Thing 9: Explore MERLIN

I spent some time looking at MERLIN- looking at links, seeing which systems have a presence in the social space blog and twitter world, and reading about the components for training offered to library systems. It is full of potential, although it doesn't look as if many people are participating yet in the interactive discussions. I went to bloglines and used the blogline search tool to search for more feeds. I ended up adding MERLIN highlights of the month to my list of feeds through this search tool. I also adding Dilbert and the New York Times Book Review to my feeds from this resource. I followed a link and opened an account with Good Reads, which I remember spending some time on from a previous training, but I haven't yet created my list. I also looked at Topix.net, Syndic8.com and Technorati, getting the general gist of what they do, although without signing on there isn't too far to go. I was not able to get onto Feedster after several tries. I am told perhaps it is an Internet Explorer problem (it might work in Firefox, for instance), but since that is the browser I have to use I will just let it go. I tried a search for swine flu vaccine availability information- I'm ambivalent about whether the results I got were any better than Google searching, but you are assured that whatever comes up will have an RSS feed. A positive note: I have looked at my bloglines feeds five times this week, so it looks like something I may truly keep up with.

Thing 8 - RSS and a news reader

I spent way more time on this thing than the recommended time or the previous ones-- I think because I can see a personal use for this that I might actually keep up. I really wanted to understand what RSS can do, so I listened carefully to the podcast, paid close attention to the tutorial and set up a bloglines account at http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs and added two newsfeeds for regional news from out-of-town newspapers that I regularly look at and several weather feeds for my home an other areas that I regularly look at. Then I added a few of the suggested ones, the dictionary word-of-the day, a librarian's cartoon site and a PLA blog. Then I added a feed from the 23 things blog of a colleague who is progressing on the 23 things at about the same rate I am- then I added a feed for a specific tag in Flickr for a geographic area that I love. Since many of these are of personal interest to me, I expect I will keep up with them. I can see the utility professionally if you are following a specific issue in the library press, especially if you are on a task force studying a certain issue, but the real draw for me is the application to my personal life. The personal sites I added feeds to are for sites that I visit individually a lot anyway, so that does promise to be a timesaver for me. I would be wary of adding too many feeds for things I wouldn't normally already want to know about, because then I would be wading through too many extraneous things every day. I particularly value knowing now what the icon is- Before it was just one of the things I ignored because I didn't recognize it. Now it pops out at me everywhere. I would also add in this post the realization that there is no way I can do this training at work. As a part-time person without my own computer, it is just too time-consuming and too difficult to find extended time to concentrate without interruption. When I have attempted to do it at work, I find my understanding is not thorough and I feel rushed and sometimes discouraged. I am doing my posting and keeping up my log at work, but it is working much better to do the rest of the work at home. It's better for me, and I will know in the end I have more mastery, but there is something about the lack of time at work that doesn't feel right.

Thing 7- blog post about anything technology-related

Our family has been very excited about SKYPE. It has been wonderful for keeping up with our daughter at college this fall and when she was studying in Italy over the past summer. In additon to being able to phone her on the computer, she has a camera on her laptop at her end, so she gave us a virtual tour of her apartment in Perugia and introduced us to her roommates at home in the living room. This fall at college she called and showed us the Halloween costumes she and her boyfriend had put together for the big college party (they went as the Cold War: she as the USSR, he as Uncle Sam)- It is wonderful to be able to share in real time. We are trying hard not let it supplant other forms of communications, because email and actual letters are important, too, but SKYPE is a wonderful technology.

Thing 6- Flickr Mash-ups & Third Party Sites

I read about mashups and think I understand the concept of putting two applications from different sites together. I took a look at the Librarian Trading Cards. Some of them are cool, but it felt a little like looking at school alumni bulletin notes, where my classmates are doing far cooler things than I would think of. So I looked further and found Printr Killr, an app where you can create nerdy-gifts using your pictures directly from Flickr: things like an advent calendar, card decks, calendar, memory game. This kind of thing is right up my alley. I will need to have more photos in my Flickr stream before I can try it, but it's definitely worth a try sometime down the line. The home page suggests creating the product at home and then printing it out at the office! If I try it, I promise to print it out at home!

