Lesson 7
I’m glad to know what RSS is and I might look at it once in a while, but I guess I don’t have as much time as other people because I don’t want to sit in front of the computer and look at this stuff every day. Sorry. I guess many people follow certain websites, but I don't see how a library could use these with their patrons. I would rather use the favorites on my computer when I want to go back to a certain site.
Lesson 8
I actually couldn't get onto the Internet Public Library... Blog at all. But I did go to Topix, which surprised me because you could locate news by zip code! So of course I put in my own zip code. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed when I got there. Topix has a map of Montpelier, which is partially obscured by an ad, but it had 7 YouTube signs on the map. I was excited to think that I could get the local videos, so I clicked on them, but nothing happened. (Maybe I have to register?) I tried other news areas and even the personal ads, which led me to match.com, which you have to pay for. So I would totally not go to that site again. If those didn't work, then I wouldn't bother trying to use the others.
Lesson 10
Since I cannot get on myspace or facebook, I talked to some teachers at school who use it. One thought it was great because she reconnected with a good friend from school who lives on the West Coast. They actually got together and are going to Alaska this summer.
The videos that I watched from UTube about Facebook were hilarious. They all made jokes about “friends” you can make there, whether or not you will actually have a real meeting with them or not. And an article about how many students at University fail because they are on the addictive sites gave me pause. One article said students may study only an hour a week if they use the site. Hello! Don’t think that’s going to help someone graduate from college!
I’m happy that we didn’t have those distractions when I went to school. I had enough trouble staying on task to study, what with freedom, boys, sports, etc. to distract me. Like anything else, there are good points and bad about social networking, but what I think is not going to change its impact. I think that teachers will end up using them as discussion boards, etc. as time goes on. It will certainly be part of this generation’s culture.
Lesson 15
This lesson asked us to look at how libraries will adapt to Web 2.0. The article I read, "Web 2.0 Where will it take libraries?" was sobering to an old-fashioned librarian like me. And I agree with its views of how libraries no longer need to have things "just in case". Also, it talked about how research has changed. "We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning." It's true that libraries do have to be on the cutting edge of how people get information or they will become obsolete. In my own elementary school library, students still need to hold books in their hands and learn from adults reading to them. I hope that experience continues in school and public libraries, but everything else, including buying items, starting businesses, doing taxes, and a million other things people need to research, will change. That's good for the patron and does involve helping those who do not have the same advantages as others. That's what I've always loved about librarians. They are there to make the world a little better because they care about people, not just the things in their libraries.
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