Wrap-up

After attending the webinar, I revisited Animoto to create a little Mother's Day slide show for my Mom. Looking back at my blog and the notes I've taken during 23 Things, I can see how much more comfortable I've gotten with trying new tools. As I've told my co-workers, I look forward to applying what I've learned in the future. :)

jingalingaling!

Today I caught with week 12: Screencasting. After a few rough (unscripted) runs, Darla and I made Coco's_Request__Starring_Sandy_and_Darla starring the lovely Coco Cabana. Savvy viewers will notice my typo! Audiences and critics alike will agree, this is a great information tool. We had fun making this. Thumbs up 23 Things Kansas! I'll be wrapping up with the webinar tonight. Huzzah!

almost there!

Today I created a page on the 23 Things Kansas wiki. My apologies to the folks in the background who I couldn't crop out - Piknic just wasn't having it. Like many, I am happy I had the chance to try out so many fun things via 23 Things!

"shockingly easy"

That's how Animoto bills itself, and it's true. I used Animoto to create a slideshow I find unintentionally funny. Want to know how to dance to fur-covered dishes? Look no further than here.

It would be fun and easy to use Animoto, etc. to showcase photos from library events, especially if patrons have a hand in the creation!

Shelfari!

Today I joined Shelfari. I chose it for its simple format and eye appeal (this looks way better than the plain-jane reading spreadsheet I've been keeping since 2009!) I added one book I've read, one I'm currently reading and one I plan to read just to get started.

Between 23things and last week's KLA convention, I've got so many fun ideas and tools to explore and re-visit! (Still can't get into Twitter though...maybe someday, maybe not.) My screencasting exercise will be a collaborative one, hopefully executed in a week. My goal is to be caught up on everything else by then too.

I'd like to thank the Academy

Catching up...
I IM'd via my gmail accounts and made this piece of silliness using a video already on my camera and iMovie. (I'd never used iMovie before. Can you tell?)
I was going to figure out how to remove the original sound, but I think leaving it in adds to the silliness. It's here exclusively. Ta-da!

week 10 - video sharing (pt 1)

I love the idea of a screencast on library catalog use! I should explore the possibilities of this, now that I've had so much practice with the live show. :)

For this week's thing, I took the suggestion of finding a video on YouTube about my favorite hobby very seriously. For a few days after we sprung ahead, my favorite hobby was sleep! I watched several videos of animals falling asleep and came across something much better - a cute animal, a silly video, and dance music all in one (all of which I find very helpful in waking up!)

I intend to complete/post part two (and last week's thing, IM) in the very near future. Happy almost-Spring!

week 8 - cloud computing

Getting started with this week's activity was a bit of a challenge. To come up with something from scratch, using the cloud intentionally, left me stumped. I ended up joining a few other collaborations: one a slideshow (fun with co-workers) and one a poetry project (cut-up tweets), both using Google Docs. This was fun.

I have only revisited Twitter and Delicious occasionally in the past few weeks, and I've all but forgotten Buzz (never set up a full Google profile anyway; currently doubt I will.) However, I've spent a little more time playing with other Google features - i.e. adding and deleting feeds; using docs.

Week 7 = microblogging

Hello there!
I'd never set up a Twitter account, thinking I wouldn't have much to tweet. I can now see myself becoming a user who primarily follows others (I thought that sounded a bit "lurky" until I found out other people do it too.) I really enjoyed the Clay Shirky video - I know Twitter is for more than just mundane updates, but he fleshed that idea out much further.
To answer more of this week's questions, yes, this was super-easy to set up. I started following my library and local news, and I sent requests to some e-mail contacts. I don't know that I have immediate professional need to tweet beyond what my library does already - we utilize both Twitter and Facebook regularly. As for personal use, probably the same connectedness/news-following uses that most people have.
While I'm here, I'll say 23 Things Kansas is great! I always learn something and have jotted down ideas (yep, I still jot) of what to re-visit in the future. In addition to the core lessons, I'm always exposed to some feature or news source that wasn't previously familiar to me. My 23 Things-time happens to be at the beginning of my library workweek, and it's always a good time.

Week 6: Social Bookmarking

Must finish up this week's activities on my computer at home...coming soon. :)
* * *
OK, that was fun! I found the two hours devoted to 23things this week really flew - so many videos and tangents to explore. I finally shared w/Rebecca and did get her username showing as a tag, which some other participants had commented on.

