Response to Fellow Students' Presentations in Wimba

Four groups presented this week so far

on different technologies in two libraries.

 

Here are some of my responses to the PowerPoints 

presented in the Wimba classroom.

Notes from the group-

Frank, Jumoke, Jessica

Frank presented PowerPoint and speaks clearly and precisely.

Jumoke and Jessica worked together for Indiana University-Northwest,

while Frank gathered information for St. Joseph County Public Libraries.

The presentation is very visual, with lots of photographs.

I was surprised so many patrons gave their permission for the pictures!

"St. Joe" automation for return items was interesting

-must be a very large library system.

Jessica Serrano made the PowerPoint.

The presentation did not clearly state 

Jumoke's responsibilities during the project.

---

Notes from the group-

Sandra and Joshua

Both Sandra and Joshua shared the presentation

and some slides had both of them speaking in turns.

Avon-Washington Public Library has one location

and Elkhart Public Library has five locations.

I did not think about asking

what databases were not available on website.

I have heard this a couple times now

and I wish I had thought about asking this question.

I would like to try a play-away at some point.

I will have to find out if any

of my larger Evergreen libraries have these

and if I can check them out.

It was a nice presentation

and it made good use of pictures.

---

Notes from the group-

Jean, Tommie, and Randi

Presented one library at a time.

Pendleton Community Library has twelve laptops in the library!

That would be very nice.

It is unclear when or if the voices changed,

because they are all female :-).

Pendleton presentation is longer,

so perhaps two people were taking turns.

The other library was Morgan County Library.

All are given credit for the PowerPoint and presentation.

I do not remember any pictures,

but I believe I remember Randi saying

she was told she could not take pictures 

in her Blog.

 Tamara and I also posted a presentation in the Wimba classroom.

I am going to have to check my Google Reader

and see if anyone posts a new blog

with comments on our presentation.

I think we did pretty good :-), 

but we went a bit long.

A Very Interesting Experience

My Library 105 Course has introduced me

to some very helpful sources and ideas.

Some of my favorites were:

Google Reader:

 Something I now check at least every other day.

I am going to miss watching for new posts from my fellow students.

My favorite feeds are my ALSC blog

and my For Better or Worse cartoon.

I am going to have to find a couple new blogs to follow. 

Delicious:

I liked this website better before it changed hands.

I decided to wait and see if it improved 

and have in fact forgotten all about it!

I will have to go have a look

and see if it has cleared up some of its problems.

Creative Commons: 

I think I will use these quite a bit in the future.

I find that I often want an image off the web

but I am not sure what is freely available.

GoodReads:

I am unsure how much I will continue to use this website

but I had a lot of fun rating the books I have read

and I liked writing my reviews.

PhotoSharing:

By far, this was my favorite project.

I like taking pictures and discovering how to share them

with others.

I have stated that I feel that blogs are just someone's opinions.

But I have found that I like stating my opinion!

I will admit that I have a higher opinion of blogs 

than I did when I first began this class.

Now that blogs have become so common 

many professionals are using them 

and I think the information on them has become more reliable.

The task is to discover which ones are done by professionals

and which one's are by those who want a free place

to express their opinions to whoever will listen to them.

But it has been rather fun expressing my opinions.

Thank you to everyone who was willing to listen to them!

Twitter Has a New Version

I logged online this morning and read my Google Reader,

something I now do almost everyday!

I discovered a posting from Resource Shelf,

informing me that Twitter has changed its design.

I felt this was excellent timing since I need to do 

a final blog on my Twitter experience this week!

But when I went on my twitter page, 

it looked the same.

So what has changed?

I checked out the website posted to learn 

more about the changes.

fly.twitter.com

The two minute video showed a home screen 

that I do not possess.

I was confused.

But then I read further down the story & 

I discovered that the new version will not show

on my computer for a while.

But if you have Twitter on iPhone or Twitter for Android, 

you will see the new version today.

I found my old Twitter account a couple days ago. 

I had started one for a different library class.

I had two tweets 

because I did not find Twitter interesting:-0

I never found my sister and niece on Twitter,

even though both are supposed to have an account.

If I keep using Twitter I am going to have to find out

their usernames. 

I want to thank everyone that followed me, 

especially Sandra.

She responded a couple times 

when I was feeling pretty overwhelmed.

I deleted about half of those that I am following,

just in case I want to check back at some point.

I do not want to be overwhelmed by a

bunch of new tweets.

Okay, now to the questions I am supposed to be answering!

I found Twitter boring as all get out for the most part.

When I actually interacted with someone

it was much more interesting.

I do not do news. 

I do not read the news.

I do not watch the news.

Twitter is like the news on the web.

Did I mention that I do not do the news?

I did find it easy to find the people

on my professor's list.

But I could not find my own sister...

