My favorite things in 23things were: Podcasts, Wikis, del.icio.us, Library Thing, RSS, Bloglines, and Blogging.
23things has affected my lifelong learning goals by introducing me to technologies that I can use to keep me informed in many areas of interest: professional, academic and personal.
I take away from 23things that learning and using technology takes a lot of time and practice, but that it is worth the effort to remain abreast of new technologies and the world they created for the individual involved with them.
I would only suggest that more things, but each a bit smaller -- many small steps to success, would have helped many participants who were completely or almost completely new to many of the technologies. More, and smaller steps, extending the time span for completion of the 23things, would have helped many participants. Many participants gave up because they did not have the time at work to finish the projects. I spent a good bit of my personal time at home working on my 23things!
Yes, I would definitely participant in another similar project.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Audiobooks and the Digital Collection
It is great to have downloadable audiobooks and some audiobooks can even be burned onto a CD. However, the selection is somewhat small for avid users of audiobooks, the webpages are poorly designed, and many excerpts contain little or no material of the story or main text.
The excerpts are all two minutes in length. The excerpt for Atlas Shrugged contains no reading from the actual text of the story. We get two minutes of publication information, copyright information, length of book, number of chapters, and a reading of some of the material on the back cover of the book! This is virtually useless to someone who would naturally want to hear the quality of the writing, get a sense of the rhythm of the story, and the quality of the vocal characterizations and tonal interpretations of the reader.
11 Days in December includes actual story text, but the reader is really bad, very flat in his vocal interpretation of the text.
The Time Machine included actual story text, and had a much better vocal rendering of the text than 11 Days in December.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution included actual story text, and had a merely adequate vocal characterization of the text.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was at best mostly material not related to the text of the story itself -- unless one counts a short section which mostly is prefatory in nature as the start of the actual story.
The design of the webpage on which the books appear is very cramped and is in desperate need of redesign.
I like that audiobooks can be downloaded to mp3 players, and that some downloads can be copied onto CDs. But the smallness of the collection, the poor vocal renditions, and the poor design of the website clearly shows that the age of downloadable books is very much in its infancy in terms of collection quality -- which for audiobooks includes vocal interpretation of the text, collection quantity, and the design of the audiobook webpages.
The excerpts are all two minutes in length. The excerpt for Atlas Shrugged contains no reading from the actual text of the story. We get two minutes of publication information, copyright information, length of book, number of chapters, and a reading of some of the material on the back cover of the book! This is virtually useless to someone who would naturally want to hear the quality of the writing, get a sense of the rhythm of the story, and the quality of the vocal characterizations and tonal interpretations of the reader.
11 Days in December includes actual story text, but the reader is really bad, very flat in his vocal interpretation of the text.
The Time Machine included actual story text, and had a much better vocal rendering of the text than 11 Days in December.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution included actual story text, and had a merely adequate vocal characterization of the text.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was at best mostly material not related to the text of the story itself -- unless one counts a short section which mostly is prefatory in nature as the start of the actual story.
The design of the webpage on which the books appear is very cramped and is in desperate need of redesign.
I like that audiobooks can be downloaded to mp3 players, and that some downloads can be copied onto CDs. But the smallness of the collection, the poor vocal renditions, and the poor design of the website clearly shows that the age of downloadable books is very much in its infancy in terms of collection quality -- which for audiobooks includes vocal interpretation of the text, collection quantity, and the design of the audiobook webpages.
Invasion of the Podcasts!
I enjoyed searching for podcasts. The number and variety is quite amazing.
Of the three podcast sites we had to search, I liked Podcast Alley the best. It seems to have a greater variety of podcasts than NPR Podcast Directory or Library of Congress podcasts.
From Podcast Alley, I subscribed to Library Geeks podcast because I like technology. Their website is: One Big Library
From the NPR Podcast Directory, I subscribed to the NPR Book Tour podcast because I like books read and discussed by their authors and because non-fiction was included. Their website is: NPR Book Tour
I did not subscribe to the Library of Congress podcast of the National Book Festival 2008 because, quite frankly, it did not interest me.
