Sunday, December 2, 2007

Week 9: Podcasts task #21

Podcast search engines are pretty good.
They help you find the content that you are after. I managed to find some interesting podcasts and I found some Jimmy Barnes stuff. I did find that many of the sites actually did require some special software to be loaded - which I didn't particularly wish to do.

Week 9: Youtube - success at last!

wow - I have actually managed to add some Youtube content to my blog. In the side bar, there is a shortcut which has some YouTube content in it. and when you click on it, over it goes into my blog! pretty brilliant eh?

week 9 continued



this is probably going to make that link work better....
back soon

week 9 - fun task #20 - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z00WrgIdcio

Apparently, by simply adding this url, I can in someway redirect my avid blogging fans to the joy that was 1970s commercials - for toys. and boy, wasn't it all about class back then!
I am now about to see what I have actually achieved by adding this url, back soon.

Week 8 Task #19 Web 2.0 awards

I am afraid I don't see why this website - begreennow.com - is especially in a Web 2.0 awards list. I think this is a fantastic website, and definitely one i will be returning to. I guess there are some widgets well used, and some clever mapping devices. Great content though.
Go green now! I know I will be!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Task 18 continued...

it worked - yeah, sure it needs a bit of refinement, but it actually worked.
I am impressed!

Week 8: Task 18 - online applications and tools

wow, this is something I can really find a use for. I am quite excited by this one.
I have begun working up an excel sheet, which I would like to embed here.
I have followed Zoho's advice, so here goes...



if it doesn't work, it could be because it hasn't loaded onto Zoho's server yet, or it could be that i haven't got a clue what I am doing, or it could be that I am trying to put the link into the wrong part of my blog.

I wonder if it worked. Let's publish this post and see, shall we?
I'll try plan B if this doesn't work...

Week 7 Task #17 Sandbox Wiki

Week 7 sees me mucking around in a sandbox. I have added my blog to the list, (I jumped the queue and went straight to the top of the list, naughty me). I thought I would play a bit with my url, and make it a different colour to everyone else's - but by the time I had thought of it, someone had locked the sandbox for editing. And that is no fun at all, so I have given up.
Sandboxes I guess have their place.

Monday, November 12, 2007

week 7 task #16

Wikis.
I have just scratched the surface with this at present.
But my little brain is just racing with possibilities. I will need to do a bit more exploring yet, and I am just about out of time today. But I can the potential in a professional capacity to introduce some Wiki stuff for our library. Being who I am though, I will need to do a little more exploring before I get into details.

Looking forward to future time on this one.

Task #15 a couple more thoughts

oops, I got so carried away, I forgot to make mention of the articles I read.
I took a look at Dr Wendy Schultz's thoughts in "to a temporary place in time". It was a bit high brow for me.
Then I took a look at Rick Anderson's "Away from icebergs". I could associate with some of his thoughts on future directions.
Let's see those little ships charting their own paths which hopefully best meets the needs of their own community. (Now let's get about defining "community").

Week 6 Task #15

Future of libraries.
OK, let me state up front. I work in the library industry and I truly love it. I am not a librarian, but I am still part of the team which delivers a wonderful service to a community who truly appreciates what we do, and what they can get access to.
I see libraries as a multi-layered entity. Some people come to us for the opportunity to interact with real people - their friends, and library staff who they consider to be their friends. Some people come to us for information - physical or online information; and some of these people are extremely capable and self sufficient while some of these people need a bit of help with not only finding the information they require but actually deciding what that information is that they require.
I engage in conversations with people all the time. We exchange ideas and I decide which of their ideas I agree with and accept, and which of their ideas I think are utter rubbish. I see this as no different to how the online world is developing. There is a proliferation of ideas out there which I think are reasonable and I might take some on board - but there are also those out there which I think are utter rubbish. When I need to "learn" something, the inference is that I don't already know about this subject nor do I have any firm ideas. My time is limited, I don't want to "learn" from a source which turns out to be utter rubbish.
This to me is the danger of things like Wiki, and del.icio.us and Technorati. Just because there is a very large number next to a site which seems to indicate it is popular, doesn't make it authoratitive or helpful.
I am old fashioned. I go to a library for recreational purposes as well as learning purposes. I like to take away my information so that I can digest it in the comfort of my own home, perhaps over a cup of coffee or a piece of toast, while I ruffle my dog's ear. I would really not like to see libraries become techno-centric and virtualised. This would be my worst nightmare. I do however see the value in subscribing to electronic reference materials and educating users in getting the best out of the wealth of information that is available online. This does require a considerable amount of time decidated to it. So, perhaps the money we save on buying some physical materials can be transferred into an "educating" budget.

