I have never used (let alone heard of) Google Docs before now. I have to say it looks like a really nifty "suite of tools" to use! I like it better than a Wiki, probably because it's so similar to Word, and that's what I'm used to. The format is easy to create and edit, and I think it lends itself to group use very easily. I might even be tempted to create a spreadsheet using G-Docs, something I've never even been interested in trying to do! How's that for progress??!!
I went into the ppsemester2 docs and was tickled at how many experimented with colors, fonts, pics, etc. I then went into the Garden spreadsheet and added Nikko Blue Hydrangeas under shrubs - really easy to use! I plan to go back in and create my own doc and spreadsheet, just for kicks. Yes, being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century....HA!
I also want to go back in and look at that slideshow - do you download your own personal pics, or can you load something from Google pics/other sites, like the Flickr assignment? I hope to do that later, after my crazy kid and his friends GET OFF THE COMPUTER - doncha love No School Days??? NOT!!!!!
Yes, I'm learning and playing and fearing a little less today!!
Showing posts with label flickr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flickr. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Week 10 - Wrap-up and Reflection
I've finally made it to the end - whew! When I faltered and fell behind in the middle of the semester, I was afraid I might not catch up, but I did! And I've learned some interesting things along the way.
The video clip Information R/evolution was very thought-provoking. When I was 12 in 1970, I made my career choice to be a Reference Librarian and followed the educational and career paths to make it happen. When I finally entered grad school in 1985 at the age of 26, how the library world had changed! My first class in Information Theory and its discussions of Noam Chomsky and random chaos theory made my head reel, and I was left wondering if I had made a career blunder. I survived this and other classes, slogged through Dialog database searching, and wrote all my papers on a little Mac borrowed from my husband's office (my electric typewriter was too noisy at 2 am in thin-walled apartments!) After working as a Reference Librarian for 9 years, I left to give birth literally as the Internet arrived in our library. I was a stay at home mom for the next 10 years, but we did have Internet access at home due to my husband's job as a computer analyst and programmer. (He's the techie in the family, and I will tell you that osmosis didn't work - none of his technical savvy has rubbed off on me at all.) When I re-entered reference work about a year and a half ago, I was amazed at how computers had infiltrated libraries, both as patron access stations and as critical reference tools. Now I wouldn't work without one. That video clip amazed me, I guess, because it reminded me of the path I took to get where I am today - from print books on the dusty shelves to sleek flat-screened computers. Okay, enough reminiscing...
One other side note - I read and found David Lee King's article very pertinent, but this portion disturbed me:
"You are asking them to participate: opening up the possibility to comment is a form of invitation to participate. It allows actual interaction with real, live people. it also sets up a type of digital town hall meeting where someone’s expressed opinion can be heard, discussed, debated, and distilled by others within earshot (ie., other readers)"
Now, I will admit that I am old as dirt, and that I am "connected but harrassed" as noted by that little quiz we took the first week. And I do feel that connecting with patrons by inviting them to interact using wikis, surveys, etc. and responding to them with respect is a great thing. But understand that this kind of "actual interaction" is done using the internet, not "real, live people". The anonymity of an email or the chatroom digital town hall should not be confused with talking with and looking into the eyes of a warm-blooded person. That's why it's called virtual reality. While you may be chatting in real-time with someone, you are not necessarily interacting/reacting to them the same way you would if you were talking face to face. The reason I'm making this distinction is because I have set limits on the amount of daily computer time my 11 yo son has so that he has the time and inclination to interact with real people in the real world he lives in. He needs to know that there is real life to experience and treasure, not just the virtual worlds inside the box sitting on the desk. Okay, I'm climbing off my soapbox now...
The various tools we learned about during this semester have many library applications, and I know many of these have been listed on other blogs. Suffice it to say I've learned about a variety of things I hadn't even heard of when I signed up for this course!
I think my favorite has been the blog. I've felt a sense of accomplishment as I've added features to it as a result of the various assigments we were given. I also like having the blogline account with the various rss feeds I've subscribed to. It's a handy one-stop source I can check for the things that interest me. The Flickr assigment was probably my most confusing, but I did triumph when I linked my Vulkin Kat pic! Of course, now I need to do it again so I can remember how...maybe this will be the push I need to start using my husband's digital camera and downloading pics to share! Hmm....) The LibraryThing and del.icio.us (I really hate typing that name!) assigments were also quite useful - both are things I will be using in my personal life. I'll have to see about the wikis, although I have a feeling we will be using them at work now!
