23 Things Kansas – Reflection

For the past semester, I’ve been participating in the 23 Things Kansas project. This was an effort by the library community to learn more about Web 2.0 tools and how they could be utilized in a library setting. So, what have I learned?

1. How great a staff we have at the Kansas State Library and at NEKLS
2. How eager Kansas librarians are to learn
3. How willing Kansas librarians are to share
4. I don’t want my delicious bookmarks dumping into this blog. They need to dump into a separate blog.
5. How to use Diigo for bookmarking and deliver it to Delicious, Twitter and Facebook all at the same time.
6. Most Kansas librarians seem to prefer Shelfari (or Good Reads) over Library Thing
7. How to use Outlook as an RSS reader
8. How to get (some) RSS feeds into Facebook (Mashable, Teen Reads, WikiHow)
9. More people to follow on Twitter
10. I’m not good at group projects when I don’t know the participants
11. How to share powerpoints (or probably a reminder of the site that can be used)
12. To write down user IDs and passwords AND to use the same email when registering for sites
13. I really like sites that pull everything together in one spot vs having multiple screens open
14. I’ve read all those books (or at least Shelfari says I have) and I haven’t figured out how to change that
15. I wish that Tri-Conference still existed – school and public librarians need to be able to collaborate
16. I really like participating in Webinars – but don’t like to talk
17. I don’t really like making screencasts – I don’t want to record my voice
18. I need to make screencasts
19. How to post video from a classroom presentation on YouTube (splitting it, converting it)
20. I need to take more pictures
21. Pictures / video are everything
22. I need to complete online profiles and post a profile picture
23. I enjoyed this ‘class’ and need to find time for library projects and activities

Wikis – 23 Things Kansas

I like wikis - or at least the ‘peanut butter’ version – pbwiki. Wikis are a cross between a blog and cloud computing. They allow for collaboration while allowing for public viewing. I use a wiki with my independent study students since they have to collaborate on projects. I also have a wiki to promote web 2.0 tools and their use — NV Raiders Wiki.

I also started the Nemaha Valley Schools entry on Wikipedia. That was an experience that every librarian should undertake. They wouldn’t accept the article until I could provide citations. I still don’t have everything cited that they want. I  simply haven’t had the time to spend at the district office locating the exact documents and writing the citations. Thus, the article is tagged with “multiple issues”

Library on the Web – 23 Things Kansas

I’ve had an account on Library Thing for a couple of years but haven’t been very active on it. Last fall, I imported the new fiction titles. At times, I’ve tried to find groups that discuss young adult fiction and titles for boys. As part of my 23 Things Kansas project, I did a quick search for a comparison of Shelfari and Library Thing discovering the blog post, Shelfari and Library Things: First Impressions. This post pointed out that Shelfari is more graphical and consumer oriented.

Now, I’m going to investigate Shelfari. I’ve exported my books from Library Thing and imported them into Shelfari. I think I need to use Twitter or Facebook to find out which groups are being used by other school librarians.

I think these sites have lots of potential to promote the library collection and for selection.

Slidesharing – 23 Things Kansas

Having previously used Animoto, I found it relatively easy to create a slide show from pictures of student activity in the NV Library. The hardest part of this project was remembering to take pictures. I elected to use music provided by Animoto (primarily to avoid copyright issues).

Another tool that would be somewhat similar to Animoto is Glogster. Glogster allows one to create a ‘poster’ where pictures,  videos and text can be posted.

Since I’ve never used Slideshare, I elected to also investigate it. I uploaded two powerpoints used in a public meeting to discuss school consolidation. This first is from a presentation by Donna Whiteman.

USD 442 School district consolidation

The second presentation was used by Superintendent Brian Harris for the board’s presentation.

USD 442 Consolidation discussion

Screencasting – 23 Things Kansas

I’ve used Jing to create a couple of tutorials for use at NV. This is a piece of software that I don’t use as often as I probably should. Since my teachers seem to prefer printed directions, I tend to take advantage of not having to record my voice. One of the Jing tutorials I created was on how to use the free program, PaintNet, to resize a picture.

Paint.Net – Resizing Pictures

When creating directions, I often use another free program, Gadwin Print Screen. This program allows me to capture and area of the screen and paste it into a document.

Jing provides the potential to develop short how-to videos for a variety of computer tasks. In the library situation, these videos could show patrons how to make an ILL request, place a hold on a book, or search the online catalog. Creating short tutorials on how to use web sites or computer software would also be a beneficial use of Jing. Now, I just have to find the time and be willing to put my voice on the video – OR – better yet, find a student to create them for me.

Video on the Web – 23 Things Kansas

This year, the senior production students were required to post their movies  to YouTube and to embed them in their blogs. For their videos, they’ve primarily used digital photos with a musical background and turned it into a movie with iPhoto (Photo Story on a PC).

Yesterday, we had a teacher want to video their presentation so that students at a conference could view it. We used a Flip camera to record the presentation. However, I ran into problems trying to upload the video to YouTube. Of course, it was too long. I used Movie Maker to split the file into 3 different files. Since the upload was not working, I used QuickMediaConverter to convert the files from the native avi format into mpeg4 format. Even though this is a time consuming process, it is a valuable tool for this situation.

