It's Thursday

It's Thursday and Friday might? get here yet.

OCM

Test posting from OCM

Week 9 -- #23 Summarization

I found this experience to be very worthwhile. I had dabbled with Web 2.0 a little bit but was able to get some new information and obtain new sites that I know I will continue to use, particularly Del.icio.us and Bloglines. As with any online type of instruction, it was frustrating at times because you don't have an 'immediate' human at hand to answer your questions but sometimes, especially with this type of content, it's better if you do have to play/experiment/try things because it gets you over the fear of trying things on your own. For instance, I goofed up when trying to gain permission to add the wiki page and consequently, about 10 people from a previous group of Web 2.0 participants got emails saying I wanted access to 'their' wikis. However, they emailed and asked what I needed and I told them I was taking the class and attempting to get authorization for my own page and they were all very nice about it. It's sometimes anxiety producing to push that key on the computer and not know if you're doing the right thing but with an online experience such as this, it's almost a necessity. That helped me with one of the learning goals discussed during the beginning of the class which was looking at problems as something to go 'around' and not something to completely stop me in my tracks. I need to try to continue doing that.
One thing I did notice is that it really helps if the links to which you are to go are checked on a regular basis to make sure they are not dead links, and I think that would help for the next time it is used.
I would definitely take another discovery class such as this because working at my own pace is something that I like to do.

Week 9 -- #22 Audiobooks

This was my first time to access Overdrive or Net Library. I had visited the Gutenberg site before when the hand-held computers came out 6 or 7 years ago and had downloaded several free books (text form) onto one I had then. I was anxious to see how the three sites compared but only could do the intros to the first 2 as I'm not a public librarian. I did go into Gutenberg and download the 'human read' audio version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What I found was that the human voice still has a distinct 'digital tone' to it.

Week 9 -- #21 Podcasts

When I began this assignment, I went to the directories listed but the only one that was a working link was Podcastalley.com. I found the site to be user friendly but must admit, that a podcast has to be VERY good and engaging or I get bored with them very easily. Some of the ones I listened to didn't stay on very long with me, but that's just a personal preference. I did a search for 'fiction books'. I had 200 results and found one that said "Free Podcast Novel". When I clicked that I wanted to listen to it, I was re-directed to a site that said I had to download a Podcast Aggregator. I clicked on that and did a download, even though I've played podcasts on my computer before and did not need the Aggregator. I found that basically all it did was download a bunch of them at one time and then said I could add them to my collection at "Podshow" (which I don't belong to). To be honest, I was getting a bit frustrated at this point because I couldn't understand why I've been able to play other podcasts with just a simple download or 'listen to' button. I then decided to do a search for other podcasting directories to see if I could find one that didn't not require the downloaded aggregator. Podcastdirectory.com was one of the first ones on a couple search engines so decided to go there. Once again, it was set up by categories but had a search feature. I still had difficulty finding anything that I really felt was what I wanted so I went back to search engines and did searches such as "childrens literature + podcasts" and was able to find some that I liked. I added the RSS feed for a Harry Potter one to my bloglines.

Week 9 -- # 20 You Tube and other Video Sites

I have several favorite videos that people have made me aware of on You Tube, one of which is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1X55b6t-UM which is, of course, about an animal...a VERY intelligent dog. It's a great, short video which I will try to imbed but if it doesn't work, please click on the link and watch it. You Tube has some wonderful videos and some very inappropriate ones so in any setting, it must be closely monitored. For the library/classroom, you might want to check Teacher Tube also. There are some excellent videos in both sites and if used properly, can add much to a lesson, unit of study. As a teacher, I would suggest downloading the video you want to use and utilize it in that way but not setting students out on the site to search. There is way too much inappropriate material for them to do that. The video should be imbedded below this sentence.

Week 8 -- #19 Web 2.0 Award Winners

The list of Web 2.0 Winners was quite extensive so I ended up using the shorter winner's list from which to select the ones I would look at more closely. I chose two: Twitter and docstoc.com but plan looking at some of the other ones to see what they are and what they have to offer. Twitter seems to be the big 'buzz word' lately which is why I wanted to explore it more thoroughly and it was fun to go through. I signed up for my account and they have a neat video clip (one of the ones by LeFever which are so popular) that explains what Twitter is (quick way to keep in touch/follow other people to see what they're creating short snippets about) and how it works and where it works from (such as from phones, computers, etc.) It does incorporate an RSS feed for the people you are following. Basically, it's a running 'diary' or blog with each entry having to be no more than 140 characters and you can choose to 'follow' someone and then when you log in, it will list who you are following and you can see all the recent postings they've had and even respond back to them if you'd like. As far as applications from a library stance, I'm not sure there would be too many except to possibly follow authors who tweet and see what they're doing, working on, where they're speaking, etc. but it is an interesting place and a quick way to post updates on what's happening.
The 2nd winner I visited was doctoc.com which has 3 million public documents that have been uploaded by various people. When you open the site, you get 10 main categories that show up but you can expand that to many more. The opening screen also shows you areas that are of timely interest and a "Lighter Side" which are comedic documents, such as "the 10 Life Lessons fro Star Trek". There is also an area where people who post the documents can put a profile to be seen by users. I did search for MD education and there was only 1 document that appeared, but it did have meta-tags on it so I could have taken those and done further searches. You can upload your own documents and there is an area that has templates for various documents, such as resumes, different types of letters, etc. The subject ares that I found to have the larger amount of documents in them were in Politics and History, Jobs, and Heath and Fitness. I can see where it could be of use for someone looking for a public document under a particular subject area, but they are at the discretion of who wants to post them. They can be downloaded which would be good if someone needed them for a presentation.