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. 

LibraryThing, GoodReads, And Twitter Projects

LibraryThing/GoodReads

I added a few more books to both of these

and looked through some of the recommendations.

Many of the ones on LibraryThing I deleted

because they were based on my Harry Potter books. 

I like these books but I started reading the series 

because I became hooked after buying the first book for my son

and I am not actively looking for another series that is similar to them.

I have more books on GoodReads and have given more personal ratings,

so I am getting more diverse recommendations.

I feel more comfortable adding books I have read and do not own to GoodReads.

I have tried to find another discussion topic to post to on LibraryThing

since the one I posted to seems to have fizzled, 

but nothing really interests me as of yet.

Twitter

I have posted a few tweets about my assignments on Twitter

and added a couple more organizations. 

I am back up to 26 people/organizations I am following.

I will post more on Twitter next week!

PhotoSharing-A Wordle of My Blog

I made a Wordle of my blog for my PhotoSharing Project. I posted the html code given by http://www.wordle.net/ and the resulting image is very small. The words become very unclear when I try to make it bigger.

I took a screen shot of my Wordle while on the website and used IrfanView to edit it.

Here is the result of this:

My Blog Wordle

I can resize this image without it losing a lot of clarity.  The website is very active and I had to search a few pages to find my wordle after only a few minutes. It is a cute idea and can be used in a fun way in different educational settings.

A New Week: Progress Continuing

I continue to work on my long-term projects:

PhotoSharing-

I added a post with a photo and quote using a text image generator:

 tagmaker.com

Twitter-

I was curious how many times the people I am following posted.

I put some statistics for fourteen of these in a posting.

I also put the number of following/followers for these organizations/people.

 I did not make a posting for LibraryThing/Goodreads this week.

I only added four or five books to each of these.

----

My current group project with Tamara is going well.

We have both finished our interviews.

Next, we need to work out the details 

on how to put the PowerPoint and Wimba presentation together.

I hope to have the PowerPoint together by the end of next week

before the Thanksgiving break.

See you soon,

Chris

PhotoSharing Project

 I used tagmaker.com to add this quote to the background.

I Am Following You!

I decided to see how long it took some of the people

and organizations I am following to post twenty times. 

Here are some of the results:

Random House had twenty posts within a day.

School Library Journal took two days.

Science Museum-in the UK- took three days,

as did GoodReads, New York Public Library, 

and Library Journal. 

Connor Prairie took four days.

Some statistics on these:

Random House--Following-27,305--Followers-247,512

GoodReads--Following-10,163--Followers--218,679

NY Public Library--Following-92--Followers-170,668

Library Journal--Following-251--Followers-123,821

Science Museum--Following-7,081--Followers-119,200

School Library Journal--Following-1,055--Followers-11,598

Connor Prairie--Following-3,056--Followers--3,715

Connor Prairie is the only one of these that followed me

after I started following them. 

They are pretty even on following/followers,

so this is a common practice for them. 

NY Public Library follows the least numbers 

of people/organizations in the group.

Smithsonian Libraries and Jason Griffey 

posted twenty posts in seven days.

NY Times Books took six days.

Between Nov. 1st and Nov. 9th.,

Library of Congress has 17 posts,

Zooey Deschanel had 15 posts, and

both Google Books and Indiana State Library had 13 posts.

Zooey Deschanel--Following-375--Followers-822,494

Google Books--Following-19--Followers--376,900

NY Times Books--Following-113--Followers--315,110

Library of Congress--Following-6--Followers-299,579

 Smithsonian Libraries--Following-348--Followers--6,646

Jason Griffey--Following-593--Followers-2,971

State Library--Following-355--Followers-603

Library of Congress is following

the least number of organizations/people from this list,

with Google Books a close second. 

Zooey Deschanel, my only "celebrity," has the most followers.

Unfortunately most of her recent posts

are an advertisement for her new show. 

Projects, Projects,...Projects

I have felt a bit overwhelmed this week.

 A project I had in another class was moved up a week and

I concentrated on this during the first part of the week.

  Consequently, I fell behind in my other courses.  

I started a group project this week with Tamara Gibbs. 

I am debating a couple libraries for the project 

and it will partially depend on the availability of staff members.

After watching and reading the example projects

I think I have a good grasp of the project.

I went with my husband and daughter today to see Phineas and Ferb.

It was cute and my daughter seemed to really like it.

I think we may go see Tangled (Dare to Dream) on ice in January. 

I have been wanting to go see a Disney on Ice production

and my girl really likes Tangled.

I think my blogs this week are a bit negative, 

partially because I was in a hurry and tired.

