Final Post for SPL2.0

I used Google docs to make a presentation addressing the points in our final thing. Here it is:

Presentation

I think I will be checking out other people's blogs now that I am not worried about getting the "things" done and then maybe I will talk to them about some of the things we have discovered in the course of the process. Then it will really be collaborative for me (I did collaborate some - when I needed help or other people needed help, but I haven't really discussed a lot of these things with people).

Podcasts

I tried one of the podcasting tools and found some interesting things. OF course when I wanted to watch one I had to install something (I figured I would) so I had to stop. I'll explore more in depth later. It's nice to have the SPL 2.0 blog to go to for all of the different links to things. If I keep checking bloglines at home, maybe I will add one.

Actually, i think I did save one when I first set up the account, but I never look at it because I'm usually at work when I check my feeds.

oopsy (#20)

Somehow I missed the beginning of week 9 so I'm a little out of order on my posts. I'm sure I could manage my posts into being in order, but I'm not going to. I suppose I should have put the "thing" numbers in my post titles, but I didn't. Then I'd be sure not to miss anything. That would be a good rule of thumb if this is offered again.

So here's my take on the downloadable audio: I like our databases. I'm checking out the African American music database, specifically the Supernatural Hoodoo Blues playlist. I would listen to this at home if I were in the right mood, of course. I think I'll try the Smithsonian one next... I wasn't able to get on. They say their tech service is workign to restore access :(

Now it's working (1 minute later). I've been wanting to listen to some Buddhist monks chanting and I had a difficult time finding what I want. I didn't think to check here! I looked and found something, but it's not precisely what I want. And then I kept getting error messages. So I switched to Pandora.

Librivox

I've looked at Librivox before, but I've never actually listened to anything from it. My only concern would be the quality of the reading since it's all done by volunteers, but the only way to find out how it sounds is to have a listen. I took a look at the recently cataloged and saw they had Shakespeare stories done by E Nesbit which I'd be curious about. I think this would be a great way to get some exposure to things I might not normally come across since everything is in the public domain. I'll have to remember to check there when I'm in the mood for an audiobook on the weekend and can't pick one up at the library.

Google Docs

Well, the formatting went through (see previous post) but it's not entirely, but I'd have to mess with it a bit to make sure it's readable. It's nice to know that it can be done that way, but I'm not sure why I would at this point since blogger is so easy to use.

I decided to use Google docs instead of Zoho since I already have a Google sign in and I can't keep track of too many things. I'm going to try to publish it to see what happens. And I'll use all sorts of fun formatting to see how that comes through.

Flock

I just took a look at flock.com and it looks like it would be a great thing to use. I have started some accounts on social networking sites, but since I don't like to spend a lot of time checking stuff they tend to fall by the wayside. Flock seems to be kind of like bloglines because I would probably actually maintain (and maybe even start new) accounts if I could get to them all in one place. I didn't actually start it up, but I'll keep it in mind for something to do at home. I think I might save seomoz.org to my delicious account because I did see a lot of things I'd like to play with and that seems like the best way to keep track of what I want to check out. I don't really understand why some of the retail sites are Web 2.0, but I guess I'll just have to look at them more thoroughly. All in all, it's good fun :)

Wikis #1

So, I played around with some of the wikis and ended up wandering all over the place, thanks to the New Orleans ALA wiki. I read a pronunciation guide and discovered that I can buy super cool things that I've always wanted but never seen anywhere. I was also reminded that I once promised never to go to Rite-Aid (didn't manage it, though).
Some wikis took a little figuring out in terms of organization. I like the idea of having a wiki for the intranet and for teams that work on things together. I'll have a better idea of that once I've played in the SPL wiki sandbox, though.

Roadblocks

I think part of the reason I am falling behind on my 2.0 stuff is the bloglines account I set up a little while ago. I really enjoy having all of the stuff I'm interested in come up so easily. I might actually pay attention to the news now! It's also allowing me to keep up with some of the professional stuff that I struggled to pay attention to before. However, it still takes some time to go through it all. On another note, playing around with all of these different websites and exploring what's out there has gotten me back into the habit of surfing. After school, I developed something of an aversion to being online/on the computer, but I seem to be getting over it now that I have found so many things I want to keep up on.

Ack!

I'm a month behind! I took a look at the delicious and technorati stuff, but once again was stopped by video. I usually do this 2.0 stuff when I am at the desk, so videos pose a challenge to me. Usually when I am not scheduled to be on desk I have too many other things to do. Since I already have a delicious account I think I will skip to the next week which is wikis. I'll have to check out technorati in more detail later. I thought it was pretty neat and it led me to some cool places, but it also seemed a little confusing to me.
I'm curious about the wiki week because I don't know anything except the basics on them, so it should be informative (as long as I don't need to rely on a video :)

Library Thing

This feels a little bit like cheating because I already have a Library Thing account, but I only have 11 books in it. And I have ignored it of late, so this is a good chance for me to become reacquainted with it. Here's the link.
Maybe I'll take this chance learn a little bit more about it.
Ciao

Here I am...

in another one of my incarnations:



I found the Harry Potter doll generator through the generator blog listed on the SPL 2.0 site. I love making characters like this so it was the first thing that really appealed to me. I know i like the FD Toys, but I don't have any images I want to play with right now.

