Friday, May 16, 2008
The End of Learning 2.0
No I don't think so - I might even do it all over again just to review what I have done. There are so many things I only just touched on that I will continue to explore for a long while to come. I will be looking for ideas to incorporate into the small branch I work at and I would like to introduce customers to things such as online applications because I can see great possibilities there. I might even be able to offer discovery tours (online) to wonderful museums and libraries and their resources.
more about social networking
I was very impressed with the museums and their presentations of their collections and services. The Boston Museum of Contemporary Art is excellent and I really like the fact that people are encouraged to upload their photos of the museum and exhibits to flickr and share them with everyone. It truly makes the people feel that the museum belongs to all of them.There was so much information on some of the sites it is hard to know where to begin. There were Friends of libraries donations guidelines, codes of practice, advertising of services by libraries like Renfrewshire and so much more. Every site had many ideas that could be adapted by other libraries whatever their size. The British library was on Facebook but I was more impressed with Rotorua Library which used Bebo.
The Coshocton Public Library has a very specific club for animanga and I imagine that this use really appeals to young people. Not only do they target a specific group of customers but they use a medium that is particularly appealing to younger people to contact them and advertise activities etc. They offer information about meeting times and times for such things as drawing workshops etc.
Libraries (no matter how small) could use social networking to reach a much larger group of clients, in particular young, computer savvy customers. In our small library group (main & 2 branches) there are large numbers of people that are not being reached by what we are currently offering and it would be good to expand our advertising of services etc to explore whether that would increase patronage. There are author interviews available, book reviews, ideas for games and contests, and it would be an ideal way to keep up with trends in other libraries. A more modern approach hopefully would interest younger users and help them get past the idea that libraries are just for reading books or doing homework. On the other hand lots of older people are not even aware that libraries offer more than books and are missing out on opportunities to learn to use technology in a meaningful way. The occasional introductory computer class could be expanded to cover such things as social networking, blogs, flickr, youtube, online applications, podcasts etc. I had no real idea of the vast resources available and have enjoyed challenging myself to go beyond the boundaries of the way I normally use computers. I feel that I would like to offer small classes at the branch I work at to cover individual topics like flickr etc. Time constraints are always a problem in a one staff member branch but small windows of opportunity exist and have to be made use of more efficiently in order to reach more people.
The Coshocton Public Library has a very specific club for animanga and I imagine that this use really appeals to young people. Not only do they target a specific group of customers but they use a medium that is particularly appealing to younger people to contact them and advertise activities etc. They offer information about meeting times and times for such things as drawing workshops etc.
Libraries (no matter how small) could use social networking to reach a much larger group of clients, in particular young, computer savvy customers. In our small library group (main & 2 branches) there are large numbers of people that are not being reached by what we are currently offering and it would be good to expand our advertising of services etc to explore whether that would increase patronage. There are author interviews available, book reviews, ideas for games and contests, and it would be an ideal way to keep up with trends in other libraries. A more modern approach hopefully would interest younger users and help them get past the idea that libraries are just for reading books or doing homework. On the other hand lots of older people are not even aware that libraries offer more than books and are missing out on opportunities to learn to use technology in a meaningful way. The occasional introductory computer class could be expanded to cover such things as social networking, blogs, flickr, youtube, online applications, podcasts etc. I had no real idea of the vast resources available and have enjoyed challenging myself to go beyond the boundaries of the way I normally use computers. I feel that I would like to offer small classes at the branch I work at to cover individual topics like flickr etc. Time constraints are always a problem in a one staff member branch but small windows of opportunity exist and have to be made use of more efficiently in order to reach more people.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
week 12
I have passed on the web address to the free commoncraft presentations to a couple of teachers at the local school. I am doing a computer course via the school and the department of education's server blocks lots of sites even though they are harmless. The commoncraft videos actually work, so the teachers can use them for ordinary school computer classes as well.
I have enjoyed looking at this weeks subjects.
to be continued
I have enjoyed looking at this weeks subjects.
to be continued
Thursday, May 8, 2008
online applications
Well, you just can't trust computers. I made a slide presentation in both google docs and zoho and after trying to save zoho and thinking I had failed and lost my 2 slides, I checked today and there it is as large as life. Beats me why it said it couldn't save. I had no trouble with google docs - it uploaded a picture that failed to upload on zoho (even though I had pared the size down drastically from the original). I liked the prettiness of zoho but google docs is very functional and user friendly. I was totally unaware of all the applications available online. I will be encouraging customers to use things like google docs as out of 5 public internet access computers in my small branch there are only 3 with office capabilities. I find that there is a heavy demand for the best performing computer and once a customer has backed up their work to the hard drive then that is the computer that they want each time they come to the library. Using online apps will mean an end to that heavy demand and make all computers useful for work processing, presentations etc. It will also mean that customers can go to any of the 3 libraries in our system and be able to access their work anywhere. Our libraries have a very restricted budget and can't run to expensive computer application programs for all our computers so this is a way of customers not missing out on any features without the cost to us. For children it will mean that they can collaborate on assignments by sharing docs and that they can all contribute at different times from either the library or at home. If one child forgets to come to the library at an appointed time then another child has access to the work already done. I will be exploring these online applications further to better inform the customers of what is available.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
catch up notes
week 7 - Technorati search for bookmobile resulted in 527 answers. A search in advanced for all the words had 293 responses, 323 answers for at least one of the words and exact phrase had 689. A search for nswpln2008 returned 1 answer initially over a week ago but 8 blogs tonight. There are more than 22 pages of photos from the search.
