Thing #16 Wikis

I learned about Wikis last Spring in another library class.  We used them to post our thoughts about different books we were reading for the class and to look at what others were saying about the books they were reading.  I found it to be a very useful tool.  You could use Wikis in so many ways as a teacher and librarian.  I enjoyed looking at all the Wikis other teachers have created and how they are using them.  I would like to have a library Wiki for posting book reviews written by students.  The students could then look at what their peers are reading and read their reviews.  This might be a great way to  develop a community of readers who interact and discuss what they are reading as a group.  It would also let me as the librarian know what the students are liking and what is popular in my school community.  This is important for a librarian to know as it helps one to select new books for the library and figure out what isn't so popular and what not to order.

Thing #15: LIbraries 2.0

Web 2.0?  Librarian 2.0?  When I first heard these terms I said "what the heck are they talking about"?  So I read several articles about Librarian 2.0 and they were talking about things like libraries of the future, interactive libraries, and the new librarian.  HUH?  So then I looked in good ole' Wikipedia and found this definition : "a loosely defined model for a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users. The focus is on user-centered change and participation in the creation of content and community.^[1]".  Okay.  Now I was starting to understand. I started reading again and what I found interesting was the following comparisons made in the artice "To a Temporary Place in time:  On  the Way to the  Library Experience of the Future":
Library 1.0: Commodity The library from Alexandria to the industrial era: Books are commodities, collected, inventoried, categorised and warehoused within libraries. Libraries represent a resource base, contributing to educating the labour force, to supporting innovation processes fueling growth, and to informing the present and the future—whether in the neighborhood, in academia, or in business.
Library 2.0: Product How should the library package its commodity—books—as products in an environment which disintermediates, dematerialises, and decentralises? Chad and Miller’s essay, and the debates and conversations around it, raise this question and answer it with the characteristics of our emerging information infrastructure: the library is everywhere, barrier-free, and participatory. Collaborate with Amazon; provide digital downloads of books; create a global, and globally accessible, catalog; invite readers to tag and comment. Yet as more information becomes more accessible, people will still need experienced tour guides—Amazon’s customer recommendations are notoriously open to manipulation; tagclouds offer diverse connections, not focussed expertise. This will drive the transition to Library 3.0:  the 3D service.
Library 3.0—Web 3D to Library 3D: Service There are SecondLife3 subscribers who spend more than forty hours a week online, immersed in its virtual graphic world. Digital natives take 2.0 for granted; they are buzzing over Web 3D. Carrying Chad and Miller’s argument through this next phase transition, we arrive at virtual collections in the 3D world, where books themselves may have avatars and online personalities. But the avalanche of material available will put a premium on service, on tailoring information to needs, and on developing participatory relationships with customers. So while books may get in your 3D face all by themselves, people will prefer personal introductions—they will want a VR info coach. Who’s the best librarian avatar? How many Amazon stars has your avatar collected from satisfied customers? This could create librarian “superstars” based on buzz and customer ratings. People will collect librarians rather than books—the ability not just to organise, but also to annotate and compare books and other information sources, from a variety of useful perspectives. Retrieved from:  http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm

Wow.  That is interesting.  Collecting Librarians rathar than books?  I guess that makes sense.  There will be so much information available from so many sources people will be bewildered as to where to find the best information and by whom.  They will need someone who can save them the time and headaches this type of organization and analysis takes.

Thing #14: Technorati

Technorati is an interesting site that lets you search for blogs or blog posts which contain information or subject matter that you are interested in.  You can also search through popular tags to find blogs and/or posts that are interesting or relevent to you.  This is an easy way to search for blogs which contain information which may be of interest or use to you, easier than trying to google your way to a blog, which is what you would have to do without Technorati or other sites like it.  This type of search is a much more efficient and simple way to search for information within blogs or to search for blogs of a specific content than a google search which will give you a list of websites and not necessarily blogs containing the info one is searching for.  Technorati is a great tool for teachers and librarians looking for information for themselves or their students.  If you are looking to explore blogs for info,  than technorati is the place to begin.  Technorati even rates the blogs on "authority" which measures a sites influence and standing in the "blogosphere" and assigns it a number between 0-1000 with 100 being the highest authority. (Go to:  http://technorati.com/what-is-technorati-authority/ for more info on this).  Blogs are becoming more popular and influential as time goes on, Technorati and other sites like it are good ways to find and compare blogs when doing research on particular topics or if you are just looking for a good blog to inspire you!!  

