Since the last posting on this blog a number of our staff members here at the Sachem Public Library have gone ahead and created their own blogs. Some of our departments have begun informational blogs to supplement department meetings as well. It may be that some of us have found a niche that fills a "publishing" desire... In any case, they are all interesting and well done!
So, here it is, already July 5th (we hope you all had a marvelous 4th) and the official deadline for completing the Learning 2.0 exercises has come and gone.
Fear not! We wanted to make this a pleasurable learning experience and realized that the "23 Things" were a bit more time-consuming than was planned. Now, to take some of the stress out of having missed the original deadline, we have announced a new, extended deadline, in a flyer distributed at the beginning of this week. Now you've got until August 31 to complete your things.
Those of you who managed to finish on time will get the added bonus of receiving 2 entries into the random drawing for the Video/MP3 player. The drawing will take place on September 4, 2007. Please remember to notify Alan when you complete the "23 Things" (before August 31), so he can give you the USB flash drive you have earned for your successful participation.
OK, now get out there and get learning! Remember to ask your friends and co-workers for help with the "Things" if you need it. As a last resort, ask Alan for some hints and help for getting through the Learning 2.0 maze.
For your convenience, here's a handy link
back to the "23 Things".
Wow! Congratulations! You’ve reached the 23rd thing. Be sure to give yourself a pat on the back for completing the program. Your reward for completing this journey before the June 30 deadline is a useful and handy USB flash drive. But before sending this off you, we ask for one last discovery post.
For your last and final exercise for this program please reflect on your learning journey and post a few thoughts. Here are some questions to prompt you if you're drawing a blank ...
With your new USB flash drive right around the corner, it’s time to take a look around our new downloadable service, Suffolk Wave.
The Suffolk Wave downloadable service provided through the Suffolk Cooperative Library System's group subscription. It is powered by "Overdrive", a well-known provider of electronic media downloads.
You don't need to establish an account to use Suffolk Wave, you simply sign in with your library card barcode. It does, however, require the installation of a small software application called the "Overdrive Media Console".
(When you're ready, ask someone from Electronic Services for help in downloading and installing the media console.)
For this discovery exercise, you merely need to familiarize yourself a bit with Suffolk Wave's downloadable emedia site and get an idea of the types of titles you can find here. Take a look around and locate a few titles of interest. That USB flash drive is right around the corner and so is the chance to win the Video MP3 player in our special prize drawing. If you win that, you’ll definitely have a reason to try out this new library service.
Discovery Resources:
Digital Media Guided Tour - This tutorial covers the procedures used to download from the Suffolk Wave electronic media collection using the Overdrive Media Console. (Please be patient, it may take a few minutes to upload this for viewing)
Discovery Exercise:
The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.
In 2005, "podcast" was named the "word of the year" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the last 24 months, it's easy to see why.
Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Learning 2.0 program) to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker.
iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple is the directory finding service most associated with podcasts, but if you don’t have iTunes installed there are still plenty of options.
For this discovery exercise participants are asked to take a look at some popular podcast directory tools. Do some exploring on your own and locate a podcast that is of interest to you. Once found, you can easily pull the RSS feed into your Bloglines account as well, so that when new casts become available you’ll be automatically notified of their existence.
Discovery Resources:
Within the past year online video hosting sites have exploded allowing users to easily to upload and share videos on the web. Among all the web 2.0 players in this area, YouTube is currently top dog serving up over 1 million video views a day and allowing users not only to upload their own video content easily, but also embed clips into their own sites easily.
Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. You'll find everything from 1970s TV commercials and 60s music videos to library dominos and kids singing about bloopers here. Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot stuff not worth watching too. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore and see for yourself what the site has too offer. :)
Discovery Exercise:
Throughout the course of this Learning 2.0 program we’ve explored just a small sampling of these new internet technologies and websites that are empowering users with the ability to create and share content. But given time there are so many more we could explore. Current estimates place the number of web 2.0 tools at somewhere between 300 & 500 with only a handful emerging as market dominators. And although time will only tell which of these new collaborative, social networking and information tools will remain on top, one thing is for sure, they're not going to go away (at least anytime soon).
For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to select any site from this list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees and explore it. With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you (like Books or Personal Organization) and then simply select a tool/site to explore. Be careful to select a tool that is Free and that doesn't require a plug-in or download. The majority of these free, so this shouldn’t be a problem.
Discovery Exercise:
The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past two years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the internet without the need of installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death to Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. But no matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides seem to agree; web-based apps have their place.
One large benefit to web-based applications it that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. Another bonus is that they easy accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs* (formerly known as Writely) to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing.
For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to take a look at a web-based word processing tool called Zoho Writer, create a simple document and then document your discoveries in your blog. If you're up to the challenge, you might even export your document as an HTML file or publish it through Zoho to your blog.
With Zoho and web-based applications, the possibilities are endless.
Discovery Resources:
A short list of web-based productivity applications – Note: I authored this list in ZohoWriter and exported it as HTML.
Discovery Exercise:
Optional: If you're up for the challenge, try using Zoho’s "publish" options to post to your blog.
* Note: You can also explore Google Docs (formerly known as Writely), Google's online word processer, as an option for this exercise. On Oct 11th, Google relaunched Writely (which it acquired in Spring 2006) as Google Docs.
BTW: Here’s a document (viewable as a webpage) that is mocked up in Zoho. It's about some of the features you may find beneficial.
Example:
[ URL | Title of blog]
[ http://spl-23.blogspot.com | SPL-23 Learning 2.0 ]
Putting Things Together
Do you have a group of websites that are your favorites? Or a set of online resources that are similar that you frequently use to answer homework or reference questions? Well Rollyo may be the tool for you. Rollyo allows you to create your own search tool for the just the websites you know and trust.
Take a look at some of these search rolls that have already been created:
Try a search for broad terms like "homework” or “history” to see results listed from multiple sites.
Discovery Exercise:
OPTIONAL: Add your searchroll to your blog using the "Create a Searchbox" tool.
Rollyo - You just never know when this little tool might come in handy.
Are you book lover or cataloger at heart? Or do you enjoy finding lost and forgotten gems on the shelf to read? Then LibraryThing may be just the tool for you. Developed for booklovers, this online tool not only allows you to easily create an online catalog of your own it also connects you to other people who have similar libraries and reading tastes. Add a book to your catalog by just entering the title -- It’s so easy that you don’t even need MARC record training to do it – or connect with other users through your similar reading tastes. There are lots of ways to use LibraryThing. You can even view your books on a virtual shelf, add a widget (see sidebar for sample) to display titles that are in your catalog or install a LT Search box on your blog.
Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?
You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry, according to a recent survey you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.
Create a post in your blog about this exercise.
Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)
Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions:
What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
"For this thing, simply blog about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! You just need to share a few thoughts."
Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here are just a sampling of a few:
This blog has been set-up as part of Sachem Public Library's Learning 2.0 project to encourage staff to experiment and learn about the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the context of information on the Internet today. The objectives of this program are to:
Now that you've done some exploring around this website and understand how this program will work, it's time to setup your very own personal blog to begin recording your thoughts, discoveries and exercises in. For this program, I recommend that you use Blogger*, a popular free online blog hosting service that is extremely easy to use.
