Student 2.0 Tools: Thing #16

I think it's terrific that the Research Project Calculator was developed, and I attended a session about it at MEMO and have shared it with the Language Arts teachers at my school who assign research papers. I think that it not only lays out a reasonable set of steps with reasonable deadlines, but it also has built-in help sheets that are useful for the teachers as well as the students! There is no perfect way to teach the process of preparing a research paper or project, and our teachers continue to fine-tune their approach every year, but having this tool available gives particularly beginning teachers a definite head start. In addition, the fact that it includes timelines and helpful tips for presentations and videos is wonderful, since many teachers, even though they feel familiar with the basic steps involved in doing a research paper, often just assign a presentation or video to their students without much guidance for a reasonable step-by-step process for how to create it in a high-quality way.

Libraries and Gaming: Thing #15

I've been compiling a large file of information and articles about computer gaming, particularly about how gaming relates to building thinking skills and the potential applications of gaming to the world of libraries, and I believe that gaming is another very popular 2.0 activity that we library media professionals need to figure out ways to incorporate into how we help people connect with information.

I chose to explore Second Life for this Thing, since I have been intrigued by this online multi-player "game" for several years, particularly since participating in a fascinating session about it at a MEMO conference, and since my all-time favorite library media hero, Doug Johnson, said in a recent post on his Blue Skunk blog that he will be giving a presentation on Info Island. It's time to get on board!!! I installed it, I have gone through the basic orientation helps, and I am looking forward to getting back to it in the near future so I can fine-tune my avatar and get a better idea of the interesting places there are to visit.

LibraryThing: Thing #14

The LibraryThing tool is quite intriguing! I opened an account and started to add books, and I decided I will focus primarily on listing the books that I have read with my various book clubs and indicating what rating I gave them. This will be a convenient place to keep an up-to-date list of many outstanding books!

I have tried another somewhat similar tool called Shelfari that allows a user to maintain a "bookshelf" and ratings and alerts you when someone else has added the same book to his or her bookshelf, but I found it to be a little more cumbersome that LibraryThing.

I am in four book clubs, so I have PLENTY of opportunities to share ideas about books and get suggestions for good books to read, but I can see where someone who is not participating in any "live" book clubs could get lots of good food for thought by interacting with other book-lovers through LibraryThing. The social possibilities of this site are endless!

Here's a link to my LibraryThing so far:

Productivity Tools: Thing #13

I like the interface of iGoogle the best of the three personalized home page options. It seems easy to move around, and the option of adding a "theme" backdrop is nice. There were so many to pick from--yikes! I customized my homepage and will use it as my regular homepage in Firefox from now on.

I used to be teased by my co-workers for having so many little yellow post-it notes all around my computer screen, but several months ago I started using the electronic version of sticky notes that comes with Macs. It's great! I now keep my computer screen much cleaner, and I can open them, close them, add to them, delete them, color-code them, etc., as I wish!

Zamzar is another product mentioned in this Thing that has been a lifesaver for us in the Media Dept. We have many students in our school who have already converted to (or purchased) the newest version of Microsoft Office, which creates documents and PowerPoints that are not backwards compatible with the earlier version we have at school, so we have been teaching them how to use Zamzar to easily convert their .docx documents to .doc documents, and .pptx PowerPoints to .ppt Powerpoints. Slick!

I'm not sure creating an on-line "to do" list is useful enough for me. I am having pretty good luck with my un-2.0 method!

Do You Digg?: Thing #12

My goodness, there are a lot of possibilities for sharing favorite news items and seeing what other people have shared that resulted in items becoming "popular." Of the four tools listed, I thought Digg and Reddit were cluttered and unattractive, Mixx and Newsvine less so.

I find it interesting that The New York Times online version, which I go to frequently, builds in a capability of sharing articles via Mixx, Digg, etc. I typically share links to articles via e-mail to people I think would find an article interesting, and I haven't given much thought to "sharing" them in a much broader way.

As far as uses go, I can see where keeping tabs on "most popular" news items would be a good heads-up for possible reference questions (and even my personal e-mail provider, Comcast, has started putting links to popular news items on the opening e-mail screen), but I have to admit that I'm not necessarily otherwise interested in what the general population has made "popular." Judging by the very unimportant items that can easily pop up in "most shared" lists just because of their novelty, and the inane YouTube videos that are often the most popular, the taste of the masses does not always match my own! I also tend to feel that many people clog up their lives and minds with nonessential information, while important issues of the world sink below the radar. With SO MUCH information on SO MANY topics, having ways to tailor the "feed" to my personal preferences would be helpful, but I'm sure I will continue to rely on The New York Times and other sites with readers like myself for a more trustworthy gauge.

Tagging and del.icio.us: Thing #11

I tagged a blog entry, set up a del.icio.us account, and tagged and stored some of my favorite sites for book research when I am working on orders and cataloging.

I believe there is potential for this tool in the uses I mentioned above--it will save time when I want to quickly get to my favorite bookstore inventory sites to find out whether a copy of a book I need is on the shelf. This is something I do frequently when students request a particular book and, before I run over to Borders or Barnes and Noble by Ridgedale to buy a copy, I want to make sure there's actually a copy available on the shelf in one of those stores. In addition, when I'm doing original cataloging it's often helpful to double-check some subject headings or classifications that the Hennepin County library uses, and going to "my del.icio.us" would give me a quick link there as well.

I can imagine that the tags would help categorize these various favorite sites in a helpful way. I will be retiring soon, and putting my favorite helpful sites into categories would even be a useful tool to share with whoever has my position next!