# 24 The End? Or Just the Beginning?

Wow! I made it.
Participating in Learning 2.0 inspired me to step out of my safety zone into the brave new world of modern and ever changing techology. I created a blog, added feeds to my bloglines, contributed to a wiki, viewed instructional and promotional videos and podcasts, and created my very own radio station. However, the most important thing that I did was discover new and exciting tools that would be beneficial to our library, our staff, and our patrons. Who knows how far we can go?
I absolutely fell in love with Flickr, Google Docs, and Pandora. My family and I plan on using R.E.A.D.S.
I would like to thank Jerianne for all her hard work in providing this experience to all the staff at LPL. Also, I want to say thank you to all the staff at Smyrna who truly exemplifies the meaning of teamwork. I could not have finished without them.
Will I participate in a similiar program? You bet I will.

Thing #23 Podcasts, Smodcasts

The podcast that I liked best was the Aesop's Fables Podcast. I also found U.S. Presidents Podcast which provides a brief biographical portrait of each president, explore the eras in which they led the country, and access the historical significance they hold for us today. Did I ever mention that I was a history major in college? These podcasts are found at the LearnOutLoud directory.



In Podfeed.net, when I did a subject search for books, I found a childrensbookradio podcast that is a must for children book lovers. A new book is discussed each week with an interview with the author. I added this to my bloglines.

Thing # 22 Downloading Audiobooks and Videos

Since I am not a big fan of audiobooks, this is my first time to explore R.E.A.D.S. I watched the tutorial and then searched for several books that are required High School reading. I found The Secret Life of Bees, The Crucible, and Shelley's Frankenstein as well as sparknotes on The Crucible and Frankenstein. I was very impressed with the selections offered and was excited about the sparknotes being available. I cannot begin to count the amount of money I have spent on sparknotes in the last ten years. I also found many of our patrons' favorite children books such as Junie B. Jones and A to Z Mysteries. When I get my MP3 player, I may actually become a R.E.A.D.S. fan.

I found one of my favorite films in the MyLibraryDV. It was Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney. I also am a big fan of the Antiques Roadshow and it was available under the How To Section. How cool is that!

I will be visiting this site more often. Thanks to Learning 2.o, I finally made the opportunity to explore these wonderful sites.

Thing# 21 YouTube

My family likes to watch funny and outrageous videos on YouTube. I usually watch them when I go and investigate why everyone is belly laughing . My daughter's favorite is of a electric guitar player that seems to play at the speed of light. My husband likes the grape lady.
Since I am very interested in crafts, I decided to explore YouTube for crafts. I found the following site which shows how to make a Christmas tree out of a popcicle stick and chenille wires.



YouTube would be an excellent resource for libraries to make "How To" videos. I agree 100% with Al that we could link these videos to our website as well as show videos of special events or programs. Maybe we could introduce our patrons to our staff by doing a short interview or employee spotlight every month.

#20 Other Web 2.0 Award Sites

Since I enjoy music, I explored Pandora. I liked creating my own personal radio station. My favorite Christmas song is Carol of the Bells, so I created a station that played similiar songs. One of my favorite features of the site is being able to express my opinion about the songs being played. The downside is that I could become addictive to this site. As far as having any library applications, I would have to say no, but it was a great way to for me to de-stress (is this a word).

#19 Social Networking

I hate to admit this, but this is my first time to visit MySpace or Facebook. Social networking has never really been my "cup of tea." Maybe it is just old age talking or maybe I have just been living under a rock. I began my exploration of MySpace by checking out one of my co-worker's page. It was really cool. I also knew many of her friends, so I checked out their sites also. On the surface, creating a page did not appear to be too difficult. However, I am just not ready to take that plunge. As I was looking for an old friend of mine (who my daughter thinks is way cool because she is on MySpace), I found a 100 year old lady who happens to have the same name. I guess I cannot use the excuse of being to old to have a social networking site.
I can understand the growing popularity of MySpace among the younger generation; however, I do not feel comfortable with the amount and type of personal information that many teens share. If libraries could reach the teen crowd through a MySpace page, I would be 100% for establishing a presence on this site. Yet, I am not sure how many teenagers would actually want to be added as a friend. I agree with Andrea that the best way to reach our teens is through offering programs that they are interested in not through MySpace.
I also explored the LinkedIn site. I think my husband would be interested in checking this site out. It may be a great tool for job seekers (especially for someone past their prime).

