Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Where was this when I was in school?

Thing 21- Student 2.0 tools
The Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator are such simple ideas, but they are super. Wish I had these...or thought to create them for myself... back in the dark ages when I was in school. They could easily be modified to accomodate the students schedule (you would need to fit in the dance classes, soccer games and of course Friday nights are party nights) and it would be a help for parents to keep better track of progress on assignments, rather than just hearing "I'm working on it". Getting this web site out to dedicated students (and the parents of not-so-dedicated ones) would be great. I liked the Minnesota 5 Student Research Planning Guide, the triangle to help narrow a broad topic, and the What is Research poster. All three would help keep a student focused and on the right track.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Sites, sites and more sites

Thing #20- Books 2.0
Lots and lots to read and digest in this "thing". So far this is my opinion on just a few of the mentioned sites.
Books on Your Phone- Thumbs up for Twitterlit...it gives the opening sentence of a book to tease and tempt you...a great way to find new authors.
Reader's Advisory- Thumbs down for What's next- this claims to show the next books in a series, but gave "o results" when I entered Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. You've got to be kidding!!! Nothing comes close to FantasticFiction.
Online Book Communities-LivingSocial: Books- This choice wasn't one that Neflin 'starred' as a favorite, but I found three friends who were on it. I have many patrons who wish they had a list of books they had read so as not to check out repeats, and this may be an option.
Book Group Resources- I checked out Booksprouts but didn't join. Guess I'm not ready to join a book group, but I do see the value for those who want to.
Audio Books-How cool is LibriVox? This group hopes to have all books (out of copyright) available in audio...and they are doing it by volunteers. Just tune up your vocal chords and start recording. It's quite an undertaking (they hope to have the recoded books available in all languages) but how great would that be?
Book Reviews- Thumbs up for Bookbrowse because it classifies books by genre and then breaks down the genre into specific catagories. The reviews are short but seem adequate to give the reader a good idea of what to find. I'd go back to this one.
Book Rentals- Okay...haven't these people heard of libraries? Why rent when you can borrow?
Facebook- for finding material it's hard to beat WorldCat.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Social Gather-Ning at WebJunction

Thing #19- Social Networking
I checked out as much as I could of WebJunction, Ning and Gather without actually joining any of them. Guess I would need to join to find any real value in them. I looked into Open Source Food (which now has a much cooler name- Nibbledish). Without joining, I was able to get recipes for most anything, and all had professionally taken photos, clear directions and the name of the originator of the recipe. Recipes are "tagged" which makes it great if you need a recipe to use up that half a kumquat in the back of the refrigerator. Unless you choose to add a recipe or comment on one, this works like any other great recipe website.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Be my 'friend'

Thing #18- Facebook and MySpace
After checking out both, I joined Facebook. Just key-in Molly Lucieer. I found a surprising number of people I knew simply by entering my email address and college name and graduation date. I added three friends (who fortunately accepted my friendship) and joined a group. I am now a member of "Don't Mess With Me, I Worked In a Public Library"...gotta check out the stories and crazy questions asked of library personal. I've left messages on a couple walls and even poked a fellow co-worker. I am waiting for someone to leave a message on my wall. The gift idea is bizarre. Does anyone really pay to send an icon to a friend on Facebook?...maybe I have this concept confused.
I added my blog to my Facebook page. Still not sure of 'poking' my co-workers. Isn't that considered "violence in the workplace"?
WELL HERE'S A NEW ONE...I was just super-poked by a co-worker...she threw a sheep at me. Don't know what I'm talking about?...guess you haven't done your Facebook homework yet.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

A dingo ate my baby!

Okay...now I'm really confused. I am the least superstitious person you will ever meet, but sometime during Friday the 13th my laughing babies video from YouTube vanished from my blog. I tried to re-enter it and had no luck. I then found another laughing baby and couldn't add that to my blog either. All I have is a blank space where my "children" should be. How sad. But now it's Saturday evening and I'm heading home for a cocktail. (Does that make me a bad mother?)
Hello again- It's Monday and praise-be!! Sometime over the weekend (and I use that term lightly since I work on Saturdays) whoever stole my laughing baby on Friday returned it. My thanks to the cyber dingos.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Podcasts...how my job helped my golf game

Thing #17- I found podcasts a neat idea in principle, but not in practice. After waiting for what seemed like forever for a podcast to load in Podcast and PodcastAlley, I went to Yahoo Podcast and...Yahoo! I was able to find a golf lesson that loaded for me quickly. This was simple to use and I was given a choice of moving it to my Digg, my delicious or a Facebook location. I chose to simply put it on this blog by copy/pasting the enbedded code onto my dashboard.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

You-Tube...at my age?

Thing #16- Never thought I'd be wandering through YouTube, but found some fun and funny videos. What is with the stopping and starting of the videos? Everyone I viewed did the same thing. To choose one to post I had to settle on one of the several laughing baby videos...who doesn't love a laughing baby?

I suggest everyone watch Conan the Librarian...it's a whole new way to look at customer service!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Rollyo, rollyo..who needs a rollyo

Thing#15- Think I'm tired and crabby, but my 'favorites' list will do just fine. Don't think I need Rollyo---but I'll take another look when I'm fresher.
Okay- after a relaxing day off I tried again to appreciate Rollyo. Although it will never be a favorite, I did create a Rollyo, and a search roll and linked it to my blog. Hooray for me.

Powered by Rollyo

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Tools, tools and more tools

Thing #14- Online Productivity Tools- So here I looked at the various options for creating my home page and played around with lots of fun stuff in igoogle. I added a countdown widget to this blog, but chose to count down to my birthday to eliminate any angst about finishing the 23 things. I looked into the google calendar, but was not overly impressed. I'll stick with the version I use everyday for my job. As far as the tada list...give me paper and pencil any day.
It's now several days later and my email today included the reminder I set up in my Google calendar. Actually that was a nice feature.
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