Week 10 #23

I really enjoyed using ihcpl. I loved learning about tags, rss feeds, and podcasts. There was a lot I didn't know! I think doing these exercises has helped me to become more knowledgeable about computers and what the Internet has to offer. I didn't realise all the things that were out there. I'm really glad that I did this!

Week 9 #22

I liked the Wowio site the most. Of all the sites I believe they had the most selection. I will most likely make an account with them later from home. It will take a while to explore all the differences. I didn't know that you could download movies for free. Of course they aren't the blockbuster hit movies, but I'm sure if you look around enough you could find some good stuff to watch.

Week 9 #21 Podcasts

Podcasts are a wonderful way to get all kinds of information. If you're an auditory learner like me its really nice to hear a voice rather than read about something online. Plus with Podcasts you can listen to the news or commentary and do other things at the same time. I subscribed to the Harey Potter podcast called Mugglecast.

week 9 #20

I've been using Youtube for a long time now and I just plain love it. It has music videos, comedy, TV show clips! It is one of the best things that has come out of the Internet in my opinion. This is one of my favorite clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFFTwnYXI20

Jim Gaffigan stand up comedy about Hot Pockets!!

Week 8 #19

Zoho writer is an extremely useful web-based application. It universalizes word, powerpoint, and all the programs that students and many people use all the time. It was really neat and interesting because I really didn't know things like this existed.

Week 8 #18 Social Networking

Social networking has simply exploded in the past few years. I remember when I begun high school in 2002, the huge social networking sites pretty much didn't exist yet. By the time I graduated, practically everyone in my class had Myspace, Facebook, and Livejournal accounts. I have accounts with all three sites as well, and I like them for different reasons.

Myspace is great for finding people because it is the most popular. You can pretty much find anyone you are looking for if they are into current technology. You can decorate and personalize your own page, add videos and music, and the possibilities are almost limitless. Almost any design or theme will work on myspace. If you really like to decorate your profile page then Myspace is great! It was the first social networking site that allowed you to add pictures, have a blog, send email messages, and instant messages. It was a HUGE collaboration of what everyone wanted out of internet socializing, the ability to personalize, have pictures, and use an email system. With the emergence of myspace, separate email accounts, AIM (instant messaging) accounts, and blog accounts became somewhat obsolete.

Facebook is another wonderful social networking site. It is a little more confusing to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, you realize it is much more organized than Myspace. Facebook is updated more frequently, is more secure, and has better privacy options.

One thing that has made Facebook a lot better recently are the Facebook Applications. These little gadgets allow you to have an interactive aquarium on your profile, send virtual flowers, poke, post pictures, videos, cartoons, etc... there are so many applications it would be impossible to describe them all. My personal favorite is the Sorting Hat application, which allows you to take a personality test which places you in a Hogwarts house and you can cast spells on your friends to raise points for your house. It is really hilarious.

There are also Facebook groups which have become really popular lately.

All in all, social networking ROCKS!

Week 7 #17

Technology... it surrounds us all.

It's inescapable. It's flawed and perfect, dangerous and safe, fundamental and innovative all at the same time. It will never stop changing. Technology is the wheel, the pencil, the boat, the machine, the factory, the computer, the spaceship, it is what always has, and always will push us forward, it is what separates us from all other species.

Technology is the product and physical manifestation of mankind's most prized possessions,

human consciousness, human thought and the human brain.

Week 7 #16

Exploring Wikis was really interesting. I've had a little bit of experience with Wikis because I often use Wikipedia. I think Wikis could be used by our library system in many ways. If enough patrons knew about it, there could be a library wiki to announce updates, story times, events, etc. It could also be used to discuss library satisfaction or recommended books. It could talk about which library could best fit the needs of different patrons. (for example if a patron needs to learn computer skills they could look on the wiki and find out which library has a computer tech who teaches classes.) Wikis are useful sources of information and can be used by patrons all over the county.

Week 6 #15

Library 2.0 is something I think the library system is definitely heading towards. Eventually, books may become obsolete altogether and in order to save time, paper, money, and work books may stop being printed and become solely electronic and downloadable. Already some college textbooks have an electronic option that is advertised as "inexpensive and convenient" in comparison to their print counterparts. So in this case, I think that moving toward electronic material is inevitable.

