YouTube

I had not used YouTube or these type of sites for anything but looking at silly things, so was happy to see some things that might be useful. I did children's storytime sites and found books that are read some by the authors themselves. Below should be Mercer Mayer reading There's an Alligator Under my Bed.



It took me some time to do this last assignment, as computers with sound at our branch are at a premium and there are a number of us doing techtrek, but more importantly the computer is mostly used by staff doing branch work, like book drop, schedules, and shipment/send item list.

I think we will be seeing this used to promote a variety of library programs and one site I visted, nextvista.org, had students actually doing projects, teaching lessons to other students.

Podcasts
Again this was a little bit of a problem since my old computer would not accept the feeds and iTunes and some other sites were not able to be done on the computer I finally was able to use, since at work we don't have an account.

I did listen to some podcasts on children's lit entitled BookVoyages and it was very good reviewing both picture and juvenile books. The only problem was that nothing new had been added during this year. I also went ot Libvibe and heard some current library issues. I think this is another option to listening to the radio, when you can't find a station you like. I think libraries in the future will be using this to promote themselves and their programs. From a list serve I had read about gcast which is a free podcast and I am hoping to see if that is something we might want to use.

This has been a wonderful experience learning about all of this new technology and I would never have done all of it on my own, so this format was very worthwhile.

Bob Dylan

This was fun and easy to use, in fact, I sent a message to my daughter using it.

As for the ad information, I simply ignored it. I guess if it was something I was definitely interested in, I might buy it, but not this. I see this could be come something of a problem, like spam.

Quest 11 Online Apps

I had never heard of these online apps and think they could be so useful in moving from one computer to another. This will eliminate the need for saving things to a floppy drive or using a USB. I know it will be something I will use, as the two computers I use most at work have no USB ports, so if I save something from home, I then will now be able to work on them when I am actually at work. Also one of the computers we have in the work room has no floppy drive, so again I would be able to use these applications.

I did use the word program and the excel type programs, as these are ones I use most often.

Quest 10 Son of Techtrek Playhouse

This was a fun week and these were mostly sites that I was not familiar with, so again I've learned something new. The only site that I knew was Evite, as I have received invitations to parties from this site. I also used it once with a friend in sending out invitatiions to a get together.

Slideroll is something that I might use, but this is also something that you can do with pictures on your flickr account, so it won't be something I do right away.

Dogster and Catster are not something I can imagine using, as I don't currently have a pet. I do know people who think there pets are their children and they would love this site.

Onesentence was again interesting, but not sure I would use it, thought it would be fun to use with kids in a classroom to summarize things.

I did enjoy Artpad and did send one of my paintings to my grandson.

Wikis

I have used Wikipedia occasionally when I could find nothing else on a subject and it usually has had some information, however, I would never suggest a student to use it in doing some research. I have mentioned it to adult patrons explaining what it is and not a reliable source.

I used the St. Joseph County Public Library subject guides and could not find things for children, but did find the cooking section fun. I liked seeing the covers and then checked to see if we had some of those titles in our system.

The Book Lovers Wiki was something I would use as a book club member and think this would be great if our system could start something like it. I saw reviews of books I've read and some that sounded worth reading. Again checked to see if we had the items in our system.

The Library Success Wiki had some great ideas for children's programs and can see us using it when doing some program planning.
I think wikis are very useful and something that the system could use for the calendar and program information.

I hope to try posting on a wiki, but haven't had time to do so yet.

Quest 8 Social Networking

Of course, I have heard a lot about MySpace and Facebook. Some have been concerns by patrons about the safety of such sites, but mostly the younger staff members here use these sites frequently and are often talking about their "friends." I recently heard on TV that a number of people were committing virtual suicide and closing out their MySpace accounts as they had grownup, or moved on to a new phase of their life and did not want some previous postings out their for their new friends or employers.

My daughter teaches computer technology to middle schoolers in the Upstate and she has been talking about these sites for the past few years and has conducted workshops for parents on internet safety.

I did read a number of the articles under the resources and found them helpful, especially the ones about Safety and Tweens and Teens.

I do not see me setting up a page using this social networking unless it would be for the children's department.

Flickr

I was familiar with Flickr because my daughter and her family use it to post pictures of our grandson. They are getting a little slack now that he is older, but I still check it every few weeks to see if they have anything new.

For this assignment I went to SC libraries and found a picture of myself and staff member Rick at our Read Across America program last spring, so here is the link for that pic:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccplpr/413939244/in/set-72157594575882997/