Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Thing #15 -- Audiobooks and eBooks

The availability of audiobooks and ebooks, free and fee, online has exploded in the past few years. With the Google project to digitize entire libraries, Project Gutenberg, and others bringing public domain books to the web, we have the availability of thousands of books online. Additionally, with the movement to open source and sharing, many more books are appearing online, much to readers' delight.

Although most authors' work is protected under copyright law, many current authors and copyright holders are investigating open access options of the Internet. Neil Gaiman, for example, posted on his blog that he wanted to make one of his books available online... Free. He polled his readers and the overwhelming choice was American Gods. This book is now available, online, for one month for anyone wanting to read his book.

The publishing company Tor, long known for science fiction and fantasy books, now offers a free download of a new Science Fiction title every week -- simply for the asking. Other types of services are also appearing such as email books -- DailyLit sends books in installments via e-mail or RSS feed, free or pay-as-you-read.

Discovery Exercise:

Explore some of the audiobook and ebook download sites:

Discovery Exercise:

  • Write a blog posts about two of your favorite audiobook or ebook finds and provide links.
  • How are these types of sites valuable to you? ...to your library?
  • How will the availability of books online affect libraries of the future? How can libraries compete with this type of availability?

Posted by MyraG at 5:59 AM 1 comments Labels: ,

Thing #14 Podcasting

The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS. In 2005, "podcast" was named the "word of the year" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the few years, it’s easy to see why.

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries to much longer in-person interviews or panel/group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker. iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple is a directory finding service most associated with podcasts, but if you don’t have iTunes installed there are still plenty of options. Another option is the Zune Marketplace site (a Microsoft service). Again, you don't need to own a Zune player to listen to the podcasts. There are several podcasts on dozens of topics and interests. You can subscribe to these services for regular downloads of your favorite podcasts.

Discovery Resources:

For this discovery exercise participants are asked to take a look at some popular podcast directory tools. Do some exploring on your own and locate a podcast that is of interest to you. Once found, you can easily pull the RSS feed into your blog reader (i.e., Bloglines or Google Reader) account as well, so that when new casts become available you’ll be automatically notified of their existence.

There are many, many podcast directories and search tools out there. Here are some popular ones that don’t, like iTunes or Zune, require a software download:

Discovery Exercises:

  • Take a look at some of the podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. See if you can find some interesting library related podcasts, book review podcasts, or library news. Add the RSS feed for a podcast to your blog reader account.
  • Create a blog post about your discovery process. How can podcasts be used in the library?
  • Share the link to a podcast you have discovered on your blog so all the class participants can listen to your podcast.
If you want more:

Add some kind of audio component to your blog -- Try Voki and record your own voice (many of you have already added a Voki to your blog).

Do you want to learn how to podcast? Explore some of these podcasting applications -- add a short podcast to your blog.

Posted by MyraG at 5:57 AM 1 comments Labels: ,

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Thing #13 Experiment with Google Apps

You are familiar with Web and Image search capabilities of Google; we discussed GoogleDocs in Thing #12 and learned about this handy set of documents for online productivity, collaboration, and portability. These are just the tip of the Google iceberg in providing online resources and tools for the Read/Write web and personal/collaborative productivity. In this exercise, we will explore some of the innovative web-based tools Google is releasing. The program and your own data is stored online, allowing colleagues to access the same documents, collaboratively build resources, and have access to the data 24/7. We'll look at the benefits, and limitations, of using Google Apps.

Discovery Exercises:


Homework Activity:

  • Choose one of the Google Apps that we haven't covered or used in a past "Thing". Explore the features and benefits of the tool you chose and write a blog post about your discoveries. Include a link to your favorite tool, add an image, and add examples of how you can use this new tool. Describe how this tool can be used in the library and in your own personal productivity.

Optional Exercise:

  • Set up an iGoogle page (a customizable home page) and use this tool for managing your newsfeeds, blogs, favorite websites, and favorite gadgets (weather, maps, calculator, and assorted tools, etc.). Write about this productivity and information management tool in your blog.

