NetLibrary

hmmm...my searches on NetLibrary turned up less than stellar results. I did two searches one for dun, dun, dun, pregnancy and one for grammar. The pregnancy search turned up results for just about every topic you can think of with the word pregnant in it anywhere in the description. Not exactly helpful when you are looking for books specifically on pregnancy. The grammar results were a little better, although I had English as the language setting and got the majority of books as Spanish grammar. I don't see this particular tool as being overly helpful for future use with the ALC. The searches produce wide results that may be difficult for students to narrow down. NetLibrary is a good idea in theory, but until you can download a book for more than the seven days and can apply it to something other than an MP3 player, it leaves the user still wanting more.

And for this...I shall be forever greatful

That sounds like a quote, right? maybe it is...maybe it isn't. Well, now it's my quote because I feel so fortunate to have learned all this cool and useful information. The different sites I've been to, applications I've learned about, and thinking about old sites in new ways are just a few of the benefits from the Library 2.0 project. I've really enjoyed becoming more comfortable with blogging-something I've done for a couple of years, but am now finding out about so many great widgets! Bloglines and Netvibes have revolutionized checking in on friend's blogs, plus all the other places I go online. No more wasting time going to places that haven't been updated. Just check your bloglines and you have all the info you need with one stop. Kind of like Walmart...one stop shopping! From an educational perspective, online applications are the way curriculums are being set up in today's classrooms and are the way we need to be gearing our program at the ALC. Teachers and educators are using YouTube and Podcasting to deliver lectures to online students, for homework, or to leave with a sub in his or her absence, and I see us doing the same. Why should a student not be able to work on upgrading from home or from a site that provides internet access even if the ALC is not open? With these tools we will be able to broadcast help on an endless amount of subjects that can be accessed from anywhere at anytime. The Wiki itself is a tool that will be useful for setting up similar to a textbook with steps for writing a paper or working on math. Students can go to our wiki and work through their levels on their own time. Search engines like Technorati and Del.icio.us are places where other educators have already researched and compiled useful documents and sites. These are the two search related sites I liked best and will continue to use. The main thing I've found with learning all this new info. is that there is so much still to learn. I'm really glad that I've had the opportunity to learn what I have and to actually get something in return for it. I feel like it should have been a class I paid for...don't quote me on that one...

Let's Rollyo back to week 5

Select Search Engine...A Blog's Work is Never DoneSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

I searched on Rollyo for a subject that I'm quite fond of these days...pregnancy. Go figure! I found some interesting sites that I haven't seen before and one that I particularly like is ivillage. Parenting and Pregnancy is just one of the many tabs you can select from this site which offers much more than just those two subjects: basically any topic you want you can find on ivillage. Rollyo was easy to use and lets you choose from searching on the web or searching your own blog/your own search roll once you get one established. Draw back: I think that Rollyo might be to wide open to introduce to students at first. I see del.icio.us as being more helpful and less confusing or intimidating for new internet users or people who are inexperienced with searching the web for specific info rather than just "surfing" to surf. Del.icio.us allows you to point the student in the direction of information that has already been searched through and cataloged as being valuable or usable by someone. Rollyo was easy to use, but I still find Del.icio.us to be my fav for educational resources.

Grammar Girl

Podcasting, another possibly revolutionary tool for the world of education thanks to web 2.0. I found this site by going doing a search here under education. I uncovered a little gem in the podcasting world. Grammar Girl is a girl after my own heart. She answers questions and gives talks on all things grammatical, or in her own words: Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules. Whether English is your first language or second language, Grammar Girl’s punctuation, style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer. Mignon Fogarty is the creator and host of Grammar Girl. Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast.. From CAPITALIZATION to sentence structure and dangling modifiers, Grammar Girl is a great resource to have for teaching writing. You can easily point student's in her direction and have them search for a podcast on any given topic. Podcasting will also be helpful when we the educators post our own podcasts so that we are not giving the same lessons over and over. Simply play the podcast and Wallah! all things are new again, saving you time, energy, and allowing you to be broadcast to any ALC site where your topic is needed.

