Week 6, Thing #15 Copyright, Creative Commons, What's Coming Down the Web 2.0 Road

I understand the importance of copyright. It does get confusing though wondering when it is ok to use something and when it is not. The Creative Commons copyright license sounds like a good way to allow some uses while still allowing the creator to retain some rights. Having the creator decide whether or not to get a Creative Commons copyright license still allows the creator to have control over the copyright decisions.

It was interesting reading about the perspectives on Library 2.0 especially since I grew up without the internet. Before starting my graduate studies, I had no idea how important technology and the internet was becoming to education and to the library. I will take a moment to reflect upon Michael Stephens' perspective in his article "Into a new world of librarianship" found at www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm. Talking about a Librarian 2.0, Michael Stephens says "This librarian bases all planning and proposals for services, materials and outreach on user needs and wants." To me it makes sense that everything to do with the library revolves around the library user. Now with the technology available it is easier to find out from the library users exactly what those needs and wants are. Michael Stephens mentions librarians using Instant Messaging, Wikis, Weblogs, and/or MySpace profiles to connect with their users online. Since I am just beginning to explore the possibilities of the internet and I have not grown up using these tools, it probably would not have occurred to me to consider connecting to library users using these tools. Michael Stephens brought up a good point about the librarian needing to make fast decisions since technology is changing at a rapid pace.

Library 2.0 means more to me than just incorporating technology into the library. It means involving the library users by listening to what the library users want from their library. With Library 2.0 I think there will be opportunity for constant dialogue between the library and its users. While I think libraries have always revolved around the user, it is even more important now to involve the user. With all the new and rapidly changing technology and all the information out there, it is more difficult to predict what library users want from their libraries. Even the library users may not be able to predict what their wants and needs may be a few years from now. Therefore it is essential to keep up with an ongoing dialogue between the library and its users.

Schools and school libraries should also be embracing Library 2.0. Schools cannot ignore the fact that technology is changing the way students find information and even the way they live their lives. School libraries need to be having a dialogue with their students to find out what they want from their library. The school libraries should also include administrators (since they make decisions that affect the library), teachers, parents, and even the community in this dialogue.

thoughts on tagging

Tagging is a very useful and easy feature to use on the different sites such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Technorati. Tagging helps people organize and find information in their own accounts by allowing them to decide how to tag the different photos, bookmarks, or blog posts. It does not take up too much more of their time to quickly add tags when they are creating or adding the individual items to their accounts. Not only do they now have some organization in their own account but everyone can take advantage of that organization. It is easy for people to find other items tagged by other people with the same tag. No one person is left with the huge and time consuming task of trying to organize all of the blog posts, pictures, or bookmarks. On the other hand, a disadvantage of tagging is that you would not necessarily have good recall because you might not find the items tagged with a synonym of the word you are using. You would have to try to think of all the possible tags for the subject you are looking for. On the other hand if you are looking for some blog posts, some pictures, or some bookmarks about a subject instead of everything about that subject on Technorati, Flickr, or Del.icio.us, then what the tag returns might be enough to meet your needs.

Week 6, Thing #14 Technorati

I was not having much luck finding posts about Classroom Learning 2.0 on Technorati. When I searched for "library" in blog posts, I found 2791 blogs relating to "library" out of 853799 blogs. One blog that caught my eye because of its name was http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/
The blog is written by Buffy Hamilton, a high school media specialist/ teacher librarian. On her website she has a tags cloud and a category cloud. It is very easy to go to posts about the different subjects that she tagged. I also noticed that you can subscribe to RSS feeds about the posts. You have the choice of a feed about the posts and of a feed about the comments. There is even a link to her wiki page from her blog. It is really amazing what we can do now with technology. The thought occurred to me that as library students we can learn a lot about what it is like on the job for a librarian by reading librarians' blogs.

As I was looking around Technorati, I decided to search on my name "Cyndy". Since I spell my name with a y instead of an i, I do not often see the name spelled this way. Well, I found 4 blogs from my search on "Cyndy". An interesting blog I found was http://cyndycarstens.blogspot.com Cyndy Carstens is an artist who posts some of her drawings and paintings on her blog. It was interesting reading about what inspired her with her paintings and drawings. Using tags I was able to click on the tag "ocean landscape" and see the 3 paintings she had with that tag.

