasts from the Orange County Library were also good quality and I could see myself using something like this in my school library. I skipped over some of the technical podcasts. A special exhibit at one library was described in a podcast. I've seen similar usage of podcasts at museums. My overall feeling on podcasts is that audio is more effective when paired with something visual in most cases. We have the technology to do both, so podcasts seem a little outdated.

You Tube

The first time I went to You Tube was probably a few years ago and I've continued to visit every once in a while. The last time, my daughter and I were looking at trailers for the latest Harry Potter movie. To be honest, I never looked up library stuff until this week. I started out with a book cart drill team performance. I thought the song ("I Want to be a Librarian" by Haunted Love) featured in the performance was a crack-up, so I looked up the video. I went on to watch a few trailers- for txshare, for a school library, for databases... I thought one library tour I watched was a good idea and I enjoyed a library contest submission. There were a number of interviews- I watched one with Stephenie Meyer at TLA. There were clips from a game in which I'm guessing the objective is to annoy the librarian. (Many of the clips enforce the librarian stereotype.) You Tube is potentially a very useful tool, but you would have to let people know where to find anything that you've uploaded- on your webpage, newsletter, etc. because people aren't likely to happen upon it serendipitously. Because of copyright and legal issues with posting pictures of students online, I would be leery to create something of my own and put it out there for the whole world to see. For professional development and instructional purposes, I would use the mini tutorials. I saw a Facts on File database tutorial, for example. This is particularly helpful with your visual learners. When I'm struggling with something, I might check You Tube for help from now on.

Google Docs

For the most part, Google Docs is comparable to Microsoft Office, but with perhaps a few less bells and whistles. I would have to use more advanced applications in order to make a fair comparison. My documents tend to be fairly straightforward, so I could easily use Google Docs for my own purposes. It might also be more efficient to use the templates created by other users- over time there will be far more templates shared through Google Docs than offered through Microsoft. Google Docs would be great for library patrons who don't have a computer at home. They could save their documents and access them wherever they go for Internet access. Because our Internet goes down every so often, I like having the software on my computer so I can save documents to my hard drive just in case. I like the ability to easily share docs, but I don't think adding an email attachment is that big of an inconvenience. The only thing on Google Docs that I'm fairly certain I will use is the forms- very cool, especially since it can compile the data on a spreadsheet for you in real time.

Wikis

I have a love-hate relationship with Wikipedia. It is a useful resource for certain, but students treat it as an authoritative site way too often. Some people don't realize that it can be modified by anybody. I was working at a high school and a geography teacher (& coach) was allowing his students to use it for a research project. He appeared genuinely ignorant when I explained the nature of wikis and suggested some alternative sites better suited for the task. Don't get me wrong- wikis definitely have a place in education. I recently attended a workshop on library 2.0 technologies where the instructor posted most of the workshop information on a wiki. We could go to the wiki and modify some of the samples set up there or refer back to it later. A class could create a wiki for a particular project or assignment and everybody could take some ownership of the final product. When I went to Wikipedia today, I looked up "gerbil" for my daughter who wants to get one as a pet. I was paying more attention and noticed that the content was peppered with dispute and lack of reference notations. When I checked the discussion, there were some rather inappropriate comments. Under "view source" it said that the page was semi-protected to prevent vandalism, so apparently there have been some problems with this particular page. If you want students to appreciate how inexpert Wikipedia can be, checking the discussion is very enlightening. The page was rated "B," which is interesting because I didn't realize that pages were graded. My overall feeling on wikis is that they have a lot of potential, but should be used with caution.

LibWorm

When initially reading about LibWorm on the N. TX blog and "About LibWorm," I was pretty excited- this might be where I'd find those school librarian blogs I was looking for earlier. Once I started doing some actual searches however, I was a little disappointed. If I were looking for a particular book review, for example, I could find what I wanted pretty easily. But when I started looking for particular lesson information, I only came across some very general information. I did come across some cool stuff serendipitously. I found a feed that had a link to a cool hoax site that would be useful for teaching website evaluation. When I started skimming the school libraries feed category, I found more useful stuff, but not necessarily what I was looking for when I set out. FYI- I thought the "What is RSS" description was very good and would have been useful in explaining Thing 7.

