We're Baaaaccccckkkkkkk!!!

Its great to see participants pushing through the gates to join in our More Things on a Stick program. Lets keep it light and fun like it was during 23 Things on a Stick! I can't decide how to use my blog this time. i will try to blog specifically about all of the Things, but could get hung up if I need to fall back to help some of our participants along. This time, I also created a group for CMLE members on the Ning, so will cruise through there looking for people needing help.I'll resurface here whenever I can!

Thing 23: Final Thoughts

Learning these Things and showing them to others, has renewed my interest in being a darned good librarian. I've also noticed that when I am in a learning mode (after the first hard part) I notice that I am wearing more colorful clothing, trying unusual foods, and actually laughing more.Feeling more alive!! Sometimes life can get waaaayyyy too serious, and I think some exploring and learning in a playful way, is just the ticket to re-invigorate many of us. I love Wisconsin's tag line for a similar program: Play More. Learn More. Fear Less. Seems to me, that sums it up!

Thing 22: Ongoing Learning

I really hope our participants choose to continue their personal learning in a future version of 23 things. I am so happy with the sense of accomplishment I hear in participants blog posts.For many, this has restored confidence that was missing there for a while. As a part of my job, I subscribe to many of the blogs listed in this Thing, partly, so I am aware of new tools or ideas to share with our member libraries. Lets keep learning together!

Thing 21: Other Social Networks

I love Ning. It is sooooo easy to use, and I sort of wish we had "herded" our 23 Things participants through our Ning at the beginning of the Things. Some of my CMLE bloggers got lost in our Ning, and I had a heck of a time getting them out so they could set up Thing 1 through Blogger. I welcomed some new people, and commented on some discussions that are going on. Uploaded my picture of course and worked on my profile a bit. Am wondering if CMLE members would congregate in a CMLE Ning. More to think about. Gather definitely has a whole different tone, which I liked. What is better than a "MySpace for Books"? Oh, and last, but certainly not least, I dorked around in Shelfari for a while, and even added my Shelfari bookshelf to my blog. The wish list caught my eye, besides the other helpful categories for your books. I will be digging into the group discussions on this site more in the future. Sweet!

Thing 20: Facebook and MySpace

I have had a Facebook account for a while, but I must admit that I was reluctantly just lurking out there occasionally. I had to "restart" my account because Facebook no longer liked my password (yes, I had written it down). I spent a little time on my profile, posted on the wall of a high school friend, then took a look at the group called Libraries Using Facebook Pages. If I was an academic librarian, I would set up a Facebook page with no question. I would really like to think through how helpful this would be for CMLE, so I subscribed to this group as a way to monitor. The whole "friending" thing really has no appeal for me, but hey, that's just me! Makes me feel stodgy, but honest!!I can completely see why Facebook and MySpace would have great appeal to students. I can also see why very shy people may have outrageous social networking pages (and possibly need a lesson on safe computing). Looking forward to Thingee 21, I've been looking forward to exploring Shelfari.

Thing 19: Podcasting

I've used podcasts before, but challenged myself to learn something new. In poking around,I stumbled upon a site called Mediafly (beta), and I really liked how easy it was to find categories of podcasts and it was super easy to Play Now or Add to my Play List. What I especially liked is that a drop down offers the choices of readers to add the RSS feed to, which is nice. I tried adding a feed just to see how easy it was, amazingly so! I get annoyed when you almost have to stand on your head to add a feed to your Reader, I know, get over it! Anyway, Mediafly has audio books, produced by LibriVox, so I have no idea how the copyright works, but I thought this content was great for libraries. I like to look for a podcast and listen to it, but don't want the commitment of an ongoing feed. I have been toying with producing some podcasts from CMLE to its members, but am not sure anyone really wants to hear me drone on about anything. If a strong need arises, I will do it in a flash. Being situated here at SCSU, I can pull on the expertise of the podcasting team here if I run into trouble, but of course if I use something as simplistic as Gcast, there is no need. Gcast would be great for teachers to leave assignments online by just calling the 800 number and talking into a phone. Easier than typing. Not my favorite thing, but that is OK!

Thing 18: You Tube; Rock n' Roll Library

March of the Librarians: I spy Mary Ann VanCura!!

You too can be a rock star if you use your library!People who know me well, know that I often tell high achievers that they are making like a rock star! So, of course when I saw this library rock star video, it had to come to my bloggie.....No problems using the site at all, and what fun. Who wouldn't like You Tube? It just amazes me how easily you can manipulate video...have I fallen asleep for 200 years and just woke up? Feels that way sometimes!!