#18 Online Productivity

For this exercise, I chose to set up a Google Docs account. It was so easy to use(just like Word). I created a test document about alligaors and even downloaded a picture to my document. I also invited another co-worker to edit my document. The features were so similar to Word that I felt very comfortable creating my document.
To me, the best feature about Google Docs is that it allows for collaboration among many users. It would be a perfect tool for newsletters or group projects. I like having the option of allowing others to review the document or even make revisions to the document. (I wish this online tool was available during my college days).
There has been several occasions at the library where Google Docs would have been very useful such as collaboration on special programs such as SRP brochure or Reading Rally plans.

#17 LPLS Staff Wiki

I must admit that this exercise made me very nervous. I was so afraid that I would mess something up (kinda like blowing up the lab during chemistry class). I decided to add the "Checking out-Special Circumstances" and "Checking out honor" articles to our library wiki.
I do like the idea of having the circulation manual, how tos, etc. on a staff wiki. I sometimes need to refresh my memory on policies and procedures on items such as claims return, lost books, etc. that I do not do on a regular basis. Adding a short cut to our computer screen, would make access so easy.

#16 Learning about Wikis

Before doing this discovery exercise, the only wiki that I was familiar with was Wikipedia. Although I have read articles from this website, I usually shy away from it because my children were not allowed to use it for their school projects and research papers.
St. Joseph County Public Library has an awesome subject guide wiki. I could spend hours exploring their site. I really liked their Information Desk and Government sections. The tax information section gave information such as types of tax forms available in the library, books library has to help with your taxes, links to IRS website, etc. I also think that the "ask the library" section is a great way to get patron comments and feedback. A subject guide wiki would be a great asset to any library.
A staff intranet wiki would be a great tool for planning and organizing special events at the library such as summer reading, winter reading, or reading rally. It would also be a place where our strategic planning could be posted along with our progress. It would provide library staff with an easy and efficient way to share ideas and information with co-workers.

#15 Library 2.0 Perspectives

I read "Away from the icebergs." Mr. Anderson could have been talking personally to me. I am in the boat rowing, but my fear is blinding me to the disasters that are in my path. I like his idea about training users (patrons). If something is that difficult to use or understand, then maybe that program or service should be replaced with a program that is more user friendly. Frustration only leads to dissatisfied and upset patrons. Change (as history shows) is inevitable, and I hope that I can help my crew maneuver our little boat to the shore.

#14 Technorati

I had a difficult time working on this; I kept getting interrupted. I found 513 blog posts that contained the exact phrase "learning 2.0, 243 posts tagged "Learning 2.0",and 360 entries in the blog directory. Oh yes, forgetting the quotes does make a difference in your results. Searching for the popular sites in Technorati was very interesting; the most favorite "Boing Boing" was not listed as the top blog. I guess people enjoy reading it but do not link to it. The top searches change from day to day ( I know this because I had to go into Technorati several times due to interruptions from my family). Paris Hilton was one of the top searches along with google. Beowulf was listed as the second top movie.

#13 Del.icio.us

I spent a lot of time reading and learning about tagging and social bookmarking. I love the look of a cloud tag sorted by size. It reminds me of a graphic organizer. The brief video "Social Bookmarking in Plain English" was the most helpful to me, maybe because it used the example of teachers sharing resources (once an educator, always an educator).
I liked the idea of being able to access your bookmarks from any computer. I use many of the same web sites at home that I use at work. Social bookmarking would be a useful tool for library staff to share resources that might be beneficial not only to each other but to our patrons.
I decided to do a search on preschool crafts and found 536 sites. Many of the sites were the same that I use on a regular basis such as thebestkidsbooksite and DLTK. I still prefer to use google, although my reason may be only because of its familiarity.

