PLN - Learning by teaching and participating

A key element of my PLN is my participation in library sponsored Web 2.0 training programs.  My first experience was in 2010 when I participated, mostly in the role of student, in the Kenton County Library 24 Things course. I started this blog as part of that course. That initial experience allowed me explore and use a variety of Web 2.0 tools. During twelve week course I realized that there are real educational benefits to using the infrastructure of the Internet in conjunction with online resources to facilitate learning and training.  

In the fall of 2011, I joined a team of five Alaskan librarians to create and present a 10 week learning 2.0 course titled "Introduction to Alaska Digital Resources". This was a wonderful opportunity for me to learn in depth about the many online subscription databases made available for Alaskans though the Alaska State Library website. I wrote several of the course modules. My participation in this project allowed me to:

·        Explorer, play with and utilize many unique and specialized library resources.

·        Connect with librarians at the state library and the University of Alaska library.

·       Connect with library staff and library science students throughout the state. 

Following that experience I joined a team of library science students from SJSU SLIS program to a create a 5 week Learning 2.0 course for a public library in Australia. The course is titled "discover*play*connect: 2012 Edition"

This learn by doing experience allowed me to:

·        Investigate and consider public library applications for several social media websites.

·        Increase my understanding of wordpress and other web content delivery mechanisms.

·       Make meaningful connections with fellow library students and public library staffers in Australia.  

This month I will rejoin the "Introduction to Alaska Digital Resources" team to update and offer a 2013 version of the course.  I'm looking forward to improving old lesson modules, creating new content and connecting with Alaskans interested in information and education.

LIB 203 Social Media and Older Adults

The brief article “AARP Overhauls Website as New Research Finds Social Networking Continues to Rise Among Boomers and 50+ Americans.” (June 2010) describes the recent changes to the AARP website. These changes are designed to create an interactive online community for AARO.org users. In conjunction with the website update AARP is expanding its online content delivery to e-readers, smart phones and mobile phones. The article also highlights research findings from AARP. These finding show that among Americas 50+ social networking is growing and Facebook is the most popular social networking site.

In the article “The Ongoing Web Revolutions” Michael Stephens (2007) suggests that participation in Web 2.0 social media like facebook, flickr and youtube is built on trust. The AARP research findings that a majority of 50+ Americans have heard about social media from family members, children and grandchild supports Stephens proposed link between Web 2.0 participation and trust. Working with older adults I’ve found many rely heavily on recommendations from family members with regards to computers and the internet. For example, my son recently got married out of state. For health reason his grandmother could not travel to the wedding. We upload the wedding video to youtube and she was able to see the wedding before the cake was cut! She then participated in the Web 2.0 by sharing that youtube link via email with her brothers and sister.

AARP Overhauls Website as New Research Finds Social Networking Continues to Rise Among Boomers and 50+ Americans. (2010, June 7). PR Newswire. Retrieved from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aarp-overhauls-website-as-new-research-finds-social-networking-continues-to-rise-among-boomers-and-50-americans-95762894.html

Update 8/27/10:
Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project data supports the AARP finding listed above. http://t.co/NjV5reZ

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Wow! I just saw this video titled Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
The video summarizes what we learned in the 24 things class.

24 things Week 12: Foursquare

After exploring Foursquare I opted out. First, I don’t have a cell phone with web access, that means all my check-ins would be via text message. That’s what I’ve been doing on twitter for years. For me earning virtual badges is not a compelling reason to change from twitter to foursquare. Second and more importantly is the privacy issue. This website explains and demonstrates the danger of publicly telling people where you are http://pleaserobme.com/why

Personally, I have no idea if Foursquare will be around in three years or if it will be yesterday news.

24 Things Week 10 [Part 2]: Free Online Gaming

I played insaniquarium on popcap and alchemy on MSN. These games are fun but they are very addictive and timewasters. I really try to stay away from them. For something new I tried Twivia! It was suppose to be a real time trivia game on twitter. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated in over a month.

24 things Week 10 [Part 1]: Watching TV online

View the major TV network sites. How does each make their shows available? Which is the most open and accessible?