I did add one extra podcast. I am interested in health and nutrition, so I also subscribed to The Gary Null Show Podcast, a podcast whose host is a well known authority on health and the politics of welbeing. His website is: Gary Null: Your Guide to Natural Living.
There are many podcasts that I think I might really enjoy, but I think that picking these few to start with is better than being overwhelmed by too large a selection.
Of the three podcast sites we had to search, I liked Podcast Alley the best. It seems to have a greater variety of podcasts than NPR Podcast Directory or Library of Congress podcasts.
From Podcast Alley, I subscribed to Library Geeks podcast because I like technology. Their website is: One Big Library
From the NPR Podcast Directory, I subscribed to the NPR Book Tour podcast because I like books read and discussed by their authors and because non-fiction was included. Their website is: NPR Book Tour
I did not subscribe to the Library of Congress podcast of the National Book Festival 2008 because, quite frankly, it did not interest me.
I did add one extra podcast. I am interested in health and nutrition, so I also subscribed to The Gary Null Show Podcast, a podcast whose host is a well known authority on health and the politics of welbeing. His website is: Gary Null: Your Guide to Natural Living.
There are many podcasts that I think I might really enjoy, but I think that picking these few to start with is better than being overwhelmed by too large a selection.
Do You YouTube?
YouTube is an amazing video website. There is an enormous amount of material on YouTube. A potential problem is spending too much time surfing YouTube, and also using up a lot of bandwidth. There are also issues regarding copyright and inappropriate material.
You can create a free account on YouTube. This lets you set up a favorites listing, and also upload your own videos to YouTube.
I enjoyed looking at YouTube. I like the feature that presents videos similar to the one I am looking at -- these are shown in video sidebar to the right of the page. This often produces very interesting leads.
Libraries can benefit from using YouTube. Libraries can get their own YouTube accounts and upload instructional material, or they can host these videos on their own servers. Libraries could even have contests were patrons create their own instructional videos -- winners based on popularity, voting by patron library card number.
Video instruction on the use of the OPAC, databases, referenced websites, and classes would help more patrons to learn about our resources and services -- that is, so long as these videos are entertaining, creative, clear, short and easy to understand.
I searched for: palm beach county library, on YouTube and got about 41 hits. Here's Dr John C. Callahan III, the Director of our library system making a presentation:
You can create a free account on YouTube. This lets you set up a favorites listing, and also upload your own videos to YouTube.
I enjoyed looking at YouTube. I like the feature that presents videos similar to the one I am looking at -- these are shown in video sidebar to the right of the page. This often produces very interesting leads.
Libraries can benefit from using YouTube. Libraries can get their own YouTube accounts and upload instructional material, or they can host these videos on their own servers. Libraries could even have contests were patrons create their own instructional videos -- winners based on popularity, voting by patron library card number.
Video instruction on the use of the OPAC, databases, referenced websites, and classes would help more patrons to learn about our resources and services -- that is, so long as these videos are entertaining, creative, clear, short and easy to understand.
I searched for: palm beach county library, on YouTube and got about 41 hits. Here's Dr John C. Callahan III, the Director of our library system making a presentation:
YouTube, TheyTube, We-all-Tube
Well, not really, but with the variety and quantity of videos on YouTube, it can seem like that at times. I am a relatively late comer to YouTube. This is due, for the most part, to the bad publicity that YouTube always seems to be getting in the media -- copyright issues, videos of beatings, slanderous videos, to name a few
I decided to explore YouTube and found, quite to the contrary, that YouTube is full of great videos both entertaining and educational. In addition, the recent elections show that YouTube can play an important roll in grassroots politics.
I decided to explore YouTube and found, quite to the contrary, that YouTube is full of great videos both entertaining and educational. In addition, the recent elections show that YouTube can play an important roll in grassroots politics.
YouTube is quite apt for library use.