I think the shift towards electronic libraries is a good option for a lot of people. I personally enjoy the old-fashioned book. I think having both e-books and print books is the best option for our diverse society at this time. Although in the future there will come a time where print books will simply fail to be.

Week 6 #14

When searching for "learning 2.0" under the different types of search categories, I noticed that each type of search gives you different kinds of results. In my opinion, the tags search was most specific. I think the popular blogs, searches, and videos are great for keeping up to date on what's going on in the world. I can tell Technorati is a very time consuming website because it can lead you to a million different places. I think it would be best enjoyed by someone who has a lot of time, and a good stress reliever for someone busy. Although I'm sure Technorati would cause severe Dorito syndrome, or my name for when you do something and 5 hours go by and you really feel like you didn't get much done. Kind of like when you're hungry and you eat a bag of Doritos without realizing it, and when you're done you're really not full.

Technorati is good, but time consuming.

Week 6 #13

Del.icio.us is a very interesting tool. I think it can be really useful for general information and for social networking, but doesn't fulfill it's full potential for academic uses. This idea of free tagging would be really useful in a professional/academic database. Being a college student, I understand how difficult it can be to find sources for research papers, if college libraries or even our own public library would allow users to "tag" different articles in a database, it could make the process of finding material for a paper much easier.

The capability of having portable bookmarks is a great idea, especially for librarians or anyone that moves from computer to computer and needs easy access to websites that are useful to them. This is really useful for a student who is working on a paper and goes to many different places throughout the day. Once I explore this tool a bit more, and depending on how convenient it is, I may use this for my own academic purposes. Such as when I'm writing a paper and I want to work on it at the college library, and I'm looking for articles or blogs that can contribute to my research. It will be much easier to just add the bookmark to delicious and go back to it later than the usual copy-paste into a word document or email that I will send to myself. Delicious takes one tedious task out of saving useful websites, and will make the process of retrieving those websites once you get home a lot easier.

Week 5 #12

Hmmm library elf wasn't my favorite "thing" but I suppose it is a useful tool. Sometimes I think we all have difficulty remembering our items.

Week 5 #11

LibraryThing was another great website for us library workers. Being a shelver there's always all these books I would like to read, but when it comes to picking a book, I simply can't remember which ones I was interested in. Now I can make a list and check it later!

Here's the link to my LibraryThing: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/macandcheesemaniac

Week 5 #10

Making an avatar was really fun! I've used the Yahoo avatars before, but the Meez avatars were much more detailed and personalized. The avatar represents both my love of Holloween and Harry Potter. Plus pumpkins and fall just go hand in hand.

Week 4 #8 & #9

Using the rss feeds was really neat. I didn't know about these before using Ihcpl. I set up my newsfeed to tell me about a few of my coworker's blogs and my livejournal account. It was easiest for me to use the method of typing in the username of the person you are searching for within an accout. They've really done a lot to make it easy to find blogs.

Week 3 #7

sepianegrhino
Originally uploaded by macandcheesemaniac

I picked this picture off of Flickr then edited it with Pixer. I made the picture negative then changed it to a sepia color. He was a tired looking rhino, maybe he'll enjoy viewing Greece below.

Week 3 #6

I really enjoyed the colorpicker feature on Flickr. Seeing all the beautiful pictures and colors is really neat!

Week 3 #5

1454611373_ad06cf7712
Originally uploaded by macandcheesemaniac

This is a photo I liked. I want to visit Greece someday.

Week 2 #4

I think using a blog is relatively safe. As long as you are careful not to put any personal information you'll be fine. Most people don't go snooping around random blogs anyway. I understand the need for caution, but as long as you use common sense it is unlikely that any harm will come from sharing blogs.

Week 2 #3

The tutorial video was easy for me to understand. I really enjoyed the "Attack of the Blog" video. Setting aside extra time each week will be the most difficult part of ihcpl. I can use computers well so I believe it won't take long for me to learn new things. Either way, I'm sure this will be an exciting learning experience.