Thing 17: ELM Productivity Tools

Academic Premier search alert.Even witht he revised newsletter instructions, I was having trouble setting up my RSS feed in IE. No worries...as often happens in 2.0, I found a way around. I have all of my feeds set up through Google Reader and it didn't look probable that I could make this work, or that I would remember to check the feed in IE. Therefore, I set up my alert as an email alert, which will get the job done until we are able to set up feeds through Google Reader. Page Composer. Very cool. I had a MINITEX trainer demo this in November at the CMLE annual meeting in Mora. Most in the audience could think of many ways to use this, one being to do a search for administrators and wow them with the professional look of the search results!The ProQuest Create a Web Page was the best set of instructions in this Thing. Easy, and very professional looking.NetLibrary. The video did not show me anything I didn't currently know. I especially like to use NetLibrary to get travel maps, short bits about places I want to go. Nice to pull a few day trips rather than buying or borrowing the entire travel guide.

Thing 16: Student 2.0 Tools

Both the U of M Assignment Calculator (higher ed) and the Research Project Calculator (k-12) are fabulous tools, that I sure wish we had when we were learning to do research in high school. IF parents know about the RPC, they've just got to love it. When my kids were in high school I had many of their friends tapping on my door for assistance with their research. They usually cried "uncle" when it came to their bibliographies.Now, with the RPC, if they have the use of a computer, they have some guidance throughout the process, which is great! Having dates of what needs to happen by when, has to offer them great reassurance. I've been watching the Assignment Calculator for years, and the part of it that I like best is at the very front end, from the drop-down list, you select your topic. Then, when you receive your steps for action, the actual relevants databases are listed there. Wow, this is just so incredibly helpful to college students....no wonder, issues with printing, becomes one of the most common reference desk questions these days.The more we can customize the information for the need of the student, the more served and directed they feel without having to feel dumb, and ask a question...smile... Hats off to the folks who created these tools for Minnesota, well done!

Thing 15:Gaming

This was a tough Thing for me. Once, a few years ago, I downloaded some skunky game, and really messed up our home computer. So, I have flashbacks of the angst this created in the family. I am really careful about ANY downloads.
My strategy was to do Puzzle Pirates, but it requires a download. Scratch.
I've always wanted to do Second Life, actually signed up once at a Second Life workshop and never got back to it. So, I watched the video, and thought, what the hell, I am just going to do this.I read all of the FAQ's, and honestly have no idea what kind of video card I have, so decided to just go ahead and download the software, and not be such a chicken. However, when I did so, I got a security warning telling me that "the publisher of the download could not be verified. Yikes, scared me off....I even set up my account, my name is Lola Steig, and my avatar in 2nd Life is very funky looking. I had even saved a 2nd Life blog post from the Learning About Sticks blog, which had really good information about walking you through your first 2nd life experience. I would be more willing to try this at work where I would actually have some technical support if I get into trouble with the download. I can totally see why people would enjoy 2nd life, and of course it makes sense to have libraries in 2nd life. Maybe more later when I get my courage back!

Thing 14: Library Thing, Old Friend

It is criminal that I have had a Library Thing account for over a year, and it has been sorely neglected. I think the widget is new, and that was really easy to include in the sidebar of my blog. I don't quite have tags on all of my books, and I had forgotten the real power of Library Thing resides under your profile. This is where you can truly harness the power of fellow Library Thingers, and get recommendations of other things you may want to read. This has got to have huge impact on Readers Advisory. This is it, I am going to finally get my personal library in order, then give access to my family. They will love it, I will love it. Library Thing is going to get more of my attention this year, and that is a resolution!

Thing 13: Online Productivity Tools

I have been using my IGoogle page ever since I saw a presentation on it at a MEMO conference. I had set up RSS feeds before on Bloglines, then almost always forgot to log into Bloglines to read the feeds. Making my home page my IGoogle page is the only way I remember to read my RSS feeds, access my Gmail, my google Docs, and include a watch on my stocks, read some wellness news, and stay on top of national news headlines. There are just so many things you can include on your page, and it is super, super easy to arrange how you want it all to look. Love it! I always include things too like the Leadership Quote of the day.Today's quote is "Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future." ~ Peter Drucker

Thing 12: Social Media Sites

Interesting stuff, but makes me feel a bit like an old fogey. Many of the interfaces are just toooooo much, too much all over, things flashing, moving, scrolling, yuck!. I could get lost in all of the stuff and spend copious amounts of time I am afraid.It is fascinating though that many people appear to love these sites, so we need to take note! Of all of these tools, I find Mixx to be my favorite, but I can easily see that it doesn't attract the crowd that Digg does. I think I may still be OK with that if I find a need to see what folks are going crazy about on any given day. Of all of them I like Reddit the least...