Thing #13 Tagging and Social Bookmarking Sites

I joined Delicious and found it a great way to centralize all of my favorite webpages so they can be accessed from any computer at any time.  You may also share your tags/bookmarks with other delicious users. 
I can see that this tool would be helpful in research as you can save all of your links to your favorite sites using bookmarks which are linked together through tags.  You can also search other users tags to find more information about topics you are interested in.  Teachers and Librarians could both take advantage of social bookmarking sites when they want to research a particular topic or when they wish to gather many websites together for their students to use in their own research.  They could also create a Tag "cloud" which students could access in order to find info on topics of their interest.

Thing #12: Creating Community through Commenting

After reading "How to Comment like a King (or Queen)" I was a much more enlightened blogger.  I especially liked tip #7:  Remember the Power of Words:  Beware of Darth Commenter.  Basically this pointed out that there are people out there who will use derisive comments to wreak havoc on a bloggers psyche "like Darth Vader with a light saber"  Newbies Beware!!  I thought this was important to remember when a new blogger, you may not realize it but these types of comments can act as subtle detractors from the whole blogging experience-leaving one to lose confidence and momentum and possibly stopping a blogging career in its tracks. For the whole story go to:
 http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-comment-like-king-or-queen.html

Another blog which discussed the commenting aspect of blogging was "(Drape's) Takes to Edublogger Etiquette".  There is a great discussion here (full of reader comments!) about responding to comments on one's own blog.  Should a blogger respond to all comments or just the more meaningful ones?  Is it okay to respond to some or most comments by private email or is responding publicly better?  What about never responding to comments?  These were several questions which were discussed by readers, here is the link if you wish to read more...
http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2008/05/edublogger-etiquette-responding-to.html

As far as my own comments go,  I am working on responding to 5 classmate's posts re. their blogs.  I am finding their blogs to be quite interesting!! 
As far as finding two blogs of personal interest to add comments to, that was easy.  As many of you know, I have a 4 1/2 month old daughter named Anna.  What you may  not know about Anna is that she was born with Down Syndrome.  Going through the shock and struggle of accepting this after her birth (none of the prenatal testing I did showed this possibility) and trying to learn as much  as possible,  I  went looking for blogs by other parents of young children with Down Syndrome.  I found two marvelous ones that I have been following ever since (they are listed on my sidebar) and for which I am grateful to have as a part of my continuing quest  into being the best mother and advocate for my beloved Anna that I can.  As much as I adore these two blogs however, I have never posted comments to either and this assignment has given me the courage to do so.  That in turn has made me become a part of the community of bloggers in a way that I was not before.  I must agree with what the title of thing #12 is suggesting:  we create a community when we comment and respond (whether personally or publically) to each others blogs in Blogland.  Blogging is a new sort of interactive journalling, instead of the one sided process of just writing or reading the journal as in the past, Blogging allows the writer and the reader to respond to each other in real time thus creating a personal relationship between the two in a way that has never  before been possible.

Thing #11: Library Thing

I signed up with library thing and entered about 10 of my books.  I then looked at the groups and found an interesting one called "I see dead people's books" which is a group of people who put up profiles of famous people and their personal library collections.  Want to know what Marie Antoinette or Marilyn Monroe had in their library?  How about Franz Kafka or William Shakespeare?  You can find out here!  I found this group fascinating, it even showed me which of my books I shared with these famous dead people (Marilyn M. and I shared 3 James Joyce titles, who knew she was such a reader?).  I really enjoyed Library Thing.  You can look at book reviews, write book reviews and do all kinds of fun things here.  There are a lot of members and many interesting groups to look at, including local groups in the Houston area. There is also a talk feature where members post about various literary activities they are engaged in such as the "50 book challenge" or the "readers of YA lit" discussion group.  I found many interesting things here and will definitely be back to explore when I have some time to do so.

Thing #10: Anna and Mischa as created with help from "Image Chef"