The Twentieth Thing

Reflections on 20 for 2.0
What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I enjoyed both the recreational and the more directly work-related exercises. My favorites were YouTube and the Music Networks.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? It's helped me learn about sharing photos, music, video clips, websites, and favorite books with others. I'm able to find more information about my current interests, such as learning more about Korean culture and learning the Korean language, bundling searches of my favorite websites, and accessing SIL's downloadable media with greater ease.
Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? Through the facebook exercise, I got connected to old high school buddies, friends from my son's preschool, and my nephews and nieces who are more tech-savvy than I am. It's strengthened my social network!
What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I thought the concept and the execution were top-notch. The only thing that I didn't think was all that helpful was gaming, avatars, and second life. However, our patrons are interested in these things, so it will probably help me provide better customer service. The thing I appreciate most about this is that the blog was really well written, clear, easy to follow, and written in a fun, friendly tone. Great job!

And last but not least…

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate? I'd love to! Bring it on.

Gaming

I have used Yahoo! games in the past to play word games. I had serious addictions to Text Twist, Book Worm, Flip Words, and another one I can't recall. I also like free cell. They are fun and seem pretty harmless to me, except when I keep wanting to play for a long time to break my high score.

I don't know if the more elaborate games build certain skill sets. I would like to think that video games instill persistence in young addicts. I haven't found that to be the case in playing word games.

Google Earth

Google Earth is amazing and exciting. Also maybe a bit scary in the "Big Brother" sense. I found what I was looking for. I was a little disappointed that zooming in results in blurry lines and indecipherable smears of color. I *loved* the opening tour, but somebody was looking over my shoulder and they were feeling a little "seasick" just watching.

A very cool tool! Thanks for assigning this.

Avatar.. avaricious... I feel a hostile vibration!

Here's my avatar. I have a bat on my head.

My thoughts regarding virtual selves vs. our “real” selves: I would like to think that these virtual worlds let us try on new personas, lead us to new insights about ourselves, and on to enlightenment. However, I think it's interesting that in the virtual world, a lot of the women are parading around in bikini tops, while there are a certain number of men that are clearly on steroids or else "guitar heroes". I didn't see anybody who looked like the Dalai Lama. I have to admit that I think this is a way to escape one's own self and live out some media-created idea of the "right" way to be. I think it's better to come to terms with ones self and accept life. If life is really bad for someone, (chronic pain, terminal illness, whatever) then why not float off and be some kind of jungle vixen or Indiana Jones to while away your time. But I don't think it makes your unplugged reality any better. I think it's like other addictions: you feel pretty good while you're out of your body, but once you come back, you've just sat in a chair doing nothing for an hour, and you're even farther from being the jungle vixen.

Answer these questions in your post as well.

Do you already live in Second Life? No.

If you don’t already live in SL, would you like to live in Second Life? If there were a holodeck I could wander off into, I'd do that. However, I don't want to strain my eyes and sit in a chair staring at a computer screen. It is pretty mind-blowing to try to project into the future and wonder how close we are to the holodeck. However, if the holodeck is full of jungle vixens and guitar heroes, no thanks.

Why or why not? There's a saying: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." I think both the self-actualization AND the wood-chopping are good for human beings. I think living in the computer world is a kind of limbo or stasis or vacuum in which neither enlightenment nor wood-chopping happens. Maybe not what you wanted to hear, but you asked. :-)

O Thank Heaven for 7-11

Today's topic: Online Applications.
I really liked using Google Docs and Zoho. It's easier than using Microsoft 2007. I created documents on both sites and shared them with my husband.

I can see a lot of ways to use this: building booklists, planning budgets, crafting documents, etc. Fon example: take Banned Books Week: you could 1) build a list of books to display, 2) have a sign-up sheet for props, poster ordering, etc; 3) use a spreadsheet to track use of budget; 4) build a list of PR contacts; 5) craft a FAQ for patron inquiries (such as answers to questions like, "why are you promoting these "bad" books?").

I'm still trying to figure out what situations would be best served by email, which by shared docs on sno-isle servers, and which using an Online Apps.

What a great lesson! Thanks--

Search Engines

It was interesting looking at Rollyo, Mamma, and Dogpile. At first, I felt disappointed because I was approaching in in my Librarian hat, but when I saw it as a web 2.0 development, (personalizing the web, tailoring content, sharing, social applications) then it became more interesting.

My initial search (in my Librarian hat) at all three sites was "Internet for Beginners". There are still people that come into the library that have extremely little computer exposure and want to get started on the Internet. As the web develops, it crams more and more content, visuals, graphics, etc. into every webpage and bombards the user with data. It's pretty bewildering for the newbies that I see. The problem is, there are very few tutorials on basic internet around, because everyone assumes that there are no longer any neophytes around. Not true!

