Give Yourself a Pat on the Back! May 2, 2007
Learning 2.0@ Mac is coming to the end (at least for me with this post) after a very interesting and enjoyable learning experience. I must say that I had a great time with the activities (well… most of the activities) and feel that the topics covered allowed the user to experience what that feature could do. I agree with Renu about the pace. Having a week plus additional time and help to finish your activity really made it easy to get things done.
Bravo to those who have finished all the activities, and for those who haven’t Don’t fret! (Audrie!!!) there is still time! That MP3 player is just out of reach, just think of all the music you can listen too!
A standing ovation to the ETG for a fab program and for opening the minds of the library staff to the world of 2.0 technology. You all did great work! You should be proud!
Firefox is hot! May 2, 2007
The final assignment by the ETG is to explore 
Firefox and add-ons. I installed Firefox (super easy to do!) and after exploring its features have changed over from Internet Explorer. I really like the ease of use, better protection and features that Firefox provides. I thought it was cool that you could change the theme of your browser! Had this activity not been assigned I probably wouldn’t have thought to check out other Internet browsers. I have always stuck with IE. So thanks!
We were also asked to download an add-on and with so many to choose from it was hard. I love the adblock! It works really well and was easy to download. No more pesky ads that slow down the web page! I’m new too the whole extension feature. I never really explored them or what is available and I was pleasantly surprised.
So thanks ETG for opening my eyes to other possiblities!
To Game or not to Game? May 1, 2007
The gaming demo was quite enjoyable. DDR is very fun and I have seen people who have memorized dances they have played it so much. It is also very cool to see how good the graphics on games are. It is amazing how far technology has come!
So the ETG asked us to explore different games that are of interest. I prefer the thinking/puzzle games and really like the popcap games site. A large variety of games are available (Many for free! The best kind!) and they do get addicting! I’m not a big fan of VR games, but I can definitely see the appeal!
The idea of gaming in libraries is really taking off. Just a simple search and up comes articles that focus not just on who is doing what, but why libraries should be considering gaming. Christy Branston a liaison librarian at University of Waterloo makes some valid points on what libraries should and need to be doing if they want to bring gaming into the library. Check out her article From Game Studies to Bibliographic Gaming or read about the upcoming ALA symposium on gaming, learning and libraries. I do notice that many of the libraries that have made games available are public libraries. They offer PS2, XBox and GameBoy with a limited selection of games. Few academic libraries seemed to have achieved what public libraries have (some may have and just weren’t listed), but this could be for a number of reasons including a need to sell the idea of gaming as a learning tool.
Gaming in libraries is a controversial issue and both sides make good points. Technology is the future, and all ages are playing games, why not take advantage of what has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Gaming is not just a trend, it is here to stay in some form or another.
The library community does seem to be catching on fast as seen by the many places that have gaming. It will be interesting to see how libraries will continue to adapt to the world of technology.
Who wants to be a Social Butterfly? April 11, 2007
Making friends and contacts is not just person to person interaction anymore. The Internet and its’ host of social networks have people forming ‘friendships’ anywhere in the world, its a whole new way to share information. Sure you could always email or IM chat with people, but social networking allows the sharing of more than just information. Profiles, personal views, photos, videos, common interest groups and networks are all part of this very popular Web 2.0 utility. You control the amount of information you provide or others can read as well who your friends are. The ability to join interest groups or networks is also very social function. The groups or networks you belong too also tell people about the person you are.
I have had a Facebook account for many months and it is amazing to see the amount of information myself and others are willing to make public. The issue of privacy is totally reinvented in a social network. Sure you can limit what people can see, but many people don’t seem to be as concerned about the personal information they reveal to others in the social network. How will privacy issues change? It is a very interesting development. I really like Facebook. Features such as the mini feed and the Wall are neat extras apart from the standard profile, photos, groups etc.
Social networks are taking the net by storm and are becoming increasingly popular. Just think, Facebook started in 2004 and now has over 19 million members. So… are you a social butterfly?
Tool Time! April 6, 2007
YES!!! We are back, and I’m ready to roll! (though I’m posting this at the end of the week) The topic this week is on-line applications and tools. Not that much fun, but an interesting exploration. I toured a few applications such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Zoho, Basecamp and Snipshot. Google and Zoho are similar, but I liked Google better for its ‘all-in-one’ package. Zoho’s software was separated into topics that did specific things, not all things in one, which I think is much more practical. Basecamp is a neat project manager program. The ability to communicate to everyone on the project, and have the information all in one spot is fabulous. Snipshot was a source of great fun. I like to edit photos too see what cool things I can do to them. Providing a sample to edit is a good selling feature! Very handy!. Without my own copy of Photoshop, Snipshot works in a pinch and there many other free image editor on-line. Try a search!
I really like the idea of software on the net that doesn’t require you to physically buy the programs. Most of the on-line applications also have the on-line storage feature, which is great! Your work is still there even if your hard drive crashes. Who needs MS Office when the net provides a slew of options!!!