By looking at different people's blogs, I can see the different possibilities for blogs. While I still feel like I am just wandering around Technorati looking at the different categories in the blog directory or trying searches on different subjects, I did have fun finding interesting blogs.

Link to my webquest

Here is the link to my webquest on 5th grade poetry.
http://classroomlearning2.pbworks.com/f/webquest+for+LS589.htm

Comments about readings

It was interesting reading about Catalog 2.0. Allowing people to add tags to the library catalog and allowing reviews by patrons sound like great ideas. Not only would you be able to search a catalog by the way a cataloger has set up the subjects but you would also be able to search tags created by other patrons who may think more like you do when it comes to organizing and searching for information. Seeing what other people think about a book or other library material can help you decide whether or not you want to take that item out. It would make the catalog more interactive and allow patrons to have a say about the books the library has. A website mentioned in our readings that I found interesting was www.43things.com. On this website people list major goals they want to accomplish in their lives. I also thought tag clouds are a visual way of seeing which tags are the most popular. Tag clouds are a good resource to use if you are interested in exploring a website that allows people to tag information.

Week 6, Thing #13, Del.icio.us

Taking a look at SJLibraryLearning2's bookmarks on Del.icio.us, I discovered an interesting article about England considering the idea of libraries selling books. When I took a look at the different websites that are tagged storytelling I found an interesting website VoiceThread (voicethread.com). You can add your own voice to pictures, documents, and videos. One of the pictures I looked at was a drawing made by a child. The child describes his picture. Then people leave comments about the drawing by different ways including text or voice. On Del.icio.us I also looked at the tag cloud for popular bookmarks. One tag that was interesting was wishlist. Out of curiosity I looked at some of the bookmarks and found out that some of the things people were putting on their wishlists were a PS3, artwork, shoes, or handbags. Another tag that caught my eye was YouTube where people marked videos from http://www.youtube.com/. Related tags are helpful. For instance with the tag food you can then search for bookmarks that are tagged with food and the additional tag of recipes, baking, or nutrition to name a few of the eleven different tags suggested by Del.icio.us. I took a look at the tag education. I can see where some people added a comment to explain what the bookmarked site was about. I could also easily see the other tags the user chose for that bookmark. The related tags feature is very useful. I chose the additional tag games which gave me a list of bookmarks about educational games. It looks like some games are free online games, some games are to purchase, and some activities are printable worksheests. There are 79,175 bookmarks with the tags education and games! Del.icio.us could be useful in research. By searching on a tag that you think would result in relevant bookmarks, you can then have in front of you a list of websites that someone else has deemed relevant for the subject you are looking up. As long as you remember to look at the websites critically to determine the validity of the information, then you should be ok using del.ici.ous as a method for finding relevant websites. If you are looking at one person's or one organization's bookmarks on a particular subject, you may feel comfortable trusting the information on the websites if you trust the person or organization to look over the website before including it in their list of bookmarks. Libraries could use del.icio.us as a way to bookmark sites about particular subjects that patrons are interested in. Then it would be easy to refer patrons to the library's del.icio.us bookmarks instead of having to mention all of the individual sites.

Week 5, Thing #11

The website imcooked looks very interesting. Watching videos of people cooking sounds like a great way for me to learn new recipes to try. I also went with the idea of cooking on Ning and joined a cooking group. This technology adds a new dimension to learning and is more interesting than just reading a cookbook.

Week 5, Thing #12

Here is my link to Rollyo.

www.rollyo.com/cyndy/poetry_for_children

Rollyo looks like a great tool to have. In a library, Rollyo could be used to gather websites on a particular subject for the students to use in their research. That way the students are not wandering all around the web. The students would not have to worry about the information from the websites since the librarian has already chosen reputable sites. Rollyo was easy to use. I just had to wait for it sometimes.

Week 5, Thing #10

I created this image at http://www.comicstripgenerator.com

There were a lot of images to choose from. I was able to choose the title and the words on the image.

I had fun creating messages for my husband at http://www.imagechef.com I created a word mosaic for him which I sent to him by email. Using one of the animations, I created a message that shows up in the sand and then a wave washes over the sand. I also sent the animation to my husband by email.

Taking a look at some of the other online image generators, I am amazed at what you can create online these days. I went to school before there were computers in the classroom.

With the online image generators, a librarian could add images to a library's blog or website. The images would also be a colorful way to make signs for the library telling about upcoming events or about the library's rules. I am just wondering what the rules are about copyright and displaying the images.