Useful Blogs and Feeds ~ Week 4, Thing 9

I found a few feeds/blogs that I think it would be good to track. It's a good starting point for me. There's no need in adding every page I ever visit at one time. This is supposed to be about learning and not overload! ;)

I added:
Information Wants To Be Free (0) (0)
Leslie's 23 Things (3) (0)
LibraryBytes (10) (0)
PLA Blog (11) (0)
Pop Goes the Library (10) (0)
technogeekery for librarians (10) (0)
TOBLOG (5) (0)

The nice copy and paste technique lets you see that I haven't read these pages through Bloglines yet. That's next. But, I assure you that I've checked them all out individually while deciding what to add.

Bloglines ~ Week 4, Thing 8

RSS Feeds are something that I've been interested in for a while, but haven't really taken the time to check out. It was a welcomed tool for me to pick up. I'm interested to see how much I use it, and whether or not I find it as addictive as others have warned me it can be. Either way, my account is created and I'm adding feeds to it already.

del.icio.us ~ Week 3, Thing 7

del.icio.us is my new toy. Over the course of the week I find myself at many different computers. There's my central staff PC on my desk, then the one at the Children's Desk, occasionally the one at the Information Desk, the 2 staff computers at Hurlock, my personal computer at home, and then various computers while I'm helping someone. There are some websites that are really great to share, but my brain just refuses to hold them all. So now I have del.icio.us! It holds my collection of links and is my portable favorites list. If I need the latest artwork for the summer reading program, but I'm at Hurlock and it's saved on my computer at Cetral, the link I saved in del.icio.us will connect me to my saved link. I love it!

If anyone wants to try it, it's del.icio.us.com.

Lifelong Learning ~ Week One, Thing 2

After watching the presentation on Lifelong Learning, it's pretty clear to me that the habit I will have the most trouble with is viewing problems as challenges. It's hard for me when I'm juggling many things at once to view a problem as anything other than a problem. If I'm working by myself and someone needs copies, someone else has a reference question, and yet someone else wants to check out there books, then my hands are full. If the computers shut down, or SAM is momentarily not cooperating at this point and 9 people are suddenly upset because they've lost their internet access, I see it as a problem and not a challenge. I understand that much of that is my reaction to their upset and I know that if I keep a smile on my face and stay pleasant, everyone else is easier to work with. Now I just need to take that last step and view it as a challenge. It will be good for my stress levels!

Week One, Thing 1

I'm playing catch up since I didn't blog about this originally. They'll be out of numerical order, but at least they'll be here.

The first thing was to read the blog and find out what the program was about. I'm really enjoying the program. Anytime I get to play with new technology, I'm happy. It's a huge help in working with patrons on a daily basis. They come to us for answers and I like to be able to provide those answers.

So, blog read, information gained, and I'm ready to begin!

Trading Cards?!? ~ Week 3, Thing 6

The sixth thing on our list was to explore third party sites. I decided to play with the trading card site and made up my own card. Very cool! I'm going to encourage the rest of the staff to make cards, too!

But what I can do.... Week 3, Thing 5 Continued

... is upload one of my own photos! Since I have a flickr account of my own, I'll just use one of my pictures so that I can still have the experience of posting a photo in blogger. Of course I'm only using flickr for pictures of Mika at this point.... It's amazing to me how much she's grown in 2 weeks! I really have to get her new pictures uploaded.

Flickr ~ Week 3, Thing 5

For part of this week's 23 Things, we were to find a photo on flickr and add it to our blog, or add the link to our blog. I prefer to have the picture here. I feel as though it's always nice to personalize your page and I prefer not to require any potential readers to have to click on the link. However, since it's polite to ask for the photographer's permission before uploading their photo (and time is of the essence these days), I'll just post the link to the picture.

The picture is titled "Field of Dreams" and the photographer is Jim Mortram. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmortram/553807741/

I chose this picture because it reflects where I am in my life right now. When I look at the photo I see change. It's beautiful. It's even peaceful, but there are dark clouds lingering above. There's rain, maybe a storm, and to me it signifies change either calmly or forcefully. You can't stop it from coming, you just have to find your center and change with it. At the end of it all, though, there is light. Sometimes we have to weather a storm in order to transform ourselves.

Setting Up My Blog ~ Week 2, Thing 3

I'm already comfortable with blogging, so I thought I'd go ahead and move forward to the next step. I'm more familiar with livejournal and myspace, but I've used blogger for LATI. The more options I become familiar with, the better I'm able to help our patrons.

I've been experimenting with flickr lately, too. My husband and I are getting a new puppy this weekend, and I wanted to post her baby pictures so that I could share them with friends and family. I thought it was a great chance to explore flickr.

For my next trick, I think I'll be posting my learning contract, but it will have to wait until Wendnesday or Thursday. The rest of today is officially dedicated to the Summer Reading Program.

*They wanted us to go in and edit our blog as part of our learning process. This is my edit. ;) I did find that unlike some of the other online blogs, public designed layouts do not work very well.