Curiosity

I just watched the video by Seth Grodin. This is just what I needed to hear as I was getting frustrated with Mapbuilder. I do sometimes get little feelings like why can't I just stay where I am. I am like one of the people in the middle that want to keep things the way they are sometimes and not move ahead so fast. This was an inspiring little clip to listen to and I need to remind myself to keep on listening to things like this. It opens whole new worlds and hope for change where it's needed.
I always want to support our educational systems. My parents were involved in the educational system and I always felt proud of them for it. Part of why I went into my field was to continue to learn and educate myself. But Seth is right, a lot of our curiosity does get squelched along the way. Being curious and open to new ideas and being able to help other people with what you learn is the way to go. (Helping people was the other part of why I went into this field.)

Project Play has been a really great experience. I have learned so much and there is still so much to learn. I want to keep up by exploring the optional assignments that I haven't been able to get to yet. I'm really sorry that I didn't sign up for first semester but I will continue to catch up with the things that I've missed. I really appreciate all that's been put into this program. I feel like I'm taking baby steps into this new world, becoming inspired and losing my fear. I feel that soon I will get to the point and may have already started to be where I'm comfortable enough to start realizing that yes I can use what I've learned to think outside the box as far as my daily work.

Mapbuilder

I played with Mapbuilder today but was having a little trouble with it. The words along the top are overlapping each other. I must not have the proper updates on the computer I'm using. I tried adding my library which showed up on the map right away but I wasn't sure if it was going to stay there. I didn't see the add tab the first time, just the update tab. Then I tried again, starting all over and saw an add tab that time but the map didn't change from someplace in Pennsylvania.

I was excited the first time when the map location and the latitude and longitude were showing up right away, but became a little frustrated not knowing if my entry was getting added to the sandbox. I have to look at it some more.
All in all I think Mash-ups are pretty nice in being able to bring things together. I'm a little overwhelmed about it all right now but am trying to let it all sink in. I was literally amazed by all the links you gave us and am alternating between feeling excited and feeling worried about keeping up with everything.

Would our library homepage with the little Google search box be considered a mash-up? The possibilities would be endless of what one could pair up with.


I tried again using Mapbuilder on our computer at home. This time the letters at the top weren't overlapping and this time I am in the sandbox. I think I hit search first and then update, but it still wasn't at all clear to me.

YouTube

I like the examples of how libraries are using YouTube. The Calgary Public Library's Storytime video was very cute. I loved how they promoted titles along with their narration. It was very creative and represented hard work to come up with all of those. The Harper College library tour was another great way to use YouTube. Walking around with the coffee cup was a nice touch to show the library as a comfortable non-threatening place. The Q and ANJ video on library hours would be especially appealing to a young crowd. It's a great idea to have video contests to promote services or for advertising because people love to make movies and it widens the pool of creative ideas.

Here'a a cute video of a dachshund and cat playing. My dachshund would love it if our cat would be this agreeable to playing like this.

Screencasts

I really like the idea of screencasts for libraries. I was very impressed with the University of Calgary and all they've done. It would be great if we could have screencasts imbedded to show people how to do Ebsco for instance or maybe signing up for Telus. The problem would be that we'd need to have earphones handy at each station which we don't currently have.

I liked the casual, comfortable instruction for Screencast-o-matic. The Allen County Genealogy Center also used a very friendly, personal approach. I think something to think about if making screencasts would be to use this approach to try and engage people in what you're talking about.

Podcasts

I subscribed to the NPR podcast for my Bloglines account. It was pretty easy following the directions given and now I'm glad to know how to do this for any others I may like. When I chose some podcasts from it, for some reason I was expecting there to be video too but then realized we are only talking about audio.

I think it's great that libraries are using these. I have a blind friend who uses a laptop with a special device that gives an audio of everything on a page of a website so that he can know what's on there. It would certainly help someone like this, who relies so much on audio, to have podcasts on there with information on what's available, what events are coming or even podcasts of programs that have already occurred.

I like the stories for children too. Certainly would help a busy mother who can't get to the library at times for a story hour. Just today I was fiddling around for the longest time with our old tape player trying to put in a story for my daughter who's sick today.

MySpace and Facebook

I looked at most of the library links that were listed for MySpace and Facebook. I liked that Oshkosh PL put the hours etc. right on there. I don't know quite what I'm looking at at first without guides like that, but I'm not sure it works so well in general for a library to try to act like it's a person with certain "interests" and "friends". It just doesn't seem like the right format for the library to me.
If someone is savvy enough to use these networking sites it seems like they would know that libraries have websites. I'd rather energy was put into making our library website more appealing.

Remember the Milk and Jott

Remember the Milk and Jott were fun to use. It was cool to see the messages turn up on the list and it's interesting how the two work together (like Google Talk and Meebo work together and Google Docs and word documents work together). The Jott recordings became a little jumbled at first. It even sounded impatient when not getting what was asked for. I kept at it and my message went through. I think that's what I'm learning about all this technology, to keep at it. I suppose I could use this as my to do list at work. (Now I have little jotted notes scattered around my drawer.)