Week #6, Thing #14-Technorati

I went to Technorati yesterday and it was there that I began following the story of Hillary Clinton accepting the job as secretary of state...it is now a day later and I have yet to hear anything about this story through the US News...so what does that tell me? Blogs are cool and dangerous. Apparently one newspaper and only one, in England reported this story...so is it true? I still don't know. However, Technoroti is set up so that it is very user friendly. I was impressed with the headlines of "rising posts and stories" and I like the "Today in Photo" feature.

So I went back today...after adding it to my Del account and Furl accounts and did my search for "School Library Learning 2.0". What I learned was that when I did a keyword search, I only received 5 results and they ranged from 204-106 days old...very old in the world of blogs. When I did a search in Blog posts, I got 57. I found no post in the tag search and in the Blog directory I had to click on Technology and "go down" to web 2.0...and found 7 pages.

I really liked the feature they have on finding popular blogs and how it was organized by te number of fans for each...that was useful info. I was a little "frightened" by the popular searches, out of the top ten, 4 were for femal actresses...that makes me wonder... As for searching by tags...no one used the school library learning 2.0 as a tag. For one, I think its way too long. I think of tags as being short and sweet.

I like tagging. As I get older and realize just how old I am, (working with teens does that) I find that the language I used is not "hip" anymore. I think each generation has their own "language" and tags allow us all to use that uncommon lang. I also like tags because it is NOT as complicated as LCSH. I students come in the library and search the catalog for "Spanish food"...not cooking or even spanish cooking, but spanish food...this is the lang they use and we need to find a way to mesh the various types of word usage and language together. But the downfall is that we simply don't use the same language. So someone needs to be able to work between the two and and that's where we, the librarians come in. We are the middle people, we work with all types of people, groups and so on. We are needed and I think tagging is a great example of that need...

Week #6, Thing #13-Del.icio.us

WOW...that was tons of fun!! I had such a good time today with all the tools that we were told to look at today!! So, Del.Icio.us is cool. I have a Ful account, but as time goes on I'm learning that I might need to move to Del. My only issue/ problem with that I've spent 2 years with my furl. But essentially, they both work the same.
So I can see the power behind seeing someone's "cabinet" and discovering other web sites that might be of interest. I teach mock trial and when I typed in Mock Trial into Del. I found a great web site that I'm going to use with the kids to help us prepare. I was very impressed. Then I subscribed to the RSS for SJLibraryLearning2 to my google reader (that I set up because of this class) and it is very cool!! I also looked at the comments and tags on the side and clicked on Library2.0 and then went "further down" and clicked on Academia and from there I found these intersting library clips from University of Penn library and they made me laugh and gave me an idea for my library club.
I've been waiting to show off my Furl to the kids, but I might wait a little longer and show them Del. Since they love using the internet over the books (well MS does...but only because they don't know better) Del. would give them another place to look for info that is authoritative.

Week #5, Thing #12- Rollyo

Okay...so I don't really like Rollyo. I have a Furl account and I LOVE my furl. In my furl I'm able to create my own categories. I used what they recommended, but i also added Dewey classification. This way, my students can look and find things either by tags, or by the catagoies that furl set up or the one's I set up. In all, I just like it better. A link to my furl is: http://www.furl.net/member/librarylcds_cougar

Now, to the task at hand. I did create a Rollyo account, but it took me some time. I don't know why I'm having problems navigating the last two sites, but I am. The site wasn't set up all that well and I didn't see a link to customize. It's as if I have to use their template and I like red and white...but I wanted it to be a little different from the others. The link is: http://rollyo.com/painter_cougar/book_buying/

However...it is not working. When you click on it, it brings you to a page that says, "

It appears that you're trying to find a search engine created by LCDS Librarian. Please select one from the below list:

(Please note that your private Searchrolls won't show up unless you make them public)


BUT IT IS PUBLIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am very frustrated with Rollyo and I know that Furl or Delicious is much better and easier to use.

I do see the value in these types of "personal search engines" and I am hoping that by next year I'll eneough sites in my Furl to share with the community that I am in. By then I hope to have more than eneough authoritative web link that they will be able to find good info without going to google...although I do love google too!!! And if you know how to search, It is a great search engine!

Week#5, Thing #11- Exploring award winning apps

I have a ning, so I didn't set up another one. But I did go back and look at mine. You could visit it at http://library20.ning.com/profile/SueLCDS but be aware that I don't update it often. It seems that the ning was big last year, but I haven't heard much about it in the last few months and for some strange reason I can't figure out how to upload photos...but I'm sure it's just me and that I need to click around and I'll find it.

Anyway, I went to the enormous list of award-winning web 2.0 winners and I selected the food catagory. (One of my hobbies is cooking.) The site that I explored was IMCooked, and it was great!. It has video recipies of all different types of food/ dishes. I clicked on the Caramel apple pie recipie, but the cook only showed us how to assemble the pie and then you had to go to her web site and get the recipie...what a pain. Yet that isn't the fault of IMCooked, so I clicked around.

The site has a video on "how to" create and upload a video and they have all these different tabs. The "Channel" tab is set up like a cookbook, very easy to navigate and I liked that. However they didn't seem to have a lot of members. I clicked on the group tab and I didn't see many people in "groups". However I really liked the "feel" of the site. Its set up like YouTube, and overall very easy to navigate.

Again, since I have a ning and I'm part of 3 Ning networks, I didn't join any others. But overall, I've had a good experience with the award-winning Web 2.0 sites.

Week #5, Thing #10-Image generators

So I used Image Chef and once I picked an image and learned that my bloger username was my email, not my blog name, then I didn't have any problems. Well...kind of... Before my realization, I had problems with the size of the image. First it was too big and didn't show up. Then It was on the left hand side of my blog because I added it under the gadget features of HTML. Then I tried adding it as a picture, but it was still on my left hand side. Then I had some lunch and realized that my blogerusername was my email and once I did that, I didn't have any other issues.

It was very frustrating and once I figured it out, I was like "DUHHH". But when your in the moment and trying to complete the task...you feel helpless. You can go to http://www.imagechef.com/ and create your own image.

As a side note, I also added the pictures that I created on my Facebook account. This way my friends can see what I've been doing in this class and just how much of a nerd I am! :)

Nerdfighter...

Week #4, Thing #9-Blogs and Feeds

I enjoy adding feeds to my google reader, but in the process of it, I set up my Igoogle and that is the way to go! It's very similar to my Yahoo page and I'm able to feed my reads from my google reader into my Igoogle...WHO how much of a geek can I be?

So in all, once I had some time to play with the feeds and the readers I'm enjoying the ease of it all. I added additional reads about library related things and technology to my google reader and I'm leaving my Yahoo page on personal interest info.

Week #4, Thing #8- RSS

I set up a google reader and it's okay. I have a "My Yahoo" account and I like the look of my RSS feeds there. Google's look is okay, but I'm use to Yahoo and it's hard for me to change my expectations of what a reader should look like.

As for RSS itself...I love it!! I get all of my info that way. My reader is set up in sections. On the left I have weather and I get a feed from Travelocity about discounted airline and trip tickets (one can hope...right). In the middle (where the majority of my feeds are located), I have them organized by interests and then news. I like haveing it set up this way because my eye is trained to look at sections, depending on what I'm looking for.

I use RSS to keep on top of new technologies and all library related news info. I wish I could use it with my library cataolog and have the students and faculty subscribe to it so they know when I add new books to the collection. I'm sure one can do this...but I don't know if it would require the help of the IT dept.