At Rollyo, I limited my search to "reference". I was disappointed at the 8 or so websites that it searched (no lii.org?!). At Mamma, I found a cool tutorial that I'd never seen before, but it was created by the BBC, and its approach would be confusing to American newbies. Dogpile dug up a site at microsoft that was informative but very spartan in appearance.

I thought, what the heck, this is lame! So I returned to Rollyo and looked at the "dashboard" and some of the premade "rolls" for more recreational or homey subjects. THey were much better than the Reference set. For example, the Parenting one had a nice list of credible sites. The News "roll" seemed like an good general list too. I can now appreciate the recreational use that Rollyo is already well-designed for, and the ways I can create a tailored list for work use.

I ran out of time to do more experimenting with Mamma and Dogpile. For now, I think it's worthwhile to doublecheck a google search at one of these three other search engines. I did see helpful results that I hadn't noticed in my google searches.

Podcasts ... (yikes, am I ever behind!)

I signed up for two library podcasts which give reviews of adult books, one from Pierce county and the other from Curtin Library. I wish I had an iPod because I'd like to listen to these in the car on the way in to work, but since they're on my work computer, I guess maybe I'll listen to them on my dinner hour. The one podcast representing a personal interest of mine that I subscribed to was the sermons from my church (see www.uuchurch.org, if you're interested), which I was glad to get since I was the Preschool teacher and missed out on the sermons this year.

It took me a while to get the hang of which URL to paste, and how to paste it, into the subscription box, but I finally got the job done. My husband is a podcast maniac and gets a ton of them downloaded each morning before heading off to work. He's a scientist on a lonely lab bench & so he has political commentary & stuff like that to keep him company at work.

I'm glad to have this exercise to force me to learn how to do this, as I normally rely heavily on my techie husband to do all this stuff for me. Thanks!

Monopoly cards & other amusements

Ok, here's my monopoly card:

You ever feel like doing that? Nah, me neither. Never!

These image generators are fun!

I'm going to try a fake magazine cover with my husband...

Well, I couldn't do it. Time to close up the branch for the night. If you want me to email you the image, though, can do. Just won't upload ("file is corrupt" or something...)

Overdrive me crazy...

Wow, it took me a month to finally get to download something from Overdrive. Apparently it really messes a person up to have downloaded the Overdrive console to MIL and then try to use it at MUK. I couldn't use it, couldn't uninstall it, couldn't reinstall it, grrr! I finally just used the Overdrive console on the generic ("mukilteo") desktop. Once I used that, it worked great! I downloaded a book (Aesop's Fables) and a short video ("anansi") just to see how it works.

I'm going to have to try installing the console at home, I guess. I know when we first got Overdrive, my husband (who has a rotten commute to downtown Seattle & really enjoys audiobooks) had a heck of a time trying to get Overdrive on our home computer, and he's more computer savvy than I am.

Once I listened to the book and watched the video, though, I was really excited about this product/service. I just love the idea of being able to enjoy a story anywhere that I tote my laptop (I don't have an MP3 player now, but take our laptop on trips). I'm not picky about what I listen to, so I was happy with the selection. It's great to think that my little boy can watch a really quality video like Anansi, right on our computer. (We don't have TV at home.)

Overdrive, part 1

Overdrive is a resource that I've kind of avoided, and I think it's partly because I've gotten so many phone calls from patrons who are at their computer and expressing their frustration at not being able to use Overdrive, whether their device is incompatible, or they can't seem to download the console, or any other difficulty. This module forced me to try it, and I really enjoyed the product and messing around in it.

I started by looking for "Charles Dickens"; I was hoping there would be some great readers. At random, I clicked on A Christmas Carol, and Lo and Behold! there was Jim Dale as the reader. So I did another search on Jim Dale, and while it doesn't have the HP series, it does have all of the Starcatcher books. I'm not sure what the hold queue is like on these, but I was impressed to see the Starcatcher books available. There was also a 45 minutes documentary on Dickens, which I was glad to see! I pulled the plug on my tv about 3 years ago, but I do miss some of the infotainment from PBS and the History channel, so I'm glad there's another way to tune in to these episodes.

My second search was to target books on learning Korean. I typed in "korea*", which returned no hits; guess truncation is not an option, at least not with the asterisk symbol. A search on "Korea" resulted in 4 hits: 2 on the Korean War, 2 foreign language study books. The two language audiobooks were for travel, and only around 1 hour long each. I am less impressed with this. (Can't really learn a language from 1 hour of instruction!) I clicked on the subject link for Foreign Language Study and got 140 hits. Most are for European languages; I didn't check the run time for any of these.