The Digital Age March 29, 2007
The past two weeks have been slow, as I can’t wait to move onward. I really enjoy learning the new 2.0 technologies. I spend a lot of time on the computer at home, not so much at work (a plus, though it is super handy to have when wanting to look something up) and growing up computers were in all my classrooms. Early in school I remember using the computer mainly for typing, math or best of all playing games. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?was the best game ever on a Commodore 64! or Jumpman that was quite exciting too!
In highschool, the internet became huge especially chat rooms and instant messaging like ICQ (what happened to that? Is it still as popular?) or MSN Messenger. It is interesting to see what was once popular, what has survived and compare it to where the internet is moving today. There are still similarities of early IM and chat rooms to what has grown into social networks. Computers and technology are not new to me and I really need to strain my brain for a time that I hadn’t had a computer available somewhere (before Grade 3? What year was that?).
Anyways back to Learning 2.0. Reading Renu’s blog, I was intrigued by the e-learning site Mindpicnic. Fantastic idea! A great way for anyone to learn different subjects or get extra help for school. Maybe I can finally learn Spanish! Web 2.0 is only the beginning and it is nice to see that libraries and schools are realizing the need and potential of adapting and “accepting” what the Web can offer. The students of today live on and through the computer and that so far is not going to change.
TAG!! Your It! March 12, 2007
Tagging and bookmarking are the topics of this weeks lesson and what fun it is, almost as fun as the game (of Tag that is). So as I was reading the activities for this week I was happy to see that we would be exploring Flickr. I have friends that use the site, I myself don’t, but I wanted to check it out. Lots of great photos and I really like photography. Warning!! Again I experienced the disappearance of time! Really! I need better time management skills or an alarm clock! Maybe both…? Out of the many fantastic pics I did narrow it down to one. Called Up and Down, quite intriguing isn’t it?
I wasn’t that impressed with del.icio.us. I did find some interesting tags when searching that I wouldn’t think of, but not that different from a search engine. I find a search engine brings more useful results. Not that I see del.icio.us in a negative light only, I can understand how it can be very useful as the search terms are social tags and subjective. I did have trouble when bookmarking a site in my account as the del.icio.us toolbar extension didn’t install properly the first time. Other then that I managed to bookmark a few things I liked.
Now I’m going to travel the world in Flickr, maybe that will hold me over for the next two weeks. Can’t wait to get started again!!!
Wicked Wikis? March 7, 2007
I have now experienced the world of wikis and survived!!! No, they are not that bad, actually I really like them. I find wikis a lot like blogs in character with similar features - add images, links, change font, layouts and so forth.
Now on to the discussion about the two wiki site we were asked to ‘test’. Lets start with 
which after a vigorous test on the majority of the features in my opinion has come out on top. The feature that I really enjoyed was the ability to change the editor format to the new easy point and click editor. When I first made my pbwiki I didn’t have this feature (or I didn’t realize that you could change the mode) and I found it tricky to remember the codes to change font size, format etc. Prior to this change, I did like the preview button while in editing mode, but I notice that the new point and click editor doesn’t have this handy feature! To my disappointment! I also like the fact that you can change the templates to personalize your wiki, however, because this is one account, I found that the template chosen acts as the template for all pages made instead of just individual pages, which is a bit of a pain. I did notice in the comments left on pbwiki was that people were having problems adding their page to the sidebar. I did not find this, just add the text as long as you remember the exact title of your page. Another handy feature was the highlighting of broken links allowing you to see if your linking worked. Adding links and images was also easy and I had no problems.
The wetpaint wiki was very similar to pbwiki, but I didn’t like the ‘feel’ of it. This could be due to the fact that as I can’t change the presentation of the page as I’m not the creator or admin of the test account? Which could be a feature that pbwiki could adopt, if it allows the presentation of each page to be individual. The editing box was a pain. It was always in my way when writing and viewing my text. Linking was very easy, but I did have a bit of a problem with inserting images into text in regards to the spacing changes that are made automatically and would like to see more options for image editing other then the few text wrap features available.
All in all my dive into the wiki world was enjoyable!
And the word of the day is…ambit February 27, 2007
Week three is here and lucky for me, I have already completed this weeks’ activity without doing a thing! (though I did subscribe to some more sites that I really don’t have time to read!) I have had a bloglines account since the fall and I really like it. It is so convenient to have all your favourite sites right in one account. No more endless searching! YEAH!!! I also like the ‘related feeds’ feature in bloglines, so I can look for other sites in my areas of interest. You have got to love technology!(sometimes). The one problem I have found with RSS feeds is the disappearance of time. Before you know it one or two hours has passed when you only wanted to check out one thing!!!
Out of my many subscriptions Dictionary.com and the quotes of the day are two of my favourite RSS feeds. I find that they make excellent trivia questions! I also like Scientific American and Canadian Geographic. So many interesting articles to read and information to learn about. Of course I have the McMaster feeds for the university, library and ETG.
So much to read and so little time to read it in, while attempting to get work done! By the way, the definition of ambit? I’m not going to tell you. Check it out for yourself at Dictionary.com.