Youtube

I can all to easily identify with this clip! Bostons have an uncanny sense of their own "sins" when committed. And they are so good at making themselves look so absolutley pitiful that you have no choice but to smile and forgive. I thought i would share this clip because I have come home to wreckage close to this scale...not fun, but kind of funny...much later. Youtube, otherwise known as the black hole of the internet. I can NOT go on Youtube without spending at least an hour meandering through seemingly endless and usually meaningless clips. One way that I see this particular web 2.0 application as being helpful at the ALC is to have our students video themselves and each other working out math problems, posting to their blogs, brainstorming an essay, etc. Not only would it be accessible to our students, but it just might help someone else, too. Which is one of the great outcomes of all the technology developed over the last five to ten years: information sharing.

Netvibes

How long do you spend before work each morning checking your email, the weather forecast, your blog, your oh so important facebook, news updates, other people's blogs, etc. etc. Probably more time than is necessary thanks to the handy and user friendly Netvibes. Now all the places you love and cherish are grouped on one simple home page. I found Netvibes extremely user friendly. It's easy to add applications such as gmail and facebook, although adding my Flickr pictures has not worked out yet, Dale, if you're reading this, HELP! :) I see Netvibes as being really helpful for our students once we get our new program of online use up and running. It makes it so simple to load your accounts once and then be able to simply click on a tab and access those different pages all from the same home page without entering a username and password for each account every time. Way to go, Netvibes, we'll be great friends in the future!

google docs photo

This handsome looking fellow was found on the google docs photo manager, Picasa. I looked and looked for a feature to directly link the picture from the google docs site to my blog but couldn't find one. I ended up just saving him to my pictures and uploading it like any other photo....oh well, he's still nice to look at.

google docs calender

Google Goodness

Here it is, my first Google Document,, or to be on the trendy side, google doc. These applications are so unbelievably handy! A few minutes ago I uploaded a word document (book report guidelines) from a file on my computer straight to my blog in a matter of seconds simply by hitting publish. It was a pretty big document to put in my blog without having a reason for it, so it's gone now, but it was so easy I won't hesitate in the future to upload a file to my blog using google docs rather than cutting and pasting or saving to my flash drive, opening, blah blah blah. Possibly one of the best features of the google docs is the formatting, or lack there of. You don't need to reformat something if say, you are working from a mac at home and want to email a file to yourself at work where there is a pc. Because although word is supposed to be compatible with both processors, I can testify from experience that it isn't always so. With this handy processing form you can type directly on line and then link it to what you need to.

Week 7 part deux

The sandbox (love the title) was fun because it was interesting to see everyone else's top pics, and it was also a good first experience with editing and adding to a wiki. I was actually surprised to find how easy the editing process was. An activity like that would be a great tool for our students. When you start with "fun" lists and get them thinking that way it opens the doors for other types of sharing and thinking about what is truly important to them.

The Wicked Wiki of the West

Wiki's can be pretty wicked in a "gnarly", "bad is good" sort of way. They range from the elaborate to the basically functional, but are emerging as a trendy and tidy way of connecting people online without the stigma of trying to develop and navigate a full blown website. Wiki's seem to be somewhere in between a simple diary like blog and a fully functional website with all the bells and whistles. Wiki's have the capabilities of links, subcategories,widgets, etc., but they don't have to be started from scratch. Like a blog, there is a pre-established template that just needs fillling in. In terms of the Adult Learning Center (YES, I use the American spelling because it is pronounced "er" not "re" as in reply) I see the wiki as being an important tool for communication between staff from different sites. Because you can go into a wiki and make notes, very similarly to what you do no an online message board, comments, post questions, basically have conversations without picking up the phone and possibly during those around you, the wiki is invaluable as a communication tool. This will also be a good first step in introducing web based dialogue and communication via the world wide web to our students. Some students are already familiar with sites like Facebook and MySpace, so teaching them to use online resources for schooling purposes will broaden their online knowledge. Other students have never been on the web before and wikis are fairly uncomplicated to access and use, so they are a good way for students to become comforable with the internet. a couple questions: Should we keep the Wiki private for students only? How do we set it up as far as curriculum goes?

