Thing 23

Just for continuity's sake. In case someone stubles across this and goes - wait! What was thing 23?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

It was just a survey of this project, what we liked, disliked, etc. I completed it and am now waiting anxiously for my flash drive - and the $200 amazon gift card which I'm dying to win.

Thing 22: Staying Current

I don't think staying current is a problem I have - yet. I'm only 27, so I'm still right there in the midst of most of this technology, but I have to admit I did learn a few things from this experience.

1. I found out what an RSS feed was! I had heard of them, and could probably hazard a guess at a definition if forced to, but now I actually know and have one. I don't really read or use it a whole lot, but it's there.

2. Flickr! I had a Photobucket account, so I was no stranger to online photo sharing, but because of Flickr I now have 3 (yes 3, they sent me an email about the other yesterday) pictures shortlisted to appear in a publication!

3. I have to mention Delicious! I don't know why I did not know about this site, but it is fantastic, and I'm so glad I found out! Now there isn't the frustration of not being able to pull up my bookmarks on a friend's computer!

4. Twitter! Its my new obsession and favorite place for celebrity stalking - er, mini-blogging.

Lifehacker seems a pretty good site for keeping up with things, and I like to read technology news on BBC or Wired magazine. I also work with the middle and high school students at my church, so if I'm ever feeling out of the loop, I'm sure I can ask some of them and they'll fill me in. Am I glad I did this? You bet! I can't wait to share some of these tools with patrons, coworkers, and other people!

Thing 21: Sudent 2.0 Tools

Every year we have the elementary gifted classes (grades 4 &5) come in and do a project on countries around the world. They each have to pick a country and write about it, as well as bring in a dish from that country to share. These are smart kids, and we usually do a lot of preselection as far as books go, so there's generally no problems, but some of the sheets under the teacher's guide would be great to give them as guidelines.

Same goes for high school students. I don't know what standards are around Florida, but right after I graduated, they started making students do junior and senior projects. Basically they're just year-long research projects, but man, what a pain they are! So glad I didn't have to do that! Anywho, I'm sure there are some kids who don't have the first clue on how to research and write a paper, and some are unlucky enough to have terrible teachers. This would be the perfect tool for them! Of course, getting them to use these would be the hardest part. Most teens think they know everything, and don't need any help or conversely, are totally inept and want it done for them.

I was most impressed with the Assignment Calculator - is seemed to be geared more toward college/high school level. I particularly liked their link about writing thesis statements, and the examples of strong and weak ones. The Research Calculator was fine, but seemed to be geared toward a younger audience.

Being a procrastinator, this might have been a good tool for me to have. Of course, being such, I probably wouldn't have used it anyways - instead preferring to leave it til the week of, and then cramming as much as I could into as little time as I could spend.

Thing 20: Books 2.0

Seriously?! This was the Thing without end! Man, it took forever to look at those sites! (No, I didn't do ALL of them, but I did do one from each category, which was enough!) So here's a breakdown of the sites I visited and what I thought about them.

Daily Lit - I really liked this site. I actually signed up to get the Picture of Dorian Grey sent via email (in 96 installments!). I got the first installment this morning, and am quite happy. It was a little short, but there was a link at the bottom of the email where you could get the next part if you wanted to keep reading. They're almost all older books - ones that aren't protected under copyright anymore - but they did advertise Cross Country by James Patterson as one you could get for about $10. Not too shabby. This may be a good resource for some school's required reading.

Book Lamp - Good concept - I love Pandora! Why not one for books? It turned out that there was not enough of a range of books. You could only pick from about 50 in a drop-down menu, and they all appeared to be action or scifi. The thing that really bothered me was that they actually listed the titles starting with "The". Hello?! Clearly not someone who has ever worked at a library.

Reading Trails - Interesting. Basically book lists that anyone can post. Someone actually made one "Books to Read While Breastfeeding" - the books were neither about babies nor breastfeeding. Strange. I can see the appeal though. There were other trail on post-apocalyptic reading, or art for preschoolers. Basically just a way for people to make and share reading lists.

Visual Bookshelf on Facebook - As I had said in the post about Library Thing, I already use this. They are two very similar things, but Vis automatically loads anything any of your friends are reading, you don't have to find and add them.

Book Glutton - This site is similar to Daily Lit, in that you can read books online. This one has where you can upload books to share, join groups, and possibly chat to others online while you are reading. I don't really want to join another site, but I may change my mind.

LibriVox - This seems like a really cool site. I would love to volunteer to read! Maybe it could lead to a career in reading for audio books! This, like the others, has the older copyright-free books. One feature I really like though, is that they have audio in all sorts of languages.