week 9 - podcasts was a very interesting topic. I have been listening to podcasts for ages through a couple of yahoo groups I belong to but hadn't really explored the wealth of other things available. I listened to a lecture from Stanford university on Hannibal the early years (will return and listen to the other parts of the lecture). This lecture must have been recorded in mono sound as it only came through one side of my headphones while all the other things I listened to were in stereo. I had only html script or something on some of the links which probably meant that I didn't have the correct program to open it. I had better luck at home as Itunes is installed on it but not at work. The library wiki had so much on it. There were online catalogues, local author interviews, staff training, broadcasts for booklovers groups and such things as poet Sandra Beauchamp reading and discussing her poetry. Ohio University had numerous podcasts (52x1 minute episodes) on all aspects of their services such as hours of opening, how many volumes etc. The British Library podcasts were initially hard to figure out. Most of the initial podcasts used windows media but Itunes came into play with the British Library and I had never used it before. I only had it installed because my sons use my computer when they are home. After a few false starts I worked some things out and listened to a fascinating recording of Graham Greene discussing books based on his films. I listened to some of a podcast on Birds of Madagascar which had a sample of sounds and a review of the recording which was available through the library. I also listened to one lecture (48 minutes) on old English poetry - fascinating. There are about 10 other lectures by this professor available and I will eventually catch up with them all as well as some other ones that I saw on the lists that looked good. I think I may be too scared to do a search via yahoo podcasts !! (As if I need to spend even more time on the computer than I do now lol).
I can see numerous applications for using podcasts in the library (staff meetings where everyone can hear exactly what has been discussed, training sessions, book reviews etc) but I think that I would like to hold podcast search sessions for customers so that they can be introduced to this wonderful resource. Listening to an author discuss their own book in their own words (like Graham Greene) is an experience not to be missed. I think that it would be an excellent idea for the local/family history group who work in conjunction with our local library to explore the idea of recording senior citizens and podcasting their stories for everyone to hear. (oral history has not been much utilised in our local area and we are losing too many of our older residents whose stories are untold)
week 9 - podcasts was a very interesting topic. I have been listening to podcasts for ages through a couple of yahoo groups I belong to but hadn't really explored the wealth of other things available. I listened to a lecture from Stanford university on Hannibal the early years (will return and listen to the other parts of the lecture). This lecture must have been recorded in mono sound as it only came through one side of my headphones while all the other things I listened to were in stereo. I had only html script or something on some of the links which probably meant that I didn't have the correct program to open it. I had better luck at home as Itunes is installed on it but not at work. The library wiki had so much on it. There were online catalogues, local author interviews, staff training, broadcasts for booklovers groups and such things as poet Sandra Beauchamp reading and discussing her poetry. Ohio University had numerous podcasts (52x1 minute episodes) on all aspects of their services such as hours of opening, how many volumes etc. The British Library podcasts were initially hard to figure out. Most of the initial podcasts used windows media but Itunes came into play with the British Library and I had never used it before. I only had it installed because my sons use my computer when they are home. After a few false starts I worked some things out and listened to a fascinating recording of Graham Greene discussing books based on his films. I listened to some of a podcast on Birds of Madagascar which had a sample of sounds and a review of the recording which was available through the library. I also listened to one lecture (48 minutes) on old English poetry - fascinating. There are about 10 other lectures by this professor available and I will eventually catch up with them all as well as some other ones that I saw on the lists that looked good. I think I may be too scared to do a search via yahoo podcasts !! (As if I need to spend even more time on the computer than I do now lol).
I can see numerous applications for using podcasts in the library (staff meetings where everyone can hear exactly what has been discussed, training sessions, book reviews etc) but I think that I would like to hold podcast search sessions for customers so that they can be introduced to this wonderful resource. Listening to an author discuss their own book in their own words (like Graham Greene) is an experience not to be missed. I think that it would be an excellent idea for the local/family history group who work in conjunction with our local library to explore the idea of recording senior citizens and podcasting their stories for everyone to hear. (oral history has not been much utilised in our local area and we are losing too many of our older residents whose stories are untold)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
