Week 9, Thing 23 !!!!

I can't believe I finished!!! It is a good feeling as I will be off the next 2 weeks for vacation and some college visits!!!

1. My favorite things were the online generators and you tube. I also liked finding out about downloadable books. I liked learning about how to do new things with your pictures . We just got a new camera 1 year ago so Flickr was fun for me.

2. This program has opened my eyes to all the things happening in the computer world. I am hoping to use some of the things I learned at my job and in my personal life. It has made me a little less afraid to try new things.

3. I think an unexpected outcome from this program was learning that I can really do some of these new computer things. I was also surprised by all the new things that are happening so quickly in the computer world.

4. I think a workshop on some of the technology related things would have been helpful. (or a handout ) Simple things about blogs and getting items from one place to another... I was very frustrated when I could not get my avatar to move in my blog.... This program was most likely easier for techie people. I learned not to spend hours and hours trying to do the "optional" items. I did the "optional" things that I could and will try to come back at a later date and try the ones I could not do in the future.

5. I would chose to participate again in another program like this especially it realted to my current job.

6. I would describe my experience using these words... enlightening, challenging , and at times fun!

Week 9,Thing 22

I created an account for Overdrive and plan to download a book as soon as possible. I like the idea of being able to download a book to enjoy while I work out or clean the house!!! I looked at Project Gutenberg and Overdrive . I also explored The World ebook Fair. I explored (from the Carroll County page) Maryland's digital Library . I plan to download a book from here just as a Library patron would do if they were using our site. We do get some questions concerning ebooks so this will be helpful to me. I did not think about burning to a CD as an option. I found all the sites to a have a wide assortment of books and now videos! This is something I will be using in the future. I don't think I would use Project Gutenberg as much unless I want older, classical titles. This may be helpful for books my kids need to read for school.

Week 9, Thing 21

I explored many of the podcast directories . They were all very easy to use. I looked at Podcast.net. I looked under Entertainment, then I clicked on the tag movies. You can listen to movie reviews . I listened to a review on Film Talk. In Podcast you can serch by title, keywords, location , host and eposides. I also looked at Postcast Alley. You can pick a podcast genre such as arts, business, or comedy. I found tourcast and will go back and listen to information about the Grand Canyon National Park Tour. Yahoo Pocasts had alot of populat tags such as art, bible, business and comedy just to name a few. You can subscibe for free to a podcast called podrunner, which is a podcast for people who exercise. ( It has lots of upbeat songs) I finally looked at The Merlin podcasting learning link . I liked the Library news, Libvibe, which is updated everyday. I am going to add the RSS feed for a podcast. I used the Denver Public Library storytime favorites. Hopefully it will work. I like podcasts. There are alot out there so you need to weed though the ones that fit your needs. Podcasts can easily fit the needs of the Public Library.

Week 9, Thing 20

I can't believe I added the video!!!! On the first time. It is a miracle!!! Anyway, I picked a video from another Library system about The Library's upcoming Summer reading club theme. It was good and very creative! Check it out! I like the site because you could pick by catagories the videos that you wanted to watch. I did not like that there was alot of not so good videos. I chose the video because I thought it was a very creative way to get people excited about the Reading club!!

Week 9 , Thing 20

Week 8. Thing 19

I explored many of the award winning Web 2.0 sites. I first explored the travel site called Kayak (www.kayak.com ). I liked the site because it showed numerous pictures of the hotels you were interested in visiting. You could choose hotels using the star rating. The site included flight costs and populat trip ideas. I really liked the popular trip ideas. It included ideas such as U.S. scenic drives, adventure trips and camping trips to name a few of the many ideas. This is a great site for planning vacations. The next site I explored was Eventful- www.eventful.com. I can see myself using this site at my job. We get questions about events in the area so this site will be helpful. You can put in a location and there is a list of about 30 categories to click on to get information. For example,you can click on sports and you will get a list of sporting events in the area. You can track and share events at the site. There is a link for calendars where you can bring up different events thoughtout the United States. There is also a popular calendar tags link. The last site I looked at was Lulu(www.lulu.com). You can publish and sell your books on this site. You can set a price and do the marketing. You can also pulish all different types of media such as calendars, and cd's just to name a few types of media. I enjoyed exploring some of the award winning 2.0 sites and look forward to going back to explore some additional sites in the future.