LibraryThing

I had heard about LibraryThing before, but never got around to looking it up online. It is a potentially useful site for librarians and book lovers alike. After creating an account and exploring a while, I added my MLS text books and tagged them by pulling key words and phrases from the tables of contents. (Click here to see my books.) This is one of the 23 things that I will continue to use after we are finished exploring them all. There are a lot of cool features on this site, even though I will probably never use many of them and I have a hard time understanding a few. I wonder what additional features are provided if you pay for the upgrade.

Digg

When I go online, one of the first things I do is check the news, usually on Yahoo. Because I'm often crunched for time, sometimes I just read the headlines. (At least this way I won't be totally unconnected to the world.) I like the idea of this site, but not enough to sign up. Because sources can be from anywhere on the web (Twitter, for example), they may not be reliable or authoritative. While the AP makes mistakes sometimes, I feel like I can trust most of what I read. I would therefore have to take many of these news stories with a grain of salt. If you were someone who really wanted to be on top of pop culture, this site is a good barometer of mainstream society. The "upcoming" feature makes it a potentially good source for breaking news. I also found some of the "offbeat" stories amusing. I'm glad to know of this site, but I'm too busy to search for stories myself. The premise of this website reminded me of a young adult novel I read a while back (Extras by Scott Westerfeld) in which people in the future live in a "reputation economy." The more the main character can break cool news stories, the more her popularity rank increases. This leads to some trouble, of course.

Delicious

This site is exactly what I was looking for- I love it! After figuring out the basics, I went to town bookmarking the sites in my "favorites." Then I searched other people's bookmarks and saved some of those. Because it is accessible from any computer with Internet access, the possibilities are endless. Because the entries are tagged in a way that is meaningful to you, it is easy to retrieve the sites you want. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to combine multiple words in a tag. For example, I want "search engine" to pull up together (not "search" and "engine"). You could always omit the space ("searchengine"), but that bugs me. I noticed someone else solved that problem by doing this "search_engine." Click here for my bookmarks.

Tagging

I went ahead and tagged my photos in Flickr for fun. I'm an advocate of tagging and natural language searches. Your average library patron knows little if anything about controlled vocabularies and will give up a search if the terms used do not match the appropriate subject heading. Ideally, tags and controlled vocabularies can work together. Most folks like and understand the Google-type search, so libraries and catalogs should incorporate both. In a way, we use tagging in our school catalog. If students are not pulling up an item we know would be relevant using their search terms, we go into the record and add those terms to the content notes or summary so they are accessible. The problem with this method is that you end up retrieving more irrelevant items when you add terms at random like this. With our small collection, it isn't a problem. With a big collection, however, the results list might be too overwhelming to sift through. Folksonomies are obviously more wrought with inaccuracy and bias, but the pros probably still outweigh the cons.

Twitter

Unless you happen to be at your computer or carrying a cell with texting capability, Twitter isn't always about what is going on right now. I heard about Twitter before I really knew what it was, which (sadly) wasn't all that long ago. Another librarian gave me the gist of it, though she didn't tweet either. I learned more about it when I read an article on the merits of Twitter in a magazine (the title of which I have since forgotten). Anyway, I watched the video on the Twitter site before I did anything else- a concise summary of features. I fiddled with my settings, then went searching. I found another N. TX 23 participant and sent her a reply (Hi Rebecca!). I noticed that a lot of folks either have no picture or something else in its stead- an icon, anime drawing... There were a lot of groups (corporations/organizations) in addition to individuals. I like that the posts on Twitter are limited to 140 characters (but why that #?) because it forces you to economize on words, making it easier for the reader. It has a number of potential uses in the workplace. Only one employee can go to the conference or meeting? No problem- that person can tweet what is going on to the folks back at the office (or library in my case). Yes, it could get out of control, but it isn't a good idea to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one either. (Click here for my Twitter URL.)