A search on "foreign language study french" returned no hits (is it searching as a bound phrase? b/c "foreign language study" works and "french" works.) A search on simply "french" brought up (happy day!) lots of music audio for French ballet. I love French ballet and French opera music. I listened to an excerpt and a coworker came up behind me happily humming along to "Coppelia". That's me-- adding joy to the workroom.

For Mother's Day, I went down to Portland to see "Aida". The week before, I streamed some of the music at my computer while I was working. I really like streaming. I don't like the whole "add to cart", "place hold", "check out", etc.

I'm definitely going to get more patrons turned on to this resource. I still haven't actually checked out, downloaded, or any of the other stuff...

Mmmmmmmmmmm, Del.icio.us!

This module was a breeze b/c I've used del.icio.us before; however, I now have a greater appreciation for the variety of ways it can be useful. In the past, I've used del.icio.us to access the silweb links, and I've also helped a patron set up a del.icio.us account (his original request was to ask for a floppy disk to save all of his websites on; he was glad to find out about del.icio.us and use it instead.) I've also searched del.icio.us for good computer tutorials and internet tutorials, as I'm the "computer class" person at my branch.

I haven't had a del.icio.us account of my own in the past but did create one for this module. I've found that del.icio.us is great for some searches and not as helpful for others. My sample search was "korean tutorial" and I got some mixed results, which, in my mind, were not as good as what I've found in a google search. I don't fully understand the magic of google searches, but somehow it's not quite as literal as the search in del.icio.us. If the tagger is a bad speller or just uses a different jargon (ie, uses "classes" instead of "tutorials"), then you won't find it on del.icio.us (at least, I don't think you would) but google somehow finds those good sites that use a different term than the one I chose.

One funny, serendipitous thing that happened in my "korean tutorials" search in del.icio.us is that one of the hits retrieved led me to a definition of "web 2.0", which I really appreciated finding, as I didn't really understand what that phrase meant. Helps me understand why we're doing this! (I do enjoy these modules, but I always seem to learn better when I can hang (seemingly) disparate web functions onto a large conceptual framework.)

I did watch the Clay Sprinky (or whatever his name is) video and I do think he's a brilliant guy but there are some holes in his logic for me. For one, I have never liked television, even as a kid (weird, I know) and I've always found that physical activities, time spent outdoors, playing/listening to music or READING A BOOK a much more soul-satisfying use of time than typing away on a computer. I really DO like the trend that the internet is leveling the playing field for sharing ideas, performances, etc., but still feel that personal interaction is much more meaningful in a face-to-face situation than by computer. I think that trying to bond with others over the internet is just not an effective way to scratch that social itch that all people have. I think for those adults that want to pretend to be an elf that you'll be better off getting together with likeminded adults, physically, than playing on a computer in your basement.

But then, I always tend to have a hard time with paradigm shifts (you know, the whole "rainbow" thing--don't like transitions) so maybe I'm just not able to wrap my head around this yet. I think these web 2.0 "social" tools are great for folks that have very few people nearby that share their particular interest, or those that are homebound for one reason or another. For example, parents who are raising a child with a rare disorder can find a great deal of information, relief and hope in connecting with others who are facing the same challenge.

Wiki uses

What did you find interesting?
For the first time, I got one of those Lee LeFever video clips to work (Craft something or other?) and it REALLY helped me understand the variety of uses that a wiki could be put to. I have had so many instances of trying to collaborate, discuss, plan, wordsmith, etc. using email and it was as clunky and cumbersome as all get-out. I can see many, many uses for wikis.

What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?
I'd like to see a wiki for best practices for computer classes, for adult programming, for reference, for readers advisory, for displays, and on and on and on. Then comes the "manuals" type uses, such as a guide to DDC, guides to fiction subject headings, guides to whatever (school assignments, boy scout merit badge projects, genealogy searches, etc.) I am ready to go wiki-crazy!
(Now I think I'll go back and listen to the other Craft something or other video clips!)

YouTube, BoobTube and all the rest...

To answer some questions:

Would you use either or both of these sites? Why?
I do YouTube to watch Korean dramas. The first one I got hooked on is called Winter Sonata, and it's a big deal in Korea. It's actually a big deal in Japan and other countries in asia. I dare you to watch the first episode and not get hooked:

Aaaack! the episode is no longer available online. The distributor caught on and pulled it! Oh well. You can try some other Korean dramas at http://www.mysoju.com/.

Oh, here's a funny clip from youtube:





I looked at hulu and fancast and I can see that a lot of people could fritter their life away at these sites. I think I would make good use of them if I had some surgery that laid me up for months. But I'd rather read books instead.


Would either of these sites be useful for libraries?

I think these sites would be useful for libraries in helping answer questions from patrons. It's always helpful to know something about popular culture.