Thing#12 - Rollyo

I decided to create a search tool for my favorite craft sites. Hopefully it will work. Before I created my rollyo, I looked at other searchrolls. I really enjoyed My Used Books and My Used Book Suppliers. I am not sure how often I would use this tool, because I am the "Queen of Research" and enjoy browsing numerous websites. You never know what you may find.



http://www.rollyo.com/search.html?q=stirred+not+shaken&sid=326021

Select Search Engine...stirred not shakenSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Thing # 11 Library Thing

I really enjoyed cataloging some of my most cherished books that my girls and I love so much. It was really easy to set up an account and to add books to my shelf. I am a very organized person (sometimes too organized for my family) and would see this as a great organizational tool. I like the idea of belonging to a huge bookclub and getting recommendations for new books to read. I have tried What do I Read Next but have not always been very successful at finding books at this site.

Check out my Library Thing Catalog

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

Thing #10 - Image Generators

Since I am a chocolate fantic, I chose the chocolate bar generator to play around with . It was very easy to do even for a novice like me. Check out the chocolate bar image generator .

Here is my smiley face that I created using the ezSmiley Generator. I must confess that I spent a lot of time playing with this generator. Please note that my Smiley face loves to read.
Create your own smiley face.

Thing#9 - Finding Feeds

It was fairly easy for me to use Blogline's Search tool to find news feeds that was of interest to me. However, I found Feedster to be a little bit too advanced for me. I could not find anything on libraries that I felt was revelant to my needs. I enjoyed viewing Topix.net and searched for news from Smyrna, TN. I found that one of our local schools, John Coleman, had pulled itself up from 2 F's, 1 D and 1 C to straight A's on its school's state report card. What an outstanding accomplishment! While exploring Technorati, I typed in library and found the related topic of Learn 2.0. By far the easiest search tools for me to use was Bloglines and Technorati.

Thing # 8

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

Here are the bloglines that I like to read.

Creating a blogline account was not as hard as I thought it would be. I asked a few of my co-workers who are bloggers what their favorite feeds were and checked them out. A few of them were very interesting. I searched for library and crafts. I found a couple of craft sights that I decided to add to my account.

Thing #7

I browsed the Rose Music Collection in the TeVA and discovered this old sheet music cover which depicted a drawing of locomotive #5. I have always enjoyed the story about Casey Jones and have visited the Casey Jones Museum in Jackson, Tennessee numerous times. If you are interested in the ballad of Casey Jones, you might want to make a stop in Jackson and learn about the legend of this famous American locomotive engineer.

Thing #6

I enjoyed making a photo collage from a single winter scene in the style of David Hockney. I love to watch decorating shows and can see the many potentials that mashups can provide for home decorating on a budget. I also enjoyed Flickr Color Pickr and think it would be cool to have Librarian trading cards.

Fall

My picture shows my favorite time of the year. I love the beautiful colors and the crispness in the air. Fall also ushers in my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

Thing #4 The Online Library

My children and I have always been heavy users of TEL. It has been most helpful for research papers, especially Advance Biology lab reports (boy, am I glad that class is over). I would absolutely recommend this database for middle school through college age students. This is the source to use when professional journals are needed or should I say required.

While browsing the LPLS website today, I decided to check out the P4A Antiques Database. My husband's parents have given my family many treasured antiques over the past twenty years. My youngest daughter (who was PaPa's favorite) received a cast iron dog bank. I decided to research this item to see how much it is worth. In less than two minutes, I found an exact replica of the bank. Surprise! Surprise! Its value is around $250.00. I plan on researching the antique sewing machine that came from Germany as well as a cast iron ice truck. Anyone who is interested in antiques or own antiques should definitely give this database a second look.

7 1/2 Habits

The hardest thing for me to do is to have confidence in myself. I am my own worst critic. "Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." This quote by Peter T. Mcintyre could have been written about me. Yes, I admit I have a fear of failure and expect absolute perfection from myself.

The easiest thing for me is to teach/mentor others, especially children. I enjoy watching a child's face when the lightbulb begins to flicker and then illuminate. Whether I am teaching a Sunday school class or tutoring "children at risk", I feel that I learn more from the children than they learn from me.

Stirred here

Blogging is one of the hardest things that I have ever done. I am an eyeball to eyeball type of person. Yet I do love challenges.