Instant Messaging

IM isn't a particularly new technology. I used to IM my husband (10?) years ago, but stopped doing it because we haven't had the need since he's not traveling so much. My husband IMs our daughters from work, so I went ahead and signed up with MSN in order to be able to IM in their network. (librarybridge@live.com) IM is a great tool, if you have use for it. School librarians (particularly at the elementary school level) often work in isolation. If the other librarians in the district were all in the same IM network, they could IM one another with quick questions throughout the day. It is more time efficient than waiting for email responses. I like the abbeviation dictionary- useful for texting as well.

Ning

I'm not going to open a Ning account at this time. It isn't that I'm against technology or personal growth through social networking- it's more about privacy and commitment. Do I want my information out there? Do I have enough time to devote to establishing and maintaining these connections in a way that adds value at either end? The answer is (currently, anyway) no to both. I do recognize the value, the usefulness of these tools. That being said, I had a few thoughts as I explored this "thing." During the tutorial, it was a good idea to point out the privacy default settings. It's a little shady how the default is set for minimal privacy. If you were careless in setting up your account, you could end up more exposed then you intended. I did various searches on topics of interest. Because I'm considering the purchase of a pair of library guinea pigs, I searched "guinea pigs." At least one of the networks appeared to be established by a minor. It just goes to show that pretty much anybody could join these networks and it pays to be cautious. There was a Texas School Librarians network that looked interesting. Some of the bigger networks are a little overwhelming. How personal can a network with 20,000 members possibly be? Having specialized groups within networks alleviates this problem to a certain extent, but makes everything a little more complicated. Besides the privacy and commitment issues, I wonder if there is some other reason I'm not interested in social networks. It is sort of like armchair warriors- watching TV instead of actually engaging in the activity. It doesn't seem very real.

More Facebook

Still a little uncomfortable, I fiddled with the privacy settings until I didn't feel like I was hanging all my lingerie out to dry in the front yard. I already had three friends when I signed up, so I manually requested a few more- my best friend, sister-in-law, sorority sister... I became a fan of running and joined ALA, TLA and the chapter of my college sorority. I wrote an introductory statement on my wall and then another that included a link to ALA's Great Web Sites for Kids. I took a walk down memory lane while searching for old classmates. I have weird feelings about this whole thing. I can't control what my "friends" might post. Like with other technology, I can't pick up on nonverbal cues. It is like personal advertising- who knows what is real or true? While I can pull off extroversion, I'm an introvert deep down and this means of social interaction does not appeal to me. I feel like a voyeur and, alternately, an exhibitionist. Time will tell if I find a comfort zone in Facebook.

Facebook

I was really reluctant to get a Facebook account. I prize my anonymity (see earlier posts) and I don't have a lot of spare time to participate in social networking. A friend has been bugging me about getting on Facebook for a while now, but I just haven't been interested. When I signed up for my account, 3 people I knew were already waiting for me to be their friend. It was kind of cool and scary at the same time that Facebook could use my Outlook information to find more friends. I opted to skip some steps and decided to find friends on my own. It is kind of like jr. high in a way- a cyber popularity contest. Anyway, it was both amazing and disturbing how many people I knew in the suggestions that Facebook offered. More people than I thought already have accounts. I feel kind of socially roped in- now I have to maintain these virtual relationships in addition to my real ones.

RSS Feeds

Thing 7 explains thing 6 a bit more. Again, RSS feeds are very handy for managing a large number of blogs. I looked around for some school library blogs that might be useful and added them to Reader. I chose the AASL and School Library Activities Monthly blogs. What I really would like to find is a blog in which a librarian comments on weekly lessons and activities in general- curriculum tie-ins, collaboration with teachers, reading programs, the incorporation of technology into library lessons, etc. I want to know what and how different school librarians teach in their libraries. Using the Google blog search option, I found a good one, but the author stopped adding to it in 2005. They must be out there somewhere, but I guess not enough web crawlers have put them on the search engine maps yet. Maybe this is something I need to contribute to by starting my own such blog. In the meantime, I'll keep searching and, when I find them, add them to Reader.