I created a bundle (small for now) including a blog that I follow via Google Reader, just to see how that would look. It's interesting that I can tag from different angles using both an aggregator and social bookmarking, if I'm feeling really tag-happy.

~week 5: rss & feed readers~

I'm happy this week's topic is RSS. I already have a handful of subscriptions via Google Reader, and I've been meaning to play around more with the "discover" feature, add feeds, manage my current subscriptions, etc. This is perfect timing for me. And with the recent launch of Buzz, I have a feeling my inbox will be the gateway to where I spend more of my online time. Stephen Abram said something in the archived webinar that I watched a few weeks back about letting the information "wash over you", and I really like that idea. It beats the "I don't know where to start" thought I had when I ignored my reader for a few days and came back to hundreds of new items!

For today's activity, I watched several of Drew Noah's videos via the links on 23thingskansas and beyond. I found some of the later segments particularly helpful. I paused the videos to hop over to my reader to do things like put all the 23 Things users' blogs that I follow into one folder, and I learned more about features like tagging. It will be fun to explore more and customize different ways of organizing information. I also explored some recommended items and read up on some of Google's own reader-related articles. I'll continue to add, organize and enjoy more feeds...

week 4 = photosharing!

Aha! I knew it. I knew I had at least two small (non-Facebook) photo collections out there. And they're all attached to an e-mail account I've since closed! Of course I don't remember any of those passwords, either. I set these up before I had a decent, not-built-into-my-laptop camera (my phone took rather crummy pictures, so I wasn't too motivated...) point is, I can't log in to any of that now. As I'm doing 23 Things at work, sans camera, I'll be taking Option A for this week: perusing others' images and commenting on the experience here.

Of course the list of search ideas was meant as a springboard, but how could I see the words "library cats" and not have a look? Oh look, I found something cute, imagine that. (Please pretend it is here and not off to the side. Thank you.) This photo was taken by eyemage. We have similar cats.

For today, I'm looking around flickr and reading about things I can do when I set up a new account (such as posting my photos from flickr to my blog, embedding slideshows etc.)

My old flickr account is still out there, there being here:

Week 3 ~ Webinars

For this week's "thing", I watched the archived webinar "25 Technologies to Watch and How", originally presented by Stephen Abram back on 1/31/08. Stephen actually presented about 30 technologies/ideas to "watch" (including podcasts, presence management, and tools like Google Reader) as well as wrap-up advice for using them (namely, play!) I enjoyed the mix of ideas presented and agree this was a helpful suggestion for this week's Thing, although much of it is already long-familiar...how things change...

My past experience with webinars has been sitting in a conference room watching hour-long presentations for single-dose continuing ed. I've never attended one that didn't teach me anything, and I much prefer having something to look at - sitting in a darkened room with only a voice can dull my focus. "25 Technologies..." utilized very simple slideshow-style topic headings, which worked fine for me because I could jot down an idea or look away without missing anything.

I prefer face-to-face presentations for the immediate interaction, brainstorming potential and sponteniety. I'm just and old-fashioned girl. This bias aside, webinars are super-useful and I'll use them more (thanks to 23 Things for posting the huge lists of archives!) I think webinars are invaluable and will proliferate even more over the next ten years. I feel like this is a very stock, college-entrance-exam sort of answer, but really, I don't think they're going away.

Week two!

Hello! I haven't updated my blog yet, and it's time I posted something here.
I'm really excited about 23 Things. This gives me a great way to get exposure to so many useful tools - some that I've used, and some I know nothing about! Tomorrow I'll be starting Week Two with some co-workers here in Lawrence.

In the past week, this was one of the most enjoyable things to grace my inbox. Enjoy!

Also, just for practice and fun, that's another picture of my cat.

PART II: Just posted a link to this blog on Facebook and am now writing about facebook on this blog. My experience with FB so far is pretty basic...I joined a little over a year ago, and I generally log in briefly each day. I'll read the most recent items in my feed and do a little catching up, with spikes and dips in how much time I spend on there. I put off joining for a long time, then found out some friends I'd lost touch with were out there and re-connected with them. I also like the Events function - so useful. Lawrence Public Library has been using social media for a bit (just under a year?) and I look forward to doing more with that. It's been a great way to update calendars, promote services and displays, and link to articles of interest. Does anyone else have library-FB experiences to share? Any suggestions based on experiences and patron/fan feedback?

Week One: Blogging

Hello!
I work for Lawrence Public Library, and I'm doing 23 Things to learn (yay!)
This is the first blog I've started. After some troubles with the browser, I'm feeling fine.
More to come!