Thing 21 Student 2.0 Tools

Student 2.0 tools look very useful to help one organize themselves when they need to write a paper. The sets up step by step the things one should think about when preparing to write a research paper like reading the instructions to understand the assignment, how to go about choosing a topic, tips for creating a research statement, tips on creating an outline, tips on writing the first draft. Really everything you've probably already learned to do in all your English courses. It's a very helpful reminder because there's so many steps in writing a research paper that one might forget one but in these sites it's all outline in at least 5 to 12 simple steps. Very handy tool to use for any high school or college student.

I thought the Minnesota 5 student Researching Planning guide looked very helpful. It was simple and to the point. The worksheet formulated 5 questions using the 5 steps question, gather, conclude, communicate, evaluate to help start the thinking process for the paper. I can see students using it because it doesn't take much time to scribble down some quick ideas. The narrowing a topic using a general to specific triangle also looked useful because one can visually see the direction and the shape their research paper will take. I know when I choose a research topic my professors would complain when the topic seemed to general so I can see a lot of students wanting to use to him formulate a topic. The Teacher Guide had a lot of useful visual worksheets with all kinds of charts that can be very helpful for those that can't write out a paper without seeing it visually.

Thing 20 Books 2.0

The internet is like creating a new language. Those that oppose it don’t know the language and those that are for it sees potential in it. Standardized tests are outdated. When I had taken my Anthropology of Race class I learned how the IQ test was bias. The point of the IQ test is to measure one’s intelligence. Its popular test today but not many know that its origins stem from racial and cultural bigotry. Most importantly everyone keeps asking how can one measure intelligence if they can’t even define what it is? It has been argued that the internet has single handedly ruined reading scores. But maybe like the IQ test we need to reevaluate or redefine standardized tests to incorporate the language of the internet. People haven’t stopped reading, how people read is what has changed. So the internet can’t really be blamed. The internet doesn’t use big fancy words like flabbergasted or befuddled. It uses simple concise English to get to the point. But in a sense we do that every day when we speak to people. People might say there are things in a book that one can’t learn from the internet. But no one learns things the same way as the person sitting next to them. It’s what makes the human race special because if we all thought the same way we’d probably still think the earth was at the center of the solar system. Some people are going to prefer the internet and some might be old fashion and prefers books, it’s mostly a personal preference when you think about it.

Surfing Reading Trails, Readerville and several other sites listed in thing 20 has what seems like an endless list of books. While I was on Reading Trails I did a search on Twilight and the results showed a long list of people who have the book in their list as well as other books related to that specific top. Got to love booklists! I never knew there were so many sites on the internet just for book related information. I wish someone told me about Book Swim! Renting college books for a low price would have saved me tons of money! (That sounded way to much like the Geico commercials…) No due dates, no late fees, free postage for return deliveries! Seriously why is it always the case that you learn about something that could have been useful to you after the fact? I’m betting that not many teens know about these sites either. I think that might also be one of the reasons why teens prefer the internet. They don’t always know about resources available to them. I bet if some of this information was posted somewhere on the library website or the library teen myspace site, teens would notice it a lot more since they spend so much time searching for things on the internet. I think I’m willing to start a movement to beg to get someone who’s willing to post free available resources because it would such a shame to let it go to waste.

Since I’ve started working in the library I had notice one thing that I never knew about and thought was the saddest thing in the world to me. While working in the children’s department parents would sometimes come up to me and say I need help finding a book and the audio version so they can hear the story while they read it because I don’t have time to read to them. If their parents don’t have time for them what’s stopping them from saying why not go on the internet because there is more on there to do to entertain them? I bet you can even get the internet to read to them too. The internet seems to have everything these days. The internet is part of everyday life but I don’t think that books are going to the way of the dodos. Books can still be useful.

