MP3 Player...It is so much fun!!!

Thank you KCLS for the MP3 player. I am having so much fun with it. I have downloaded songs and books. The sound is very good and the player is easy to use. Now that I have downloaded and used Overdrive at home, I will be able to help our patrons download it for themselves. It was nice to be able to finish up with that lesson (remember we could not download it on the library computers). Now I feel as though I have really completed the "KCLS 27 Things".

I also downloaded an e-video onto my computer and watched it. When my granddaughter was just a little thing, she loved Koko's Kitten but could not remember watching it. It was only a 16-minute movie, but Alisha enjoyed watching it with me. The only thing with the e-video, it took a very long time to download. I don't know if I would try a movie that is a regular length movie.

What I mainly wanted to say in this posting of my blog, is that I am really enjoying the MP3 Player and thank you again KCLS.

What am I doing now?

Now that I have finished up with the "27 Things", I have started another blog. I am trying to tweak it up a bit, so I don't have it as a public blog as of yet. Actually, I am still trying to decide if I will make it public or if I want just for my own personal journal.

It has surprised me that I would set up another blog. It was so much fun for me to do the lessons each week, and when it was over I found that I missed doing my weekly entries.

I also am continuing to use many of the different tools that we have learned about. I use my Bloglines account everyday and have added more pictures to my Flickr account.

It would be nice if KCLS would give us more opportunities for this type of training. I would definitely do it again.

No More? ~ I'm having "27 Things" Withdrawals!!!

I am having withdrawals since I completed all of the lessons. I was thinking that I would not miss the "27 Things" once we were finished with it. Now I am wanting to learn more things like this. Do you think we will have more opportunities to learn about other tools to use? Is there going to be a Web 3.0 in the future?

Reflections on Learning 2.0 27 Things and Web 2.0--The End?

First of all thank you for giving the employees at KCLS the opportunity and the time to learn about all of these tools on the internet and how we can use them in our job.

I have really enjoyed doing the "Learning 2.0 27 Things". I've always been interested with how computers work and how to use what is on the web. Now I know alot more, but I am sure that "27 Things" is only a taste of what is out there to learn and try. Now I want to learn more.

My favorite things were Bloglines, Library Thing, Flickr, and the eAudio download. I enjoyed learning about the other things, but these are the ones that I will continue to use all of the time. As I have said before in earlier entries, I already had a myspace account, played around with YouTube and had been using Google Labs.

I don't think I was surprised with any of the lessons. I knew that there were a lot of tools to use on the web. I just did not know how to find them and use them. Or I should say that I was too intimidated to just search for these tools on my own to try. Now I am looking for other tools to use without any hesitation.

I personally did not need much help. There were a couple of times that I asked questions, but I enjoyed trying to figure things out for myself and I kept up with the weekly lessons. There have been some co-workers struggling to keep up with the lessons. Part of that may just be not feeling as though they had enough time to get the lessons done. I think that the only improvement I would suggest would be to give participants more time to complete everything.

I am hoping that KCLS will give us more opportunities like this in the future to learn more and "YES" looking back at this program I would participate again. There was no question about not doing this. This experience has taught me a lot of things and now I feel as though I will be able to show patrons how to do some of these things or at least show them where to get the information to set up accounts of their own.

I have looked at Web 2.0 Directories and was amazed at all of the different sites. There is just about anything that you can imagine on the web. I am going to play around with some of these sites and see if I like any enough to start using them at home.

I am very interested in what will be coming to all of us working here at KCLS and how we will use the tools that we have just learned about.

Again, a big thank you KCLS.

YouTube, Podcasts, eBooks

I have already put in an entry for each of these separately, but I want this one to be my entry for this weeks lessons. I added a YouTube video on my blog, searched different podcast sites (added it to my bloglines account) and have played around with eBooks and the KCLS ecollection. I have had a lot of fun using and playing with all of these tools. I know that I will continue to use all of these tools that we have learned about this week. This was a fun week of learning.

Audio eBooks

Today I installed the Overdrive software on my home computer, which was simple to do. Then I downloaded an ebook to my computer. I had never looked at the KCLS eCollection before and there are a lot of title. Plus, it isn't just books. There is music and video. I am getting excited about being able to download to a mp3 player.

Podcast

I tried all three (3) sites for podcasts. I ended up with Yahoo Podcast because I like the way it looked and I felt it was easier to use. It also rated the podcast. The site I went to was Book Voyages and I added it to my bloglines account. This is a podcast about children's books. There are book reviews and interviews with authors. I think that podcasts would be a good tool for the library. As I just found out you can use it for interviews, stories and you could use it for information about a program that the library is going to have.

