Thing 15 - Gaming

All right, back on the soapbox!

As far as gaming in the library goes - as a former classroom teacher, I definitely know (and used) the hook that gaming can have in the education process. "Educational" games are a great way to "trick" a kid into learning (I even have a five-year-old daughter at home who has been learning to read, do math, etc. through online games), and probably have other benefits that I am not even aware of. I have NO problem with the idea of kids playing some games during the school day. However, as a school librarian, my biggest concern is the type of atmosphere I want my library to have. Overall, I want the library to be thought of as a work/learning environment. Now, I know I just said that gaming can have some educational benefits, but the problem is in where the line between learning and other gaming endeavors lies. While I may sound a bit too "old school" for a program such as this, the rational side of me understands that sometimes it is just easier to say no game-playing in my library in order to avoid the inevitable arguments about which games are educational and which are not.
I did go into "Puzzle Pirates" for a bit (albeit a very short bit). I don't know - I guess I am just not a true "gamer" - it really didn't strike my fancy. I did not set up an account with SecondLife, but I did watch the video and read some of the articles. Again, not MY thing, but I guess it looks like there are those out there who are making this virtual world very realistic and the fact that there are libraries, classrooms, etc. do lend some credence to their existance.
In the end, I will probably stick with the "No Game-playing In the Library" policy that my school has been operating under unless I come across something that I just can't pass up. We will see.

Thing 14 - Library Thing

I have seen this "Thing" on so many other people's blogs that I was really excited to get in and explore the site for myself. In the end, I am pretty impressed and really want to be able to use it in my own library. I don't really need (nor would I want) it for cataloging, but what I like is that it a) looks kinda cool on your blog and b) it gives patrons book reviews from people other than....me. Right now I am just going to start with the books out of my library that I have read, but as we get into the school year I am hoping maybe to get some student helper staff or anyone to help me get as many books as I can in. The next step for me is to immerse myself into the site a bit more and try to figure out how to best utilize it for my student patrons.

I will be back with thing 13 later (or maybe I won't because I am a tad superstitious!)

Thing 12 - Can you Digg it?

Kid Swallowed By Mud Puddle - Watch more free videos

I hate to sound negative - but here is another media I would file under "I'm not seeing the need." To back up my point - above you can view what was the second most "important" thing on DIGG the day I looked at it.

As a SCHOOL librarian (I only emphasize that because I know it is probably quite different than public librarian) I don't think my patrons need much help figuring out what is most popular at any given time. Now, as a librarian, if someone comes out with a similar site geared specifically to 14-19 year olds, I would maybe check it out just to see what kids are actually interested in (as scary as that can be sometimes.) As for these sites - I don't have a lot of interest.

In the end, this "Thing" did give me the opportunity to figure out how to put a video on my blog - Hooray for me!!!!

Thing 11 - Ummmm, that's Del.icio.us

I first became familiar with tagging through my graduate coursework this past semester. While I have not developed my del.icio.us account (I have linked it on the left side of the page)as much as I could/would like, I definitely see a lot of benefits to such a tool. From personal experience I can say that one of my biggest technological pet peeves is having two or more computers at work (in different rooms no less) and having some bookmarks on one machine and others on the other. Del.icio.us is a great way to have all my bookmarks in one place and gives you the ability to access them from any machine (with internet access) at any time.

From a professional standpoint, I think this tool could be quite useful for research purposes. I envision asking the faculty for some of their "favorite" websites and compiling all of them on a library del.icio.us account. The work up front might be a bit daunting, but once it is up and running, I bet it could be quite a convenient way to help the research process for students.

Thing 10 - Wiki-wiki-WHEEE!

Well, Wikis were not something completely foreign to me (I have been coming around to their use as a research tool slowly but surely), but up until now I had never "participated" in one. Logging into the 23 Things Wiki showed me just how easy it is to edit a page. This ease of access is still probably the one thing that concerns me about wikis. I am all for collaboration, but I must admit that I am concerned about the consequences of publishing "anonymouusly." Particularly in a school setting, I do have some reservations about opening up a webpage to let anyone say just about anything they want (it is MY rear end that is on the line, professionally).

In looking at the library-based Wikis offered, I guess I was most intrigued by the Princeton Library Wiki. If I were to use one in my job - this would probably be the one most like the one I would offer. I have always thought about having student-written book reviews on my library website but have always had trouble with the logistics of such a venture. Maybe a wiki is the way to go. I still have some concerns about security - but maybe I just have to trust a bit more. A lot of this will have to come down to my school's internet/computer usage policies, so I will have to wait until the fall to find out how feasible it is.

As for the great "Wikipedia as a research tool debate," I have to admit that I am coming around on this one. I admit, when I was teaching high school English, I cringed at the thought of my students automatically turning to Wikipedia as their main (if not only) source of information. After taking a class on research this past semester, I began to see that Wikipedia is not the haphazard free-for-all I thought it was. Now that I have had a bit more experience with it, I have come to find that Wikipedia can be a great starting point for research. The key here being that the student still has to go a bit deeper to find all the information he/she needs (as well as to verify what he/she found). In the end, I think Wikipedia is a very valuable tool (when used properly) and that wikis themselves may be something that I incorporate into my own job when I find the proper place for it.

