Summary

I consider myself to be a fairly internet-savvy person. Though I can easily understand things that are on the internet, there are a lot of resources on the internet that I don't know about. This was the main appeal of the Learning 2.0 program for me. It was full of many websites and ideas that I had never heard about, and it was really interesting to explore them. Because I now know that all these resources that are so readily available, I will have many choices of things to do in my future career as a librarian.

It has been great to do these assignments, but I must say that I am really grateful that it was all reduced to one thing a week. It was a bit hard to do the assignments when there were so many things to do. I always felt that it was inevitable that I would miss something.

Thanks for everything that you've done in this class!

Podcasts

The podcast that I listened to talked about the myths that are associated with libraries. They then told what the actual truth is.

One of the myths was that libraries aren't needed anymore because everything is online. The podcast people said that the very existence of libraries shows that this is not true. There are a lot of old materials that have not been transferred online yet, and these things can only be found in their original form.

If you want to hear more of the myths they discussed. Click here.

Online Videos

I found the coolest school library video on youtube! Okay, so maybe not the coolest, but it's kind of funny. I'm really into superheros right now, so it appealed to me.



I also found this video amusing, mostly because it has an ambiguous decade. I mean you've got to love the old computers and the kid with huge glasses. It had a pretty modern feel to it though, so I'm still not sure when it was made. Besdies all of that, I like it because of the inspiring library words and phrases.



Speaking of superheros:

I'm in love with this show. The end.

Twitter

I'm resurrecting my Twitter account for my INST 5030 class. In my life right now, I don't need Twitter because of Facebook and all that, but I think it could be very helpful in my future career as a librarian. I wouldn't want my students to have access to the personal information on my Facebook account, so Twitter would help me avoid that situation. By using Twitter, I could easily give them quick updates about the library and share library-related information with them.

RSS and Bloglines

So I never knew what RSS meant until now... I've always wondered, but I never took the time to learn. I know; shame on me. I'm glad that this class forces me to learn things like this that I should already know. RSS means Really Simple Syndication, and it helps you follow web pages by subscribing to them. A lot of pages are constantly updating, so it really helps you stay on top of those updates. There are a lot of online services that help you manage these subscriptions. The one that I used is Bloglines. Bloglines can also help you search for blogs and other websites that you might want to subscribe to. I definitely used it for that, and I found some fun, new websites. I also used some Top 100 lists to find blogs, and I liked this method best. Since they have so many followers, it stands to reason that they are good sources of information. It was also very handy to use the blog rolls of these blogs in order to find related blogs.

I found two excellent blogs that I want to follow. They are Cool Cat Teacher Blog and A Striped Armchair. Cool Cat Teacher Blog focuses mainly on how to implement technology in teaching. This is something that I kind of shy away from, so it'd be nice to have a blog that gives me fresh ideas on how to do this. A Striped Armchair gives reading challenges and book reviews. I'm always interested in hearing other people's opinions, and it will also introduce me to new books. The reading challenges will also help give me ideas for my future students' reading.

Del.icio.us/Technorati/Library 2.0

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website. As far as personal use is concerned, I prefer to just use my Google bookmarks, but I think that del.icio.us could be really helpful in a library. I could bookmark websites that I think would be helpful to my students, and they could access them easily there. It's also something that I could teach them for their own use. They could easily create a network for group projects, and then bookmark websites that they need to use. All of that information would be available to the whole group that way on any computer.

Technorati is a website that searches through blogs. You can choose to search through blogs or blog postings, and each one gives you different results. I think this website is awesome. There is so much information out there in the form of blogs, and this website helps us to find blogs with the information that we need. It also has a list of influential blogs, which we may not know about. Most of the blogs seem to be about entertainment, technology, politics, and business. There is definitely room for expansion with blogs about science and autos.

Library 2.0 is a modern form of library service. It is increasingly user-centered and uses technology much more. I think that it is a great idea because the world is changing and we need to be willing to change along with it. If we aren't willing to adapt to our users, we will become irrelevant. There are great things happening with technology, and we can better our services by using technology more.

Library Thing

Library Thing lets you catalog the books that you are reading and write reviews. You can also see what other people are reading and read their reviews as well. It's a nice way to collaborate, and I think it could be really helpful for book clubs. Librarians could also use it by making a page of books they recommend. It'd be really helpful for their students to just go online and read their librarian's book reviews. You can also add your Library Thing books to your blog like I've done. (Scroll down)

In other news, I recently read Crispin: The Cross of Lead for my children's literature class. It's by Avi, and it was pretty good. It's historical fiction, and it's set in medieval times. There's a really intriguing character named Bear that's this jester/priest/troubadour/guru/juggler/spy/revolutionist guy. He's cool. It's not a must-read, but if anything, just keep it in mind for your future children.

Go to this cool website to make pictures look old like this. You can find a bunch of other image generators at this website.


You all need to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It is one of the funniest books I have ever read. You guys could devour it in like an hour, at most.



Here's an example of what it looks like:



Hee!

Wiki

I've always considered myself to be fairly internet savvy, but oh man there are a lot of things out on the web that I've never tried or heard about. Now we've all heard of wikipedia, but I had no idea that you could have your own wiki! Wikis (apostrophe?) are pretty dang cool. It makes collaborating really easy. I've mostly used facebook groups for that, but not everyone is going to have a facebook account. It would be really useful for school projects and the like. There are of course possible issues with wikis. People could put false information or delete all of the information there, so you just have to be cautious about the people you choose to give access to the wiki. Anyways, check this out if you want to create a wiki.

P.S. I just finished re-reading A Wrinkle in Time, and I forgot how much I love that book. It has great characters (though Meg can get a bit annoying) and wonderful messages and symbolism. Also, I love Calvin! I now have one more reason to name one of my future kids Calvin. (The other reason is Calvin & Hobbes.) So the moral to this story is read A Wrinkle in Time! You can do it; it's super short.

And if you don't IT will get you...

Try this out!

Motivator: Create your own motivational posters!

Flickr

May I present to you, the private library of William Randolph Hearst. Aside from an absent loft, this place looks like perfection. I could live here with just the words of Dickens, Verne, Austen, Twain, and others as sustenance... and I guess some toast every now and then.

INST 5030

Hello peoples!

So this blog was created because of my Information Access and Technology class that I'm taking for my School Library and Media Administration Minor. Some of the posts will be homework assignments, but I'm going to morph it into a book blog. You all want to know what I'm reading, right? Ha ha. Now on to the homework! (Dear friends, you don't have to keep reading.)

We went through a slideshow of the Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners.

The habits are:
1. Begin with the end in mind.
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning.
3. View problems as challenges.
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.
5. Create your own learning toolbox.
6. Use technology to your advantage.
7. Teach/mentor others.
7 1/2. Play!

The habits that come the most naturally to me are 2, 4, 6, 7, & 7 1/2. I think that I'm a natural learner, and I view every aspect of life as a constant learning opportunity. My generation has grown up with technology, so I'm very confident in my ability to use technology to learn.

I think that I need to work on 1, 3, 5. I can often start a learning project without realizing how far the end is from where I am. Once I realize this, I tend to get discouraged, and I can give up on that learning project for an easier one. I also don't always view problems as challenges. Problems can often stress me out, and it makes my learning experiences less enjoyable. As far as number 5 goes, I don't really know what they mean by a learning toolbox, so I'll just assume that I don't have one.

This slideshow was very helpful for me. It's good to realize the strengths and weaknesses that I have with learning. I intend to improve on the things that I struggle with, so I can become a more effective learner.