I've seen and used YouTube before, but I hadn't used any of the other video sites, so I tried blip.tv and MetaCafe. MetaCafe was nice becuase I could filter a search to a categories ( I searched "visiting Alaska" in the "travel & Outdoors category"). I ended up watching someone's home video of visiting Homer, AK. Blip.tv didn't have any categories to search in, so the same search, and I noticed under the screen pics of the videos, it showed the string of tags that my terms were found in... of course, not all were relevent, such as "visiting Buenos Aires"....
On Sciencehack, I scrolled through one of the categories "How is it made" and watched the first little bit of how they make firemens' helmets.
Maybe it's the connection at the library, but almost every video I watch paused every few seconds (well, every 10-15 seconds) as it loads or whatever it does.
I found a funny video on YouTube of babies laughing (yes, I have babies on the brain)...
I think there that video clips could be used to promote library activities, showing clips from similar type programs (showing how much fun a program is), and/or even doing something simple like having a YouTube "StoryTime" -- somethng like, "can't get enough of the X librarian at storytime? Visit her online and have her read books to you at home! Then having a link (or embeded video online) of someone doing a storytime. There are probably endless possibliities of using videos for marketing or promotion of past and future programs.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Item 20: Audio/Video - Podcasting
I checkedout out all three podcast sights and didn't enjoy searching on any of them! I was looking to see if there was a podcase on book reviews or new books.... I didn't find much. I ended up adding an RSS feed from http://podcastalley.com/ to my bloglines account.
When I started looking at some personal topics that were more relevent in my life, (in podcast alley) when I clicked to 'get podcast' there were intermediary steps to download a podcast agregator, then to get login name, then to listen... too many steps even for something I'm actually interested in (as I have alternate sources... if this was my only resource, I'd likely take the time to download and set up an account...)
When I started looking at some personal topics that were more relevent in my life, (in podcast alley) when I clicked to 'get podcast' there were intermediary steps to download a podcast agregator, then to get login name, then to listen... too many steps even for something I'm actually interested in (as I have alternate sources... if this was my only resource, I'd likely take the time to download and set up an account...)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Item 19: Audio/Video - Music and other Audio
It was funny; while working on this section, I had already previously opened up Pandora and was listening to it as I worked. I've known about Pandora (and have used it) for the past year or so. I really like it, becuase I'll just put it on in the background and it keeps playing songs it thinks I'll like basede on the "station" I've selected. I really like Josh Groban, have this artist as the "station" I listen to most often, and usually like the artists that they play on this station. When I don't, I simply rate it with a thumbs down symbol and it skips over the song. Yeah!
Last.fm was neat too -- comparatively, for my purposes, it was a little overloaded with more things to do -- watch videos, listen to a couple tracks of the artist I input(and offer to purchase them), see who is currently also listening, listen to the "station" for the artist, see artistst they list as being similar, etc... see the top listeners for the past week (who really cares about this?!?!?)
Anyways, it may be due to experience, but I preferred Pandora over last.fm.
I also went out to the Gutenberg.org's Audio Book collection and Mango Languages websties. I'd heard of the GAB collection and come across it a couple time to meet patrons needs at the reference desk. Personally, I don't care to read 'for fun books' online... I could download some of the audio books in MP3 format, but the one I did look at (Jane Austens' Pride and Prejudice) was so big, it'd probably take up half of my 2 GB MP3 player. Maybe if I was at home, I'd download them and update them to my player on the weekends. I usuaully only listen to books on my MP3 player when I'm traveling... well, I am traveling in the next two weeks, so maybe this weekened I'll download a good chunk of the book.
As for the Mango Languages website, it sure started of simple! But, sometimes that's all a person needs. It would be neat for kids who are leaning about another culture and want to learn how to say a few basics, like "hello, how are you?" I briefly looked at the first quarter of the first spanish language. Mostly basics, but easy enough to follow along. I also took a peek at the Japanese and Greek ones; becuase the tutorial shows the text of the foregin lang in the alphabet of the culture, I think it would be a lot harder to learn these ones.
I think libraries could definitely make use of these resources. Project Gutenberg could be used when a student needs to read (or listen) to a book and we don' thave any copies left in the system (of course, they'd have to have a computer and the internet at home.)
As for whether CDs are dead, I think that eventually they will go the way of tapes and whatever came before tapes... Tapes are still around some (hey, I still have a tape player in my car and listen to boooks on tape), but, like VHS tapes, no one really buys them anymore... With technology moving as fast as it is, it seems that no media type is safe from extinction.
Last.fm was neat too -- comparatively, for my purposes, it was a little overloaded with more things to do -- watch videos, listen to a couple tracks of the artist I input(and offer to purchase them), see who is currently also listening, listen to the "station" for the artist, see artistst they list as being similar, etc... see the top listeners for the past week (who really cares about this?!?!?)
Anyways, it may be due to experience, but I preferred Pandora over last.fm.
I also went out to the Gutenberg.org's Audio Book collection and Mango Languages websties. I'd heard of the GAB collection and come across it a couple time to meet patrons needs at the reference desk. Personally, I don't care to read 'for fun books' online... I could download some of the audio books in MP3 format, but the one I did look at (Jane Austens' Pride and Prejudice) was so big, it'd probably take up half of my 2 GB MP3 player. Maybe if I was at home, I'd download them and update them to my player on the weekends. I usuaully only listen to books on my MP3 player when I'm traveling... well, I am traveling in the next two weeks, so maybe this weekened I'll download a good chunk of the book.
