Thursday, June 24, 2010

#23

This was a very interesting training. It was good to learn about different technologies and how they might be used for or in libraries. However, many need better tutorials or better instructions for their use by those with little or no technology experience. Also a number of the websites were not user friendly. Obviously I am one of those who needs to have someone walk me through most of these technologies because I had a great deal of difficulty and frustration using many of these things. Also I am one who has to constantly use a technology for a while to be able to remember what it is and how to use it and what it can be used for.

#20

I did the OverDrive tutorial since I could not access the NetLibrary tutorial. This technology is fantastic for someone who is willing to use a device or computer to read their books or for those who want to listen to a book. I however prefer to hold my book and read. I looked at our catalog under Net Library offerings and found only: 112 audio and 319 ebooks under the search term fantasy and 56 audio and 575 ebooks with science fiction as a search term. Under Digital ELibrary there were only 456 science fiction/fantasy selections but 1351 mystery/suspense selections.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

#21

http://www.secretworldchronicle.com/feed.rss

This is a podcast I found on Podcastalley.com (which is the only one xthat worked). It is a podcast written by Mercedes Lackey a well known fantasy/science fiction writer, the author of the Heralds of Valdemar series and many other series.
The Yahoo tutorial did not work.

#20

This was a lesson I thoroughly enjoyed. I did some nostalgia surfing and saw some actual footage of Jan and Dean singing plus enjoyed some Monkees clips. The library dominoes was great. I look forward to doing some more surfing at home. I could see this tool being used in the library for footage of interviews with famous people and etc.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

#19

I explored Biblio.com under the books category. It did not have the specific book I wanted but did list others by that author. I liked this awards list and look forward to exploring more. For a patron looking to find a copy and willing to buy the book this would be a most helpful site.

#18

I tried Zoo Writer after signing in and creating an account. I could not find a tutorial but it seems simple enough. However when I printed what I wrote it printed as a web page with the website on the bottom and pagination and etc. This would be okay for some things but it might create problems if you needed to turn this in to an authority. Maybe there is a way of eliminating those thiongs but it is not easily accessible. Also one of the notes about this lesson said that we would see things as we wanted it printed but I did not find that to be true. Again maybe with some more instruction. I also looked a the trial for Google Docs. Again the same printing problems. And the trial had no spell check that I could see. I see uses for these 2 online productivity tools.

Friday, June 18, 2010

#17

I finally joined the Sandbox Wiki after trying several times and then clicking on forget password and finally found a place to click on create an account. Then after joining I was told that I don't have access to workspace. I tried to join a workspace and got a message that include charges like $99 for signing up. So this particular activity did not work for me.