A Temporary Place in Time

I don't know that I would categorize the online community or web mania as being temporary, but I did enjoy and for the most part agree with, Dr. Wendy Schultz's article "To a Temporary Place in Time". At first I thought that Dr. Shultz was hesitant to admit the appeal and wide spread use of all things online. But I soon discovered that she is not only open to web use in libraries, she is very up to date on current trends such as the virtual world in SecondLife. The main arugment in her article is that eventually, after the online craze has become so large that librarians are being rated and "judged" so to speak: "Who’s the best librarian avatar? How many Amazon stars has your avatar collected from satisfied customers? This could create librarian “superstars” based on buzz and customer ratings. People will collect librarians rather than books—the ability not just to organise, but also to annotate and compare books and other information sources, from a variety of useful perspectives..." there will be a return to the need for that long forgotten past time of reading, relaxing, enjoying the company of actual people rather than the virtual kind. I don't see this happening any time soon, but I do see that trend coming around just as the trend right now is towards the virtual world. "Into a new world of librarianship" by Micheal Stephens and "To more powerful ways to cooperate" by Chip Nilges are more clinical looks at the changing duties of the typical librarian. Nilges article actually lost me a couple of times in the web jargon he is fond of, but Stephens was a somewhat more useful guide to the evolving demands placed on today's librarian. This demand, or means of gathering information, filtering it, and presenting to someone depending on it, can also be applied to Adult Learning. The needs of Adult Learners are changing because society is changing. Will it be enough to upgrade math, writing, and reading skills? Or will the adult learner also need to know how to communicate and naviage the web? I think that the latter is true. Today's world is becoming increasingly dependent on online information and we would be doing a disservice to our student's by not educating ourselves and in return educating them on the practices and benefits of online know how.

Technorati gets technical

Can't say that I'm a huge fan of Technorati. I could only locate anything on Library 2.0 through the blog search. And even then I wasn't aloud to view the Library 2.0 blog because it is "private" and I was searching through the funnel of Technorati as an outsider. I couldn't find anything else about our particular endeavor. Looking at the popular searches I was surprised and a little disgusted to see that Paris Hilton was one of the top ten (and I think even one of the top five) searches. Pathetic! Who cares?? Obviously some Technorati users do. I did find out that Karl Rove has resigned. "to spend more time with his family" HA! I'd love to meet one person who believes that...just one! I guess I didn't see anything that Google or Yahoo don't offer as search engines except that Technorati does have a blog search which the other two don't.

Del.icio.us

Delicious and Nutritous! Or at least helpful. I browsed around the open market of Del.icio.us for a while and even attempted to make my own bookmark, but it wouldn't show up on my toolbar..not sure if there was a filter up against it or what. I had put together a list of about 10 cites all on a certain subject for the bookmark from what other people had favorited. It was interesting to find sites I may never have known about otherwise. Why do all the leg work when someone else has already done it for you? When I searched through the favorites saved on the O.S.N.G.U.P.L. link I discovered this delightful site. I didn't know that there was a website dedicated to all things online in Owen Sound. And not just things that are online. theowen is a great resource for upcoming events, local photographer, all from a uniquely Owen Sound Perspective. Although I enjoyed my search on Del.icio.us, I feel like it's one of those sites that could quickly turn from productive time spent on line researching and tagging, to "oh, no, I just spent 3 hours looking up movie reviews on movies I may never watch" It could definitely be helpful here in the ALC to bookmark sites that our student's would enjoy and have it all in a neat package for them so that they aren't caught stranded in the sea of online information.

