Thing # 15 Week #40

My Thoughts from the OCLC Next Space Newsletter "Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries?"

Laptops, digital cameras and I pods for checkout? I love the new web 2.0 concepts for the future of our libraries. I am library technician for a School Library that has wi-fi but no laptops! The IT department is not at all open to allowing My Space or any social networking. They block Flickr, which could be used so creatively in education. .Even though our teachers would love to have You Tube for educational purposes, our IT department is so concerned about safety that they block it. Students are not even allowed to check email! I am just grateful that they don’t block blogs and Wikipedia! The collective intelligence from Wikipedia, and other wikis is also exciting for the future of research.
I want a student and teacher centered library where you can watch You Tube, post pictures on a Flickr account, create blogs and wikis, and even check your email. I would like for our students to have training on how and where to use Google verses electronic sources. I want to offer more online classes, and to try to understand all of the copyright issues that come with online classes and other web 2.0 tools. Reading the Horizon Report 2008, inspired me to encourage more creative uses of web 2.0 in education with digital videos, photo essays and blogs rather than having students writing long research papers.
I cannot relate as much to the three dimensional world of web 3.0 that Dr. Wendy Shultz describes, with “Second Life”, probably because I have not used any of those web3.0 tools, and I am still trying to understand the many facets of Web 2.0!
I enjoyed reading “To a Temporary Space in Time,” where Dr. Wendy Shultz paints a picture of a Web 4.0 library as a sanctuary, a quiet place of meditation, a luxurious experience, “away from the technohustle” with comfortable leather chairs and good light. Her description is close to the library of my dreams.

Week ? Thing 14

I have been experimenting with technorati. I think the feature I like about technorati, is searching blogs with keywords. I think it is useful, but not as useful to me personally as delicious.With the growth of the blogosphere, I think that this will be an extremely important tool for the future of blogging and research.

Thing 13 week ?

Discovering delicious was, so far, the most exciting part of School Library Learning 2.0.I don't know how I ever did without it! I am the kind of person who ends up with too many bookmarks and they are unorganized. Delicious allowed me to tag each favorite and now I can find anything. When I have free time, I just do to delicious and start reading from various tags or categories.Reading other librarian's delicious bookmarks has given me so many new resources.
This is taking me longer than it should but I love web 2.0 at this pace, because I am trying to really understand each thing!

Thing # 12

I am playing around with Rollyo, but I am not sure I really understand it yet. There seem to be so many ads for mortgages etc. I will continue to experiment, and hope it will be a good resource after I give it a chance.

Thing #11

I am almost halfway done with School Library Learning 2.0!! I looked at some other fellow library 2.0 bloggers. The Longhorn Librarian suggested checking out School Tube and I am happy it exists because we miss so much at our school by having You Tube blocked!
I looked at library genius and decided to add a dog to my avatar. I liked her Book Club ideas, especially the link to "Ten Ways to Really Spice up Book Club Meetings." All of the suggestions are not appropriate for middle school, but they are great for a group of adult friends, and some of the suggestions are great for middle school book clubs.
I checked out Library Musings and liked the avatar with a tree and a birdhouse. I liked that she was on #17 but also had skipped around. I have also skipped around a bit! This blog gave me an idea for adding information links to my "liblogary."I plan to check out more of these blogs for ideas.

Thing #10 Fun With Flowers and Image Generators

Thing #10 was fun to play around with. First, I made a fl0wer READ sign with Image Chef Image Generator website. Then I used one of my own photos and with the help of Blingee, I generated a butterfly in the middle of the flowers!

SEE PICTURES BELOW.

Computer Generated Magic!

Glitter Graphics

Generating Images

Things #8 and #9

Last month I set up some library blog feeds such as School Library Media Blog, and School Library Journal Blog. Having these come into the Google Reader is so convenient and I tend to read more. I have also subscribed to several other RSS feeds such as Common Dreams and the Brad Blog.

technology post , things 6 and 7

For #5,6 and 7 of the 23 things I spent a lot of time playing with flickr, photobucket( It was not blocked at my school) and even picasa. I like picasa and flickr the best. After exploring photos, I set up an account on igoogle. This has consolidated many of my reading, blogging and emailing activities. I set up google reader account rather than the bloglines account. I was going to several websites and 3 emails Now I only go to google, and I love the convenience.

Week #15, Thing #5

I sent pictures from picasa. Thanks for the suggestion, library mum. I am going to experiment for a while with importing pictures. You have to click on California Sunsets to get the latest pictures. It may take forever to do the 23 things, but I am already learning so much!

California Sunsets

Thing #5, Week #12

I am still trying to understand how to upload and post photos. If Picasa is not blocked at my school, I will be able to post photos tomorrow on a much faster computer. I will then send photos to my liblogary blog.

Still on thing #5 , week #9

I cannot believe how much time has past since I tried playing with flickr. I need to work on this, but it is difficult since flickr is still blocked at my school district. Does anyone know of a different site to post photos that is not typically blocked at schools?