Posted by MyraG at 10:52 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Thing #12 Open Source Applications

The availability and use of free, online Open Source software and web-based applications (think word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past two years and for good reason! Powerful web-based applications provide users the ability to create and share documents over the Internet without the need of installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death to Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. But no matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides seem to agree; web-based apps have their place and Open Source software is here to stay.

One large benefit of web-based applications is that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to Mac to Linux operating systems. Another bonus is that they easily accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versions) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and .pdf).

And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs, to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other Web 2.0 tools that make web-based apps so appealing.

Discovery Exercise:

  • Create a free account with ZOHO or Google Docs (you already have a Google account for your blog). Create a simple document, try out various fonts and colors, spell check it, and then document your discoveries in your blog. If you are up to the challenge, you might even export your document as a .pdf or web file. You can even publish it directly to your blog.
  • Explore OpenOffice.org (from Sun Microsystems). Although this is an application you download to your computer (thus giving you offline capabilities), it is a free, open source alternative to Microsoft Office Suite. Files can be saved in a format that can be opened by MS Office, giving the user an option for creating documents at home on personal computers, but having the portability benefit of opening the documents at school or the office. How could this product be of value to students?
  • Write a blog post about your discoveries. Discuss some of the features of open source software and web-based applications. Are there things you like better than in Microsoft applications? What things are still lacking in these types of programs? Do you see a use for them in the library? Do you think our staff and students could use these tools? Could this replace users needing to bring disks or USB drives? Are these type of applications something you will use for your own personal productivity?

If you want more:

  • Read about the Open Source Initiative. Blog about your thoughts on this movement.
  • Create a document and invite several collaborators to work on the document with you. Create a Presentation (online version of PowerPoint) slide show in Google Docs or ZOHO.

Posted by MyraG at 10:45 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Thing #11 Wikis

So, what's a wiki?

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide, the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content. Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what has been changed and by whom. Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed. Users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases, simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis, and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:

Use these resources to learn more about wikis:

Discovery Exercise:

So what is in a wiki? For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some wikis and blog about your findings. Here are a few library-related examples to investigate, but feel free to search for others that interest you as well:

Homework Activity:

  • Practice in the Sandbox section of the Media Clerks Manual Wiki. You can try your hand at adding different kinds of content. Don't worry, we can remove anything -- just practice and, as the name implies, play in the sandbox!
  • Add to your assigned section of the Media Clerks Manual Wiki. This wiki will be used to develop a job manual of best practices for Media Clerks of the SVVSD. (This collaborative wiki will be presented as our final project for our PST credit). You will receive your invitation by email before class and we will draw for sections in class.
  • Add to, or edit one of the other sections of the wiki.
  • Remember, you can add links and support documents. Remember to cite your sources if you use outside information.
  • Reflect about your findings about wikis in your blog. What did you find interesting about them? What applications within libraries might work well with a wiki? Is this something you may use personally?
Optional Exercise:

Now that you know what they are, create your own wiki, on any topic, using one of the following tools: (link your wiki to your blog)

Photo Attribution: http://flickr.com/photos/jaaronfarr/1056922912/

Posted by MyraG at 5:53 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Thing # 10 -- Working with Photos

This week, we will learn to edit our photos to get them to a size, format, shape, or transition whereby it can be used for blogging, image generating, photosharing, or other online use. You may want or need to resize photos for use in brochures, documents, presentations, and other offline projects. These tools are perfect for editing your photos for every need. The tools we will explore are all online and either have a free version or have no limitations for use.

We have explored Flickr and have found that we can store, edit, catagorize, tag, search, and use photos from many different users. You can apply safety features or search for copyright-friendly images with a Creative Commons license. Read on to find out about more resources for editing your photos online.

Discovery Resources:

Stock.xchng and morgueFile are two sites where you can find a wide variety of stock photos where consent for public use has already been granted.