BookBrowse - A bit snobby/elitist? This is a site that is supposed to only review books that are worth reading - books that you take something from the experience, rather than pure entertainment. I suppose it cuts out the crap, so maybe that's not a bad thing. Unfortunately you have to be a paying member to use some of the features.

ICLD - Super cool! Kid's books online - and from recognizable authors! Again, a great feature is that this has books in other languages too. It's no good if you don't read those languages, because there is no translation, but it could be a resource for some of our ESOL families.

Book Swim - Cool concept, though I already have something like that for free - the library. (It seemed a bit pricey for me) But good for books we don't have, esp. textbooks. I'm going to have to tell my sister about renting textbooks - it would save her so much money!

I do worry that the internet is robbing people of their concentration, but I think the nytimes article had some good points. As seen above, there are all sorts of wonderful websites that can supplement reading. In fact, the internet may be getting kids more interested in reading and writing through fan fiction sites. I mean, the reading online isn't any worse than reading a magazine - at least they're still reading, right? I don't think anything is going to take the place of physical books anytime soon, but who knows?

Thing 19: Other Social Networks

My interest/obsession with things comes on strong, and then fizzles out shortly, so these topic-themed networks are a blessing and a curse. They're great at first, but then I get sick of them and abandon them altogether. I used to belong to two sites/forums (which I'm counting under this category). One was for comedian Gary Gulman, the other for vampire Don Henrie. (It was a phase - well, one that I came back to - long story - let's just say I'm weird.) The problem with these forums is (and with a lot of these Things) that they take an investment of time, and I have a life. I would start out contributing to the forums regularly, but once you fall behind - you miss a day or two - there are suddenly 100 new posts, and it's almost impossible to catch back up.

Gather seems interesting. I was really excited when the article mentioned one of the publishers doing a short story contest, then I looked at the date - 2005. Thanks. That's not to say they don't still do it periodically. I guess I just have to check out the site more.

Flixster is on Facebook, but I don't use it much. I did the rating thing that compares your taste to your friends', and I've taken some quizzes, but I have to be REALLY bored to do it.

Other than WebJunction (which at least seems somewhat useful), I'm going to have to pass on other social networks.

Elation!

I just found out that two of my photographs have been shortlisted to appear in a publication (possibly online only) of a travel guide - schmap.com! (They do over 200 cities worldwide – maps, descriptions, pics, etc.) I just happened to check this yahoo account that I opened to do this 23 Things project through work, and saw the emails. There is no money, but it’s nice to have the recognition of “Hey, you don’t totally suck at photography”. The best part is I didn’t really have to do anything. I just put the pics up on Flickr, and they found me. So I checked my Flickr account and there was another message from someone wanting to add another one of my pics to a group of Art Nouveau works. Sweet! I am in a very good mood now.

Thing 18: Myspace and Facebook

So I am waaay ahead of the curve on this Thing. I have been using Myspace for years, and have been on Facebook now for at least a year - maybe more. It's such a great way to keep up with friends, particularly when most of my friends and family live far away - New York, Houston, Boston, Sarasota. It was part of the reason I started writing a blog - it's a lot easier to put something up that everyone can read, than it is to tell the story about 15 times. I even have had a friend tell me recently that she was mad because I haven't been blogging as much, so she has no idea what I've been up to. That and I can't tell you how many times I've sent messages to my dad via Myspace, because I was more sure he'd read them there than through his email.

I just recently signed our youth services department up for a Myspace page. You can find it here. We're going to be starting up an after school teen program, and I thought it would be a good way to get the word out. The profile's not much to look at right now, but I'm working on it. I also signed us up for a Facebook page at the same time. I don't know how to link my profile, but if you register, you can look up ColumbiaCounty PublicLibrary YouthServices, and you'll find me.

I've used groups on my other accounts, but honestly, I don't really keep up with them. We have one for my youth group at church, but since I'm not an admin (something I need to get changed), I can't send mass messages to the group. Sure you can post on a message board, but they don't really send anything out telling you that. So unless you check back often, it's kinda useless. A feature I do like is being able to post and event and invite people. They can RSVP, and the pages will even give them a reminder when it's coming up. That's the tool I've used to promote our programs.

As far as Myspace v. Facebook goes, Facebook is the winner in my book. Both have changed their formats, which vexes me greatly, but Facebook has the cleaner, more streamlined approach. The new Facebook format has the main page just showing friends' status updates (trying to be Twitter?), and everything else, photos tagged, groups joined, etc. is in a bar on the right. Again, I'm not enthused over this new change, but it's still clean, neat. Myspace just has too much. I hate all the videos and flash that the Myspace front page has. I also hate how much people have "pimped" their pages. It's annoying and takes forever to load. Yes, I'm guilty of changing the background, but all the music, and videos everyone has - they reload every time you have to go back to the person's profile. Stupid. And I have talked far too long about this.