As for the Mango Languages website, it sure started of simple! But, sometimes that's all a person needs. It would be neat for kids who are leaning about another culture and want to learn how to say a few basics, like "hello, how are you?" I briefly looked at the first quarter of the first spanish language. Mostly basics, but easy enough to follow along. I also took a peek at the Japanese and Greek ones; becuase the tutorial shows the text of the foregin lang in the alphabet of the culture, I think it would be a lot harder to learn these ones.
I think libraries could definitely make use of these resources. Project Gutenberg could be used when a student needs to read (or listen) to a book and we don' thave any copies left in the system (of course, they'd have to have a computer and the internet at home.)
As for whether CDs are dead, I think that eventually they will go the way of tapes and whatever came before tapes... Tapes are still around some (hey, I still have a tape player in my car and listen to boooks on tape), but, like VHS tapes, no one really buys them anymore... With technology moving as fast as it is, it seems that no media type is safe from extinction.
Item 18: Online Applications/Tools: Google Docs
I really liked google docs; however, in my personal life, I don't have much use for them at this point. I can see how they would be very helpful for students at almost any age. When I was in college, there was something similar (a way to collaborate) but it was more of a posting a file online to a mailbox and then the other team members would download, edit, and repost. This didn't eliminate multiple copies, but it was a way to collaborate without sending millions of emails.
I made a sample presentation and "published" it, but couldn't get the frame to appear below (an error popped up with eBlogger), so here's the URL:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcsrfz5g_1fxhnhqg4
I made a sample presentation and "published" it, but couldn't get the frame to appear below (an error popped up with eBlogger), so here's the URL:
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcsrfz5g_1fxhnhqg4
Item 17: Cool Stuff
So, I entered my blog URL into the The Blog Readability Test and I just found out that the reading level of my blog is "high school reading level." Hmmm... Interesting. Not sure how useful that is to most people, but, interesting.
I attempted to register for a login for Scrabulous but never got the reply email that contained my password.
Moving on (actaully, while waiting for the password) I went to Yahoo.answers, set up a profile, and got hooked. I think it's the librarian in me... I'd find a question and just wanted to answer it! I started off easy, answering a survey type question (how many pets to I have) for a student who needed to ask the question of 20 people and graph the responses... I moved on to another question about a high school student who was interested in becoming a pharmacist, wanted to know about the employment forcast, potential income, and courses she should focus on. My most difficult question was from a parent who was trying to help their child do research on a paper. Supposedly, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had made some contributions to the field of mathmatics and the daughter was supposed to write two pages on it. After researching the topic on our online databases (biography databases) as well as googling some terms, I began to wonder if the daughter misinterpreted the assignment! I posted what I found (only confirming that IF it was true, there wasn't anything listed in the several biographies I came across)... I questioned whether it was not the poet, but maybe another Longfellow....
Overall, the Yahoo answers was fun (from the perspective of a librarian) but when I was scrolling through the homework help, I got the feeeling that a lot of kids were using it to get out of doing their own reserach!
I attempted to register for a login for Scrabulous but never got the reply email that contained my password.
Moving on (actaully, while waiting for the password) I went to Yahoo.answers, set up a profile, and got hooked. I think it's the librarian in me... I'd find a question and just wanted to answer it! I started off easy, answering a survey type question (how many pets to I have) for a student who needed to ask the question of 20 people and graph the responses... I moved on to another question about a high school student who was interested in becoming a pharmacist, wanted to know about the employment forcast, potential income, and courses she should focus on. My most difficult question was from a parent who was trying to help their child do research on a paper. Supposedly, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had made some contributions to the field of mathmatics and the daughter was supposed to write two pages on it. After researching the topic on our online databases (biography databases) as well as googling some terms, I began to wonder if the daughter misinterpreted the assignment! I posted what I found (only confirming that IF it was true, there wasn't anything listed in the several biographies I came across)... I questioned whether it was not the poet, but maybe another Longfellow....
Overall, the Yahoo answers was fun (from the perspective of a librarian) but when I was scrolling through the homework help, I got the feeeling that a lot of kids were using it to get out of doing their own reserach!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Item 16: Wikis
I watched the Wikis In Plain English video. After having seen a couple of videos by this guy, I really like his style of explaining complex ideas in the manner he does!
I looked through many of the Wiki's linked to the Web 2.0 Blog (the IS wiki, the building projects wiki, etc).
I once made a wiki (just to try it out) and created one that contained links to sites I wanted to remember (think: Deli.cio.us but a page for each topical area). After starting it, I never really stuck with it.
Way back when, when I had initially heard of them, I though "it's crazy, anyone can edit them? How can you trust the information you find there?" However, I've since learned that there are limits to who can edit some wikis, and that as a collaborative tool, they're actually pretty darn neat.
Personally, I frequently use wikipedia to either get some base knowledge on a topic I know nothing about (and don't care much about the quality of the data).
Item 15: Tagging and Folksonomies - LibraryThing and Goodreads
These two sites have been my favorite sites thus far. My bookclub already had a group on Library Thing (but I dind't have an account) so I made one there first. I also made an account on Good Reads. I think I like Good reads better; I liked the ability to make a list of books I want to read (my "to read" bookshelf) and then sort it by other peoples ratings of the books (this can help prioritize which books to read next). I didn't like that LibraryThing is only free for the first 200 books; I can easily see that filling up very fast! I dind't see and fees for good reads, but maybe I just haven't come across it yet!
My profile on Good reads is: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/Librarian-JessieK
My profile on Library Thing is: http://www.librarything.com/profile/Jessiekovis
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)