Here are some more photosharing sites if you want to keep exploring. These are broadly similar to Flickr, but each has its own individual twist and may better meet your needs:

Discovery Activities:

For this hands-on activity, you will need to bring these items to class:

  • your digital camera -- be sure to bring the appropriate USB cords, card readers, or other items needed to upload your photos (make sure they work on the Citrix environment) (or)
  • a CD with your saved photos (or)
  • a flashdrive with your saved photos (or)
  • have your photos pre-loaded onto your Flickr account

Explore these online photo editing sites:

Many of these sites give you the capability to morph, stretch, colorize, add text balloons, and create works of art with your photos.

Work with some of your photos and use one or two in your blog. You can save the edited image on your flashdrive, or upload it to your Flickr account -- then you can use it anytime, from any computer, and use it directly in your blog. Write a blog post for Thing #10 with your thoughts on the availability of online photo editors and how you might be able to use them in the library.

If you want more:

If you want more capabilities, try some of the open-source photo editing software now available. Full-capability photo editing software has been expensive to purchase; open-source choices now bring these capabilites to you at little or no cost -- yet give you full, robust editing capabilities once only found in retail programs. You may need to download software for these applications, but they may be a great option for your use at home. Explore some of the options:

Posted by MyraG at 6:30 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Thing #9 Technology

Create a blog post about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! You just need to share a few thoughts, share some links, and post a photo for us to learn more about your topic. Talk about anything you think is relevant to this class or about using technology in the library. Here's your chance to really participate in the class and share with your colleagues.

Be sure to keep commenting on everyone's blogs. That's what online communities are all about - connecting and communication. CHEER and otherwise encourage your Library Learning 2.0 colleagues!

Remember to post your reflections on each new Thing each week so your classmates can comment, share, and learn.

Posted by MyraG at 6:00 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Thing 8 -- Library Thing

Okay, librarians and book lovers, here's your new favorite tool! Do you like cataloging, organizing, exploring, and discussing books? Or do you enjoy finding lost and forgotten gems on the shelf to read? Then LibraryThing may be just the tool for you.

Developed for booklovers, this online tool not only allows you to easily create an online catalog of your own books, but it also connects you to other people who have similar libraries and reading tastes. Add a book to your catalog by just entering the title (or use the ISBN, LLC, or Author).

There are lots of ways to use LibraryThing. You can view your books on a virtual shelf, add a widget (see sidebar for sample) to display titles that are in your catalog, or install a LT Search box on your blog. So why not join the ranks and create your own library online. With over 353,743* registered members (BTW: LibraryThing also has group forum for librarians), over 23,548,895 cataloged books*, over 30,548,961 tags*, and 3,612,180 ratings*, you're bound to discover something new. A bibliophile's dream!
* As of the date of this post.

When you sign up for the free account, you can catalog up to 200 of your books, find other people who share your bookshelf, get suggested reads based on your bookshelf, and even go to the Unsuggester. This will give you books that you probably won't like based on your bookshelf.

Discovery Resources:

Discovery Activities:

  • Explore LibraryThing and create a personal account.

  • Add several of your books to your library.

  • Blog about your findings; how can you use Library thing personally? ...in the library?

  • Be sure to to link to your LibraryThing catalog!

  • If you are up for the challenge, add a Library Thing chiclet (see the icon at the beginning of this post) or add the widget to your sidebar.

If you want more (very cool book-related tools):

  • Shelfari - Shelfari is a social networking site for book lovers. Using Shelfari, you can create a personal shelf of your books, see what your friends are reading, get and give recommendations for what to read next, create book lists, and even share your opinion on a book with friends or the Shelfari community.

  • Anobii - is a social networking site targeted to worldwide booklovers. The idea behind aNobii is simple: create an online platform for avid-readers to share reviews, recommendations, and most important of all, find other similar-taste booklovers.

  • Gurulib - GuruLib is a free web service to organize your home library. Catalog your books, DVDs, music CDs, games and software online using a book shelf metaphor.

