Week 8, Thing #19

I like Library Thing alot! It is neat that the site is there simply to connect people with books and to connect people to other people who have read the same books! I also really liked the feature that allows you to check out local book things happening in your area. I added the latest books that I have read this summer. The one with the most people connections had 272 for Do Hard Things. The link is http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dkoenig

Week 8, Thing #18

Zoho Writer is the bomb!!!! Wow! We don't really need Microsoft Office anymore. Plus it is all online and you can also work offline if needed. This would be great for collaboration assignments that require one product from a group. The share feature would allow all members of the group to access and edit, kind of like a wiki. I tried to post to my blog from Zoho, but I was unsuccessful. I'm sure it is just some small thing that needs to be done to make it work.

Week 7, Thing #17

I just left a post at the Region One Sandbox. I also visited the California Curriculum Connections wiki and checked out the link to "blogs and avatars" as well as "wikis". They had some great uses for both applications. I think it would great if I could get the teachers at my school to incorporate the use of blogs or wikis into their regular lesson plans. If each department developed just one lesson using these tools, imagine how awesome that would be! The students could have some FUN, just like all of us who are doing this workshop!

Week 7, Thing 16

In my perusing of the listed wikis, I came across a couple books of interest: Book Lust and Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization that I want to add to my list of books to read. I can see that there are many different ways to use a wiki. I really liked the Book Lovers wiki. I had done a workshop a year or more ago on wikis and had wanted to pursue creating one for my library for the students to write reviews, but alas, the tech dept. did not allow wikis at that time. This has renewed my fire, so I am going to discuss it with them to see what we can do.

By the way the "library instruction" link gives the following message: "Link appears to be broken".

Week 6, Thing 15

The article "Icebergs" makes a few very good points. It is very difficult to justify purchasing "just in case" print materials with the limited budgets we have, when the same information in many cases is now readily available on the web, which is now the preferred mode to access information. His second point is that if our services can't be used without training, then it is the services that need fixed, not the patrons. With all of the user friendly 2.0 tools out there now our patrons are used to being able to just go and do without having some sort of tutorial. We need to be keenly aware of this and strive to make our services easier to use. Finally, he comments on the "come to us" model of library service as being outdated. He is quite right. More and more things can be accomplished and are made available on the web with each passing day, so we need to do whatever we can to keep up with that trend.

Week 6, Thing 14

Maybe it is just me, but I found Technorati to be overkill; there is so much there that I found myself overwhelmed just navigating the site! I also did not find any type of tutorial on how to use the site.
As for the use of tags of course there are pros and cons. The biggest pro is probably also the biggest con. The creation of tags by any users is a great thing for that user and possibly others who are like minded;however, it could be a problem for those not like minded because what one user decides to use as a tag may lead another user to a site that he has no interest in because the tag made him believe that he would find sites that deal with whatever he associates the tag with.

Week 6, thing #13

Delicious is a very usable tool. What a great idea to be able to access all your favorite sites from any computer! The whole idea of allowing each user to add tags is excellent. That way there is a greater chance that other users will come across the information.

I can see the value for students doing research. They would be able to tag the sites with their own terms, which would make it easier for them. Plus, once again, they could access them from their home/public library computer without having to write them down to remember them.

It's another good tool for librarians to keep up on the latest and greatest. You can easily see which sites are getting the most activity, which probable coincides with the importance.