Blog Readers

Google Reader is definitely useful for the right person- someone who follows multiple blogs. It is akin to saving websites to a favorites list. In addition to the N. TX 23 and my own blog, I added a friend's financial blog: http://www.nutchelle.com/nutchelle.com/Nutchelle_diaries/Nutchelle_diaries.html
I noted a couple interesting things when I tried to add her blog. One, I had to use the blog page address itself. Her blog is located within her website. Initially, I tried to use the URL address for her home page and it wouldn't work. Two, the title of her blog is listed as "unknown" on Google Reader. I'm not sure if this is because the blog is located within a website, her blog is simply too small in web terms to be recognized or if she just didn't bother to name it. In sum, Google Reader will be helpful in following the N. TX 23 blog, but I won't personally use it for much at this point. I know it's there now and can use it or recommend it when the need arises.

Image Generators

This is fun too! At first, I made a pennant for our high school. (Because I really did have a stalker, I'm not posting it here.) I played around with some of the other tools. (I look pretty cool with flames surrounding my head-courtesy of border effects!) I can't wait to email some comic captioned photos to family and friends. Students would enjoy these tools as well, but, again, I don't know if the filter will allow it. Thinking about other applications, there is a lot of potential to use these tools in creating PowerPoint presentations, program advertisements, etc. I post announcements on the school televised bulletin board and I could really jazz up the slides using some of these tools.

Fancy Flickr

I enjoyed exploring the Flickr mashups. I once went to an art museum site (?) that had a feature similar to Colr Pickr. You could pick a color, and all the art images with predominately the selected hue were located. I pulled this image from a free images site because I didn't feel right pulling a random picture off of Flickr and I wanted an image of a bridge.

If you don't set your Flickr images to private, is it legal for anyone to use your photos for whatever purpose? Anyway, the high school students at our school library could certainly use some of these tools. I'll have to see if the filter blocks them. (We tried to use Picnik last week to no avail.)

Flickr

I've been on Flickr before to see friends' photographs, so I'm somewhat familiar with it already. However, using it for the library hadn't occurred to me. (Something to consider once we glam up the web page a bit.) I went ahead and created an account, which was an easy process. I pride myself on being relatively anonymous (I had a stalker once- not pleasant), so I posted some generic (but pretty, if I do say so myself) photos of a butterfly and ladybugs. In the spirit of Texas, my first impulse was to post some of the bluebonnet pictures I take every spring. I searched for "bluebonnets" and found numerous lovely images. Here is the link to my photostream (such as it currently is): http://www.flickr.com/photos/38731839@N07/

Library/Web 2.0?

I'm not a huge fan of catch phrases and 2.0 appears to refer to a bundle of things. I completed 3 1/2 of the 4 activities. (I kept zoning out during activity 3.) I think I got the gist of 2.0, but I couldn't define it succinctly if my life depended on it. (Apparently, I'm not alone.) Essentially, libraries and librarians must provide the technology and know-how that patrons need in the current Internet environment. That is why I'm here!

NOT the Library Troll

The woman who previously held my position at the high school library in which I work was called (affectionately, I hope) the library troll. I planned to name this blog The Library Troll in honor of inheriting this title. However, upon googling troll, I learned (courtesy of the same Wikipedia that I hypocritically tell students not to use so much) that "an Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion." I am sincerely glad that I looked it up first- wouldn't want to give anyone the wrong impression! To make a longer introduction even longer, I decided on The Bridge for several reasons. First, a bridge is a means to cross (overcome) an obstacle as it spans (connects) two places (or ideas). This is an apt connotation when discussing the digital divide- bridging the gap between those who understand and have access to technology and those who do not. Second, it is a pun on my first name. Lastly and back to my original thought, trolls live under bridges (okay, so this is a stretch). Anyway, I am here and ready to document my North Texas 23 Things experience!