Week 8, Thing 18

I had fun playing around with all the templates in Zoho Writer. There were templates for everything from invitations to speech outlines and Itinerary sheets. My son will find this site helpful as he prepares to go to college in a year! This will be a fun place to go to get a template for just about any occasion. I wrote a recipe in Zoho and posted it in my blog. Give it a try. People seem to like this soup. In fact my kids ask for it as a birthday dinner! The directions for posting to my blog were easy to follow. I like the idea of being able to create documents and access them from any computer. This is the site I will be using for creating documents. Enjoy the soup!!

potato soup

Recipe :  Lori's Spicy Potato Soup

1/3 cup celery diced

1/3 cup carrots diced

1/4 cup onions diced

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons minced parsley

1/2-1teaspoons salt

1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayene pepper

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

pepper to taste

6 medium to large potatoes.

1 quart milk

2-3 chicken bullion cubes

Cooking instructions:

Put the celery, carrots and oninons in the bottom of a big pot with the butter and cook over low- medium heat. (around 5 minutes) Add the flour and cook for a minute or two longer.

Cut up 6 potatoes. I dice them and then cook them in water until tender. Put aside.

Add 1 quart of milk to the pot with the veggies. Add 2-3 chicken bullion cubes to the soup pot. Add all the spices.

Cook veggies, milk, and spices over a medium heat until bubbly. Simmer 20 minutes. ** Whole milk or 2 percent milk works best.

Drain the potatoes add half of diced potatoes to the soup pot.

Mash the other half of the potatoes with a potato masher and add to the soup pot.

Simmer 20 -25 minutes and serve.

You can add chives, bacon bits , or shredded cheese. I add extra Ccayene as my family likes it spicy. I also let it simmer on low in a cock pot all day. After you add diced and mashed potatoes throw in cock pot. Yummy!!

Week 7, Thing 17

I liked using Maryland Libraries Sandbox. I created an account and added my blog to the Favorites Blogs page. I added a post on the Currently Reading post. This will be a fun place to look when I need a good book to read. I also added a post to the Cool websites, widgets and tech tools page. There were just a few items listed on this page but I can see this as a resource for the future especially since I use the internet on a regulat basis at my job. It will also be fun to look on this page for tech tools.. I also looked at the CCPL Wiki page and found it very helpful. I will be using it as a resource more often!

Week 7, Thing 16

I learned all about the wonderful world of Wiki's I read all of the information about wiki's including the slideshow. I looked at some wiki's . I liked the SJCPL subject guides wiki. I really like this idea. I looked at the Local and family History subject guide. What great information if you are starting a family tree. This would be extremely useful for patrons to use as a resource. I also looked at the Book lover's wiki by the Princeton public Library. I can see myself using this wiki. You can find reviews on all different types of books from Biographies to Westerns. I like the idea of community wiki's. What a good way for teams to communicate. I also liked the idea of adding wiki's to the catalog to allow patrons to add reviews or a summary about books. The ideas are endless. For example a wiki could be set up for programming . The wiki could be a valuable resource to the programming department. Librarians would be getting ideas from around the world. I do think that for reasech purposes that Wiki would not be the best choice.

Week 6, Thing 15

I read though all of the perpectives on Library 2.0 from the list . I really liked the viewpoints from Micheal Stephans, a Librarian Blogger. I like his view of open forums. Why not make the Library community part of the Library team? He suggests discussing plans in open forums. Michael Stephans sees the importance of incorporating new technologies to make Libraries "transparent". I think a good example of the Carroll County Library using new technologies is the Tech team. They are planning to use My Space which is very popular with teenagers.

