Thing #20-You Tube

You Tube was a lot of fun! There are so many cute animal videos! I don't really see this as an educational tool, unless the subject matter were to be instructional or informational. I have tried to place my favorite video in this blog. It is a patient golden retriever putting up with a kitten's antics--very cute! It reminds me of my now 15-year old cat, Pookie, when he was a kitten (he bothered my dog this way).
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Thing #19-Discover Web 2.0 Sites

I have not posted any new entries lately because I have been having so much fun exploring many of the recommended sites! I always wondered how some people could possibly spend so much time on the internet, and now it is beginning to make sense to me. However, there comes a point when I can no longer look at another web site! I love bloglines.com and have a collection of feeds I view daily through this site. Picnik.com is very useful, as is Yahoo! Answers. These three are among my favorite new sites (new to me, that is!). How nice it is to know they exist!

Thing #18-Zoho Writer

I loved Zoho Writer! Below is a document I created using this tool and inserted in my blog using the publish feature. Zoho Writer is an excellent tool that I will definitely use in the future. I am going to explore the Google Docs site as well to see which tool I prefer. What fun!!

Learning to use Zoho Writer

I am playing around with Zoho Writer, an online productivity tool. It seems a lot like a word processing program, although there are more things on the tool bar and I am not familiar with them all. I'm going to see what the Anchor button does...never mind, it says to "insert anchor" and I don't know what that means. How cool! You can add an emoticon! ΩΩΩ This is from the insert special characters button. Neat! I'm not a big fan of Word (it tries to anticipate what you want, and 99 out of 100 times, it is NOT what I want) and this seems much better. I really like Zoho Writer!

Thing #17-Sandbox Wiki

It was fun to try to actually add information to a wiki. The Sandbox wiki is great in that it allows you to test things and see what does/does not work before perhaps posting them elsewhere. I created a login account and added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page. However, when I attempted to link it to the blog, "error on page" was returned. I think it may be a glitch that will be fixed, at which time I will try again. It still seems very strange to me to be adding content to a web page. I need to "get with the times"!

Thing #16-Learn Wikis

I actually understand the concept of wikis. They sure would have been helpful when I was in college and needed to work on a project with a group of people (we had to arrange times to physically meet, which was difficult)! I enjoyed the Book Lovers wiki from the Princeton Public Library and think that is a very helpful tool for anyone trying to decide what to read. The ALA wikis (both from New Orleans in 2006 and Washington D. C. in 2007) certainly contained a host of helpful information. For uses such as these, I think the wiki is a brilliant tool. It is amazing how much information you can amass with a collaborative effort! My problem with wikis is that I tend to be protective of "my things", and am not comfortable with the idea of anyone going in and editing what I posted. I think I would only want to use a wiki with a group comprised of a few people I knew I could trust.

Thing #15-Perspectives on Web 2.0

I read all the recommended articles and noticed the common theme of involving the user in the libraries of the future. The articles point out how libraries will need to change their focus since they are no longer the only source for research. When I read Dr. Wendy Schultz's article, the paragraph on Library 1.0 made me laugh. It made me think of an experience I had at the library in my elementary school. I opened a book to read and the librarian yelled at me for "bending the spine". I remember being so confused---don't you have to open the book to read it?! It seems that in the past, some libraries were more like museums. The libraries of the future will be much more open to the users and will provide the tools users require for their research. It was interesting to look into Dr. Schultz's future Libraries 3.0 and 4.0 and imagine what that will be like. It wasn't so long ago that I couldn't imagine ever needing the internet! The only certainty is change, and libraries are changing with the times. It will be so exciting to see these changes as they evolve!!

Thing #14-Technorati

Wow! I had no idea there were so many blogs! I am glad to now be among the rapidly growing number of people who utilize this technology! The Technorati web site was a bit overwhelming---so many categories of blogs! Blogs on everything and anything you can possibly imagine!! I explored the top favorited blogs, top searches, and top blogs. It is extremely easy to use! I did a keyword search for Learning 2.0. Using the search tool, 25,415 blog posts were found, and there were 484 blogs about Learning 2.0. I imagine I will use this web site in the future to locate blogs I wish to read!

Thing #13-Del.icio.us

I found Thing #13 to be among the more confusing exercises thus far. Perhaps it is because the link to the 12 minute video did not work. I received the following error: "ERROR: www.library2.0.ottergroup.com is temporarily unavailable or does not exist. Please check the address and try again." I explored the del.icio.us site and was finally able to make some sense of it. I set up an account for myself and can see the advantage of being able to in essence utilize this website to get to my bookmarks from any computer. I clicked on bookmarks that others had bookmarked. I was able to see the tags others used to categorize the reference, but was unable to see the comments they had added. I will probably not use this web site much in the future, as I find it easier to just type in the web site I wish to go to instead of first going to del.icio.us and then going to my bookmarked websites. It seems this adds another step, but maybe I am missing something!!