Thing 19 Other Social Networks

For this assignment I tried Shelfari. I had some issues adding books because when I pick the book it would some times show up as another book once on my shelf. I thought it was somewhat weird but every site has it's quirks. The Internet can't be perfect. I was able to do a number of things. Add books I've read, own, will read, and what I'm reading at the moment. I was able to mark which books were my favorite and write reviews for one or two of them. There were some books I couldn't remember off the top of my head but when I looked under "Explore" than "Most popular" I was able to spot a couple more books to add to my list. I think this site will be very useful to me because I can look up books that I'm thinking about reading to see what people wrote about and thought about them. Plus looking up most popular help me spot books I haven't heard about yet. I think is a useful site for book lovers.

Other sites mentioned in thing 19 that I recognized was Project Play list. It's a great music tool that I used on my myspace account a couple times in the past. It's a site where I can search for music and create a playlist or a list of music that I enjoy listing to. Plus you can make more than one list and you can name each list whatever you want. The last time I used it I believe it came in a varity of style options. As I said before I used it on my myspace. I would create a list of songs that I enjoyed, copied the code, than added it to my myspace account. I'm not sure if it still does it, I'm sure it probably does, but every time I went on to project playlist if I were to delete a song and add another it would automatically make the changes on my myspace account as well so that I didn't have to copy the code and add it again. Very use tool but I don't use it any more because I found another site, myflashfetish.com, which works just like project playlist only I think their designs are a little more innovated. As you see from my little ninja music player at the bottom right side of my blog, that is just one of my options. I could choose the colors for my ninja or I could pick a music player that looks like a teddy bear nodding it's head in tone with the music, or a music player that looks like an ipod, or an eighties retro cassette. All of which you can change up the colors of style of the music players background.

New Features on Myspace

Hi y'all. You don't have to have Tom as a friend. I see my friends delete him as a friend all the time. But I haven't because that's the best way to get the latest updates on myspace. Here's a link from Tom's blogs on the latest new gadgets myspace is featuring. I love the new things they're doing for photo editing. It's great to have a one stop option. Hope the link works... o.O

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=6221&blogID=479027241

Thing 18 Facebook and Myspace

I've had a myspace account for many years. If I had to roughly estimate when it was during the time I started college, about four years ago. I suppose I must have been living in my closet because my friend went on and on about it but for the life of me I couldn't understand what she was talking about. That's when I got my first crash course in myspace. She told me that it was a social network place and that I had to sign up for an account so that we could keep in touch. I had left Orlando to go to school up in Gainesville. I figured the request was reasonable and opened up and an account. I didn't fall in love with it right away. It looked rather plain and the only person I had that were friends were her and Tom. Over the years more and more people I had once gone to school with started finding me on myspace so I started to use it more often. I spiced up my layout and tried to add as many personal touches to make it feel more like me. But my myspace is set to private so most people don't have a lot to go on other than my display picture. I suppose lucky for them I'm so recognizable because it seems like I haven't aged a day since I was 13. All the same I'm always amazed by people finding me even if we haven't spoken in almost a decade. I prefer to have only friends and family on my myspace and an occasional comic site (I'm a big comic fan after all). I try to avoid strangers but some times people will come along and say they know me and have a picture to prove it but I still can't recall them. It's kind of hard to keep track of people when you've been to so many schools. So it can't be helped if I have a few mystery people here and there, it's worked out ok so far.


Since I already have a myspace I decided to open up a facebook and explore. I added some of the friends that I already had on myspace on to my facebook account. Apparently it's not uncommon to belong to several social networks. For some reason it just makes the world seem like such a smaller place. I had signed up for an account about a month or so ago and really found myself somewhat enjoying it. However, lately they have recently made so upgrades so I'm finding myself lost once again.