Thing 5- Explore Flickr- exercise a and b

Exercise a: I took a look at Flicker and the various applications and services offered. I found some photos of the place I go in the summer time on the Old Mission Peninsula in northwestern lower Michigan, which I've downloaded then uploaded at left. Makes me look forward to summer again already and winter hasn't yet begun!!. I read about tagging and took the tour. I also took a look at a few of the apps: the librarian trading cards look like fun, although I did not take the time to open yet another account- maybe later. I also checked out something called Printrkillr, where you can generate your own calendar directly from Flickr. Looks useful.

Exercise b: I opened a free Flickr account and uploaded the family photo we plan to use as the basis for our 2009 Christmas card. I limited the distribution to family and friends at this point, as the only two pictures in the file are personal. It seemed to use the blogging tool you had to have a flicker blog account, so I found it easier just to put it on the desktop and upload into my blog account that way. I am ambivalent about opening too many accounts that I may not use much in the future. But I will keep the Flickr account open. Right now it's only set for family and friends, but if I add photos of a more general scenic nature, I may change the designation to a wider audience.

Thing 4- Register your blog and track your progress

I sent Kate a notice of my blog address Nov. 19, although I have not seen it registered yet on the Maryland partipants site, this being Nov. 30. I have downloaded the tracking log onto my flash drive. I went back to the email I sent to myself in thing 2 and tried to cut and paste it into the blog I did for thing 2- but I was unable to paste it into the blog. I asked two of my resource people to look at what I was doing, and they were unable to paste it in either. I went to the help page and discovered that people were writing starting in september to say that all of a sudden they couldn't paste in links the way they had been able to before- A number of people were having this problem- Several offered workarounds. I tried several of them, which did not work for me. By that time I was well past my 45 minutes and frustrated- so I figured I tried and done the best I could, even though the mission was not accomplished

Week 2- Thing 3: Set up your own blog and & add your first post

I am already a particpant in some other googlegroups, so getting the blog set up and posting comments was more straightforward for me than the things from the previous week . It is encouraging that something I have done before is helping out with this training.
Rhoda Bush, Chevy Chase

Week 1, Thing 2: Pointers from Lifelong Learners

This time I was able to get the podcast going easily, so I have learned something from having problems the first go round. The 7 1/2 habits presentation was very upbeat, although I was a bit disconcerted that the attachment for the Learning Contract didn't open- I did send an email to myself at the end that went through. The contents of my comment are my first test post.
I feel encouraged enough at this point that I can master the things that I've tried to go forward with the training in a positive manner. My short term goal at this point is simply to get from one piece to another-to take each step in small doses and hope that the larger picture will begin to emerge. Rhoda Bush, Chevy Chase

Week 1, Thing 1- About this program

I had to figure out where to plug in the earphones and then had trouble getting the podcast to start (I wasn't centered over the arrow correctly. What was said in the podcast was what I had already read, but it was relief and excitement that I finally got the sound to come out.
Rhoda Bush, Chevy Chase

7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners- easy and hard things

The easiest habit for me is to accept responsibility for the learning, once I decide to get involved.
The second easiest would be teaching or mentoring others, if I felt I had mastered the challenge.
Everything else is hard: defining the goal; seeing the problems as challenges, as I tend to get bogged down in the details; having confidence as a learner of new technology, as previous experiences have proven to not be so easy; creating the learning toolbox- I find it is not intuitive for me to know what I need or know where to look for it; using the technology to my advantage by seeing the possibilities comes very slowly to me.

7 1/2 habits of lifelong learners- comment on presentation

My comment at the end of the presentation is that it accomplished its goal with me of getting me psyched to try things that may be challenging for me. I am sure my original goal will change and enlarge as I go along. Rhoda Bush, Chevy Chase