Week 9: youtube etc

My embedded youtube video. What more can I say? No, seriously, once long ago I tried to make a Powerpoint presentation about fiction genre for the kids in my school library, but it never amounted to much because they never got me a data projector, did they? But I can see having a lot of fun getting the kids to do little videos, all dressed up, to illustrate horror, adventure, fantasy. I can imagine having a youtube channel set up for children to use in public libraries, tailored to the community, to get kids excited about reading.

In fact, many schools already use podcasts as a way to share stories and research with other classes (and other schools), using educational blog sites. Podcasting is cheap and fast.

I've added an rss feed for the NPR's health and science podcasts, but the truth is, I don't actually like listening to them. Don't like audio books, either, I'd much rather read the stuff.

Week 9: youtube etc

Week 8: online applications, polymer clay, and blue people

I promised my boss I would finish this dang thing! When I began re-reading the different 'things' I realized that in the course of the last six months I had explored far more than I knew - laid up for weeks and now virtually unemployed. There is a pile of polymer clay on the desk next to me that I am itching to play with - an attempt at some faux african turquoise - be patient, lovely clay.

I'm typing this up in zoho writer and will attempt to export it to my blog. I've already used Google docs, I had an MFp or Pdr or whatever it is on Google docs. Blue people? I came across another online collaborative publishing tool this morning called Scribd, while looking for references to the blue people of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. By the time I'd finished the post, explored Scribd, decided I might try uploading a couple of children's stories I'd written, etc, etc, I'd completely forgotten why I was looking up blue people in the first place!

Back through my browsing history. Turns out I was looking for different formulae to mimic turquoise in polymer clay, found a blog devoted to colour, read a post about blue people, well, couldn't pass that up. Turns out there really is an inbred family in Kentucky who carried a recessive gene that gave their skin a bluish cast. Wow, polymer clay, blue people, human genetics, a new web2 app, all in one morning! Crikey, the morning is almost gone!

Hey! It worked! Here I am in blogger.

Had a look at some other apps that I hadn't seen before, decided to play with Piknik, a photo editing and sharing tool. Fun to play with, I see it as having value for school librarians in particular to share ideas for displays and book week celebrations. Piknik edited photo above.

Social networking week 7, what a pain

A few months ago a young friend bullied me into setting up a Facebook page and I inadvertantly tagged all my gmail contacts as friends - whoops, ended up with my ex as a friend (which begs the question, why did he confirm me as a friend?) So now my young friend occasionally posts embarrassing entries on my wall in the hopes of annoying him. Dear, dear.

Social networking is fun?

Social networking is dangerous. It has already been implicated in at least one well-publicised suicide. It's fun enough when used innocently, but has become a new way to bully that out-classes anything before.



Oh, one odd bit of small world trivia - Hennepin County Library was once my home library system. Long ago and far away, the little library on the prairie, now all grown up on facebook.

Technorati and delicious

So I had a look at delicious and decided to install it on my home computer - next day I booted up and voila! all personal data gone! Whoo-hoo! Restored it to a checkpoint before the delicious load and it was fine. It might have been a coincidence but I'm not going there again. I have all the bookmarks I want, anyway, and why would I want to share them?


Seriously, I can see the value of having controlled public tagging and bookmarking within a school, a library or other organization, but has anyone actually done any research into whether it's any better, or faster, or easier, than systems that already exist? Sites such as Facebook, youtube, and bebo already provide widespread invasion of privacy and accompanying bullying. Just because the stuff is there, does it make it good?


Oh, had a look at technorati, too, but explorer crashed before I'd done anything much.

Wikiing

Wikipedia is an amazing place - I get the Wiki How-to of the day feed on my iGoogle page. Learn how to make a duct tape mini skirt, or convert a silver coin into a ring. Great stuff, lots of fun. The idea of a universal collaborative knowledge bank is thrilling, but it has a long way to go yet. As a former school librarian, I've seen Wikipedia at its worst - little kids who do not have the prior knowledge or discrimination to question what they find. If it's on the internet it must be true, right? That's dangerous

On the other hand, I think I can see many uses for a wiki in a school setting. (sorry, I've only just left the school setting, it's what I know best!) I can see the kids doing a wiki for the school library; how to use the library from a kid's perspective, subject guides ditto, common topics, common mispellings!

Added my link to Manukau library wiki, and a favourite books post

Another Rant, wk 4 technology oog

My favorite bit of technology, let's see, cell phones? Allow you to keep in touch with every inane update possible? (like, I kid you not, "I'm walking down the hill toward my car. I'll be there in a minute or 2") How about Skype? Gosh, lets you talk to people all over the world, just like - wait a minute, long distance phone calls! How about Flickr? Wow, you can inflict 146 photos of your family Christmas on the entire world! How about Facebook? beats picking up a phone, you can keep in touch with your step-brother's step-son's girlfriend whom you've never met! Gosh, I love it all!

Seriously, I do love the internet. I use it on a daily basis to keep in touch with distant family, do research, find patterns and diy info, pursue obscure interests - just today I used it to settle that not all ginger cats are toms. Fancy that. But we are in danger of allowing it to become more than just a tool to use when necessary. It isn't, and shouldn't be, a way of life. We might be taking the whole thing too seriously.

So, my favourite bit of technology? The little machine that allows diabetics to track and store their blood sugar levels in seconds and as needed - now that's technology.