Humour Me

Now that you all have seen my toilet humour, I must say that this was too much fun! And if Alex ever reads this blog he will have actual tears from this picture...it's a Torrie family joke the look on his face. I think enough is said on that? I tried to make myself a Simpson character from this site but to no avail as I can't resize or crop photos from this work computer and we don't currently have internet at home. So, I had to use what limited supply of pictures I have here. It's amazing to me the minds who come up with all of these ideas and creative uses for pictures, logos, captions, etc. And the fact that almost all of it is free is really cool. It truly is information sharing. A beautiful thing about the world wide web. Whatever look you want can be easily and inexpensively made if you just know where to look. I plan to keep scoping out the possiblites of how to turn basic pictures into something interesting and personal. Another interesting week in Library 2.0 land!

True Confessions

Okay, here it goes. I was always a little threatened by RSS feeds, bloglines, all those tools for grouping frequently visited sites into one easily read feed page. It must be hard to set up, right? Anything that cuts your surfing time in half and wraps up sites into a nice, tighty little package, must take hours to assemble, or at least be so complicated that I would immediately be threatened by the techy vernacular. How pleasantly surprised was I to find that setting up bloglines was even easier than starting a blog?! Friends of mine who blog have had them for what seems like an eternity and I always said "well, I don't check that many blogs, so I don't really need them" But now with Library 2.0 taking place my blog viewage time has increased threefold. Which makes me all the more thankful that the bloglines were so easy to set up! Seriously, seriously love the bloglines. I can go to my feed page and within about 10 seconds check all new updates when before it took pry 10 minutes to go from blog to blog checking for new posts and inevitably getting caught up re-reading part of an old post and generally wasting time looking at something I had looked at before. Not any more! I'm a lean, mean, surfing machine! Oh, sorry, that was so bad, but it just came pouring out of my fingers onto the keyboard.

Fries To Die For

This was taken by our dear friends Ryan and Kelly who are the most talented photographers and some of the funniest people I have ever met. I took these pictures off of their Flickr account because they were kind enough to do a "professional" shoot with me and my honey when we were down there last. The apartment building behind us is the one we lived in our second year of marriage in Virginia. It's in the historic district of town, and although it wasn't the largest place we could have found, and there weren't many amenities, at $410 a month for two bedrooms, hardwood floors, and "charm" aka..a window in the shower, it was a good deal and we have some pretty interesting memories to look back on. There were sidewalks that meandered through the nicest neighborhoods in town. Big, old Southern mansions that were just breathtaking. Taking a walk through those neighborhoods after a stressful day of classes was always a great way to wind down. The apt. was accessible to local coffee shops, boutiques, and best of all right across the street from The Cavalier. home of the world's BEST fries. NO kidding. I get hungry just thinking about them. Big wedge cut fries with their own blend of seasoning salt and served with ranch (that's more of a Southern thing) Yummmm....we would grill out back of the apt and then run over to the Cavalier for a side of fries. well, I'm sufficiently hungry now. Why do I do that to myself?

A reluctant use of the word "home"

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to Lynchburg, Virginia for friend from college's wedding. A long drive, yes, but what a good excuse to visit not only the people I love, but familiar places, too. Restauarants, shopping, oh the shopping!, different houses and apartments I called my own for various stints of time, the schools I went to, the school where I taught, all hold nostlagic, meaningful memories. Even a street name can be enough to conjure up memories, when you've live somewhere your entire life. This was my second visit to "the Burg" as it has been dubbed, in the two years that I've been gone. So, there I am, enjoying people and places I haven't seen in nearly a year, and what are the nagging thoughts at the back of my mind? my garden, my horse, my dog, my husband (not in that particular order per say) my house, my job. All the pieces of life that make it interesting. and that's when I realized, I will always love The Burg and the memories I have there, but for now, "The Sound" is feeling more and more like home.

My Visual DNA

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