Thing 7: Microblogging

So, I set up my Twitter account last summer at the urging of a friend. And I just didn't get it. So, I'll give it another try this week and see how it goes.

Thing 6: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

I had fun setting up my del.icio.us account. And I think I've got the tagging, bundling, and sending down. This would be fantastic to integrate into my library web page. I can also see it being very helpful in sharing my bookmarks between the 4 computers that I use on a daily basis. If only we had access to del.icio.us at our school.

I have some problems to solve regarding the use of delicious:
1. There are 4 family members that share our desktop computer at home. So, I have now imported everyone's bookmarks into my delicious account. I am debating on how to organize these.
2. Since I can't access delicious at school (filters=frustration!), I wonder if there is a way to tag something in delicious without actually accessing the site.

Hmmm.....

Subscribing to My RSS Feed

My blog now has an RSS feed. You can subscribe to either posts or comments by clicking on the box in the sidebar at the left.

Thing 5: RSS and Feed Readers

The topic for week 5 is RSS feeds. I decided to go with Google Reader. After my experience with the photo-sharing project and the ease of use with Picasa, I thought I'd stick with a Google product for this assignment.

I subscribed to the 23 Things Kansas and the Emporia Gazette feeds. It was a simple process. Since I also use Google Desktop, I added the WebClips gadget, so my feeds show up on my desktop at all times.

Now I'm going to figure out how to create a feed for my blog!

Thing 4: Photo Sharing (Again!)

So, after spending 20 minutes setting up Flickr and posting a photo, I decided to see if Picasa offers a blogging tool. Yes! And it has taken less than 2 minutes to open Picasa, find the Blogger button, and post this picture. I like it!!

Thing 4: Photo Sharing

shelves
Originally uploaded by Rebecca's Library Pics

Set up a Flickr account. Check.
Upload some pictures. After some trial and error, and resorting to the "simple uploader," check.
Tag photos. Check.
Link Flickr to blog. Check.
Add photo to blog. We'll see if this works!

Thing 3: Online Meetings

For this assignment, I viewed archived webinars in both Wimba and Opal.

Wimba... I looked at "Learning about Illuminar" which is then new Kansas Library Catalog patron interface from Autographics. Presented by Rhonda from the State Library. I found this to be an informative webinar and I was glad to see some pointers on how to use the new KLC interface. I have used Wimba for some training provided by Follett, so the software was familiar to me.

Opal... I viewed "Connecting Kids with Great Websites," which was presented by Meagan Albright and Sharon Haupt, who are responsible for ALA's Great Sites for Kids . I viewed about 15 minutes of this webinar in Firefox and was disappointed by the fact that the slides didn't show up correctly. Then, I started over, trying Explorer and it worked perfectly. Very good information, especially about how the websites are evaluated and considered for inclusion in the Great Sites list.

Already, online meetings are becoming a routine part of training. I can see this technology progressing rapidly within the next 10 years, with better graphic and video capabilities. Personally, I like the archived meetings better than live meetings. The archived meetings allow me to pause when I have interruptions.

Thanks for the great lesson, Brenda. It was not boring! I was especially glad to be introduced to Opal. I found several other webinars on the Opal list that look intriguing.