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.

Thing 17: Podcasts

I've been dragging my feet on this Thing because we can't download anything at our library. I've said before that I have dial-up, so doing it at home is a no go too. I thought the whole thing was a bust, and I was just going to have to make something up - disappointing too because I wanted to listen to Ricky Gervais' podcast. Well, when I did a search they had some free clips you could listen to online here. Hilarious! (Though I am easily won over by British accents - that and I already have a love for Ricky) It's just his usual banter with Stephen Merchant (cowriter/director), and this idiot man-child, Karl, on a particular topic. 3 guys sitting around talking, but it's brilliant! Why can't this be what's on the radio in the morning?

I was pleased to find, that when I searched further, I could find podcasts that could be played online, no download required. One of these sites, Mevio, you have to register for, but you can add favorite channels, and they even have videos, though it didn't seem to have that great of a selection. Then I found it's sister site, Podshow, which has a lot of music, but also has spoken word. I found another British comedy show, Traces of Nuts, that I listened to briefly and enjoyed. Podshow doesn't require you to register - you only have to do that if you want to do a podcast yourself, or if you're a music artist that wants to get on one of their channels. As far as music goes, I'm going to stick to Pandora. It's not really a podcast I guess, because it doesn't have individual episodes - it's really just radio online. I love it though, because by telling it what you like and dislike, it analyzes your music tastes and picks other songs for you to try. AND if you're listening and you think, "Why on earth did they think I'd like this?", you can click and it will tell you why it picked it out.

I've got more to try to learn as far as podcasts go. I don't think I'll be attempting my own anytime soon. It's bad enough I think people actually want to read what I write, but I think it would be a huge display of vanity to think they'd want to listen to me too.

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Alright, I had to post this. Again, it makes me laugh and more people should see it.

Thing 16: YouTube!

Woo-hoo! I'm back on the excited train!

I've used Youtube a lot in the past, so this Thing was a breeze for me. I've looked up commercials, tv shows, home movies, etc on this site and I love it! I haven't ever posted anything on here, and my fear of it taking off and being my 15 minutes of fame keeps me from doing so. However, I was at a workshop recently and was shown some booktalk videos that people uploaded. Some were crap, but others really inspired me. Finally! Something I can use my background in film/animation for!

I chose this video because it always makes me smile. Sure, I could've chosen a video that was pertinent to Web 2.0 or the library but what could be better than REM and Muppets?

Thing 15: Rollyo

I feel like I've grown a bit apathetic about the Things. Rollyo did not excite me. I suppose I should've compared a search of one of the searchrolls to Google, but I didn't - just because it seemed to me that they wouldn't really turn up vastly different results.

I learned quickly in searching that certain mega-sites were going to overtake the results that could be found from others. When I did a search of "chimp attack" on their pre-existing news searchroll, CNN made up the first 20 or so hits. The same thing happened when I made my own searchroll. Since I couldn't think of anything else I made a searchroll of some of my favorite shopping sites. However, I added some biggies like Target and Amazon, and those were all of the hits that came back. Once I removed those, it seemed to give a little more play to the other sites. If you want to look for something on my searchroll, there's a widget on the right.

I suppose I could find some practical applications. If I worked the reference desk more often, I would searchroll a bunch of sites I used often - world atlas, online encyclopedia, etc - hopefully making the search for an answer to a question come that much faster. Other than that, all I can muster to say about this Thing is "meh".

Thing 14: Online Productivity Tools

Online Productivity - isn't that on oxymoron? Most of the time, when I'm online, I am anything but productive. In fact, there are tons of sites out there that I'd wager that's their sole purpose in life - to waste time. But that's not what this thing is about. This is about the productive ones.

I did the iGoogle thing. It was ok. I mean, I suppose it's handy to have a lot of the Google features there to click, but is it really that hard to click on a tab and choose it from a menu? The nice thing about it is that it gives you a preview of your inbox and RSS feed, so you don't have to open them if you don't see anything new. However I am easily distracted, and me clicking on one of the news articles may lead to a 30 minute venture in webland.

I browsed through some of the other things, like the post-it notes and list maker, but didn't find them useful. I just don't make lists - it's just another piece of paper for me to lose. That, and I procrastinate, so looking at a list of all the things I haven't done yet just makes me feel bad. And no, laziness usually wins over feelings of self-defeat.

Online calendars are definitely useful, though when I usually need to consult a calendar I am nowhere near a computer. However, it would be great thing to have on a webpage to let patrons know of upcoming events. Backpack seemed pretty useful too, but Google had something somewhat comparable. If you just start a Google group you can upload documents, have a forum, etc. Backpack may streamline it a bit and give it pretty color coding and other fancy bits.

I can see how all these could be useful, but not readily applicable to my life at the moment. Productive? Maybe - however with a simple click on new tab, my mind can be off and wandering even with these sites up.

Thing 13: Library Thing

Or as I like to call it "How nosy can you be?! Why don't you just read over my shoulder for god's sake!". Not really. Well kinda. Anyway...

So I've already done something quite similar to this on Facebook. I think they call it something like "Visual Bookshelf", but the idea is the same. You input a bunch of books that you've read or are reading, and you can write reviews and see what your friends are currently reading. The problem is, I'm really bad at updating it, so my friends probably think I've been reading the same book for about 6 months now.

I can see how this could be a useful tool. If tagged properly, you could use it to search for a book whose name you can't remember. (Like all those patrons who come in saying "I'm looking for a book that's blue with a mouse on the cover" or "It's about a detective in Cedar Falls"). You can also definitely use it as a "what to read next" function. I had a great time looking at people's bookshelves that shared a similar taste in books. I'm always looking for new authors!

A cool thing, but not one I'm over-the-top excited about. If you want to check out my bookshelf, there's a selection over on the right - the last widget. Enjoy!