Oh dear, I wonder if I will still have a job when I have completed this week's exercise (just joking!)

Week 6 Task #14

wow, there are people in the world with an awful lot of time on their hands.
OK, so I have been to Technorati, I have discovered that by doing a keyword search for Learning 2.0 in blog posts returned 6616 results, so that is obviously a very broad search. I have discovered that by doing a keyword search for Learning 2.0 in tags returned 658 results, so that is a bit more managable. And finally, I discovered that by doing a search for Learning 2.0 in the blog directory gives 806 results, so that is a slightly different result again.
Again, this is not something which I would invest my personal time in.

Week 6 task #13

I have to admit, I don't really get this one. I can understand the principles, but I can not see the advantages that are returned for all the effort you put into this. And it is just another account to have to manage.
In any case, I did look around and I did see the lists and things that other people have done, so clearly for them it works. But for me, I cannot really see that I would expend my energy into creating a del.icio.us account and tagging stuff within that account.
Sorry.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

task#12 Rollyo

well, well, well.
I have created a little search thingy. So go on - load up your dogs and start holidaying (I know I am going to!)

task 11 - LibraryThing

I really love books - don't get me wrong. But I love to read them, to peruse them, to look at their pictures, to borrow them, to own them. I don't like to catalog them!
However, in the interests of self-education, I have taken the ultimate step and cataloged some books which I own, and some which I hope to own soon, and some which I have simply read and therefore I own them in my memory.
If you want to know what I read or use as reference in my life, these things can be found at
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/AlpacaGirl

Week 5 - play week


Well, I have now monsterised myself - some say it is long overdue.
This self portrait was done in
http://www.i-mockery.com/halloween/bag/monster-initial-generator.php

task 9

the library related rss that I subscribed to was one which tells me about filtering in public libraries - a bit topical at our joint at present.

Week 4: RSS & newsreaders

So I have now learnt about RSS feeds - I even subscribed to 1 or 2. I don't think this is something I would rush around and tell everyone they must have access to this, but I guess one day it may be more useful to me. It seems the sort of thing which is more useful when you have a little more leisure time to get the most out of it. Which is really odd seeing as most people say the opposite - that it is much more useful for very busy people. One of life's little enigmas I guess.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Fun thing #7

OKey, dokey. The technology thing which interests me this week is..........the world wide web. We have this magnificent tool for communicating with, and I think sometimes, it gets a little bit misused. We seem to expend a lot of energy, both real and virtual, writing all this stuff, publishing all this stuff, and living these on-line lives - when we used to do all this face to face. With real people, in the real community. And we used to get really side-tracked too sometimes, just like we now sometimes get virtually side-tracked.
I like the web, and I like the power of the web, but I also like the power and the attraction of a gorgeous sunny afternoon. Call me old fashioned, but I keep my on-line time to a minimum.

fun thing #6 attempt #4.

OK, so here we go again. I made a magazine cover. I saved it to flickr. I thought I posted my comments to my blog (yes, this is my 4th attempt). So, here we are. I think you should all now be seeing the words which match my learning.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Flickr

Well, I am really running behind schedule here...I have finally just gotten around to doing the tincy, tiniest bit of exploring with flickr. I have uploaded some photos, and I have created a wacky little calendar (emphasis on little here!)

the staff are yelling at me, so I had best run.... (and yes, you know who you are!!)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Week 2 - better late than never

Work pressures have meant that I have been a very late starter for Week 2, but at least I got here!

This is a topic that interests me greatly. I love photography, and sharing my photos. Again, work has prevented me from actually uploading a photo into the FlickR community - we have a very safe network here which blocks certain file types. But never mind, it is very important to ensure security for the corporate information here. I will have to wait until I can go and use the public access pcs in order to upload the photos and continue from there.

I am particularly looking forward to creating calendars and so on with my photos - I can see that I have Christmas gifts covered for the family already!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Day one of the journey

Week one, day one - the journey just getting here has been a bit hazardous and mind stretching. All that setting up on behalf of library staff, with minimal info to run with. And not to mention buying 30 pairs of little, itsy bitsy headphones! But, here I am, one of the team on an excursion to play and learn new stuff! So today, I learnt about 7.5 habits and have, I think, chosen a template for my brand, spanking new blog!

this has been alpaca girl, clambering up that mountain (with still many more peaks to crest).

OOOPS - I was going to be really exciting and add some images - but sadly, I didn't bring any with me. Maybe when I come and play next time!

ciao for now