Facebook Follies

I created a Facebook account. I uploaded a photo of a Jangseung, which is a Korean sort of "totem pole" representing a kindly god that looms over your house, warding away evil spirits and welcoming the good ones. Also, I thought this particular Jangseung looked a lot like me. When I got on facebook, it showed some people from my high school, and while I had vaguely fond feelings for them, none of them were good friends of mine. Who to invite to be a friend? I typed in "Ruth Griffith" and found some other Ruth Griffiths out there in the world to be my friend. We are going to form the "Ruth Griffith club." At least that is my dream.

I'm not all that keen on computer networking. I think meaningful exchange comes person to person. I think one of the best social experiences is having a good, all-out gut-laugh with another person, and that just doesn't happen on the computer. I mean, "LOL", or even "ROTFLMAO" doesn't do it for me. However, working through the exercises in SIL 20 for 2.0 has been really fun so far, and really helpful for me in being able to answer patron questions about these popular websites.

Flickr'n fiend

I put three photos on my Flickr account. It was pretty easy because I already have a Yahoo! email account. I don't think I'll use Flickr to back up my photos. I still think I will just back up my photos onto CDs like I'm already doing, because I don't like spending a lot of time on the computer. I'd rather be outside with my son watching ants crawl on the driveway or blowing seeds off dandelion heads.

Pandora pro

Ha, I finally get to feel smug. I whipped through this module b/c I'm familiar with these music sharing sources. I actually used Pandora to find some music for my husband for Christmas. He really likes blues, like Joe Bonamassa and Stevie Ray Vaughn--and I'm clueless about that genre. He liked the 2 CDs I bought him. He actually used Pandora for me too, and I ended up getting an Oscar Peterson CD that I really like-- a bunch of jazzed up Cole Porter songs that he got by looking for stuff similar to Dave Brubeck (he's likewise puzzled by my music tastes, but somehow we've stayed married for 20 years...)

RSS feeds! A little Q & A...

Some reactions to RSS feeds:


What do you like about RSS and feed readers? I can surround myself with only those things I want to hear about and cut out the rest.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life? I'm in love with a Korean (he's my 2 1/2 year old son) and am excited about all things Korean: drama, music, language, food, etc. I subscribed to a blog that is very spare and seems discriminating enough to only point out the best online sources for Korean culture. My big thing these days is to find a way to chuck the chaff and save myself a lot of time-wasting junk sifting.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? Stay up-to-date with new information sources and various services of interest to our patrons.

If you’re already using a feed reader, share your experiences with your co-workers. I'm a new feed reader, so got nuttin.

No more rainbows, I promise

Ok, so I just IM'd with Amy Y. and it went fine. I've IM'd before, way back when I was a "virtual librarian" about 3-4 years ago. I've also sort of IM'd in the tutor.com database, if that counts. So I'm an old IM veteran! Look at me go!

So, relating to work...

Ah, well... so I just realized we're supposed to talk about WORK issues here. Ok, so rainbows are like work, because... ah...

Well, these days we are in a state of constant change. Experts say we are evolving at a rate that strains the human brain to its very limits and beyond. ?? One might say that this very exercise is a case-in-point. ?!! Time to handle the uncertainty and embrace the unending state of transition that is modern life. Enjoy the shimmer, the ephemeral. Let it go. Instead of grasping fists, greet each day with hands open.

(How's that for a segueway?)

Why Moochigeh?

"Moochigeh" is my attempt at Romanization of the Korean word for "rainbow". Now, I do not really like rainbows. In my first "normal" job of being a bank teller, I used to process checks that came back with "non sufficient funds" (bounced) and I started noticing that if your check had a teddy bear, a balloon, or a rainbow on it, it was 5 times as likely to bounce. I decided that rainbows are for mathematically-challenged wusses.

The other reason that I don't really like rainbows is that-- you know how the sky looks when there's actually a rainbow? It's still really wet outside, and it's still kind of gray, but the sun is shining in a way that reminds me of that Emily Dickenson poem ("there's a certain slant of light that oppresses..."). The sky's like the face of a little kid who's been crying and looks up with these tear-stained cheeks and you're thinking, is he going to cheer up now? Or are we in for another downpour? I don't like uncertainty/transition/neither-here-nor-there. I'd rather skip the rainbow. I'd rather the sun just came right out instead of that misty gray limbo.

What made me start liking rainbows? Well, I was having a rough day and my favorite library patron came up (a Korean boy who is staying in the U.S. just for one year) and looked at the desktop photo on the information desk computer. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to a picture of Monument Valley, Utah in a lightning storm. I said, "that's my day today--see, that big rock is me, and the lightning is striking me right on the head." "Me too," he said--turns out we were both having a lightning day. The next day he brought up a picture of a huge rainbow he had colored on a piece of paper. "This is your life," he said.

Now I love rainbows. Life is like that. Gotta embrace the uncertainty, huh?