Monday, August 24, 2009

Wikimania

I'd used a wiki before, but not too successfully. I do think the Common Craft video makes it all look easier than it really is because I don't think editing, saving, etc., is that intuitive for a true newbie; I just think some prior knowledge is necessary for successful use. For example, Joan created a wiki for those of us on the School Library Study Group to use in adding our ideas for building a new school library survey report. My partner was totally unfamiliar so I said I'd try to put in the information she and I had come up with. I was confused looking at the info already there from other partnerships within the group, couldn't tell whose was whose, or where to put ours; so I think I added ours incorrectly. Perhaps I should've started a new page, and now I would probably be able to do that. I can see a wiki would be a powerful tool for a group if everyone knew how to proceed. I know of a school librarian who was having her library class students post library book reviews to a wiki, and they were having fun with that. Great idea. Looking around at the example wikis, I found the RC Flood wiki intriguing. I was living in the Northern Hills at that time so feel a personal connection to the disaster, as do so many, and that makes reading the survivors' stories really poignant. The manager of the store where I was working that summer lost his estranged wife and preschool-aged son and daughter. Their dog survived; I still remember Ray (my boss) talking about finding the dog buried up to her neck in mud in the basement where the house had stood. His wife's father, mother, brother, and sister-in-law also perished from the same house. Only the poodle lived. Those memories are still so vivid--hard to believe it's been nearly 40 years.

Monday, August 17, 2009

A Taste of Delicious

I created a Delicious account some time ago to permit access to some of my favorites from a computer I might be using outside the Citrix environment. Occasionally, when I'm on the road, I can't get Citrix to work from a motel, but I do have Internet access. I can never log on to a network at my mom's apartment in RC, although there are many wireless networks shown as available, none of which will allow me to log on without a password, which I don't have (and Mom doesn't know or can't remember). Or, once in a while on a site visit, the opportunity comes up to share a favorite web site with a librarian, teacher, or administrator. Having such a site saved in my Delicious account allows for easy access. These kinds of situations led me to set up a Delicious account a few months back. At first, of course, there weren't that many sites saved in that account, but now there are 30+, so I was interested to learn about the "tagging" capability and did go back and edit my saved sites to add at least 1 tag, sometimes 2, for each. At this point, I've used 3 different tag headings for those 30+ sites; those are all personally-chosen headings, just there to help me organize and gather quickly the sites with common headings. So, is Delicious as good as chocolate brownies with mint frosting? Nooooooo--nothing inedible could be that good--but, still, pretty good.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Facebook? Hmmmmm--

I think actually I set up two Facebook accounts: one within Citrix using my state email and the other using our home email account. Didn't have much luck being able to friend anyone using the state email account, but was able to become friends with Julie with our personal account. One evening I could see Jane's, Joan's, and Colleen's accounts and sent requests that they allow me to friend them. Haven't heard back from them yet. I also tried to friend my daughter who has her account set up so no one can friend her without being screened by her first. She said she'd check it and set up permission, but that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps she's just been busy with getting ready for her first week of school, first teaching job and all that comes with that. Or, could be she just doesn't want to friend her mom, hmmmmmm. I looked at Jasmine's and Wynne's myspace profiles and see that one can do some cool stuff with the profile. So far, my information is pretty basic, although I was able to upload a picture. The daughter is coming home this weekend; maybe we can carve out a few minutes to take a look at my profile and spiff it up a bit. As for using Facebook for work, I don't know. To me, it's kindof like playing on the computer, something I'm not that good at; I prefer online activities with a purpose. I'll keep the account open and fool around with it some for a while at least, though, on the off chance that someone out there in the bigger world with whom I haven't connected in a long time might find me and get in touch--could be fun. I'm not that great about "playing" on the computer outside work hours, though, after spending so much of my working hours on the computer. Getting into the print world at night is much more appealing to me than looking at the screen I've been watching pretty much all day. So, all in all, mixed feelings about Facebook. Gotta say it's easy, though; I'm not surprised it's so popular.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Google Docs Rocks

Oh, yes, oh, yes, a Web 2.0 tool that's really helpful. We've been using a Google Doc form to request travel through the SDSL office all year, and that has always worked nicely for us. But what got me excited yesterday was being able to upload into Google Gocs an Excel spreadsheet I'd previously created for keeping track of the Prairie Bud & Pasque books the other Team 2 members and I have been reading this summer. Within that spreadsheet was a column in which I'd been assigning a number rating, 1-5, to each book as I completed reading it, with 5 being the top rating. There is a column for each of the other team members in which I'd just been keeping track of books given to them for reading. I've not been recording rating numbers in their columns because, obviously, I don't know their opinions of those books yet. When I uploaded that spreadsheet to Google Docs, I was able to share it with the other team member who already had a Google account established; she has seen the spreadsheet and intends to enter her own rating numbers. The other team member, at this time, does not have a Google account, but perhaps she will open one so she can access the spreadsheet as well. Sharing the spreadsheet online should spare us much time and possibly some confusion as well. I've worked with SurveyMonkey somewhat in the past because that's the vehicle being used now for the Prairie Bud & Pasque annual voting in the spring--all voting done online now. So, a big thumbs-up for Google Docs.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Have sound with podcast--yaaay!

Yes! When today I clicked on the ABC News podcast I added to my bloglines account last week, this time there is sound. So it did work after all, and I heard about the three American hikers "lost" in Iran. What on earth are 3 young Americans doing going hiking in Iran? There are safer places for hiking.