Wow, a nice surprise: 23 things Kansas in 16 weeks, what a deal!

When I started 23 things I was excited yet a bit overwhelmed because of the time length of the project. The weekly lessons and assignments by the mentors made the experience manageable.

Overall my favorite learning experience was through the use of Common Craft Videos. These videos were simple, to the point and just so cute!

The point of this post is to reflect on the “23 Things” I’ve learned during the program.

Otis in the Garden

My favorite tools:
Week 13 – Slide Sharing – I enjoyed the tool Animoto which puts photos into a professional and very hip slide show. At the time of this lesson I attended a Fiesta party with my P.E.O. Chapter (Philanthropic Educational Organization)  where I took lots of photos. I wanted to share the photos with the members of the chapter and did not want to send the pictures through e-mail because it would take so long to upload and send them. Putting the photos into Animoto made  sharing a bunch of photos to a group of people simple and user-friendly for the sender and receiver. Animoto also was helpful to make a slide show for Snapshot Day.

Week Six: Tagging and Social Bookmarking – This tool is a life saver! Maintaining several computers at the library and keeping them up to date can be a challenge. Having the bookmarks saved online when setting up a computers is helpful. Bookmarking is also helpful when going from work computers to home computer.

Week Four: Photo Sharing – This is a tool that I have used in the past and absolutely love it! At the library I load photos onto our Flickr page after every activity. It is a great way to share but also keep a history of our activities. Sometimes when I cannot recall the particulars of program or presenter I have looked up our photos on Flickr to refresh my memory. For me photos can trigger a memory much better than a written summary or calendar of events. Personally I want to spend more time learn the photo sharing tool Picassa.

The most surprising Tool:

Week Five: RSS and Feed Readers: Before learning more about these tools I did not see the usefulness of these tools. Once I found a few blogs of interest to me I really appreciated the ability to link to them via Google Reader. I even found a new “cyber friend” who lives in Canada. She and I share the same interest in period history films, historical fashion, TV shows and spirituality. What fun!

A most useful tool:

Week Three: Webinars and online meetings are very helpful especially to those of us who live in rural areas. Taking half a day to attend a meeting really takes up the majority of the day due to travel time and it puts a strain on the staff who have to rearrange their schedules to meet the needs of the public. Also combine travel with a meeting and that equals exhaustion for me.  As I write this post I am listening to the Wrap up Webinar and it is 10 pm at night.

Most challenging tools:

Week One: Blogging – I am still experimenting with WordPress and am trying to understand all of its bells and whistles. My long-range plan is to add a WordPress page to our library website and then eventually join the Kansas libraries on the web for our entire webpage. The most frustrating thing for me is that I am used to Microsoft Frontpage where I can directly insert photos, clip art etc. and arrange them on the page. With WordPress I feel once removed and constricted in the layout process.

Week Seven: Microblogging

I have a Twitter account, I have tweeted and probably will not use it real often. I find the speed and brevity of it all just mind numbing. I can see its usefulness and am glad to understand what many folks are using today.

Most Fun Tool:

Week Ten: Video Sharing- I am so flattered that my video “The Amazing Otis” was featured on the Wrap Up Webinar! I will have to tell Otis he is famous, at least in the 23 Things Library world. Making videos, editing and posting on YouTube can be a time eater! I think I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning finalizing “The Amazing Otis”.

I want to express my appreciation to all of the mentors for sharing their expertise. This project forced me to spend time learning technology tools that I otherwise would have put into the “someday” basket of things to learn.

Ah - this is the life.

This week’s assignment: edit an established wiki. On Wikipedia I searched for Holton, Kansas and edited the history by adding information about the founding of the public library by the Bookman Club in 1897. I also added a link to our library webpage. The process was easy. The help pages on Wikipedia are very useful. I thought about adding a photo of the Bookman Club but that process looked quite involved due to copyrights. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holton,_Kansas#History

The Bookman Club

The Beck-Bookman Library joined libraries across the state in “Snapshot: A Day in the Life of Kansas Libraries” to demonstrate how important academic, public, school and special libraries are to the citizens of Kansas.

more about "Snapshot Day", posted with vodpod

This week I re-acquainted myself with Library Thing. I started an account long ago but did not regularly play with it. I like the feature that allows one to look up a book and find similar tastes. This is helpful for myself and readers advisory.

I opened an account with Shelfari and found it to be easier to use than Library Thing. When adding my books to Shelfari the process was more streamlined than with Library Thing. I was able to import my books from Library Thing to Shelfari. With Shelfari I joined two interesting looking groups – Historical Fiction and Historical Mystery Novels. I look forward to playing with Shelfari in the future and finding more good reads!

Snapshot Day Slide show of the Beck-Bookman Library

This is my slide show of April 1, 2010 at the Beck-Bookman Library. I really liked this week’s lesson and will use animoto slide sharing for personal and library use. I found it very useful to share pictures without clogging up people’s emails with lots of downloaded pictures.

Soon to be published:  slide shows of my kitties!

Wow, this week’s lesson was more enjoyable than I had expected. It also took lots of time to get a good recording of my narration without st-udders and sputters. Today I downloaded and opened an account with Jing to explore screen casting. I chose to do a training video of how to use the book browsing feature of the library’s website to search for titles in a series. Here is the finished product. http://screencast.com/t/ZjdjMDY4

Saving and sharing the screen cast was confusing but I finally got it!

I can see using this technology to train staff and to acquaint patrons with resources via the internet. Screen casting may also be helpful when conducting a computer class or to offer tutorials to those interested in learning about basic computer operation and navigating the internet.

Ah, I needed a breather and am so glad that 23 Things Kansas does not have an assignment for the week. The weather is getting nice and I am gardening, spring cleaning and glad to turn off the furnace.

Activity #2: Make a video!

Here is my video – A Walk in Spring featuring my cat friends Otis and Garvy.  This assignment helped me become more familiar with the features of  Microsoft Movie Maker.

I found this week’s assignment quite fun. What can be more entertaining than searching for funny cat videos on You Tube? Here is my homework: Activity #1: Find a Video and Embed it into your blog:

Result: two kitties on a treadmill:

Part two of this week’s assignment will come soon.

What do I think of Instant Messaging? Well, at the library and at home I like to use IM when contacting technical support. Using it in this fashion does not tie up the telephone line and there is no annoying “on hold” music plus it is much easier to multitask without a telephone in one hand.

This week I tried using IM to chat with friends. Personally I like e-mail best of all for correspondence with people. This “slower” mode of communication gives me time to think about my responses.

Do I have any concerns about IM? I can see that it can dumb down the proper use of language with all of the shortcuts and improper spellings.

Has it changed the way you work? Yes, as I mentioned above I like to use it as a tool when contacting support and making product inquiries.

What is ironic is that I just finished the book, Death on the Lizard: an Edwardian Mystery by Robin Paige. This historical cozy mystery takes place  early 1900′s in Cornwall, England where one of G. Marconi’s wireless stations was located. This new technology was in fierce competition with the undersea and land line cable companies. Governments and businesses employed spies to latch onto the latest developments of this communication tool.  In the author’s notes is a quote from Professor W. E. Ayrton who gave a lecture at the Imperial Institute in 1897. Here is a a bit of it,

“There is not doubt that the day will come, maybe when you and I are forgotten …when a person wants to telegraph to a friend, he knows not where, he will call out in an electromagnetic voice, which will be heard loud by him who has the electromagnetic ear, but will be silent to everyone else. He will call “Where are you?” and the reply will come, “I am at the bottom of the coal-mine” or “Crossing the Andes” or “In the middle of the Pacific” …

Wow, not far from the truth 100 years later!