Trip to Peru

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Play

These were fun. I heard about Library Thing ages ago and enjoyed looking at other reader's picks. It was as easy as Shelfari to set up. I got the notion that maybe this would be a good tool to use for the NAT book club, not only to track what we've read, but to send to prospective members who ask about the titles that we've read. I'm even thinking that the NAT book club should have it's own blog, but that's a discussion and decision for the group. The image generator links and ideas was great fun; I can think of tons of applications for those. When I was in high school, a school counselor asked me what I wanted to be when "I grew up". With a straight face, I told her that I wanted to be a photojournalist for National Geographic, traveling the world producing pictoral essays for the magazine. I actually did have a small, unlucrative photography business back in the mid 1970s, my name to fame being one album cover for an aspiring guitar player (yes, an LP). So, here was my chance to take a recent trip to Peru and pretend.....
I did register and do a quick practice on the Rollyo site (Underground Railroad Quilt Codes); this might be a very useful tool for teachers who want their students to stick to reliable, teacher-approved sites when doing research. In our library world, maybe an application as a pathfinder? For me, if I can't apply these programs to a useful purpose I just don't remember them and use them.....

RSS Feeds

Sometime I make things more difficult than they really need to be. I wasn't too sure about RSS feeds and their usefulness, but I wanted to learn. So, I did this week's 'homework', listened to the audio, watched the video and followed the tutorial. Then I went out to bloglines, created an account and subscribed to a bunch of RSS feeds. No problemo. Very easy. So now, the question is, how do I find time to go and read all this stuff pouring into my blogline by the minute? I'd rather watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k or watch this -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY and have a good laugh! Now, if these don't show up as live links, please cut and paste them into your browser and enjoy!

Gadget Sites

Okay, I checked out the sites with all the techno-gadgets and I have no idea what most of those things are and what they do. Maybe if I need one of those things or one of those applications, I'll learn about it then, but until then.....

What I did do this week that absolutely TOTALLY jazzed me was learn a whole bunch more about Novelist by teaching a customer how to use it. We discovered some things together like setting up a personal account and dropping books into a folder and then printing out the list. What a great idea for book clubs when members need to bring recommendations and suggestions for new titles! You can even share your folder with others. Very cool!

The other observation about technology this week was that we're learning the 27 Things together and we're helping each other and it's been alot of fun. Yes, there are times we need to be alone to figure some things out for ourselves, but this week was great and we all crested our surfboards at the top of the learning curve wave!

Flickr

Okay, now I'm starting the like this. Flickr reminds me of my Shutterfly account where I store most of my pictures. Intuitive and easy to use. After studying flickr for awhile I slid over into Smilebox. Now, that was fun. Hope you enjoy the scrapbook I put together of recent pictures. Isn't my grandaugter cute?

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Post Test

After listening to the 7 1/2 Habits I think #7 is the easiest one for me. Working in libraries for all these years has strengthened within me a desire to teach and mentor others on the use of libraries and promoting life-long learning. The hardest habit for me will probably be #6. I'm impatient and it can sometimes be difficult for me to take the time needed to use technology to my advantage. Until something becomes second nature to me, I tend to revert back to the old way of doing something. I'm excited about the 27 Things and I'm looking forward to learning something new!