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Saturday, September 26, 2009

WEEK 5 - THING #11

I enjoyed browsing the Web 2.0 award winners. There are many interesting sites some that I have never even heard of. First off, I though Last-fm was amazing. It is kind of like Pandora (see Pandora post) but it has options to watch videos and talk with others about your favorite music. Since I am a huge music lover, I signed myself up right away. I also liked LuLu which is a self-publishing site. This is for all of us who are planning on writing a book someday (at least I know I am). I saw an old friend in the awards list, PBwiki. I can remember using this with a group of classmates for a class assignment. I was so much easier than e-mail files back and forth.

If I were to pick a site that could be useful for a library it would be WuFoo. It helps you design online surveys. Not only that but it organizes and analyses your data, creates reports and builds graphs. This would be a useful tool for a school library (taking a survey on what new technologies the students would like to see in there schools) or a public library (what type of book discussion interest you). I was a psychology major and I know how time consuming and sometimes mind boggling raw data can be. This site does everything for you.

I tried to sign up with library 2.0 and classroom 2.0 but they have to approve me first. The amount of info they wanted was impressive. I guess they don't let just and rift raft on their Ning.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

WEEK 5 - THING #10


I went to http://www.comicstripgenerator.com/ and spent about an hour there trying to decide what picture to use. This was a lot of fun. I can definitely see why the directions for this "thing" said to keep it in good taste. I think a teacher could use this tool to make reminders and print them out and post them around the classroom or post them on the classroom website (if he or she has one).

WEEK 4 - THING #9

Subscribing to more feeds in Google reader was really easy. I was able to search for feeds by topic or search term. So now, in addition to my classmates blogs, I have:

KDKA Pittsburgh News
Library Stuff
Library.net
Wikitravel
Crockpot Recipes
Free iTune Downloads

I am going to attempt to put my public library into my reader as well. A RSS feed is like free publicity for libraries. The community will be informed of any new library developments and events. My library also has book sales (that I habitually miss). It will be nice not to miss another one!

WEEK 4 - THING #8

I created an RSS account in Google Reader. I didn't even try Bloglines because once I was in Google Reader, I saw that it had imported all of my classmates blogs that I follow. That was a big time saver and I was sold! I love having a RSS reader. I can keep track of everyone's blog here and it is so much easier then clicking on each individual blog (especially when I would forget whose blog I looked at already!). I read all the "helps" and "abouts" and I really liked these two RSS analogies:

RSS reader is like TiVo for your computer.
An aggregator collects all of your subscriptions in one place like a magazine rack in your home.

I will definitely use my RSS Reader (even after this course is finished). There are many websites that I frequent and subscribing to them will make my life easier and more efficient.