Learning To Learn Online

I just experienced the "Learn How to Learn Online" class given by Jennifer Falkowski and Trina Panagos of SMRLA.

Great experience. The Horizon Wimba software is fairly easy to naviagte, but it does a good job of replicating the classroom/training environment. You can raise your hand, speak, write on the whiteboard, and even make snarky comments to another participant behind the teacher's back.

I'm eager to take more classes using this environment. I think anybody who's having fun with the Web 2.0 assignment would like this training.

Tony's Tree

The Staff Association got us this tree in memory of Tony Hodges, who worked here at BCY until he died. Today the tree is in full bloom, and I thought it would be appropriate to share this picture.

If you remember Tony...please spare a second for a smile and a thought. And if you never met him, just enjoy the tree.

The Web 2.0 Blog

Dudes & Dudettes:

Wheck out what someone (orangerful, probably) has done on the Web 2.0 Exploration blog. In the sidebar there is a list of links to everyone's blogs, and it tells you how recently there's been a new post (1 day, 2 days, 1 month, etc.)

This is going to make surfing the blogs a lot easier.

Thanks!

Twitterers

I've posted a preliminary list of twitterers as a comment on the Web 2.0 Exploration blog at http://aacplexploration.blogspot.com/2008/01/optional-exploration-twitter-badges-and.html

Procrastinating/Having Fun

Sometimes when I'm reading a book that I really enjoy, I find myself slowing down as I reach the end. I'll put off reading it, especially when it gets down to the last chapter. It's because I don't want the fun to end; sometimes I quit reading the book altogether for a few days.

I think the same thing is happening with this Web 2.0 assignment, especially now that I'm reading posts from people who've finished. Meanwhile, I've glanced at the wiki assignment, but I haven't watched the video and I keep finding reasons excuses to do other things. (Fortunately, there are always other things to do.)

See, if I'm still working on the Web 2.0 assignment, then all this reading blogs and commenting and twittering like mad is productive, it's for the assignment. But once I'm done the assignment, I'll just be fooling around for the self-indulgent fun of it. If I never finish the assignment, I'll never have to stop the fun.

Sigh. What am I to do?

More Flickr Thoughts

This falls under the heading of "duh, should hve thought of this much sooner."

We always have patrons interested in local history, especially pictures. Why couldn't the library do something with Flickr to help facilitate that interest? On the high end, we could partner with the Historical Society in getting a collection of their photos online; on the low end, we could publicize an "official" list of tags that people could use on their local-history photos, thus facilitating virtual collections. And I'm sure there are many options in between.

More Bloggers, More Explorations

More bloggers are coming on board every day, it's great to see.

Things I'm really liking about this assignment:

• Reading blogs written by clever, interesting people
  
• Twitter
  
• Google Maps
  
• New people coming onboard
  

Things I could do without:

• Typing "xquulksqk" and "cwuvlpq" when I want to leave a comment
  
• Twitter behaving badly
  
• Work, which keeps getting in the way of all this fun
  
• People who don't update their blogs often enough, hint, hint (you know who you are)