Thing 21 - Student 2.0 Tools

The Assignment Calculator and the Research Project Calculator could be really helpful for students. Some students need to have a schedule and stick to it in order to finish a project or paper in a timely and well-done manner. I can't remember how many times I waited until the last minute to do a project and had to stay up late into the night to finish it because I didn't realize how long it was going to take me. I think I work best under pressure, but who knows maybe my work could have been a whole lot better if I had planned ahead. I really liked the teachers' guide section in the Research Project Calculator. It had tons of possible worksheets and ideas for how to approach an assignment. Links to these sites on our website and at our reference desks could really help out students as well as teachers. We could also give the links to the homework helpers that come to the libraries. I'm sure they get lots of questions about different research projects.

Thing 20 - Books 2.0

This was a long one! I started off reading the articles at the beginning. I had never heard of Kindle before so I was a little confused with the first one. So I Wikipedia-ed it and figured it out. I can't believe that I had never heard anything about Kindle before; it's kinda surprising. It would be nice to have if you hate carrying around lunky books, perfect for traveling. It's very interesting that libraries are technically allowed to check out Kindle books free of charge. I was very surprised at that. I'm sure Kindle will add a library fee once it starts catching on.

I really enjoyed the article Literacy Debate: Online R U Really Reading? I for one think that reading online is still reading. It's true that traditional grammar is often overlooked, and abbreviations and shortcuts are the way to go, but reading is much more than just helping grasp the grammatical concepts of the English language. I feel like this is the natural progression of things. We no longer speak or write like they did in Shakespeare's time, so why should we be so worried that our written language is evolving now? As for the tests that measure a student's reading comprehension and grammar skills, I think they are stupid. Standarized tests have always been crap. (On a side note, my boyfriend is in grad school for criminology and is currently doing research on university students' perceptions of delinquency and self control. In order to measure their self control, one of the questions on his survey asked if they thought getting good grades was very important. He asked me that same question, and I said they were very important. The thing is that I think the way we are graded is absolutely ridiculous, but I realize that in this society, those grades are important. So instead of thinking its very important to get good grades just because, I think its important in order to get ahead in this society. More opportunities are open to you if you are perceived as "smart" even though the actual tests and grading don't really accurately measure a person's intelligence. Sorry for the tangent...) Internet reading opens up whole other doors for people of all ages. You are able to be creative and add to the content. You have interaction among other internet users from all over the globe. Don't get me wrong, I love reading books, but for those that have trouble sitting down and reading, the internet can help provide some of the same things that books do.

I am just going to list the websites I went to in the Learn section and then touch on the ones I really enjoyed. It went to: BooksInMyPhone, ReadingTrails, BookLamp, BookStumpers, Overbooked, BookGlutton, Booksprouts, Librivox, BookBrowse, Facebook app Visual Bookshelf, SwapTree, and BookCrossing. Most of them were pretty good, but there were only a few I would go back to. ReadingTrails was neat. It's a nice place to go if you don't know what book to read next. BookStumpers was awesome! I read this book in middle school, and for the life of me I can't remember the title or the author. So I think I'm going to add it onto that site and see if anyone else knows it. Booksprouts would be great for a book club. I'm sure we could use it in our library. We could start one and have a link to it from our website. Librivox is pretty cool. I'm not much of an audiobook listener, but I know people who are and they would love it. I really want to look more at BookBrowse. It looked like it would be a great place to find really good books. If I had known about the Visual Bookshelf app for Facebook, I would have gotten it a long time ago. It's a perfect, condensed list of books that I'm reading, want to read, and have read. And last but not least BookCrossing was by far the neatest. It reminds me of the Where's George site for dollar bills, but much cooler. If I can part with one of my books, I'm going to release it into the wild!

Thing 19 - Other Social Networks

Social networks are great if you're looking to share a common interest with others. I haven't joined any before, so I tried to look at a few. I went to WebJunction, Ning, and Gather. They were ok, but nothing too special. So then I tried the book ones, but I still really love LibraryThing so they weren't too exciting. Then I went to Fuzzster. I love my cat and am a animal lover in general, but I'm not THAT crazy about them. Some people were posting as if they were their animal. That's great for them, but it's just not for me. It didn't have too much networking abilities or gadgets. Someone even made a post that asked what the whole point of the website was, and he had been a member for awhile. Then I went to Bake Space, and that was more like it. I'm not a big cook or baker, but I do like trying. It was totally packed with recipes, comments, and networking abilities. Now that's what I call a social network! I will probably go back to Bake Space again, and maybe I'll try to find some more social networks that really speak to my interests.