With myspace I can go to several different sites to find a layout or I can even tinker with the xhtml codes and design one of my very own. Right now the design on myspace is my own. In the background is a huge panda bear showing it's back to the viewer and underneath it is a much smaller panda with it's head poking out. The modules have a supergirl motif to it as well. My layout is simply put together. Nothing to flashy and not to much clutter. I hate clutter on a web page. It ruins the visual effect. When I asked my friends about layout designs on facebook they sneer at me and said what for? Supposedly grownups don't need flashy designs. I must have missed the memo for that. I wasn't at all satisfied with the plain layout and went in search for layout designs for facebook. I actually found some! But there was a downside. Unlike myspace where you can tinker with the xhtml and post with facebook you have to download some kind of software or other so that any layout you choose can be visual. At least on your computer that is. If your friend doesn't download it they would never notice your layout designs. I thought that was a load of stinky cheese if you ask me.

On myspace you have 4 options to converse. There's email, blog, comment, and bulletin. Email is standard, it's a personal note from you to your friend. No one else get's to see it. Blogs are notes you post that are attached to your myspace page. These are just one's personal thoughts that friends can view if the mood strikes them and they stay posted up unless you delete them. Comments are notes you post on your friends myspace page where they and they're friends can view. Bulletins are alerts that go out to all your friends so that if you have a message you want to send out at once it's easy then contacting them one at a time. With facebook? Good grief I'm not exactly sure. With my facebook some times I'll write a note and then my cousin comes along and posts a comment but when I reply back its on my page not hers so how does she know she's been responded too? Some times I'll write notes about books that I've read or moods that I'm in and I'll have one person comment on one thing while another is commenting on another so I'm trying to respond to both and before long I have no idea where the heck I'm at. Facebook also has email and instant messager. Maybe I'm just to use to myspace but for me it just seems more easier to communicate than on facebook.

I joined facebook apps for librarians and I've visited the Alachua County Library District myspace page to explore what these sites have to offer to the library. Both sites are useful resources for providing knowledge to librarians and patrons alike. With myspace the lastest news for ones library is neatly posted and organized providing fast facts like NEFLIN's 23 Things and other local events. It even has video on bookmobiles and that one video about what we do at the library with the fun music and all the people I recognize from work. Also what Erin did with that one myspace page was very hip!

Even though I hear more and more people signing up for facebook and look down on myspace I think I'm always going to prefer myspace. In matters on design and organization of how people communicate I think myspace has facebook beat hands down.

Thing 17 Podcast

I explored several podcast's and preferred using podcast.com the most. It was a lot simpler to use. I just went under browse our podcast collection and selected books, than comics, than DC. I found pages on options to choose from. I especially enjoyed the one called "Superman World of New Krypton." The following is a link to the podcast:
http://books.podcast.com/episode/35796596/13350/

I wouldn't want to make my own podcast however. I'm not much for a broadcaster. Just thinking about how many people tuning in gives me stage fright! I know it's a weird way of thinking about it but can't help it. But I wouldn't mind subscribing to the one for comics and whatever else I find.

In Response to Erin's Comment for thing 9

This is in response to Erin's comment for my thing 9. I was having issues with databases and she recommended that I try Blist. So here it is! Sorry Erin that I'm responding like 2 weeks later! Just needed to think about how I could use it for the library.

I used Blist to create a list of possible books to use for a display I've been thinking about called "All a Fluttered." It's a display about birds.

Display: All a Flutter

Get your own blist widget

Thing 16 YouTube

Attached is a video clip of the library scene from Gone with the Wind. It's a classic scene from the movie and plus it's got books in it. It's the best of both worlds. I think Scarlet was out of her mind to not instantly fall in love with Rhett Butler. It took the whole movie for her to realize it. Tisk Tisk...



So what did I think of youtube? Well not much I normally go to sites like veoh.com or http://www.crunchyroll.com/ because I think the video isn't as fuzzy or grainy. I found a video clip on youtube with the Cookie Monster in the library (the blue puppet from Sememe Street). But the volume was so low that even with no one moving and the volume turned up to the max it couldn't be heard. Youtube can be handy but the quality isn't always the best. There's a million of these sites out there, I think, that have more to offer.