Thing 9 - GoogleDocs and Zoho

Basically - I didn't see a whole lot of difference between these two programs. Both seemed to work very similarly to any basic word processing program. The Google document (as evident by the much greater number of alterations)was much easier to access with Zoho requiring an invitation via email. While this was slightly inconvenient for the purpose of what we are doing, it does seem to be a nice security feature if you want to protect your work.

As far as a school library goes - I really don't see much of a connection. However, if I were still in the classroom, I would LOVE a tool like this. I think it would be a great way for kids to work on a group project together.

Thing 8 - Sharing is "FUN"damental

(Sorry - couldn't resist on the title)

This "thing" reminds me a lot of things #4-6 and my experience was much the same: there are COUNTLESS programs out there that can do just about anything you want and it is good to get familiar with a fraction of them. For this thing I decided to try and start something that will be pertinent to my job (which I haven't even officially started yet) and created a mosiac on BigHugeLabs featuring a few books that I know will be new to my library in the fall. Again, this kind of stuff is VERY easy to use and great for promotional type things such as this.

Now I have a question - the few things I have "created" through this series have consisted of images I have taken off of the net (like the book covers you see here). Am I going to get tazered by the copyright police? Seriously - is this a bad thing to do?

Thing 7 - Communication Tools

There is no doubt that communication in this day and age is changing drastically - and it is definitely good to see libraries changing with it. We would be doing a huge diservice to our patrons if we did not try and find the most popular/convenient ways to communicate with them.

School librarians, however, are limited by the rules and policies of the district they work for. Usually, the use of email, text messaging, etc. is prohibited during the school day - so putting a lot of focus on such technologies would not make much sense. Besides that, the need for such communication isn't quite as important in a school library since the students are there pretty much every day (as opposed to having to travel to the public library). Despite this, I do feel it is important to give students at least an opportunity to have some contact outside the norm. I have included my email address on library webpages I have managed and encouraged students to contact me with questions, comments, suggestions, etc.

Web 2.0 does offer a lot of communication tools which are beneficial to the professional. Obviously email is unavoidable in this day and age and I have already taken advantage of things like mailing lists and listservs. These have been great ways to find ideas and information pertinent to my job. I can see myself delving a bit farther into this sort of thing and joining up with some library personnel web communities.

Thing 6: Image Generating

Undoubtedly the possibilities for these sorts of tools is endless and they really help the artistically challenged (like myself). I think the promotional possibilities are obvious (trading cards, posters, logos, etc.) but I also think that tools such as this woudl be appealing to students to use for special projects, etc. I know going back to my elementary days - this would have been fun to try with the students and I think they would have eaten it up.

To wrap up things 4-6: There is a TON of cool stuff out there and at least now having a passing acquaintance with them is very beneficial. I don't know if I can handle too many more accounts/passwords, however!

Thing 5 - More "fun" with Flickr

Wow!. Just when I thought I couldn't feel any more technologically inadequate - I find this stuff. In all honesty, these things that people are coming up with are pretty cool and could maybe be neat to try out every once in awhile, but I am not sure how much I would really worry about these things. Obviously copying over the above picture was not too difficult - so I could see myself spicing up a blog every now and again.

Thing 4: Flickr

All right, I admit it, I took the easy route with thing 4. I decided to look for a photo rather than start my own account. (thanks, tahdaev for the above pic of Iowa wrestling coach Tom Brands) After reading up on Flickr, however, I definitely plan on opening an account and using it for professional purposes (I am not a big personal photo guy). Some big advantages I see to this format is that anyone can view them from anywhere and it definitely saves your computer/network in terms of memory space. I think this could be great for library promotion and whatnot, and that is how I plan on using it (after I start my new job in the fall).

Thing 3 - RSS

In general, I don't know if I am that fired up about this RSS thing. I mean, I can see how some people who might peruse A LOT of different websites on a daily basis may find convenience in limiting their bookmark cruising to just updates - but, for myself, I really do not see it as being that big of a deal.

What really confuses me is why news/sports sites would use this at all. The basic premise of going to sites like CNN.com, ESPN.com, etc. is to get the LATEST in news. These sites must be updating practically every second - why would you need to see updates? On the other hand - less current sites (like blogs) do have definite uses with this program.

Using the site seems pretty simple - I did not encounter any problems. I stuck the basic cut and paste method for adding subscriptions. I added a few "23" blogs to my list so that I dont have to go back and check them every day.

Would I use it? Personally, I do not see a HUGE need for it. I could see myself subscribing to some professional sites/blogs that I can use to cut back on aimless surfing. Right now I don't know how/why I would use it with students and what they do. If you have any suggestions - please feel to drop me a comment.