Cheers

Yeah! I am done!
I have completed 27 things! I am happy!!
I am expecting my MP3 player. I will play with it!

Cheers!

Reflection on 2.0 program

I am so glad I almost complete this learning 2.0 program. This program really assisted my lifelong learning goals. It is a great education for us. I like to learn new things. When I complete some discoveries, I am so happy and feel so fun. But I need some pressure to learn, like this program processed timely. Otherwise I do not keep time to learn them.

Before I started this program, I just have two email accounts. Now I have created so many accounts, such as my blog, myspace, library thing, flicker, bloglines and YouTube …… My favorite things are myspace, flickr and YouTube. I am going to build up my really personal myspace after I complete 2.0 program. I will post more stuff in myspace with category. I will upload more pictures into flickr, so I can post more pictures to my blog.

I am surprised that I have learned so many popular things in such a short time. I won’t be afraid to help patron with these technology and resources. I am proud of myself now.

I always do my weekly lessons at home. I like to read the comments section, if I need help. It was really helpful. I really appreciate those responses for questions.

I hope KCLS will provide more programs or training like this. This is a great way for staff to keep learning new technologies. So our staff are able to help more for our patrons.

It is a great opportunity for me to learn web 2.0. I am so excited I learned a lot in this program. If there is next similar program, I like to see we will do these lessons slowly. Two or three lessons a week is too fast. That why some staff dropped out this program.

Exploring audio ebooks

This is the first time for me to explore audio Ebooks from KCLS. I went to overdrive catalog before but never search anything really. Today when I was doing my discovering exercise, I found server interesting items that I like to download once I get my mp3 player. I looked over different formats. Besides some good ebooks, I found some new video and classical music. I will download a Chinese video “Addicted” and Piano sonatas No 8, 14 & 23 from Beethoven. I will see how it works.

Podcast

Today I learned about podcast. I navigated in Podcast.net and listened to some podcasts in Library Channel.

It is a good idea to use podcast to make discussions, announcements, interviews, updated news … We may post some podcasts in our KCLS intranet for our staff or our website for our patrons. I am so interested in a podcast for the ASU library systems helpdesk. It answers questions on computer or internet problems for patrons.

But I feel it boring if I listen a long podcast for 15 minutes. You can not see anything, even a picture. And some audios on podcasts are not good. You can not hear it clearly. I like YouTube better. Because YouTube is a video. It is attractive.

Learning YouTube

I am so excited that l have learned YouTube today. It is new to me. It is so cool.

I think our library can use YouTube as a tool to share with our patron for all the programs. We can make some video clips in our activities and post them with YouTube on our website. So our patrons can see what activities we have had. I believe our patron will be interested.

Lists of Web 2.0 services

I discovered some services in the lists of Web 2.0 today. I chosen the Web2.0 Award nominees and played around with “Books”. I took the tour in LuLu. com. It shows people how to publish and sell books, E-books CDs, DVDs ... It is fast, easy and free. I don’t think we use can it for our library, but we can provide this resource for our patron if they need this information.

Then I got into the Biblio.com. This is the website for looking and buying used books and out-of –print books. The search function is very similar with our library system: search by author, by title, by keyword or ISBN and it also has advanced search. I think this website our library can use for our patron to buy books on line if we don’t have them in our library catalog. Especially for students need some textbooks or some people need the book that out-of-print. It has good deal to buy discount books or bargain books there. I think people will like it.

Google labs

Today I discovered Google labs. It provides a lot of interesting services. I went into some of them.

I found out that Google Reader has same functions and features as search reader – bloglines, which keeps track of your favorite websites, update the news, share with friends. We can use it anywhere for free.

Google Music Trends is a very nice website for music lover. You also can post your feedback and discuss songs on line.

Google Trends analyzes how many searches have been done for the terms you enter relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. It shows you a graph with the results .I am surprised to find out that Google Trends is also available in Chinese.

Most of these services can be used by our librarians for help patron. They are very good information resources. Some are the good resources for personal use such as Google Page Create and Picasa for Linux. I like to try Google Page Create to get my own website.

Google Docs and Zoho

Google Docs and Zoho are really good tools for online word processing and spreadsheet. They are so cool. All you need is set up your account. Create your file and save it online. You do not need to save your work on your disc or hard drive. Your file can accessed from any computer with internet access. What a good idea it is! I really like these two online software. I created both account and created a short file in each one. I feel I like Zoho better. It has more functions and features than Google Docs. It is very easy to edit a file. For Google Docs, I have no idea how to add or change a title for a file. It may have some way that I need to figure out.

We should encourage our patrons to use these free online software. They are so handy. I think everybody will like them.

