South Park

South Park
Originally uploaded by cajkaren.

This is my feeble attempt with this South Park "game." I needed a lot of help to crop, copy and post it to my blog. Thanks Toni!

Podcasts

I see podcasts as an alternative to video, especially if you don't want your face shown online. In my previous post I suggested the idea of booktalks or teen book "commercials" and perhaps podcasts would be a way to present these anonymously. A story could be read as a podcast also, and children could listen to a story online.

YouTube

It can be addictive looking at the different videos available. Again, I can't believe what people manage to come up with and how they find time for it, but then we all have our own "hobbies" I guess. With the increased quality of video and ability to put it online quite easily, I can see this as being the new way for families to exchange photos with one another.

In terms of library use, I can see this as being a way to link video "announcements" to our library website. Perhaps we could have brief previews of upcoming concert performers, and like the Dewey & Sketch shows, we could have a weekly link on our Kid's Page with a live reading or telling of a story. Kids could just click on the link to hear a new story every week. I can see having teens making video "commercials" for good books they read (if we can get around the Internet safety/liability issue). There could be video clips of librarians doing booktalks or children's librarians demonstrating how to incorporate early literacy skills into story times. Maybe not all of these ideas are desirable, but it seems that there could be many ways of using this technology.

Web 2.0 Awards

It was fun looking at some of the award sites. I especially enjoyed "Guess the Google Image" and "True Stories Told in One Sentence." However, I don't usually have time to play around on the computer so I don't think I would visit very often. I am amazed at what people come up with though. Do they have another life besides computer stuff or do they not have to do household work like cleaning, shopping, laundry, cooking, etc.?

Google Labs

I looked at quite of few of the "lab sites" but I am not sure they would be that useful to me right now. I could see adding the Google Reader to my Google Home Page and it would probably do the same type of thing that Bloglines does with the RSS feeds (if I understand it correctly). The other things were not that interesting to me.

Online Word Processing

I didn't realize that this software was available online. For those who don't have Word or access to it in a particular place this could be very helpful. I can also see how it could be useful for collaborative work in a group project, as well as another way to back up files that could be lost if something goes wrong with your computer.

Library 2.0

Wow! I find it mind-boggling to try to think about all the changes that technology has brought to ideas about libraries and librarians both in the present and in the future. As a children's librarian, much of my time is spent dealing with people and the materials that I use to work with people. I simply do not have the time (nor, I confess, the inclination) to get caught up in the exciting world of technology advances. Yet I can see that all of this is important and someone needs to be doing this stuff. It seems to me that we need all kinds of people - the techies and the innovators who can keep us on the cutting edge as well as those of us who still specialize in the face-to-face human interactions. We can and must keep learning from each other.

Creating a Search Engine

I thought the Google customized search engine was much easier to use and navigate. I'm not sure yet whether creating such a search engine is more useful to me than just saving these sites as favorites (whether on my desktop or to my del.icio.us account). I guess it narrows down a general search so you don't get as much junk. The search engine I created for Story Time is below:

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=016084542355539132816%3Adjfcesy6fbk