Thing #12-Rollyo

Rollyo is a very interesting search tool (once I got the hang of using it, that is)! It is definitely a positive step to be able to search for topics based on the sites of your choosing; not all the ones that might result from a yahoo or google search and could be potentially harmful to your computer. It is nice to be able to search for things using only sites you trust. I am a news junkie, so I played around with Rollyo and created a Streett Local News search roll. The link is below:
http://rollyo.com/hstreett/streett_local_news/

Thing #11-Library Thing

What a useful tool this is! Library Thing is an amazing web site! I signed up and tried this site out by cataloging five books I recently read--the link is below:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hstreett

I especially like the recommendations feature which lists other books I might be interested in based on the books in my catalog.

Thing #10-Online image generator

I have played around with the online image generators listed in the #10 instructions. The Generator Blog was a lot of fun! I had fun typing things in exotic fonts with glittery letters! I created an avatar using the Meez website. It was fun and easy, although I don't know that it is very educational! You could certainly spend a lot of time poking around on these sites. Again, I am amazed at the things people have come up with and am grateful I am now aware they exist!

Thing #9-Explore MERLIN

I looked around the MERLIN site and found it to be quite informative and interesting. However, I was not able to subscribe...I must be doing something wrong! Regardless, I was able to familiarize myself with the site and was very impressed. Also, I explored the search tools to help me find feeds (Feedster, Topix.net, Syndic8.com, Technorati). It was overwhelming! There are feeds on every possible thing you can imagine! It is nice to be exposed to and know how to use these tools.

Thing #8-RSS

I absolutely loved this "thing"! I had no idea these feeds even existed. While I frequently visit my news websites, I never noticed the RSS feed icons before. It was very easy to set up a bloglines account and subscribe to numerous feeds. This will make it much easier to keep up with what is new on my favorite web sites! This is a tool I anticipate using a lot in the future. It will save time, as I won't visit the actual web site unless a new posting is something I care to read more about. I also subscribed to some other learners' blogs. The challenge; providing the URL address to my public bloglines account, proved a bit too challenging. I tried several times to make sense of this but in the end couldn't spend any more time on it. This is my favorite new tool thus far!

Thing #7-Blog Post about anything Technology-Related

While I am quite familiar with computers and many computer applications, I admit that until this Learning Libraries activity, I used the internet mainly to check email and read the news. I am getting more comfortable with the new technologies I am learning, but it will take awhile! I am, however, quite familiar with the Apple iPod. My husband bought me one for Christmas and I had no idea how to use it. I downloaded the tutorial and taught myself. Now, I can't imagine not using it! It is so easy to make numerous music "mixes" and is much lighter to carry (or clip on!) when running than is a portable CD player. I remember the days of making mix tapes -- that was quite a lengthy process. Now, a mix can be created in the time it takes to download the songs. This is the technoloy advancement I use the most at this time.

Thing #6-Flickr Mash-ups & Third Party Sites

I visited the recommended Flickr mashups sites and am not too sure that I will use mashups a great deal in the future. I found Mappr to take a long time to load images (maybe it is just my pc). I really liked the Flickr Color Pickr and could see myself perhaps using this site. Montagr was interesting as well, but I doubt I will ever need to create a photo mosaic! Looking around these sites makes me realize it is possible to find a picture of pretty much anything and do countless things with these pictures. People are so creative!

Thing #5-Explore Flickr

Flickr is quite an interesting site! I can see how one could spend a lot of time there. I explored their site and learned how to search for and find various categories of pictures using keywords. I chose to upload pictures from my computer and post them on my blog instead of uploading pictures from Flickr. As you can see, I am now able to add a title, and I wish to thank everyone who helped me with this!

One more picture...I jumped back online because I thought I had figured out how to add a title (I received a credible tip), but it looks as though I still cannot figure it out! This is my adorable niece, Caroline. She was a ladybug for Halloween 2006. She is now 14 1/2 months old. I don't get to see her very often (she lives in Buffalo, NY), but this picture makes me smile!

Since the first post with a picture was successful, I didn't want to leave my other two pets, the cats, out. The big grey cat is (appropriately named) Fluffy. He was a stray cat that came to my house over 5 years ago. The black cat is Hocus. He is unique, shall we say?! I am getting more familiar with blogging, but cannot figure out how to add a title. It won't let me click there.

I am going to attempt to post a picture. It is of me and my two dogs, Rusty (the golden retriever) and Duke (the German shepherd) on the boardwalk at Ocean City, NJ. We participated in the "Barks on the Boards" benefit for the Ocean City Humane Society. It is the only time of the year dogs are legally allowed on the boardwalk. We had fun, but it was HOT that day!

Well, it has been a while, but I am back. It is hard to find the time to do this! I will try to do the next "thing" this week. I am still having enough trouble with this "thing"!! I guess this is something you grow more comfortable with as you become more experienced, but right now it feels quite strange!