Project Play 2nd Sem Weeks 11-12 Wrap Up

Wow! Time flew by - I think that this semester passed even faster than the fall semester did. But I know I've learned about a lot more about technology tools and how to hopefully incorporate them into what I'm all ready doing to make my and my patrons lives easier. :) That is a great long term goal.

Godin's video was interesting. I had to keep stopping the video and "rewinding" so I could catch what he was saying. I had the sound all the way up, but with background noise, I didn't always catch it. I think it is very true, that formal education help to make people less curious. Schooling tells children this is what you need to know and doesn't usually leave them time to learn about and look at things they are curious about in school. There are so many demands placed on teachers! In this time of No Child Left Behind, teachers are becoming less creative and open to do different types of projects because the children in their classrooms need to pass these tests or they are in trouble and the school district risks losing money. It makes things tricky. Generally, some one has to encourage the curiosity in the children and help them to look in to the things they are curious about, but also outside the realm of the school day. Teachers can foster the creativity and get children started, but other adults have to help and follow through on this.

I think I am a curious person. If there is something that I want to know more about, I take the time to look into it and see what I can do to have my curiosity need met. I know I have a list of things that I want to accomplish, because I am curious about them and because I know they will help me in the long run. There are so many things out there, I never know what I am going to stumble upon next.

Sparking creativity in children is easy, they are generally curious about things! :) Sometimes it just takes giving them the right book to peak their curiosity and other time it takes some suggesting and relating them to topics they all ready like and how they are similar. Making people think out of the box and learning something new isn't always easy to do. I think the best way to make people curious about something is to keep talking about it. By talking about it all the time, hopefully you can get their curiosity and they will take the time to look into it.

I think this really applies to what Project Play is all about. I had to be curious enough about the tools to sign up for this and then willing to follow through and learn about all of these different types of technology tools. If I wasn't curious, I never would have signed up and increased my knowledge.

I think project play was awesome! I learn more about new technology, quickly and easily, than I have ever learned in college. I know I keep taking college continuing education classes, especially in the technology field, but nothing like this was presented and most definitely I never would have gotten the chance to play around with all of these tools. I think this would make a great college class. I would recommend it to anyone working in a library- it couldn't have been easier and less stressful than this was!

I try to keep up with changing technology, but sometimes it changes so quickly, it doesn't seem that I'll ever keep up. :) It would be nice to know that down the road, there would possibly be another project play to sharpen my technology skills once again. But until then and as long as technology doesn't change too much (yeah right) I will keep trying to learn about new changes. I'll keep reading about what is new, trying to find the time in the day to look at some of the new things, and keep looking for classes and opportunities to learn about the new technology is available. It isn't ever go away- I might as well learn about it right away to keep up with the rest of the world and at the same time introduce new technology to others. It really is all about trying to make life simpler and easier.

Project Play 2nd Sem Week 10

Well, mashups are fun. I spend a good chunk of time this morning looking at the mashups links provided. I thought it was fun to look that the meebo map and see who was IMing. You can tell what part of the world is sleeping! :) I also liked the Zip code Census Dashboard. That was a great way to see information. I looked for my community as well as the community I work in.

I think they are a great way to combine tools to make things that should be easier for the user. I agree that the only problem is that people- librarians included- need to make sure the information is accurate before using it or passing it along to some one else.

I'm not very creative right now, so I don't have any ideas of how to best use them in the children's area. It might be fun to show which picture books are circulating the most, but I don't know how practical that would really be or who it would benefit. I'll have to think and see if I can come up with a good idea for the children's area.

The library could possibly a mashup to create a map with directions to the library including pictures of landmarks to look for. I know that would be helpful to me when I'm trying to give directions to people of how to get here. So I'm sure other people would benefit from this information as well.

Hmm... I need to keep thinking and see if I can think of anything else the would be beneficial.

Project Play YouTube Video -- Cockatiels

I think this is a cute video! I loved to watch my cockatiel take a bath. The three birds taking a bath here are just adorable.

Project Play 2nd Sem Week 9

Okay, so I started this over two weeks ago and I'm finally getting around to finishing it now. I needed to make a call to the help desk to have them install Java so I could watch the screencast on how to add a video to my blog. If I had know it was so easy to embed a video into my blog, I wouldn't have had to call. All thought as an added bonus we how have up-to-date java on our workstation.

I really liked having so many videos and other clips available on YouTube. It was amazing to just understand and visualize all the millions of things that were out there and accessible for use! I think it really is a great resource in so many ways. However, there are some negatives that go along with it. Trying to figure out what to type in to get a particular video with out too many results is difficult. I started out with cockatiels, but I found out that was too broad and needed to add some more terms to narrow it down. I don't know if most people (library patrons included) realize to add more terms to get fewer results of what they are looking for. Another negative things is that you don't know the quality of the video until you look at it. These are usually homemade videos and are not what most people are use to seeing. The polished, professional look of videos does not exist for some of the videos. Depending on the video and the topic - it could either work for or against you.