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm

I also liked the ideas about OCLC. I liked the idea for implementing Web 2.0 Technologies with OCLC. The ideas presented would make OCLC more avaiable to the public. The public would not have to rely on placing holds though a Librarian. The ideas of allowing anyone with a web browser to be able to search Worldcat is a very good idea. OCLC is expanding to keep pace with a quickly changing world.

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/4.htm

Week 6, Thing 14

Technorati is a good serch tool for blogs. I liked the popular section and the Tecorati top 100. I did a keyword search for Learning 2.0 in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog directory. Wow , what a difference. I found 28,234 blog posts and 665 blogs about Learning 2.o. I found Post Secret in top favorited blogs. It looked interesting. It is an ongoing community art project where people can mail in their secrets under an anonymous , homemade postcard. Sounds interesting. I looked to see mdlearn2 and found a great idea Frederick County is using for 23 things. They have an option under participants where you click on Staff tips. I found out how to post to your blog via email. What a great idea!

Week 6, Thing 13

What fun!!! Del.icio.us. I watched the tutorial and found it helpful. I also read though Several habits of wildly successful Del.icio.us users. I created a Del.icio.us account and tried to install the buttons on my computer at Headquarters and was unsucessful. I will try again at home. I took a look around Del.icio.us using the PLMCL@ account. I clicked on Yalsa's positive usezof social networks and really liked the college serach at e-notes. You could search by size, region, or environment. There were a few more ways to search . What a great resource for me since I have one going to college in a year. This is a great social bookmarking site which I plan to use once I can get my buttons installed. Yeah, I installed the Del.icio.us buttons on my home computer and have added alot of websites that I use alot.


http://del.icio.us/loriann333
http://del.icio.us/loriann333/tag

Week 5, Thing 12

I looked at Quick qoutes, e books search and PLMC's searchroll. I really liked the PLMC's searchroll. I liked the PLMC searchroll of FAQ- You click on a question to find the answer to some of the Library's frequently asked questions. I can see how this site would be very helpful. I signed up for an account and created a serchroll for my favoite search engines. It is called Serching for Info. It has search engines for adults and kids. This is a good place for me to quickly go and find the search engines that I use the most.

www.altavista.com
www.askforkids.com
www.kidsclick.org
kids.yahoo.com
www.alltheweb.com
search.looksmart.com
www.lycos.com
204.255.213.13/rpa/webauth.exe?rs=ProQuest&lb=CCPL
www.webcrawler.com
www.hotbot.com
www.awesomelibrary.org/student5.html

Week 5, Thing 11

I enjoyed using LibraryThing. I posted 10 books to my favorites list. I think this site has potential for using with patrons. You can create book lists such as: Young adult favorites, Summer reads, bestsellers, or favorite non fiction titles to name a few. I plan on using this site for my personal use as well. The site allows you to get You can get recommendations and hook up to people with similar interests. Here is the link to my books.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/loriann

Week 5, Thing 10

I played with some of the image generators and decided to try create an avatar and post it on my blog. I was able to post it on my blog but it did not move. I find that I am at a disadvatage because I am not a techie person. I enjoy looking at the sites but have trouble transporting the information. Anyway, I liked Meez and it was fun to design the avatar . I picked a soocer theme since I am a "soccer Mom". Hopefully I will get it on the blog soon. ( I may not have any hair left or it may be totally grey! ) I liked the Letter James and when I finish the 23 things I would m and alot of fun things to create such as phot posters and photo claendars. Wish me luck.

http://www.meez.com/home.dm

Week 4, Thing 9

I had some fun exploring Merlin and other library related news feeds. I added Merlin along with some other news feeds. I liked using Feedster because I could choose the category I wanted to use . I liked Topix because I could choose a news feed that was related to Westminster , Md. I also got a weather newfeed for local weather. I found Technorati to be confusing. It was mainly searching popular information and I could not find anything that I was appealing to me. I really liked Second Life and even found a video by dholechek. I thought it was my newphew but it was not... someone in California. I liked the idea of creating a vitual world complete with your own characters. You could come up with some creative ways to use this site at work for role playing market research and even college classes. I explored all the gaming links and the Social networking learning link. I checked out some gaming avatars and virtual worlds. It is like a whole new world to me.

