Wow! Week Twenty!

I am relieved to be finished with the Library/Web 2.0 training because it was challenging to fit one more thing in on a regular basis, but I feel that it was well worth doing and I would choose to participate in similar training programs in the future. One of the reasons I have always loved taking classes is that it forces me to commit to doing the work that is required to learn something new. Structure is provided to learn new skills. Doing the training via the web worked well since it was over a 20 week period and participants could work on the weekly skills independently as time allowed. There were weeks where I wasn't able to complete the week's assignments, but the following week I could manage to fit two in. The Library/Web 2.0 training achieved the goals of imparting additional knowledge about new technology.

It feels great to have created a blog because I realize how easy it is! I feel like I have a lot more awareness of what people are talking about when they mention wikis, MySpace, avatars, flickr, etc. There are endless possiblities! Thanks for all the work that was required by staff to make this training available.

Games Galore

I love the gaming available at one's fingertips online! My problem is once I start, I don't want to quit. I become obsessed with doing better more quickly, and I am sure that if I try again, I will beat my previous score. I love Sodoku, word games, and puzzles. I played Mahjongg for the first time doing this exercise, and I am sure that I will go online regularly for a while until I get really good at it. I like playing different games because it requires that you look at things from a different perspective. I played the Hollywood Jumble and surprised myself at how much I knew about George Clooney. I tried the easy jigsaw puzzles and found it fun because they were so easy that I could do them quickly. Word Sense and Word Roundup were both fun too. I played games during my lunch break and didn't want to come back to work.

This gives me a new perspective when I think about how kids get hooked and just want to play computer games. They'd rather stay inside on beautiful summer days if they can play more computer games...It's addictive. There are positive aspects. I think that the games do make you think. One is exercising ones brain in a different way than normal and I think that we respond to that stimulation by wanting to do it more. It's fun entertainment and it is rewarding to win, or beat your previous score.

Playing games certainly is more interactive than watching television. It does require thought, skill, and persistance to learn a game and perfect the playing of it.

Google Earth

I downloaded Google Earth and searched for my home address. The map showed my house being about a mile north of my address. I entered the Clinton Library's address, and I couldn't even recognize the place the map identified as the library location. I put in the address of the place that I grew up in Ohio. It showed lots of fields, but I couldn't get it to focus where I could identify anything, which was surprising since I grew up on a farm and there were lots of outbuildings, as well as a silo. I wasn't too impressed with this aspect of Google Earth.

I've used Google a lot for finding directions and it's worked well. It seems accurate both in terms of directions and the time that it will take to get there.

I just had a patron ask about Google Earth a few days ago, so the timing for downloading Google Earth on my work computer was excellent.

Avatars, Second Life, and Ms Dewey

This week's 2.0 session did not resonate with me. The avatar is okay and I can think of some instances where it might be fun to use, but I'd be surprised if I use my avatar much. For one thing they don't give enough options to truly capture the characature of someone. There is no choice for body type, age, etc. My avatar looks like a teenager and my teen years were a long time ago.

I found Ms. Dewery offensive. I did some serious searches and then clicked on "best" several times, bringing up "country" in which she does a seriously stereotypic portrayal of a "country" hick, E-40 in which she swears horribly and they beep most of what she says out, and Picasso, in which she brings out a paint gun, sprays onto something off screen, and wonders how much the painting that she just did would sell for. She has a flirtatious pose as if she is encouraging some one to come on and do a search, a bored, roll of the eye pose, and an irritated knock on the window to hurry up and type something. Personally I would never recommend that someone go to Ms. Dewey as there are far better ways of finding information. When she first comes up there is a battle scene with tanks and soldiers that she is manipulating. Maybe my sense of humor is low today, but I thought a lot of what was presented was in poor taste. I'm anti-war, anti-swearing, and I felt that this site dumbed people down. I did not find it humorous, which I assume is the intent.