Fox- Click watch full episode button in the upper left corner and choose a show.
NBC- Click watch full episode button then choose a show. On my home computer the NBC show took longer to load than Fox show.
ABC- Click on screen shots of the shows available. On my home computer the ABC show was the fastest to load.
CBS- The site was a little harder to navigate than the three previous sites but CBS offered TV classics. I was able to watch an old episode of Twin Peaks. Cool!
PBS- By far the hardest site to navigate and the worst video quality.

Review two Internet TV distributors. Which site to you recommend and why?

Hulu- Easy to use and a nice vary of shows.
BBC iPlayer- I tried to watch a show on the BBC iPlayer site and I got this message “BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK”

I recommend Hulu, my friends and family use it all the time.

Look for your favorite shows online using search engines or online directories. Recommend a show to your blog readers.

Clicker - I explored the Clicker online search engine site. A feature on the site I really like is the Netflix listings. I recommend watching the 5 minute webisodes that recap each week’s episode of Lost.

Lost - LOST Untangled - ABC.com

YouTube Video Featuring the New Talking Book Digital Player

Talking book patrons curious about the digital transition should watch this video produced by State Library of Kansas. It’s a cute head on comparison between the cassette player and the digital player.

If you or someone you know would like to apply for the Talking Book program, contact your local library or go to this webpage http://www.loc.gov/nls/find.html to search by county or state.

Week 9 [Part 1]: Podcasting

I listen to two podcast for library related stuff.

The ABC Book Reviews: A Beth and Cari Production. I love listening to these two ladies talk about books! Here are just some of the topics they have covered in recent podcasts- the Tournament of Books for 2010, Best Books of 2009, Best First Novels, News for September and "What book have you faked reading?"

Tisch Talks: The Tisch Library Podcast Series . This podcast series was featured 2009 list of 100 Terrific Websites to Celebrate National Library Week list.

http://www.onlinebestcolleges.com/blog/2009/100-terrific-websites-to-celebrate-national-library-week/

My all time favorite podcast is Gamers with Jobs Conference Call. They review lots of computer/video games and still manage not to be fan boys. If you don’t know what a fan boy is than this podcast is probably not for you.

Week 8 - Google and Other Search Engines

This blog post in reply to the assignment and questions for KCPL’s 24things class.

Overall I’m a Google kind of gal. Using the blind search, I searched for “dragon age”. My first selection was Google, for this search Yahoo came in a close second. Next I searched for “twitters 10 billion tweets”. Google was the clear winner. Third I searched for “good Friday 2010” I was surprised. Bing was the clear winner for that search.

The video seemed a little short on Google tips and really didn’t find out anything new about Google. For yahoo, I leaned you could send an email from the search box and for Bing I learned how to quickly find a company’s customer service phone number.

Post for the Google features part of the assignment- I use Google news search and Google news alters.

Post for the Wolfram-Alpha- The things it covers it does really well, I typed in geese and got very little information
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=geese

Is Any One Reading This Blog?

I'm having way too much fun updating and maintaining my blog. I've decided to keep it going after the 24things class ends. I wanted to find out who else beside me is viewing the blog. After a little research I chose the free service SiteMeter. To find out more about this website tracking tool click here or click little logo at the bottom of the page.

What Facebook Quizzes Know About You

What Facebook Quizzes Know About You

Wow! a friend from high school included me on a friend quiz on facebook. I thought was that something I should check out and sure enough, more privacy setting needed to be adjusted. Facebook, I am not a fan!

Online Photo Editing

I chose picnik because I already have flickr account. Picnik is really easy to use and I will use it again. I edited the picture just like would with any desktop application. I was pleasantly surprised by the number and variety of editing options. I’m not big on photo editing, mostly just red eye removal. For this exercise I added text to a picture, something that comes in handy when working on presentations and newsletters.

I chose picture2life because it can run on machines without flash installed. Uploading my picture was easy and I did not have to register which was plus. The user interface for adding text on picture2life had lot of options but not as intuitive as picnik. I couldn’t figure out if I could angle my text box. Still adding the text to picture only took a few minutes. Then was able to directly post the edit picture on my blog. Cool! To read another review of picture2life and see some effects in action click here

Kudos to the KCPL staff who put this lesson together . I learned a lot in a very few minutes. I would not have explored these photo editing websites on my own. The 24things class gave me just the push I needed.

To see the orginial pic and 2 edits next to each other visit my flickr photostream.