I liked the way the assignments were structured. While I did appreciate some of the step-by-step directions, I can understand the reluctance to spoon feed us too much. It really is a good idea to use the tutorials and help sections of most sites, to just learn by playing with them. The little extras at the end of each week were fun, though I didn't always have time to do them all. I hope to go back and do some more of the fun things when I make more time - please don't delete any of the assignment pages from the semester 1 so we can refer back if we need to. The extra time you gave us to catch up assignments was crucial for me to finish, so I hope you'll do that during the 2nd semester, too.
If you had asked me a month ago if I was going to sign up for semester 2, I'd have said probably not. But the funny thing is, I've finally gained some confidence and interest in some of these new (to me) sites and tools, and now I'd like to learn some more! So, I've sent an email to Jean to sign me up for the 2nd part.
Finally, I'd like to thank all the people who acted as facilitators for us during the semester. I've really appreciated your comments, suggestions, and encouragement. You've made the assignments interesting, relevant, and fairly short. Plus, you've managed to nudge an old stick in the mud into reaching out of my comfort zone to learn some technical things that I could even share with my savvy son and husband, and that's a very good thing! And to my fellow students/bloggers - thanks for sharing your comments with me, too. I appreciated you taking the time to read my ramblings. I hope to explore some other student blogs between the semesters.
The video clip Information R/evolution was very thought-provoking. When I was 12 in 1970, I made my career choice to be a Reference Librarian and followed the educational and career paths to make it happen. When I finally entered grad school in 1985 at the age of 26, how the library world had changed! My first class in Information Theory and its discussions of Noam Chomsky and random chaos theory made my head reel, and I was left wondering if I had made a career blunder. I survived this and other classes, slogged through Dialog database searching, and wrote all my papers on a little Mac borrowed from my husband's office (my electric typewriter was too noisy at 2 am in thin-walled apartments!) After working as a Reference Librarian for 9 years, I left to give birth literally as the Internet arrived in our library. I was a stay at home mom for the next 10 years, but we did have Internet access at home due to my husband's job as a computer analyst and programmer. (He's the techie in the family, and I will tell you that osmosis didn't work - none of his technical savvy has rubbed off on me at all.) When I re-entered reference work about a year and a half ago, I was amazed at how computers had infiltrated libraries, both as patron access stations and as critical reference tools. Now I wouldn't work without one. That video clip amazed me, I guess, because it reminded me of the path I took to get where I am today - from print books on the dusty shelves to sleek flat-screened computers. Okay, enough reminiscing...
One other side note - I read and found David Lee King's article very pertinent, but this portion disturbed me:
"You are asking them to participate: opening up the possibility to comment is a form of invitation to participate. It allows actual interaction with real, live people. it also sets up a type of digital town hall meeting where someone’s expressed opinion can be heard, discussed, debated, and distilled by others within earshot (ie., other readers)"
Now, I will admit that I am old as dirt, and that I am "connected but harrassed" as noted by that little quiz we took the first week. And I do feel that connecting with patrons by inviting them to interact using wikis, surveys, etc. and responding to them with respect is a great thing. But understand that this kind of "actual interaction" is done using the internet, not "real, live people". The anonymity of an email or the chatroom digital town hall should not be confused with talking with and looking into the eyes of a warm-blooded person. That's why it's called virtual reality. While you may be chatting in real-time with someone, you are not necessarily interacting/reacting to them the same way you would if you were talking face to face. The reason I'm making this distinction is because I have set limits on the amount of daily computer time my 11 yo son has so that he has the time and inclination to interact with real people in the real world he lives in. He needs to know that there is real life to experience and treasure, not just the virtual worlds inside the box sitting on the desk. Okay, I'm climbing off my soapbox now...
The various tools we learned about during this semester have many library applications, and I know many of these have been listed on other blogs. Suffice it to say I've learned about a variety of things I hadn't even heard of when I signed up for this course!
I think my favorite has been the blog. I've felt a sense of accomplishment as I've added features to it as a result of the various assigments we were given. I also like having the blogline account with the various rss feeds I've subscribed to. It's a handy one-stop source I can check for the things that interest me. The Flickr assigment was probably my most confusing, but I did triumph when I linked my Vulkin Kat pic! Of course, now I need to do it again so I can remember how...maybe this will be the push I need to start using my husband's digital camera and downloading pics to share! Hmm....) The LibraryThing and del.icio.us (I really hate typing that name!) assigments were also quite useful - both are things I will be using in my personal life. I'll have to see about the wikis, although I have a feeling we will be using them at work now!