Thing 18 - Facebook and MySpace

I've had Facebook for over 5 years, so I pretty much know everything about it. I tried MySpace out once. I created my page, added friends, but never really got into it. I never looked at it so I decided just to delete my account. I'm much more of a Facebook girl. I used to be addicted to it, checking it at least 10 times a day, but now that I'm out of college, I'm lucky if I check it once a month. It definitely has great advantages, so I won't be deleting my profile anytime soon.

I checked out some of the listed libraries' MySpace pages. ACLD's seems to be lacking a little bit. It could be updated more often and have more apps added to it for sure. I know that with our new website, we are going to have a lot more gadgets and info available for the public, and I hope they spread that onto the MySpace page as well.

Anyway, not much more to add. This Thing was easy.

Thing 17 - Podcasts

I have tried listening to podcasts before, but found them boring. They are kinda like books on CD/tape; you wouldn't want to listen to them while you're just sitting around doing nothing. They are better if you are doing something, like driving or folding laundry. I don't like to be tied to the computer (my computer at home is in an office away from everything else that we have to keep closed so my cat doesn't chew through all the wires), so probably if I downloaded some podcasts onto my iPod, I could get into them more. I listened to Mugglecast very briefly. I think I could enjoy it if it were portable. I also went to Gcast and looked around. If I had anything I wanted to say, I would definitely make a podcast through them. It's amazing how you just have to phone in. I hate the sound of my voice though, so I probably won't make one anytime soon. Maybe I'll make my boyfriend do one...

Thing 16 - YouTube

Thing 15 - Rollyo

Rollyo is a pretty cool idea if you want to create your own search engine. I thought you would have to know all this HTML to create one yourself, so its nice there's a site that does it for you. I really wasn't sure what engine I would want or need to create, so I looked through some of their examples. I was an Anthropology major as an undergrad, so I decided to do one that fits my interests there. I just did a really quick one and added National Geographic, Smithsosian, and The Discovery Channel sites. I called it popular science because that's what they are, a version of science that is presented by popular demand. Here is the link to it: My Popular Science. Rollyo could definitely be used in the library. It would be nice to create search engines that we could put on our new website for different categories of books, government sites, or local sites. There are definitely some possibilities that could be explored.

Thing 14 - Online Productivity Tools

I started off with the customized homepage. I really liked the look of iGoogle, but I have a Yahoo email account so I figured that I should make one through My Yahoo. I wasn't really a fan. Then I noticed you could have a widget for GMail and hoped that iGoogle did the same and made a widget for Yahoo Mail. It did! So I ended up making a homepage through iGoogle and really liked it. As far as the calendars are concerned, I like having a hard copy of my caledar. I tend to look at it more it I have it handwritten posted up on the wall. I can see how it would be handy though. Same thing with Ta Da List and Remeber the Milk. I don't make lists that often, but when I do I have either handwritten it out, or if its a really big list for a trip or something, I will type it up in Microsoft Word. Online lists could be helpful for some people though. The Backpack tool would be great for small businesses. For ALCD, we already have an intranet and department share files, so I don't think we could benefit that much from Backpack. The PDF Converters are really nice though. I always hated not being able to change text on a PDF. So I definitely could use those in the future. All in all, I don't think most of these online productivity tools are right for me. I'm already productive enough haha :)

Thing 13 - Library Thing

I LOVE LibraryThing!!! It's the best thing ever! I could spend hours and hours on it (and I probably will). I've already found 6 books through recommendations that I'm going to go check out during my lunch break. I've been wanting to create a list of books I've read/want to read but haven't really had the time to. So needless to say, I have about a million little post-it notes or pieces of paper with random books I've run across but haven't had the time to read. I had attempted to keep track of my favorite books on my Facebook page, but you have to type in the whole title and author and for some reason I have an awful time trying to remember authors' names (pretty bad especially since I work in a library :P) . LibraryThing makes it so easy to add books. Now I can list all the books I've read and just tag all the want-to-reads in one section! The LibraryThing Local shows venues and events going on in whatever location you want to look up. I looked up Gainesville, it showed a program being offered HQ. I wonder if there is a way to post each of the branches as well. Patrons could easily use it. ACLD could add a profile on which staff could make recommendations or tag books. LibraryThing has lots of possibilities; I'm going to go explore it more!