Week 4 , Thing 8

Hi again, I had no idea what RSS and newsreaders. It is a good idea instead of having to search numerous websites to get information on one topic. I had no problem setting up my Blogline account and just picked many of popular choices from the most popular list that I saw after I set up my account. I also subscibed to feeds from other participants blogs. I added some of the news feeds from the sources provided in this activity. They were: Library Journal News, Unshelved, and the Readers club. I now have 37 feeds. I will check them weekly to see which ones I want to keep and which ones I don't find useful. It was easiest to subscibe in Bloglines by cutting and pasting the URL. This was very interesting and I can see how Libarians could use this technology to help patrons. For example the Reader's club could be a easy and fast way to see bestsellers or find books by age level or interest. I hope to continue to use newsreaders.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/luey333

Week 3, Thing 7

I created a powerpoint for my son's 5th grade promotion . It was a 22 minute presentation which had 200 slides. There was a section with a pictures of each child at 5 years old and then at 10 or 11. There were 110 slides of candid shots from K-5th grade. It was fun and the kids seemed to really have fun looking at all the pictures. I learned alot about putting a powerpoint presentation together.

Week 3 , Thing 6

Hi, I had fun learning about Mashups. I made a trader card using my son Sam's picture. What a cute smile!

I had fun learning about Mashups. There was alot to see. I had fun creating a magazine cover . I am not sure how to get the white color off the top and bottom of the magazine cover! Any help? There was a section with camera reviews that is very helpful if you are looking for a new camera. You can make so many things for work and home look more professional and fun. I saw where you can create newsletters and calendars just to name a few things. The color wheels are fun! Overall, I learned alot from Flickr!

New Cartoon!

Hi, I am adding a cartoon for fun!!! This is how I feel some mornings!!!

Week 3 , Thing 5

Hi, OK- I am going to try to post pictures from our Winter trip from this year. We went to Wisp to volunteer for Special Olympics . It was a great family experience! My oldest 2 (Alec and Sam ) along with Dad set up race courses. My youngest (Jake and I) helped with the athletes. It was fun and very rewarding! It was fun learning about Flickr but I have to amit it took some time because I have never used a site like this and I am not a "tech" person. The picture on the snowmobile is Jake.

The skier in the air is Alec and the skier with the cute smile is Sam. My hubby, Terry is carring all the poles for course.

Week 2, Thing 4

I have sucessfully registered and I have downloaded the 23 things tracking log. Lori

Week 2 , Thing 3

I sucessfully set up my blog. I have already posted 2 things in my blog!!

Week 1, Thing 2

Lifelong Learners- 7 1/2 Lifelong habits ..... easiest and hardest for me.

Easiest- The easiest habit for me is to teach / mentor others. I used to be a teacher so it is second nature to want to help people! I love the feeling you have when you can teach someone how to accomplish a task.... and look forward to helping my co-workers as needed. Lori

Hardest- The hardest thing for me is to use technology to your advantage. I tend to get frustrated with new technology especially when it does not work the way I think it should. Thank goodness for teenagers ! They seem to be willing to try anything new in technology. This program will be a good learning experience for me!

Week 1, Thing 1

I read all about the 23 things! It seems like I will be experiencing lots of new technology ! That is a good thing for me. It will be fun reading other people's blogs. This will be a good way for the staff to learn things from each other. It is nice that you get to work at your own pace! I am looking forward to the ride... Lori