Lesson 7, 8, 10, and 15

I didn't realize that I had forgotten these posts.



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.

Final words

It took me soooo long to get to this point that I feel that I should go back to the beginning and start all over again! Although I spent many hours working on the lessons, I didn't have enough time to really get it all down. I loved the program, though, and actually understand a lot more terms. I loved the little videos that taught in plain English.
After going on Facebook (which I wouldn't have gone on without this program), I found out that some of my family and nieces and nephews are on it, and they have friended me. It will be a great way this summer of keeping in touch with some people that I haven't seen in a couple of years.
I know that the purpose of the lessons is to think about how you could apply them to the library that you work in, and I have been critical of how much work that would take. In my own case, I am responsible for everything in my school library and teach classes, too. There are just not enough hours in the day. I think the best thing to do is to focus on using one new thing at a time and use what you think would work best in your own situation. But I am very glad that I went through the program. I certainly feel more in touch with what is happening in technology.

podcasts

The library podcasts that I viewed were varied. Some worked well but one other had sound that was not smooth. But, the idea of audio booktalks is completely new to me. I can see having students make podcasts because they would improve their writing, reading, and oral skills. As librarian, I also could make podcast book reviews that the students could listen to. I can see, in the public library, having news podcasts available to download on their MP3 devices so that patrons could take the news with them and listen when they have time or are walking their dogs. The possibilities are unlimited.

Lesson11

I love YouTube! I have used it many times in my school library to show students video I would not be able to any other way.
As part of exercise #21, I searched under "Elephant Hospital Thailand" because I know that there is only one true elephant hospital, in Lampang, having visited it when I took a UVM course the summer before last. There was one video and I met the doctor in it, so I know it's correct. We cried after seeing some of the injuries from land mines that the elephants received, as well as other sad elephants. If I figure out how this summer, I may post my own that I took there. The sound is poor, but the video is true. There was one elephant that broke our hearts. She was swaying continuously. The Dr. said that she had accidentally killed her baby when she rolled or stepped on it, and she had been swaying for three years! Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94U_FWhyR4Q to view it. There are other videos, including an amazing one that shows one of their baby elephants with his new artificial leg at /www.youtube.com/watch?v=FENeKiO3lAA. They can hardly keep him still! One group of locals tried to burn the hospital out because there is no need for most of the elephants in Thailand, since they don't work them in the forests except in remote areas. There are almost no elephants in the wild in Thailand. It's a real tragedy. There are other videos also.
I showed the students author youtubes and things related to books many times. It brings the stories to life. We read the book Sandy's Circus, about Alexander Calder, and I found a video showing him performing, that otherwise we never could have seen. The students tried making some of the mechanical circus after seeing that video.

Lesson 20

I chose to look at biblio.com, the site where you can buy rare or out of print books. There is a book that I have been looking for, for quite a while, and I wanted to see if it was for sale there. Mousekin's Golden House by Edna Miller was one of my children's favorites. When I worked at the school library in Williamstown, my children were older and wanted to see the book again. Well, it was missing from that library. Then, when I worked in Montpelier, the book had disappeared before I got there, also!
Sure enough, there are many copies, with a wide range of price. It looks very easy to purchase from the site. I also browsed the art book category and found some old classics that I remember from college. That's a site I would go to again.

Lesson 10

I tried using the social networking site to find a resort that I will be traveling to in the spring. People mentioned it in their blogs, so it was a neat way to get unsolicited comments on the resort. I don't know how useful it would be in the library because some sites would be banned for inappropriate content. If it were possible to track reviews of new books on the web, that would be terrific.

Google Docs

Our school has been using Google Docs for about a year. It has many advantages, one of them being that it's free, for our District. Our team has the tech teacher on it, and he has been teaching us how to use the calendar, email, and documents. When our team meets, we use a form he created in Google Docs so that, no matter where we meet, we have a form available in every room in the school. Then we take turns taking notes so that we become more familiar with it. We also have a place that houses our team notes and we don't need to have the notes emailed or have a hard paper copy, especially if we are all at the meeting. He usually sends the notes, or a notice that our team notes are available on Google Docs, which also saves the Principal time if he doesn't want to read the notes. I feel that the word processing is pretty easy and doesn't need to be more sophisticated, as it might have to be if you were writing something like a resume using Microsoft Word.
We are also using parts of the program to prepare grades and to prepare a document from a grade-level team before it goes to the parents. Internal public library work could use the program, also, to save time. Members of a committee, library directors, or trustees could create a document together that could be checked by all first, and then go out to the public. Plus, preparing newsletters would be much quicker, making all involved feel they were part of the creative process.