Streaming Audio for 24 Things class

I created a station on Pandora. I added coldplay & smashing pumpkins and then made a quickmix with the 2 stations. I limit my use streaming audio or video at work because of bandwidth issues. At home I listen to satellite radio for new music. I buy music from Amazon.com.

One music website I really like is Setlist.fm. It’s a wiki-like service that collects and share setlists. Type in an artist and the site brings up a list of concert dates. Click on a date and you see the setlist for that concert. The songs in the setlist are linked to videos or music.

For example Snoop Dog is coming to town this weekend, to get preview of the concert checkout the list of songs from his concert Tuesday (2/16/2010)night in Chicago .
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/snoop-dogg/2010/metro-chicago-il-43d75723.html

Kenton County Public Library Digital Branch

On 2/16/10 I downloaded the eBook “Building Bone Vitality” by Amy J. Lanou and the audiobook “The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood from the digital branch of Kenton County Public Library (KCPL).

I am familiar with the KCPL digital branch and Overdrive Media Player. I’ve downloaded both eBooks and audiobooks from the website before this assignment. EBooks from the digital branch aren’t for me, I have a Kindle but I do not have a smartphone or a laptop. To read eBooks from the digital branch I have to be at my desktop computer, not one of my favorite places to read books.

Audiobooks downloaded from the digital branch are nice. They have good sound quality, the download times are reasonable and I can transfer them to my MP3 player. One small complaint I have about the overdrive software is how breaks up the books into “parts” for downloads and transfer to MP3. I found this confusing the few times I listened to an Overdrive audiobook.

Two problems I have with KCPL digital branch are the selection and the hold process. I view digital 24 hours access as “on demand” but many of items I wish to download are not available either because they aren’t part of the collection or they are already checked out. With regards to the hold process, by time I get an email saying an item is available for checkout, I’ve either found the item someplace else or I’m no longer interested.

To visit the KCPL digital branch click here
For free audiobooks samples from Overdrive Media click here
To learn more about the Amazon Kindle click here

Privacy and Facebook

The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now

This in-depth article from the Technology section of the New York Times reviews and explains 3 key elements of facebook privacy settings:

Who Can See The Things You Share
Who Can See Your Personal Info
What Google Can See - Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines.

For someone new to facebook like me, it was very helpful for understanding who sees what and where they see it. The article concludes "it's time to be proactive about things and look out for yourself".

More Wiki Stuff

I added a page to the KCPL wiki that lists all the counties NKTBL serves and links to each county's public library. Check it out at:

http://kcpl24things.wiki-site.com/index.php/Ginnyky

24 Things- Week 3 Wikis

From the links on the KCPL 24 things blog I found a couple of interesting wiki’s.

The Loudoun County Public Library in Virginia created a community wiki. This seems like an idea way share your local knowledge with area residents and visitors.

The Children's Series Binder wiki at is designed to help sort though the huge world of children’s fiction. A wiki provide the prefect format for this kind of information exchange. If a children’s author or series all of sudden becomes the new must read a wiki can be updated with the pertinent information in matter moments. At the same time it archives and makes readily accessible frequently asked questions. For example this wiki provides a list the of American Girls and the titles of their books and short stories.

In my personal life, I often refer to wiki when I’m playing video games. Video game wiki’s are much more likely to document software glitches than a game’s official website. Two excellent and well maintained video game wiki’s are Fallout series and Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages.

Have a strong P@$$W0rd? Keep it Pr!v@t3

Passwords are like Pants...
Originally uploaded by Richard Parmiter

Unique passwords are one place online that the end user can take responsible for his or her privacy

News flash! Simple passwords are easily hacked

Just common sense really, using a password like abc123 is the cyber equivalent to leaving the spare house key under the welcome mat.
If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe

Personal Privacy vs Internet Social Networking

I searched for Virginia Jacobs on Google and found dozens of women with my name but not me. I got the same results searching Google for Ginny Jacobs.

After watching the video I’ve decide to keep the default privacy settings for my blog.

For me, the challenge is really more about a willingness to share information over internet rather than keeping sensitive information private. My adult children have been excellent mentors in this regard. Just like I was in the 90’s when I pushed and cajoled my mom to start leaving messages on my answering machine.