Second life strikes me as strange. I have never lived in Second Life and I have no interest in doing so at this time. Maybe if I had a lot of time on my hands with nothing to do, it would be something that I would enjoy doing. I'd rather do all the things that are mentioned in the real world. Several years ago, I sat by a man when I was flying to Ohio to visit family, and he told me about Second Life. He was so into it. This was a good opportunity to see what he was talking about.

Searching for the Perfect Search Engine

This was an interesting exercise. I've never even heard of Rollyo or Mamma before. I did three different searches in Rollyo, Mamma and Dogpile. Mamma brought up 31, 34, and 36 listings, plus sponsored links. There seemed to be more variation on Mamma than Rollyo, though the sites that Rollyo brought up were helpful sites. Dogpile had a lot more links, but they were not necessarily better or even as good as the ones Rollyo brought up.

Dogpile had even more variations for the sites that came up. For a medical search I loved Dogpile. It had a health guide that included the home page for the topic, basic facts, advanced reading, patient type and community and marketplace which were not applicable for my search. When I researched CoQ10 Dogpile had far more commercial retail sites than either Rollyo or Mamma. I was impressed by Rollyo's search as it included Mayo Clinic and National Institute of Health and provided a lot more scientific information.

Determining the best search engine seems to be dependent on what kind of search one is doing. I liked the variations one received from the three different search engines and this experience leads me to believe that if you cannot find what you are looking for with one search engine, there are others that could be of value.

Podcasting

I listened to a variety of podcasts. My favorite was Northwest Public Radio, despite the requests for donations and the sponsorship messages. I like that you could listen to it anywhere in the world via computer and stay updated on what is happening locally.

I went to Washington State University and clicked on "Help Searching" thinking that this is an idea that Sno-Isle could implement to help patrons browse our website and use our catalog. However, I waited five minutes and it never loaded so I gave up and went to another site.

I visited Learn Outloud and checked out the literary summary. Summaries of classics are offered. I listened to The Scarlet Letter for a bit. This would be ideal for college students who didn't have time to read a book, but personally, I'd rather read a book than have it summarized for me, chapter by chapter. It's nice to know it's available.

At Podcast Alley I listed to "Manager Tools." I was delighted with the presentation, as it stressed the importance of building relationships. It even mentioned one on ones. It addressed the need for multiple forms of communication and since I had just talked to Becky for the first time via webcam I thought I could add that to the list of possiblities.

For fun I downloaded This Week in Astrology as a RSS feed to my Google reader.

Browsing through Arizona State University's podcast listings I noticed that there was a lot of information available about the school, campus, history, photographs and artifacts of the area, interviews with staff, and lots of other options. Most of these seemed pretty long. I listened to a bit of an interview with Jeanne Davidson, a librarian for the Nova Science and Engineering department. I found it pretty boring, but maybe if you went to college at Arizona State and worked with her, it would be more interesting. These podcasts struck me as a useful way to introduce people to the college and I could see how something similar could be done for Sno-Isle to introduce our library system and how it works.

I have not listened to podcasts much prior to this exercise. The only ones I've listened to are some of the children's books that have been made available through Sno-Isle podcasts. I've never created one. I think that the biggest challenge is to make them interesting. People need to speak enthusiastically, using good diction, in a concise manner. If someone listens for a couple of minutes and it is boring, you'll never get them back. If Sno-Isle were going to create podcasts for conveying information it would be critical to have excellent speakers record them...it's sort of like the Books on Tape presentation that we had years ago on All Staff Day. If the reader doesn't do a good job of reading the book no one will want to listen to it.

Online Applications and Tools

I loved Google Docs and Zoho. I've been thinking about uses and I am excited about the possibilities. I liked that you could post things directly to one's blog so easily.(I posted our mission statement.)

We are already gearing up for Whidbey Reads 2009 and I volunteered to create a blog for next years committee. Using the Google Docs may be a handy way of sharing information among committee members. My sisters and I all love to cook. I also thought it would be fun to share recipes in a shared folder. I've been spending a lot of time at my sister's and I thought about how handy it would be to have some things that I'm working on where it is really easy to access from anywhere.