I will try to be more positive next week!

My Flickr Photos

Entrance to Resource Center, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

Staff Desk, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

View of Room, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

Newspaper and Magazine Rack, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

Computers and Printer, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

Collection, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

Notices, Handouts, and Workshops, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

Notices on Door, a photo by angelfire_2393 on Flickr.

I was granted permission to take pictures

of my one room resource center

and load them into my blog. 

I have an account with Yahoo!,

which probably made the upload a little easier. 

Posting them the way I wanted was a bit of a battle

but I am finally satisfied with the results. 

I tried putting them in as a slide show but I did not like it. 

Then I put them in as a set,

and they were extremely small and were blurry

when I managed to get a couple a larger size.

So I uploaded them all separately and

now have to delete seven posts,

but they are all here and I can see them!

At this point I do not see myself using Flickr again

in the near future. 

I can see that a library or organization

that wishes to share photos would indeed find Flickr a good idea.

It would be nice for human resources to share company events

or for a library to share their programs,

and the pictures can be "private" instead of "public."

The private option is more likely to persuade me

to use Flickr in the future.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

I have not discovered how to make Twitter interesting.

I post a new tweet 

whenever I have something halfway interesting to say. 

I read all of the new tweets

from the 21 people or organizations I am following.

(I added one as recommended by my professor.)

I still find it less than interesting.

That is not to say that the organizations

that I am following are necessarily boring,

just that what they post seems to have little to do with me.

I did find it interesting that Connor Prairie

decided to follow me after I started following them. 

My husband tells me that people become offended

when others do not follow them back. 

I had someone decide to follow me

and then stop after about four days.

I have no idea why she started or why she stopped!

This is who I am following at the moment:

My professor, two of my fellow students, Goodreads,

NY times books, Library of Congress, Random House,

science museum, my husband, State Library, Purdue Archives,

Connor Prairie, Smithsonian Libraries,

New York Public Library, Jason Griffey, Michael Porter,

Library Journal, Google Books, YA lit_com,

and Zooey Deschanel. 

Does anyone have any suggestions of fun

but interesting people to follow?

LibraryThing Review

I added some of my daughter's books to my LibraryThing collection.

I decided to buy a book I have read in the past.

I added it to my collection and wrote a review for it.

"Chewy Louie" by Howie Schneider.

I really like this book! I read this book today at a preschool and both the teachers and children laughed when expected and told me afterward how much they enjoyed the story. It was a huge hit and I liked reading it because I knew my audience was enjoying it. The children told me stories of their own pets that had chewed on items around their home. While the antics of Chewy Louie are exaggerated, the story will strike a cord of understanding and sympathy with pet owners and dog lovers. ( )

  flag chrish-ivytech | Nov 4, 2011

http://www.librarything.com/work/717331/reviews/79670027 

 My discussion board post was less than successful I am afraid.

One response was to say I should have used "is" instead of "was." 

One response did actually discuss the topic of my post, but did not agree with it.

While posting this I noticed a couple spelling mistakes and changed them. 

102chrish-ivytech Oct 25, 8:07pm 

From the research I did for an English paper it appears that William Shakespeare rewrote many older works and changed them a bit to make them his own. He also periodically worked with other people to make his plays, usually people from his own theatre. He was not only a playwright but an actor and used the stories he knew well to create something new.
 

My paper was about the The Wooden O and not specifically Shakespeare, but it seems clear that he was not a "poor boy" but a somewhat educated man who was part owner and stockholder of a business that was successful.
 

I do not understand why people keep debating this issue but then there are those who swore for years that Elvis was alive. Some people like controversy, even if it is about someone who lived 500 years ago.
 

Do I like Shakespeare plays? I like to watch them more than I like to read them. The language is more engaging to hear than to try to read.

103MrAndrew Oct 26, 8:05am  Elvis "was" alive? Wrong tense, my dear sir.

104chrish-ivytech Oct 26, 3:35pm Ouch. By the way, I am a female. Have a nice day!

105MrAndrew Oct 27, 8:36am I assumed that you were knighted.

106nemoman Oct 29, 10:52pm Beknighted. What's all this stuff about Elvis being dead?

107nemoman Oct 29, 10:53pm Beknighted. What's all this stuff about Elvis being dead?

108oldstick Oct 30, 6:58am 

I like the idea of a committee at the Globe writing Shakespeare's plays but I don't believe it. I did entertain the thought that Christopher Marlowe wrote them at one time but does it really matter? No one is going to pay him any royalties and it is great to have a name to go with the works. I just hope what I read recently about the theatre in Stratford doesn't stop tourists. We need all the friends we can get!