I liked the way the assignments were structured. While I did appreciate some of the step-by-step directions, I can understand the reluctance to spoon feed us too much. It really is a good idea to use the tutorials and help sections of most sites, to just learn by playing with them. The little extras at the end of each week were fun, though I didn't always have time to do them all. I hope to go back and do some more of the fun things when I make more time - please don't delete any of the assignment pages from the semester 1 so we can refer back if we need to. The extra time you gave us to catch up assignments was crucial for me to finish, so I hope you'll do that during the 2nd semester, too.
If you had asked me a month ago if I was going to sign up for semester 2, I'd have said probably not. But the funny thing is, I've finally gained some confidence and interest in some of these new (to me) sites and tools, and now I'd like to learn some more! So, I've sent an email to Jean to sign me up for the 2nd part.
Finally, I'd like to thank all the people who acted as facilitators for us during the semester. I've really appreciated your comments, suggestions, and encouragement. You've made the assignments interesting, relevant, and fairly short. Plus, you've managed to nudge an old stick in the mud into reaching out of my comfort zone to learn some technical things that I could even share with my savvy son and husband, and that's a very good thing! And to my fellow students/bloggers - thanks for sharing your comments with me, too. I appreciated you taking the time to read my ramblings. I hope to explore some other student blogs between the semesters.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Week 6-Attempt 2
Well, I found another picture that is awesome:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=642915424&size=o
But I'm not figuring out how to get the pic to show up on my blog. I'll continue working on this...
As for how a library could use this tool - the uses are endless, I would think. Pictures promoting library services and events are a natural for both fundraising and for "warm and fuzzy" library appeal. I think the idea to post pics of unlabeled historical photos for the public to peruse and identify would be an excellent project to work in tandem with a local historical society. When I was an undergraduate during the Dark Ages, I worked with developing a college archives, and we had scads of unlabelled pics. The College Alumni Center hosted a special get-together event during Homecoming Weekends to try to get Alumni to come in and take a look at the pics to help us out. We never had that many people turn out - perhaps this would be an ideal tool to download pics for a larger group to access conveniently online as part of an alumni newsletter/ project. Just a thought...
At this early point, Flickr seems like a neat tool. I don't know what the downside or cons would be. It seems like the copyright issues have been addressed - I imagine there's always some way to misuse a tool like this, though.
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=642915424&size=o
But I'm not figuring out how to get the pic to show up on my blog. I'll continue working on this...
As for how a library could use this tool - the uses are endless, I would think. Pictures promoting library services and events are a natural for both fundraising and for "warm and fuzzy" library appeal. I think the idea to post pics of unlabeled historical photos for the public to peruse and identify would be an excellent project to work in tandem with a local historical society. When I was an undergraduate during the Dark Ages, I worked with developing a college archives, and we had scads of unlabelled pics. The College Alumni Center hosted a special get-together event during Homecoming Weekends to try to get Alumni to come in and take a look at the pics to help us out. We never had that many people turn out - perhaps this would be an ideal tool to download pics for a larger group to access conveniently online as part of an alumni newsletter/ project. Just a thought...
At this early point, Flickr seems like a neat tool. I don't know what the downside or cons would be. It seems like the copyright issues have been addressed - I imagine there's always some way to misuse a tool like this, though.
Week 6 - Flickr Attempt
Well, I can see that Flickr would be a very interesting tool to play with, especially if you have a digital camera and the smarts to download pics. I lack both, so I have to rely on my dear husband to handle the family digital camera. He's saved tons of digital pics but I don't have a clue how to access them at this moment. Luddite that I am, I rely on my little Canon 35 mm camera he bought me years ago, after my Kodak Instamatic bit the dust.
ANYWAYS, I played with Flickr and found the cutest picture of a yellow tabby polydactyl kitten who looks quite similar to my 11 month old Rusty, right down to the 6 toes on each paw (the thumbs look like he has a baseball mitt on.) Here's the link to the pic:
www.flickr.com/photos/jim68000/45935110/
I will attempt to paste the pic onto this blog - tune in to see if I've been successful! (Same bat time, same bat channel...)
ANYWAYS, I played with Flickr and found the cutest picture of a yellow tabby polydactyl kitten who looks quite similar to my 11 month old Rusty, right down to the 6 toes on each paw (the thumbs look like he has a baseball mitt on.) Here's the link to the pic:
www.flickr.com/photos/jim68000/45935110/
I will attempt to paste the pic onto this blog - tune in to see if I've been successful! (Same bat time, same bat channel...)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)