  • Bookswellread - is designed for all readers in mind -- readers of all types of books, of all ages, interests and backgrounds. It's a place for you to keep an online book journal, learn about books and connect with a community of readers.
If you explored any of these social-networking book sites, tell us about it in your blog.

Posted by MyraG at 6:37 AM 1 comments Labels: ,

Thing 7 -- Tagging & Social Bookmarking

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want.

In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored a few sites – Flicker and Technorati to name two --that allow users to take advantage of tagging. This week, as we explore tagging, we will also take a look at a popular social bookmarking site called Del.icio.us (typed in as http://del.icio.us/).

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking manager which allows you to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize your bookmarks. Many users find that the real power of Del.icio.us is in the social networking aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as sharing another users filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network. For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at Del.icio.us and learn about this popular bookmarking tool.

Discovery Resources:

Watch this video Information R/evolution from Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Kansas State University and the students participating in his Digital Ethnography group. "This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively."

Watch the Common Craft Video Social Bookmarking in Plain English:


Take a look around Del.icio.us using the MediaClerks account that was created for the Media Clerks Forum and this class.

Note: In this account you will find lots of resources that have been highlighted or used throughout the course of the Learning 2.0 program.

Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?

Discovery Activities:

  • Create a Del.icio.us account for yourself and discover how this useful bookmarking tool can replace your traditional browser bookmark list. Add some booksmarks and try tagging them for easy indexing -- add an explanation to your entry so you will know what the site is about. Explore some of the tools available for Del.icio.us -- try adding a network badge to your blog.
  • Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. What kind of potential do you think this tool has? How could you use this in your own personal productivity? Could this be used in the library?
  • Remember to keep commenting on your classmates blogs, pick up ideas, and share ideas.

If you want more:

Check out thise other social bookmarking sites:

  • StumbleUpon.com - Lets you “channel surf” the Internet and review sites; it learns what you like and recommends more of the same.
  • Ma.gnolia.com - Discuss all the saved bookmarks in groups, see what the Featured Linker is all about, join discussions in the Hot Group.
  • Furl.net - Not only can you do the standard bookmarking and sharing, you can save archived versions of a webpage and even export all your saved pages to a ZIP file.
  • Digg.com - Synonymous with social bookmarking: you Digg a story, others Digg it, the more popular it gets the better chance it has of hitting the first page.

Posted by MyraG at 5:34 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Thing 6 -- Image Generators

Image generators allow you to easily manipulate images and graphics to create fun images like the ones you see on this post.

For this discovery exercise, we will just have fun. Find a few fun image or text generators to play around with and write a post in your blog about some of your favorites and display the results. Often adding the image you mocked up to your blog is as simple as copying and pasting code that the page provides. If not, you may just need to right click on the image and then save it to your hard drive before using Blogger’s image button (see Thing 5 for directions) to add it to your post. If you’re having difficulty getting your image added to a post in your blog, ask a classmate for help.

ImageChef.com - Custom comment codes for MySpace, Hi5, Friendster and more ImageChef.com - Custom comment codes for MySpace, Hi5, Friendster and more

Discovery Resources:

Homework Exercise:

  • Play around with some image generators and find a few that you like.
  • Post the results of your discovery process in your blog. Let's see your images!
  • Note: Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too.
  • So take some time and have fun with this exercise.
Hint for adding (embedding) "code" to your blog post:

Here's some instructions for SignGenerator.org. This will work for most image generator sites.

  • Generate your image and the scroll down to the "Get HTML" link.
  • When the page displays, find the embed code and put your cursor on it.
  • Use (CTRL) A to select all the code
  • Use (CTRL) C to copy the code (or however you usually do it)
  • Go to your blog and create a new post.
  • On the "Edit Html" tab, paste in the code.

[Note: Please remember to include Web tool and THING# in your heading posts.]

Posted by MyraG at 3:06 PM 0 comments Labels: ,

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