debbieatopl's Weblog

Wikimania

debbieatopl — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:24:05 +0000

I’ve actually spent more time making wikis this week than I did looking at others. I have in the past spent time on http://www.wikipedia.org/, and way too much time on http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. I did check out some of the library blogs, too. There’s just not enough time!

I am happy to say I opened an account at http://www.wikispaces.com/, and I’ve got a wiki going that we are going to use for a Saturday storytime that is rotated among the librarians working in the Children’s Room. Rather than sending emails each week, we can now use the wiki to add the books, craft, etc., that we did. And we can all check it when planning our programs so we don’t repeat one another.

I’m working on two others for a collaborative book club with one of our elementary schools.

This is definitely another tool that I will continue to use, along with blogging, goodreads, flickr, and RSS feeds. Thanks again to John! This has been (mostly) a lot of fun and very educational!

I think I just figured out how to post video!

debbieatopl — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:10:28 +0000

I’m just testing this out here before we upload video onto our children’s room blog.

Here goes.

Wikis, wikis everywhere

debbieatopl — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:56:38 +0000

I’ve really wanted to learn how to do this one. I’m going to be collaborating on a book club for 2nd graders with the librarian at the public school, so my aim is to make a wiki that we can use for sharing ideas and planning. And she thought it would be a good idea to have one that the kids and their parents can use. So my current goal is to make two wikis. I haven’t actually done this yet; I’ll post again when my mission has been accomplished. How’s that for positive thinking?

Tagging along

debbieatopl — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:27:59 +0000

I guess I caught up with this one late. Everyone seems to have been tagged already. Sorry if I’ve tagged anyone who has already been tagged. I ‘m still not sure I’ve got this whole thing down, but I have been tagged (froggyfield.wordpress.com), so here goes.

Here are the rules for Six Random Things:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

And my six random things:

I’m a Brooklyn girl who married a guy from Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plain…).
I once took my son’s pet corn snake to the vet in a pillow case.
I am trying to keep an open mind about the video games my kids love to play.
I am tired of wearing glasses but afraid of contacts.
I want to learn to speak Spanish.
It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Here are my tags: patrioticny.wordpress.com, jamielkay.blogspot.com, eschirota.wordpress.com . I’ll try to find three more later.

Still learning

debbieatopl — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:07:51 +0000

While catching up on all the news on my bloglines account, I read about a site called remindr.info, which will send you a reminder, by email, twitter, or text. Just type in what you need to be reminded of, the date and time, where to send it, and off it goes. No account needed–so no passwords to remember. I guess technology leads to more technology…

More on technology

debbieatopl — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:33:40 +0000

Even though my husband and kids may never forgive me for elfing all of us, I continue to enjoy many of the things I’ve learned over the last several weeks. Image generators are a lotof fun. And I’m getting into the habit of checking in on my bloglines account as well as this blog.

I’m working on LibraryThing, although I’m not thrilled with it. I’m thinking that I’ll also check out Good Reads, to see which one I prefer.

We are in the process of making a blog for the children’s room. We’re hoping to write updates about programs and events, and also info about books we like. It’s going to be linked to our website, and hopefully we can get both kids and their parents to read it.

Image generators

debbieatopl — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:41:05 +0000

I generated this image using befunky.com. It was sort of like playing with paper dolls. You get to choose your clothes, background, etc. You can even be a superhero! If I can do this with a family photo, what a cool holiday card we could have.

The only downside was I actually had to have a photo of my own face. This is not my favorite thing to do, or to look at. My avatar looks way better than I do.

Some thoughts on technology

debbieatopl — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:59:04 +0000

First, I have to say how grateful I am to John for getting us all started on this exploration of web 2.0. In some ways, it is getting easier. I seem to be a little less hesitant about trying new stuff. This morning, I came across a website and a blog that were interesting and decided to try and add them to my bloglines account. I’m still not quite sure I know what I am doing, but I was able to add one to my bloglines account and the other ended up on my blog. This definitely works better than my old methods–either emailing myself or writing down URLs on little slips of paper. I’d like to check out some of the sites for list making, such as http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ or http://www.tadalist.com/.

At first I thought it would be hard to keep up with so many different accounts to check, but I think that if I can start thinking of them like email–something to check every day–it will become a habit. I’ve also started putting my photos in my flickr account. It’s pretty cool to have access to them through any computer, not just my own at home. I still don’t know what I would use Twitter for, but I’m willing to hang in there and give it some more time.

One thing I didn’t expect was having to keep track of so many account names and passwords. I try to use the same one or two, but sometimes that’s just not possible. When I log in to something regularly, I can remember logins and passwords, but if any amount of time goes by I have trouble remembering. I think it’s time to write them all down.

Twittering my day away

debbieatopl — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:40:26 +0000

Okay, so now I’ve got a Twitter account (dfletcher89), although I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with it. I just spent a good part of my afternoon searching for people (unsuccessfully) and stumbled upon Stephen Colbert’s Twitter. From there, I checked out who he was following, and then who some of the people he was following are following. I hit bottom when I found myself checking out Darth Vader’s Twitter. Along the way, I did add some Twitters to follow (is that the correct terminology?). I’m not sure how I would use something like this, or how the library would use it. I suppose information and updates could be added to a library Twitter account, but that would only work if people were following them.

RSS feeds

debbieatopl — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:32:50 +0000

I have to admit I had no idea what an RSS feed was before this exercise. I’d noticed that little icon but never knew what it meant. At least now I know. I did open a bloglines account, and I’ve started to add feeds to it. I guess it becomes like checking email, something to do every day. It does seem like a pretty handy way to check in with all the web sites, blogs, etc., that I come across and think are interesting but can’t remember later what they were.