YouTube

I have been playing with YouTube for some time now on my myspace account. There are some really funny things out there. I am seeing more and more of the youtube short videos all over the place. You find them on the news online, in blogs, just about everywhere. I do think that it would be a useful tool with libraries. As you said in the lesson, why not use if for storytimes and library openings and for library programs. I think that would be great. The following is the YouTube video that I choose. My granddaughter, Alisha, and I are cat lovers and she thought that this was hilarious.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I looked at both Webware and Web 2.0 Awards and I liked Web 2.0 Awards the best. I like the way Web 2.0 Awards is set up, how it looks and how it rates the different sites. I went into Blog Guides, Social Networking, and Photos & Digital Images. Trying out Photos & Digital Images, I found another site for uploading pictures called Zoto. It might be fun to see how it compares to flickr or to Slide. This has been a week with a lot of things to learn and take in. I have enjoyed learning about online software such as Google Docs, Google Labs, Webware and Web 2.0 Awards.

Google Labs

I have been using some of the Google Labs already. I have Personalize Your Homepage, Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Google Notebook. The new ones that I tried are Google Transit and Google Suggest. I also found out that I have Personalized Search. I was surprised to see all of the things that I have searched in the past, and it went back to August 2006. Searches that I had forgot that I ever looked for. I am not much of a bus rider, but I may use the Google Transit and go to Seattle on the bus.The directions seemed to be easy to follow. I know that I will continue to use a lot of these tools that I am learning about here at "27 Things".

Online software

I tried both of these tools and I liked Zoho the best. When I was typing on Google Docs, there was some hesitation as I typed. Zoho was very smooth and it seems as though Zoho has more tools to work with. I will probably continue using Zoho. This is a good way to be able to use your documents anywhere there is a computer. I can see using either one of these online softwares in the library or any business when you need to collaborate on a project or subject. You would not have to try and get everyone together, calling or sending emails to everyone in a group. Just let everyone look at and edit the document where ever they are. This could be a very useful tool for libraries.

Learning 2.0

I read all of the articles and found them very interesting. With all of the technology that we have today, libraries are really going in a different direction. I am beginning to see that more and more people will be using all of these tools for referencing and for reading books. I am hoping that as we move into this world of technology of being able to get almost any information and any book on the computer, that walking into a library and checking out a real book will still be what the public wants. I can't imagine not curling up on the sofa and holding a book to read.

Custom Search Engines

This week I signed up for Google Custom Search Engines and Rollyo. Both of these were easy to sign up for, and easy to navigate through. Since I have a Google account, I just might continue to use the Google Custom Search Engine. You will see my links in my sidebar.

Image Generators

Warholizer
Originally uploaded by cllwa51.

There were so many different image generators to choose from, it was hard to decide which to use as my entry for this week. I decided to use the fd flickr tools and used the Warholizer tool and the bead art. I also made myself a Southpark character. On my sidebar you will see a couple of other different types of image generator tools. I am enjoying most of the tools for playing around with pictures and I am sure that I will use these again. This has been a really fun lesson. I used the following web sites for my images: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr, www.signgenerator.org, www.rockyou.com and http://www.sp-studio.de.

wikis

At first I thought that wikis would not be very useful due to the fact that some of the information may not be accurate, but as I am looking more at them, I think that it would be good for groups. It would be easy to have one place to go to collaborate on a specific subject or issue, and maybe a little bit easier than having to email a group of people. I think I would feel awkward entering anything on a wiki, so I don't know if I would every do that. It was very interesting to see how much information was on the wikis that I looked at.

Del.icio.us, Technorati and Library Thing

It was very easy to set up accounts with del.icio.us, Technorati and Library Thing. The ones I will use the most after finishing up with "Learning 2.0" is del.icio.us and Library Thing.

I have put the link on the toolbar of my home computer which makes it very easy to access and bookmark to del.icio.us. This is something that I will be using all of the time now. One thing that I like very much, is that I can access my bookmarks on del.icio.us from any computer. I just have to log into it. It is interesting to see just how many other people have bookmarked the same sites that you have.

I did search for "Learning 2.0" and "kcls27things" on Technorati. It was fun to see my entries come up in some of the searches, although my Flickr images did not come up. I enjoyed using del.icio.us more than Technorati. It was just easier for me.