Instant Messaging – 23 Things Kansas

 Personally, I have used chat – including video chat to communicate with family members. We started using Yahoo’s chat and migrated to Windows Live. I recently chatted with a distant cousin via Facebook. The problem with chat is that you need a partner and you need to agree to use the same tool or a tool such as Meebo that integrates multiple chat engines.

For this project, I installed Meebo on my work computer and had it active for several weeks. Meebo instantly recognized all of my Facebook contacts and would constantly pop up when someone came online. When I was at my desk, I found this to be annoying.

I wasn’t a very effective user of Instant Messaging for professional purposes. Since I’ve seen this suggested as a way to handle reference questions or homework questions, I think this could be a valuable tool once developed.

Cloud Computing – 23 Things Kansas

For this project, I worked with a file created by Kevin Honeycutt at Essdack – New Tools and How We As Educators Use Them. This file is a list of web 2.0 sites that can be used in the classroom. I shared this file with other participants in 23 Things Kansas. Several people edited this file- primarily organizing the list of sites. This was a valuable way to share the workload and to share the information. One person added several comments and sites to the list.

Microblogging – 23 Things Kansas

As a school librarian with the added task of maintaining the school’s computers and network, I probably spend more time with technology than most school librarians. Because the technology side of my job changes rapidly, I try to take advantage of chances to learn about how to apply new technology in a school setting. For me, this has been library conference and the MACE conference. For those who have never attended MACE, it is an excellent opportunity to learn about a variety of tools, many of them freely available, that can be used in a school setting. It is thru MACE that I first got introduced to Twitter and Plurk.

I have Twitter, Plurk and Google Buzz accounts but prefer Twitter as a microblogging tool. Because Twitter has such a large base of users, I’ve found it easier to locate people and organizations I want to follow than on Plurk or Google Buzz. Another feature that I like about Twitter is the ability to follow a topic thru the use of hashtags. Thanks to a mention by WIBW’s weather team, I discovered Hootsuite. Hootsuite not only allows you to see all of your Twitter activity but allows you to create a panel showing only the public tweets on a topic. For example, during the summer I used Hootsuite to follow the hashtag #ksstorms. Because meteorologists and storm chasers use that hashtag to post storm information, I was able to track approaching severe weather while at work.

Another advantage of Twitter is the ability to integrate it. Since I don’t spend my day glued to Twitter, I have a gadget on my desktop that shows tweets from those I follow. I’ve also recently discovered ways to connect Diigo to Delicous and Twitter and Twitter to Facebook.

• Tip of the Day – Using Diigo and Delicious Simultaneously
• Tip of the Day – Diigo’s (Annotated) Twitter This
• Twitter to Facebook – 5 Ways to Post

Sometimes, one of the challenges to using Twitter is finding people to follow. When I participate in a webinar or attend a conference, I will often try to find the presenter on Twitter and follow them. Sometimes, that is a challenge if they don’t disclose their Twitter identity and don’t use their name as their Twitter ID. During this year, I’ve added Linda Braun (lbraun2000), YALSA, VOYA and EdWeek to my ‘following’ list. Because of a personal interest in H1n1, I also added quite a few people and organizations active in tracking the worldwide spread of this disease.

Even though I rarely have the Twitter website open, I am a Twitter fan because of its ability to push information to my desktop. Recent research, however, indicates that teens do not see a need for Twitter. In their world, text messaging and Facebook are the primary ways to share information because they are more private. In contrast, it is the public aspect of Twitter and the ability to quickly share information that I find valuable. Thus, for now, I’ll remain a fan of Twitter and Hootsuite.

Tagging – 23 Things Kansas

Delicious, Diigo and other bookmarking sites make it easy to move from a work computer to a home computer and have your bookmarks follow along. I started using del.icio.us a couple of years ago.

At the time, I was supporting library projects with web sites containing links to resources. Because it is much easier to add a site to Delicious than to update a web page, I transferred these links to Delicious and created tag bundles. Now, when students click on Raider Links on our (internal) home page they go to my Delicious bookmarks. The major disadvantage of using Delicious in this way is the difficulty of keeping separate personal and work identities when doing school work on my home computer. Thus, I’ve given up and only have one identity on Delicious – nvteklib.

Besides linking the browser home page to my bookmarks, I have my delicious account configured to post my new bookmarks on this blog.

After having set up Delicious, I discovered Diigo. Diigo is similar to Delicious but it allows you to highlight text on the web site. Even though I believe that Diigo has an educational advantage over Delicious, I have not wanted to spend the time transferring my bookmarks and re-organizing them. Thus, I’m still a Delicious user.

Thanks to a recent webinar on new gadgets, I heard about the capability of Diigo to connect with Delicious and Twitter.

• Use Diigo – Delicious Simultaneously
• Diigo’s Annotated Twitter This

Now, I’m switching to Diigo to take advantage of its ability to highlight and to post automatically to Twitter.