Library 2.0

Library 2.0 is offering new services to our patrons to meet their needs in their daily lives. It is computer based service. It is very nice to the patrons that do not have computer and computer skills. But, our staff will be trained first. The new things such as PDA, MP3, the program such as Flicker, My Space, Face Book, del.icio.us, You Tube, Library Thing etc are new technology needed. If we don’t know them, how we can help out patron? After we get educated, we’ll help and educate patrons so they can spend as little time as possible struggling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning. That is what we like to see.

Search Engine

Today I learned search engines from internet. It is a fast way to get search results. Compare the resutlts from Rollyo and Google, I like Google better. I don't know why, but I like the display from Google. Maybe I use Google everyday, I get use to see its format. I created two search engines from Google. These are links:

www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=008273160616201770591%3Aqbkshsxjtw0

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=008273160616201770591%3Aolfdp8yfukm

Created a image

Today I learned how to create a image with the software "South Park Studio". It is so fun. I think this is a very good tool for a presentation. I also like "FD Toy". I like to use Cube tool for making some slide shows. It is very cool. I enjoy it.

Learning Wikis

This is the first time for me to know about Wikis. After I read some postings from websites, I am getting to know a Wiki is a website that lets multiple users add, remove and edit content. I like Meredith Farkas’s slide presentation and her article. I got some ideas from her:
1. a wiki allows a group of people to collaboratively develop a website.
2. do not need to have the knowledge of HTML or other markup languages.
3. anyone can add to edit content
4. flexible and extensible

But it has some disadvantage:

1. disorganized
2. too open
3. hard to control
4. may easy get vandalism and spam

The ideas I got from wiki is that our library can use it as a tool:
To create online communities between library and patron
To create an internal on line newspaper
To post information /announcement
To post handouts, tutorials, discussions suggestion and more
To take memos and conference for management

I really like our library to create online newspaper with wiki. It will be faster and easier for our staff to post news from each branch.

I've got a LibraryThing

By learning 27 things 2.0, I created an account for LibraryThing today. It is a great tool that I can catalog of my personal book collection on line. I like it has some good features and functions that provide every information about the book including image. It is really easy and simple to add books to my library and connect to other users who are reading the same book. It is so interesting.

Technorati

Today I claimed my blog with Technorati. I know my current blog is for learning 2.0 program only. It will not really for attracting people. I just want to do it as discovery exercise.

About Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that lets you save bookmarks to a central location. I really like this tool. Usually I only can access my bookmark from "favorites" on my computer at home. After I created my account for Del.icio.us, and bookmarked my favorite websites, I am able to access my favorite website from my working place and anywhere I can use internet. It's so handy. It's so cool.

I think if our libraries use this tool to bookmark some good reference websites in Del.icio.us, that will be fast and easy to assist patrons better. It's really helpful for reference resources.

Library and networking

I think it is good if libraries taking part in social networking sites such like "MySpace" and "Facebook" and offer opportunities to the users for information from library resource. But it may be good for teen librarians only. Because most users are young people. It is a good chance for teen librarians to reach these young people and show more information for them.

I don't think every library assistant or information librarians open "MySpace" and talk with teens there. Probably most staffs don't care to associate patrons on line. They like to help patrons face to face. It may not a popular way to use for library now.

Found more feeds today

For saving my time, I just used RSS search tools to find some feeds today. I like to use Feedster and Google Blog Search tools to find feeds. I feel they are easy, simply type the key words and search. I am so happy I found my favorite feeds such as cooking and gardening. The other search tools are not interested for me. Because they look like complicated. I don't know where to start searching. I may need more discoveries on them.
I took the easy way to add two library-themed blog to my Bloglines: Library Bytes and Librarian.net. I will read them for some library news which related to my work.

Learning RSS feeds

RSS is new to me. I never heard of it. Now I got chance to learn it from KCLS learning 27 things 2.0 program. I created my Bloglines account, subscribed some blogs as RSS feeds. But when I want to subscribe some feeds from websites, it is hard to find RSS icons there. I just found some from Seattle Post intelligence RSS link which provided by our program. I can see it is a fast way to get new information from the feeds. I am not sure I will take this advantage technology now but I like to learn it and I may use it in my work or personal life when I am ready.

My creation for a trading card

My creation
Originally uploaded by helenj610.

This is my first card created by using Trading Card Maker. It is so fun and so easy. I am so excited. I would like to make more later.

Beautiful Snow in Back Yard

Beautiful Snow in Back Yard
Originally uploaded by helenj610.

I am so glad to take this nice photo from my back yard. It is hard to see a heave snow in Seattle.

Little Pumpkin cake

Little Pumpkin cake
Originally uploaded by helenj610.

I really liked learning flickr and I was surprised at how easy it was to load photos.

I'm excited for the next lesson.

Test 1

This is a test for this URL.

My first blog 02/23/2007

Yeah! I created my blog today. I am so excited.

I am so glad that KCLS provided us this learning 2.0, an online learning program. I will learn 27 things such as Blogging, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. It's so fun! I hope I will get the Reward MP3 player when I complete the program.