21!

(from http://alchemist.excessivelydangerousthing.com)

When I think about online gaming and libraries, teen patrons are the first to come to mind. My teenage son played the MMORPG World of Warcraft for awhile, but he quit because it was taking up too much of his time. Once he started a session, it was difficult to stop playing because he had to keep going until he got to the next level...and the next level. It was really addictive. But I think occasional game nights are a great way to attract teens to the library.

It was fun to explore the online games for younger children. I found several PBS games featuring some of my favorite children's book characters -- Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Martha (of Speak, Martha! fame). Online games can promote reading, develop skills in following directions and build manual dexterity (have you tried Chef Academy?). They do, however, pose a challenge in the library. I'm a volunteer reader at my local public library and have often found it difficult to interest kids in reading or listening to a book once their eyeballs are glued to a computer screen.

Almost There: Things 19 & 20

Thing 19: Book Trailers

This was something completely new to me. I think creating book trailers would be very appealing to a lot of kids and teens, a great way to motivate them to read. I've bookmarked (on Delicious, of course!) all of the resources and look forward to playing with them when I have more time.

Thing 20: Google Docs, Zoho and RTM

I've used Google Docs for group projects in library school. While I found it great for collaboration, I was frustrated by some formatting issues I experienced. It was easier to create a document in Word, then upload it into Google Docs for review and revision. It looks as if Zoho might be more flexible in this regard, but I think most people are accustomed to using Google Docs and may not want to switch.

Remember the Milk: I'm a list maker by nature, but I've been doing pretty well the old-fashioned way. I can look at a whole week's schedule and to-do list at a glance, scribble in notes for future reference, and have the satisfaction of physically crossing items off my list as they are done.

Thing 18: YouTube

I just love this one!



Here's a behind-the-scenes look at how this video was created:



Enjoy!

Podcasts and Webinars

I had heard of podcasts before, but never tried listening to any. During my first quarter of library school, one of my professors had her lectures recorded and made available as podcasts, but I never needed to listen to one.

Have I been missing out! I was amazed at the breadth and quality of available podcasts out there. After listening to Infopeople's Michael Cart discuss the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult books , I'm hooked! The next step for me will be to try downloading a podcast on my kid's cast-off iPod.

With regard to webinars, I've participated in a couple of free webinars offered by Infopeople. It seems there is a limitless supply of free training available...I just need to find the time for them.

Catching up...Week 5

Onto Week 5.... I've already used 3 of this week's four Things.

Thing 12: Twitter & Facebook. I've been a regular Facebook user for a couple of years, usually checking in at least once a day. It's been fun catching up with people I hadn't seen since high school, and I'm truly amazed at how much it has changed the way people interact -- mostly in good ways, but not always. I was fascinated by this NY Times article, "The Web Means the End of Forgetting".

Twitter, on the other hand, doesn't really appeal to me. I love my friends, love my family, but don't need to know what they're eating for lunch. I signed up for a Twitter account while in library school, just to learn how it worked, but never really used it. It will be interesting to see if it "sticks" or if Twitter is just a fad. Although Twitter use has exploded, I find it curious that the consensus among my 16- and 19-year-old digital natives and their friends is that "Twitter is dumb." I will try experimenting with the hashtags, though, the next time some quirky and interesting current event pops up.

Thing 13: ALA Connects. So I checked out ALA Connects and updated my profile. We librarians sure do like to share information! With so many blogs, listservs and other sources of news and information, it's good to know I have so many professional development resources available anytime, anywhere.

Thing 14: GoodReads and LibraryThing. I love GoodReads. I set up my account about a year ago after receiving an invitation from a library school friend. Having lots of free time since graduating in June (without a job), I recently sat down and retroactively added all the books I've read in the past ten years from my handwritten reading log. I also figured out how to use my Cuecat bar code scanner to add books using ISBN numbers. Now that I've invested quite a bit of time cataloging my books in GoodReads, I'm wondering if there is any consensus among librarians as to which book social media site is preferred -- GoodReads, LibraryThing or Shelfari? And is there a way to copy my catalog from one site to another?

Thing 15: Instant Messaging. I've used both Yahoo messenger and Google Talk in the past for communicating with work colleagues and working on group projects for school. I found them helpful in this context, but for personal conversations I prefer the phone.

Catching up...Week 4

Wow, this summer is really flying by. Went on a road trip to the Bay Area to move my daughter into her first college apartment and now need to catch up on my "Things."

Thing 10: Online Image Generators. These are awesome! I've never heard of any of these, and found them so much fun to use! It makes me wonder, though, if I hadn't been participating in the 21 Things project, how would I have ever discovered them? I love playing around with graphics and can't wait to share these tools with my kids and, hopefully soon, my library patrons. Here's an image I created for my son's band using ImageChef:

And I added speech bubbles to a picture of my kids:

Thing 11: Tagging Photos on Flickr and Blogger. I've never been one to take a lot of pictures, although I always enjoy having them afterward. Fortunately, I have lots of avid photographers in my family, so I'm able to mooch pictures from them. Perhaps I can convince them to upload their photos to Flickr; tagging will be very helpful for identifying and organizing photos. With regard to Blogger, I've been assigning Labels to my posts, so I've got that one down.

Things 8 & 9

I've been using Mozilla Firefox for years. My brother, an IT guy, recommended it as being less vulnerable to computer viruses. I love the way you can just type in any word from a previous search and the URL will pop up. And I wish I knew about Zotero when I started grad school -- it's pretty amazing and would have saved me so much time and heartache.

Moving on to Thing 9....embedding images and video.

I've always been a cat lover, but only recently found out that being so was a librarian stereotype! And so, my fellow cat people, allow me to introduce my cats -- Satine, Mia and Bowie:

And if you haven't already seen this, enjoy!

And so it goes. On to Thing 10.