Thing 12 - Wikis

I had heard the term wiki floating around a lot at Millhopper and Tower, but I was never sure what it meant. Of course, I knew what Wikipedia was, but I didn't know what the "wiki" part meant. I use Wikipedia all the time. It's usually just trivial things I can't remember or something I've always wondered about, like who was that guy in that movie? or how do I take care of this type of plant? or would a piranha really eat a human? I used it just the other day to try and find out more about an author and what other books she has written. Even my hometown has its own Wikipedia page. It was neat to learn about all the random facts I had never known before. I see Wikipedia as a general information site, a starting point. Because every time I use Wikipedia, I always keep in the back of my mind that some of the info may not be true. It's monitored fairly well, but a wiki by definition means that anyone can create or change its content. I was watching tv one night, I think it was the Colbert Report or Conan O'Brian, and he was able to get his viewing audience to change content on one of the Wikipedia pages to something completely false. So you always have to be careful. But I still think it's a good starting point, and there are usually credible links at the bottom of each page providing you with more information. Wikipedia was always banned from my high school and college reference lists. But that didn't stop me from using it as a jumping off point. One of my Political Science professors during my senior year of college actually allowed us to use it, saying it was credible.

As for using wikis in the library, I wish I had asked more questions about them. I don't know what they are being used for presently, so I'm not sure where they will be in the future. Maybe wikis could be created on our website so patrons, staff, and the public could add info to it. In schools, it would be a neat project if students were given a topic and told to create their own wiki. It would not only teach them research skills, but also help with typing and general computer skills (even though kids are waaaaayyy ahead of all of us when it comes to computers).

I tried my skills at adding to a wiki by going to the Neflin 23 Things Wiki. I just added some comments about Wikipedia, nothing fancy. You could spend lots of time on a page, organizing and adding. If I have time in the future, I would love to create my own site. Maybe someday...

Thing 11 - Social Media

I went to all of the social media sites listed and really liked Digg. So I got an article from the BBC and added it. Someone had already added it, so I just "digged" it. I really like these social media sites because every news site is biased in some way. Whether it's liberal, conservative, entetainment, or just going for the sensational, those who run the network/newspaper/website choose what news is going to be presented. So it's nice to have articles from a wide variety of news sites all in one place. It makes for a much more diverse view of the world. And plus, there would be no way I could keep up with all the news stories from all the different sites out there. Word of mouth (or in this case digging) is much better at spreading news that people are interested in than going to all those different sites. I'm not sure exactly how these social media sites can be used in the library though. Maybe they can be used for research purposes or just for general knowledge. I think maybe the best way to use it would be to keep up with what patrons are interested in so we can tailor our programs and collection to their needs and interests. Hmmm...

Thing 10 - Tagging and Delicious

I know it's been awhile since I posted, but I have been trying to keep up with my 23 Things. I went through Thing 10 awhile ago, but when it came to setting up a Delicious account, I wanted to do it on my own computer so I could set up my Delicious buttons in my own browser. So of course, I kept forgetting to do it when I got home. So while at work, I just moved on to Thing 11 before finishing Thing 10. I also just started a new job in the District this week. I'm now the new Staff Assistant I in Administration yay! And now I have my own desk and computer at work so to make a long story short, I can finally blog about Delicious because I set up my account yesterday on my new computer. It's really great! I don't know how many times I used a computer somewhere else (library, work, home desktop, boyfriend's laptop, parents' desktop, friend's computer) and needed a page that I had bookmarked on my laptop. It's great to be able to access my bookmarks from anywhere! I wish I had known about this while I was in college! It would have made life so much easier with all the websites I had to remember and papers I had to write! Ugh!! At least I now have it when I finally decide to start grad school. Tagging is also very helpful. Right now, I don't have too much need for it because I don't have a ton of bookmarks. But for people in school or those that use a lot of websites for their jobs, it is definitely helpful. Ok now I can finally blog about Thing 11!