Week 6, Thing 15

Readings: Into a New World of Librarianship and Away From Icebergs

In reading the OCLC newsletters about Web 2.0 and libraries, I'm struck by just how much my job has changed in the last few years. I've only been working in this field for ten years, and in the last two, things have shifted radically. Just a few things from these two pieces that I want to respond to - things that I have some concerns about. In Michael Stephens's piece, he discusses how libraries need to have a "living, breathing technology plan" and should make "good, fast decisions". Those sound great in theory, but in a school, they aren't always easy to put into practice. Decisions about technology aren't ones that I can make on my own - everything has to be sent up the food chain for approval after approval. A fast decision isn't always possible.

In Rick Anderson's piece about the "icebergs" that libraries face, he talks about the need for user education. This is SO critical! While I might be able to locate and use new technologies, there's only one of me in the building. The process of providing instruction to the members of my community, be they teachers or students, is going to be slower than I'd like it to be. Especially right now, when we have limited access to computers due to our temporary quarters. For example, I'm working with a few teachers on setting up online reading circles. It's daunting to try to find time to get the teachers trained, get the necessary site set up for them on Moodle, teach the kids how to use it (providing I can even get them computer time) and, oh yeah, do the rest of my job!

Week 6, Thing 14

Who knew there were so many blogs? And that so many of them deal with celebrities? Female celebrities in particular. Hm. I'm still trying to sort out the authority thing on Technorati- as best I can tell, the more blogs that link to your blog, the more authority you have.

Anyway, on to tagging. I tried doing a blog search, post search and tag search for "School Library Learning 2.0". I found 16 blogs, 47 posts and 9 tags. Seems like an odd assortment. I'm still trying to figure out how some of the posts came up under that search, as there doesn't seem to be any connection between the subject of the post and the search term (posts about China, Hunter S. Thompson, and the weather in Tacoma?) Guess it just shows that if I were going to actually blog for anyone other than myself, I would need to get better at tagging so people could find what they want.

Truthfully, I can't see myself ever using Technorati. Perhaps if I were an avid blog reader, it might be useful. I suppose I could direct students to it to find more info on a topic they were interested in, but it would probably be better for older students with more experience sorting fact from opinion.

Week 6, no thing, just a rant

Okay, I know I keep going on and on about our filters here, but I just have to relate this story so you can understand why I'm so frustrated that I'm ready to throw my computer across the room some days. Today while I was in the middle of editing a post, the web filter blocked me. From a site that I was working in at the time. A site that I had access to only minutes before. And then when I tried to go back to the PSLA blog, it did it again - blocked me from the PLSA site. I didn't just get a warning - I got totally blocked. So our filter is changing it's mind, from minute to minute, about what I have access to, based on criteria that I can't figure out. Why is it that I can see a page one second, and in the next, nope, sorry, you can't look at that any more? And then a few minutes later - hey, just kidding, here you go! And it's not just these sites, or just me. It's happening to teachers across the board, on all different kinds of sites. If it's going to be blocked, then BLOCK IT. ALL THE TIME.
Okay, I'm done now. End of rant. I promise.

Week 6, Thing something or other

I went ahead and created a delicious account for myself. What an ordeal. While I can access the main page of delicious at work, I couldn't set up an account due to some technical (read: filter) issues. However, I can't access my bookmarks at work from home even when I use our VPN. And I'm scatterbrained enough that remembering to export my favorites while at work so that I could set up the account from home took a while. However, it's all set up and pretty now. I'm loving that I have access to my bookmarks wherever I go, because it was seriously annoying when I'd go to work on something at home and forget that I couldn't remember that great site that I had . The ability to share them would be great for collaborative planning with teachers IF WE HAD THE ABILITY TO ACCESS THIS AT WORK. Providing students with the ability to work more effectively in research groups by sharing their bookmarks is intriguing, but again, it would have to be done AT HOME. Can you sense the frustration I'm feeling here?

Week 5, Thing 12

I'm definitely going to be using Rollyo with my students - making a search roll for specific topics and then having them search through them on their own is a cool idea. I had to run through this one fairly quickly, so the search roll I created isn't very interesting or detailed, but I plan to revisit this as soon as I have a free minute.
http://rollyo.com/notharrysmom/book_summary_info1/

Week 5, Thing 11 Update

Still on a musical bent, so I went and tried Pandora. Excellent! All I have to do is type in my favorite band (or at least the favorite of the minute), and it will create a radio station for me based on similar bands. They need to make something this easy to use for books.

Week 5, Thing 11

Lately I've been dissatisfied with my exposure to new music. Even with a satellite radio, I never seem to find a lot of stuff that I really like. I've been reduced to emailing a friend who lives in range of a good radio station and asking him for suggestions. Rather than pester him constantly in a fit of college-radio nostalgia, I decided to hit the Web 2.0 winners in the music category. I'm thinking that Last.fm might be what I need! I can look up and add bands that I'm interested in, add them to my playlist, and have songs automatically downloaded (they call it scrobbling - I'm not even going to venture a guess at why). They offer up a sort of "if you like these guys, try this band" feature - like novelist, but for music. Once I create my library of artists, I can play it - a radio station of stuff that I love, without all of the filler I can't stand! Then I can share the station with others. Wooo hooo!

**And before anyone feels the need to point out the obvious (oh, right, someone would have to be reading this for that to happen...), I know this doesn't have anything to do with my professional life. I may not be using this for work (I haven't tried using this from work, but I'm willing to place a bet for a year's salary that it's blocked there anyway), but if it makes me happier in my non-professional life, that's got to be a good thing, right? The whole "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" thing. Good music=happy librarian=happy students. Viola!