I added a video about cockatiels taking a bath. It should appear in the blog entry right above this one. I hope you enjoy it. I found it cute! You can tell I'm a bird person.

I think that libraries can make really good use of YouTube. I can see for reference how it could help patrons out - by giving them a visual to go along with the printed material. I think it would be easier to watch how to do something then by the printed instructions sometimes. I also think it would be a great way to give a visual tour of the library that people could watch on the library website. What a great way it would be to introduce the library to a patron that has never been here. I also think it would be fun to encourage users to make their own videos of the library and be able to link them to the library. The only problem would be making sure the videos view the library in a good way. I really did like watching all of the InfoSoup videos. I'm sure we will get some great South Central entries. I can't wait to see those. That's all for this week. One more week and then were done. :)

Project Play 2nd Sem Week 8

This week was definitely a challenge to complete at work. I think I'm going to need to try it again at home. Our staff computer out in the children's area has some issues. It's not recognizing Java and telling me I have to install it. So I can't look at or view anything in Screencast-O-Matic. It makes it difficult to get anything done.

However, I think it would be nice to have simple screen casts for topics in linkcat that patrons can go back and use. I show a lot of people (children mostly) how to be able to place things on hold for themselves. But it could be an easy and simple reminder of how to do it. I think the other think I show patrons all of the time is how to limit something, be it only children's materials, or only materials available in our library. I get that question all of the time- I've just done a search, but is there anyway to just see materials that are available here? I've shown so many people this, but I know they forget and don't always want to ask again, and this would be a quick refresher.

I also think this would be a good way to show patrons how to get to badgerlink and what they can do with all of the resources there. I direct a lot of students there for reports. I don't think most people realize what our wonderful state pays for for them to use. It would be another good place to start in the children's area. That's all for this week - now I just have to find the time on my really old and slow computer at home to try Screencast-O-Matic.

Project Play 2nd Sem Week 6

Oh my goodness, I never knew making a podcast could be so easy! I definately want to make use of this more often! I made my toddlers sing for me this morning and we recorded our hello song from story time. Then we listened to it as well. They were super excited when I told them I was going to put it on to our web page. :) 1 and 2 year olds can be so cute! I have added the podcast (minus the gabcast advertisement) to my blog. You can find it on the lower right side.

The other children's librarian and I were bouncing the idea around of having the kids do their own verbal book recommendations for the summer this way and having a link for the library's website. Kids love technology and we think it would be fun for them to do and then to be able to hear themselves on the libraries webpage. We were thinking one afternoon a week for an hour kids could come in and record them selves. It would be a great new way to report for a week.

I still can't get over how easy this was! I didn't look at the directions until this morning and I was able to do the whole process rather quickly without too many problems. The only issue I had was locating my email with the user email and password so that I could log in. This is such an awesome tool. It was a lot of fun playing with this one.

Project Play 2nd sem. Week 5

I got to skip week 4 - how nice. :) Catch-up time is always nice. You can't go wrong there. This week's topic was social networking. I went and visited La Crosse PL, Oshkosh PL OurSpace, West Bend PL , Winnefox Library System MySpace pages. I liked how Oshkosh added a picture of one of their lions. It is very cute - how they guard over the library. I think I had the most fun skimming through all of the friends of the libraries. I couldn't believe how many West Bend has! It was sort of nice to see how many authors wanted to be friends of libraries. I also liked the video clip on La Crosses site. Granted it was old, but you can tell the teens put it all together. It gave them a voice. The only thing I found difficult were the backgrounds. It's hard to figure out what they all are, when boxes cover it all. The wonderful book tree background in West Bend's page is nice, but it took a while to load and text is hard to read over the top of it all. I liked the simplicity of the Winnefox's and Oshkosh's backgrounds.

I think libraries have a place in social networking. It is just another way to let the public know that we are out there as a great resource and we want to help. This is a great way to reach tech savvy users. We need to go to and create places where people are going. However, I admit, they still need to maintain a professional attitude and look. Who is going to take a library and their account seriously if they just had a bunch of unrelated messages and pictures on their site that have nothing to do with the library. It needs to be done tastefully or we can give people a negative viewpoint about the library. I like how links to the catalog and other resources appeared on the pages. Then all you have to do it click to get to where you want to go - it's a lot simpler than trying to search for it.

I think it would be great to have a MySpace and/or Facebook page for the library. What a great way to reach out to users who would normally think the library has nothing to offer them. Yet, it also means someone needs to be responsible for the page. Things should get updated on a regular basis - so it looks like someone is checking and taking care of the page. We would also need to think about who we are trying to target and who is putting the page together. Not all of our patrons are going to be using the web and finding content that way. Young children aren't generally going to be looking for us on the computer, but their parents probablly are. :) nees