I love Library Thing. This tool I will use all of the time. I listed all of my knitting books that I have purchased. Now I can just go to my Library Thing account and see what I have bought before I go out and buy more knitting books. I may even catalog my cook books and some of the children's books that I have in my own personal library. I put a widget of my Library Thing on my blog. You will see a few of the titles that I have listed. The widget was very simple to do.

I am finding out that just about everything we are doing now has tags on it and there is so much cross referencing. Using tags takes you to places on the internet that you may never have thought about looking at to get information. I am starting to understand how this could be a very useful tool for research.

Adding friends to myspace

Since I have had my account with myspace for awhile, I've been adding friends already. A couple of days ago I addedthe Learning 2.0 as one of my friends. It is also fun to send and receive comments to your myspace.

Myspace

I have had a myspace account for about a year. Since we started "27 Things", I have gone in and tweaked it up a little bit. Setting up the account was a very easy process, but putting in a background took up a lot of time. I added a slide show, music and some music videos. I also friended the"27 Things" account and one of the KCLS accounts. I am having fun with myspace. My sons and granddaughers have a myspace account and I am able to have another way of keeping in touch with them.

Myspace and social networking

I read the information that "27 Things" suggested about myspace and libraries. I still don't understand just how myspace and libraries will really connect with new or long standing library users. I have a 17 year old (almost 18) at home and I asked her if she would look up a library on myspace. She said, and I quote, "No. Myspace is for looking up friends and having fun". For myself, it is another way that I keep in touch with my family.

Looking for Feeds

Today I went looking for more RSS feeds. I used the bloglines search and I used Google to find my feeds. I am finding out that I am alot more comfortable going to all of these different sites and exploring. I am amazed at all of the information that is on the web.

RSS & News Readers

I have already been using RSS feeds for some time now on my Yahoo home page, and I have the Google Reader. Once you have decided which site that you would be using all of the time, it is so much easier to just make one click and see all of the new entries. I have RSS feeds for recipes and knitting. Now that I have an account on bloglines, there are a few more. I may add the other ones I have to my bloglines account just to have them all together. The blogs that I chose are:

Seattle PI: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/rss/local_2.rss
The Shifted Librarian: http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/rss.xml
Unshelved: http://www.livejournal.com/users/overdue_comic/data/rss

I also added KCLS 27 Things and two from my co-workers.

I was thinking that I probably would not use many of the "27 Things" once I have gotten through with all of lessons, but I am really enjoying learning and using everything that I have tried. Now I am ready to go to the next lesson. Hope there are alot of you out there in blog land that is having a good time with this too.

Music

Using Trading Card Maker

My creation
Originally uploaded by cllwa51.

I looked at all of the mashups that work with Flickr. I liked all of them, but thought that it would be fun to make a trading card. As I was in the process of making the card, my granddaughter said that she would like me to show her how to do it also. This is such a fun learning experience. As I am learning how to use these fun tools on the internet, my granddaughter is learning too.

Sailing Display at Woodinville

Sailing Display at Woodinville 9/2007
Originally uploaded by cllwa51.

This is one of the pictures that I took of the sailing display that we put up September 2006. In this lesson about Flickr, I added this picture and then I set up an account so that I can send my pictures straight to my blog page. This was a very easy process. I am looking forward to all of the other lessons.

Books and Technology

"My lifelong love affair with books and reading continues unaffected by automation, computers, and all other forms of the twentieth-century gadgets."

~Books in My Life Robert DOWNS (1903- ) ~

I found this on web site: http://www.ifla.org/. I am really enjoying learning about all of the different ways to get information from the internet. But, at the same time you really do need to have the time to do be adding things to your blog to keep it current and interesting.

More confidence...

Now that I am getting more into the "27 Things", I am not as afraid to go out on the web and try new things. As you can see on my blog , I have even tried out a slide show and added it to my page. Each time that I try something new I end up going an extra step and doing even more. "27 Things" is really building up my confidence with my computer knowledge and hopefully if a patron does ask about how to do something like this, I will be able to show them.

My Family

Learning 2.0

Here I am at the third lesson now. I am thoroughly enjoying what I am learning here. I am having so much fun going to all of these different sites and I'm learning so many different ways of using the internet.

Starting work at KCLS

I have been working with KCLS since 1979. In fact this is my very first job. When I first started with KCLS, I split between Lake Forest Park and Bothell. In 1980 I was hired as a full-time Library Assistant at Bothell. I stayed at Bothell until I started work at Woodinville in 1996 and I am presently at Woodinville.