What I did notice was that there were over 2,000 videos that came up under the search for library tours. I think that can be useful to a library. You can show the patrons around while they are in the comfort of their own homes. It might entice them to get up and visit their local libraries! The wackier the video the more interesting the library might seem. Like this library tour done by Haper College library!



We could probably make our on videos to promote the summer reading programs too. All we need is a camcorder, a director, and actors! ^O^

Thing 15 Rollyo

I went to Rollyo and created a search engine for children's literature using sites like:

www.randomhouse.com
www.kidsreads.com
childrensbooksonline.org
www.cbcbooks.org
www.harpercollinschildrens.com/harperchildrenschildrensbooksforparents.com
www.slco.lib.ut.us/children.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

It's a handy research tool because you can create a list of all the research sites you normally go but instead of going to each one at a time you can go all at once. Very useful for patrons at the library that have a hard time figuring out where to begin their search.

A link to my Rollyo

Thing 14 Online Productivity

I choose to use pageflakes as my homepage. Mostly because it had the myspace and facebook features along with it. I could pretty much do the whole assignment from it. It had a link to my bookmarks from delicious. It had a sticky note option. It had a To Do list option for creating lists. I could get news feeds from diggs. It also had box net online storage where I can upload documents and save it on to it. I thought it was pretty handy. Even so I did try 30 Boxes calendar and I loved that fact that the calendar was huge. I hate it when computers try to use fine print on you. It's a huge screen why on god's beautiful green earth would you want to only use a third of it and make yourself go blind? It was simple and easy to use. I don't need any fluff. I also used Tada and created a book list of random books I've seen recently this week while putting away books. I say by far though pageflakes had the most uses for me. It had a ton of features that we've already gone through so far in Neflin's 23 things. Plus the Tada list will do wonders for me when I'm creating new display's. I simply listen to my Jimmy Cricket(that's Pinocchio's little fella right?...) to give me an idea for a new display than use Tada to create a list of books that I can use for that display. When the display runs low on books I just pull out my handy dandy list and get the books. Don't have to hassle through the cataloger because I'll already know where to look.

Thing 13 Library Thing

Well I can put some of the books I own on it but I couldn't find everything. Well books were easy to find but not comics, or magazines. I mean yes I was able to find some it's just that not much of it had a picture to go along with it. I like having a picture to go with it. I'm a very visual person. Just a personal preference.

Creating book lists can help people narrow people search for specific types of books that match their interests whether it be for vampires or dogs. It's also very handy to keep organized. You can create lists of summer reading, or most popular books, or classic books, etc.

Truth be told, I only knew of books a million on 13th and Newberry, Barnes and Nobles at archer and the library. Never knew there were so many places that were book related. Maybe I did but it never sinked in I guess.

Thing Twelve Wikis

What did you find interesting about the wiki concept?

I've heard about how wiki can be used to build on previous knowledge. I always assumed it was for educational purposes, not really everyday life. So after watching the short video clip in regards to email vs wiki I felt enlightened. As if I were whacked with a stupid pillow (yes pillow because a stick would hurt)!

What types of applications within libraries and schools might work well with a wiki?

I believe the youth services department is using wikis for book lists. For example, a list for displays created and a summer reading list. I'm sure there's tons of other uses they are employing but that's beyond my knowledge at the moment.

Many teachers/faculty "ban" Wikipedia as a source for student research. What do you think of the practice of limiting information by format?

When I went to college I remember all my professors banned wikis as a research tool because they felt it was not a reliable source. I'm not sure why it's not consider a reliable source. It's viewed by it's peers and critiqued is it not? What gives an individuals judgment more authority over another? In a way wikis always seemed like someone else doing the research and providing a summary of what they took away from it. But that's there opinion; if I were to read it I might take something else away from it. Maybe what my professors hoped I would learn is that some times it's better getting it straight from the horse's mouth.

Which wiki did you edit?

neflins23things wiki