Feedster

I think I might become a regular Feedster visitor. I like that you can take a look at different channels to see what other people have to say but not commit to them by adding them to my bloglines account. Of course, if I find something I just absolutely love through and through I will add it, but I want to make sure I don't render the bloglines useless by making it overwhelming.

RSS 2

I started playing around with the links in the SPL 2.0 blog and was rather overwhelmed. Feedster is pretty and it seems like it would be really great for browsing, but I could see myself getting overloaded with feeds if I played around on it too much. I already have 24! Topix was ok and I think I might like Technorati once I watch the tutorial, but I am not able to listen to sound at the moment. I did not much care for Syndic8 because it seemed "tech-y" and not intuitive for me (although I did just see a podcast feed featured on the site that I might be interested in - maybe I'll just peek in on the page every once in a while to see what's there).

The bloglines tutorial showed me how to keep up with flickr accounts so I've added one to my list so far, but I made it private because pictures are more personal. I finally realized yesterday that I should check the sites I have on my del.icio.us account to see if I can grab some feeds off of those and I found quite a few that I had saved and then never really bothered to check but on a very irregular basis. Most of them are book reviews and library types of things and I think that having a bloglines account will definitely help me keep up to date. For instance, the YALSA blog let me know what the 2007 Teens Top 10 are which was good since I neglected to put the voting period in my calendar. Now I know I can make a top 10 display! I also found out yesterday that I could get feeds of everything in my del.icio.us account, but not everything I saved has feeds so I'd have to poke around that some to figure out how it works. I probably won't since I have my nice bloglines account, but I might...

RSS

I've been hearing about RSS for quite some time and I had a general idea of what it was all about, but I hadn't tried it until this week. And I must say that I love it! I'm pretty lazy about getting on the computer and checking the things I want to keep up on and this system makes it a lot easier to keep track of things with less work. I like less work.

So here's the link to my bloglines account (if I did it right): http://www.bloglines.com/public/alicesbrush

I planned on going to a concert tomorrow, but I discovered this morning that it happened earlier this week. If I'd had a bloglines account sooner, I probably would have realized that. argh...

I'm hoping this will help me to keep up on professional items a little more, such as the ALSC and YALSA blogs. Heck, I even put the SPL YS book reviews on it. Maybe that will inspire me to post to it. I think my next step is to see how I can get it all organized.

This is fun!

Chillin' in the woods

Ha ha ha!!

Technoblog

I'm not good with a lot of techno stuff, but I can figure a few things out just from looking around. I managed to set up a secure wireless connection at home, which made me very very happy and proud of myself. I like getting things set up just right, so I sometimes spend a lot of time messing around with setup options. If things aren't obvious I can often figure it out, but if it seems unclear or requires a lot of extra learning I might give up with the intention of figuring it out later (like setting up my myspace page - or maybe I'm being dumb about it - everyone else seems to do just fine). I guess I basically want things to be easy, but I'm willing to do a little bit of investigating to work things out. I think I might be rambling so I will stop now.

PS I would like to learn more about using my digicam effectively and making pretty pictures.

Mashups

At first I thought that Mashups were several pictures squashed together, but now I know that they are supercool (usually) applications that people make so that others can play with them. I had quite a lot of fun checking out the various toys available through Flickr. I like finding random photos through the color pickr, especially since it takes you to areas you might not find otherwise, but then I run the risk of spending too much time looking around. I really like the fun fd flickr toys, too but some of them require my own creativity which I run low on periodically. I do want to make a librarian trading card but I have to figure out how I want to do all the parts of it first. Once I do, I'll post it here. I'm not so sure it will be before SPL 2.0 is over, but I'll do it eventually.

Flickr Flickr Flickr

So here's the part where I put in an image from Flickr. I found one that my friend posted on her account. She has TONS of pictures and I like them. They are much more interesting that mine so far, but we'll say that's just because I am working on getting my boring old vacation photos online. So here is the picture I found. I like photos of dolls. And this one has an absolutely adorable outfit and a cutie-tootie friend. I should start carrying my camera around with me, but then I'd probably take forever to get the pictures out of it.

Learning Habits

I suppose one of the easiest learning habits for me is to play (of course!). I can spend hours working on something if it can be made fun. I think that one of the hardest might be having confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner. I have been increasing my confidence lately as I have tackled new things on my own and found that they could be accomplished. I suppose another personal obstacle I have is the willingness to find time for new learning adventures. I guess that comes under the heading of accepting responsbility for my own learning, which I'm also getting better about.

Testing...

here is my test blog. I'm starting this late, so I haven't done the tutorial yet and I can't listen to audio right now, so I'll be doing that later.