For example, Chad Boeninger, in his Biz Wiki Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, included a video introduction of himself and his wiki. This created a very welcoming impression and hopefully helped students feel more comfortable using the wiki and contacting Mr. Boeninger.
Another example is the YouTube instructional video producer Commoncraft. One of their videos was used in the Wiki section of 23things, and another two appeared in my blog on RSS. These videos are simple, short, and very clear.
These sort of instructional videos would greatly help patrons learn how to use the resources available at our library.
Here's a short clip from YouTube. It's a cute advertisement:
Monday, July 14, 2008
Zoho Writer -- Online Word Processing
Zoho Writer has an impressive pallet of features. You will need to establish a free account before you can access and use Zoho Writer.
Zoho Writer's icon's were easily understandable. The icons were similiar to the stardard icons that appear on MicroSoft Word 2003. Still, an explanation of each icon, and of the many other features that Zoho Writer brings to the user, would be a useful addition. Zoho sometimes will promote demos, but it mostly does not highlight them, and sometimes they do not seem to be present at all. Tutorials would be nice considering the power of the Zoho suites.
Zoho has a tremendous array of free applications in addition to Zoho Writer -- see: Zoho for its large suite of free productivity and collaboration applications, and for its added suite of free business applications. Zoho even has blogs regarding its many applications -- see Zoho Blogs.
You will need to go online and look for general introductions to Zoho Writer. There do not seem to be any onboard their website. Zoho provides a very powerful set of free tools that are web-based many of which are collaborative. Most of its tools are free, some trigger a fee for business users -- Zoho Creator, some trigger a fee based on the number of users -- Zoho CRM.
Google Docs is less robust than the Zoho suite of products, but it is also easier to use, and Google clearly promotes two brief introductions: one in a slide-show-like format, another as a YouTube video. The video lets you know that Google Docs are collaborative, and that they include a word processing program, a spreadsheet, and a slide presentation application.
Overall, both Zoho and Google Doc prove that high quality, free office and business applications are available at either no cost or at a very small price. They are two good choices for the cost and quality minded consumer.
Zoho Writer's icon's were easily understandable. The icons were similiar to the stardard icons that appear on MicroSoft Word 2003. Still, an explanation of each icon, and of the many other features that Zoho Writer brings to the user, would be a useful addition. Zoho sometimes will promote demos, but it mostly does not highlight them, and sometimes they do not seem to be present at all. Tutorials would be nice considering the power of the Zoho suites.
Zoho has a tremendous array of free applications in addition to Zoho Writer -- see: Zoho for its large suite of free productivity and collaboration applications, and for its added suite of free business applications. Zoho even has blogs regarding its many applications -- see Zoho Blogs.
You will need to go online and look for general introductions to Zoho Writer. There do not seem to be any onboard their website. Zoho provides a very powerful set of free tools that are web-based many of which are collaborative. Most of its tools are free, some trigger a fee for business users -- Zoho Creator, some trigger a fee based on the number of users -- Zoho CRM.
Google Docs is less robust than the Zoho suite of products, but it is also easier to use, and Google clearly promotes two brief introductions: one in a slide-show-like format, another as a YouTube video. The video lets you know that Google Docs are collaborative, and that they include a word processing program, a spreadsheet, and a slide presentation application.
Overall, both Zoho and Google Doc prove that high quality, free office and business applications are available at either no cost or at a very small price. They are two good choices for the cost and quality minded consumer.
Wiki Sandbox Fun
I enjoyed adding my favorite book and some of my favorite movies to the PBCLS Wiki Sandbox. It was also fun to look at what books and movies were picked as favorites. I also enjoyed looking a favorite URLs.
The PBCLS Wiki Sandbox shows the power of Wikis to provide information that has risen to the status of a favorite -- and hopefully the quality which that status suggests.
It was also interesting to see the PBwiki creator in action and its potential for educational purposes.
The PBCLS Wiki Sandbox shows the power of Wikis to provide information that has risen to the status of a favorite -- and hopefully the quality which that status suggests.
It was also interesting to see the PBwiki creator in action and its potential for educational purposes.
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