I started following my fellow students

because I wanted to see what they posted

and I appreciated them following me!

I followed the Smithsonian Library

because it was a library

and I have an interest in Smithsonian.

Children's Literacy started following me

and I find the topic interesting,

so I followed them back.

I do not see any use I have for Twitter

at this point.

If I worked in a library I can see 

how this would be a way of 

connecting with patrons

that were following us.

I feel like I should be more positive

but I really feel that Twitter is not for me!

PhotoSharing Reflection

My PhotoSharing Project was my favorite project.

It was cool adding pictures to my Picasa photo album.

I did not realize I would already have pictures here

because of my blog.

I can see how a library could 

add pictures to their facebook page

or blog or website with pictures from patron events, 

with the patrons' permission.

It was fun taking pictures at my library.

Since I seldom have anyone in the library :-( 

getting permission to have people in the photos

was not an issue.

One would always want to get someone's

permission before posting their picture on the web

or anywhere that would be seen publicly.

It was actually pretty easy to embed these

into my blog.

The picture of the library with books as the front

wall was amazing.

I think I would like to go see this someday.

The building is in Kansas City.

I do not believe anyone responded to my question

as to if they knew where it was located.

I am glad I discovered Creative Commons

this semester.

It is good to know a place I can

get pictures and only need to give

proper credit to the creator of the photos.

 Making a wordle again was more fun 

with the project 

because I had a better understanding of what I was doing

and how to make it better.

Using tagmaker.com was a lot of fun as well.

It took me at least two hours

to find just the right words for my picture.

All together it was a fun project and I am glad I did it!

LibraryThing/GoodReads Reflection

My home page: LibraryThing

http://www.librarything.com/home/chrish-ivytech

Books I am currently reading: GoodReads

http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/6709345-christina?shelf=currently-reading

I could not decide between LibraryThing and GoodReads,

so I decided to do both.

I found GoodReads more user friendly.

I had the chance to rate numerous recommendations.

I felt more comfortable adding books

I had read on GoodReads but did not own.

I felt as if I needed to own the books 

I added in LibraryThing

and I do not own a big collection of books.

I did like adding a review for my books.

I never really felt qualified to review a book 

before doing these.

It was fun telling someone why I liked a book.

I was uncomfortable saying that I disliked

something about a book.

I was very disappointed when my posting

to a discussion board on LibraryThing

resulted in someone telling me

I had used the wrong word tense.

No one else has posted to that discussion board

since I reported on this a few weeks ago

and I had been hoping to get a couple more replies.

Books were relatively easy to add to both sites.

I never added a book that was not already in the websites. 

If I worked in the library 

I think I would feel more comfortable using LibraryThing.

As of now, I feel somewhat like an outsider.

I will keep both of my memberships

but I am not sure how often I will be updating my books.

I have a feeling I will still check GoodReads

whenever I decide to buy a book 

to add it to my "Currently Reading" list.

Session 14: A Bit Overwhelming Actually

We are coming to the end of our semester.

I admit I am putting this class on the back-burner because

I discovered early this week that my research paper for Library 201,

that I thought was due at the end of week 16,

is actually due the 9th.

Today I wrote approximately half of my paper.

Hopefully by Wednesday I will have my rough draft complete

and I can again concentrate on my other classes.

My partner and I have planned to present our group project on Tuesday morning.

I feel we have put a good project together and hope that our Wimba session runs smoothly.

I have gathered the information I need to make my guide 

on two library technologies when they are not working correctly.

I have yet to start on my final project :-(

The last two weeks have been unusual for me in terms of my classes.

We spent a week in Florida with my husband's family over break.

Both of my husband's parents are in ill-health and it was hard to leave them.

I usually use break week to get caught up or even ahead

with my schoolwork.

I did read five books for my research paper but had limited internet access.

My blog for next week will include my thoughts about my projects:

LibraryThing/Goodreads

Photosharing

Twitter

Now I need to go do some research for my group project 

in my ECED class....

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' Into the future...

Technology Projects

Group Project

My group project is going well.

I have posted a PowerPoint version for my library.

I am using the Bartholomew County Public Library 

for my library to compare to Tamara's choice:

Logansport-Cass County Public Library.

Technology Proposal

 

I decided to try to do a Technology Proposal on iPads

for my final project. Personally I have never used an iPad.

I know one library that has an iPad for patrons but it is a college.

Perhaps I now have an excuse to go there and see how they work!

Does anyone know of a library that uses iPads:

for either staff members or patrons?

I would like to get some personal recommendations on how

to use the technology and how well it is working.

Tech Projects Options

I changed my technology project from an Assistive Technology Guide of local resources

to a Troubleshooting Checklist Guide for two library technologies.

I was having trouble finding enough local resources 

to make an Assistive Technology guide 

and found the Technology Guide to be interesting.