Thing 11: Tagging & Delicious

I've been using Delicious for a while, but after watching the tutorial, I feel I learned some new things about it. It is a great way to keep your bookmarks "portable", but in the future, I will be looking at it more as a way to find additional bookmarks on given subjects. When I am putting together the resources section of my newsletter, this would be an excellent tool. Never thought of it that way, so this is great. At a real basic level, whats not to love about a tool that makes it easier to keep track to your bookmarks?

Thing 10: Wikis

No sweat....I created the 23 Things on a Stick wiki (using PB Wiki), although I barely recognize it anymore. Because we wanted to give all participants an opportunity to post to it, and share insights and ideas, it has changed a lot. I must admit, wikis are not my favorite tool. I have been an editor of sorts for over 15 years now, and I believe there is a place for wikis, but I have a hard time knowing exactly "where we are at" in the publication process with such a free flowing process and document. Me thinks it may be fascinating for students to use in a group process of creative writing. Having said that, I could also see sharing a doc with my 11-member Governing Board to get their immediate input....just not my favorite tool, which is fine....

Thing 9: Online Collaboration Tools

I think one of the coolest ways to learn to use these tools is when you are trying to solve a problem. Kicking off 23 Things in our CMLE region created just such a test case. My two other CMLE 23 coaches are LeAnn Suchy, College of St. Benedict, and Cindy Gruwell, St. Cloud State University. From the very beginning, we needed a way to share the registrations of our participants and Google docs became a great solution. We found it best to do the major creation of our Excel document locally, then upload it to our CMLE23 gmail account, where we can all get at our Google docs. In addition to keeping contact info on our participants, we are also able to keep our spreadsheet for tabulating the progress of our participants. This information helped us estimate how many completion prizes were needed too....

Zoho has a Project Management Software tool I would like to further investigate. Got into a tussle with trying to create a portal URL. Later....

Thing 8: Share Your Creations

OK, so I admit it, this has been a really fun day with playing with pictures...great fun, and fairly astounding results. I'm not sure anyone will believe "I did my own work". I dabbled with some of these tools a few years ago, but it is unbelievable how easy these things have become. I can think of all kinds of uses for these tools. When CMLE hosts it annual meeting, this would be a wonderful way to share photos of the author and CMLE participants. I am very excited to start using some of these tools for such applications. Stumbled across something called Smilebox, which looked very cool, and appeared to also include music in slideshows. Am thinking about things like 50th wedding anniversaries too, and how easy it would be to put some of these slideshows together. Waaayyy cool.....

Picture Trail Flick

Thing 7: 2.0 Communication Tools

I sort of forgot that I can change how often I receive email messages. I absolutely am going to set mine to check once every hour, rather than the continual barrage, which definitely can affect how productive you can make in the moment! I got all excited about Mail Template, but it appears it is a Mac application? In Outlook, I sort of do the same thing now. I create "template messages" for topics, then save them as a draft. Then, I copy and paste the text into a new message when I need it.I liked the quote, "stop letting your email poke you with a stick, its just not worth it". Funny, but a big part of my job is responding to these pokes, but maybe I can at least manage how often the pokes happen. I have noted an alarming increase in folks who just don't read their email, or maybe once a day!?!? Do we seriously have this luxury???
The instant messaging video was a good demo of IM, but I wonder how long it would take librarians to get comfortable with the lingo. I would be worried that I could not easily translate what the students were saying to me. I have found text messaging very handy with my kids. They seem to actually prefer it much of the time, and we've had some good laughs with trying to outdo each other in outrageous responses at times....
The multitype directors have been having some meetings using OPAL software. It is a nifty way to touch base, look at common documents, all have a change to talk, and save a fair amount of windshield time and mileage dollars. Not great for all meetings, but works well for specific needs. Over the last three years I have attended several MINITEX webinars, webjunction webinars, and others....love it! Most are free, and I don't have to travel.

I just set up my Twitter account for use at next week's PLA conference in Minneapolis. the conference will be humungous, and Twitter or texting will be a great way to find colleagues to have dinner or get together. What did we do before we had these tools???

Thing 6 Revisited

Now that I am finally getting a little discipline in my blogging for these tools, I revisited this thing and perused a couple more resources.

Image Chef worked well to create the Think Spring! animation on my blog. Have I mentioned how much fun I am having???

I also had a great time making a trading card of my grandson. At our CMLE offices we get lots of requests for interlibrary loan materials on famous Minnesotans. The students would probably love to make a trading card of their person to include with their dramatic presentation or final paper...they could be tasked with including the 5 most noteworhty accomplishments of their person....