#23 -- The End!

Wow! This has been a really fascinating experience for me to learn all this stuff.

Most of my favorites have been for personal use, more than Library related...I love the blogging and social networking, I loved learning to add movie clips and pictures to my Blog and other profiles. I had a lot of fun exploring the image generators and the podcasts.

It was fun to take things home, like Bloglines, to my husband (who is very tech-savvy, but had never used or even heard of Bloglines) and teach him how to use it. He's involved with a lot of different newsfeeds, forums, etc. and it's fun to watch him utilizing something that I actually taught him about. So, that was cool, even though I probably won't use it again myself.

I feel I have a slightly better grasp on some of the options available out there in InternetLand...even though I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface. I think I'll make sure to print out all the "lesson" pages in the event I might need to go back and re-figure this stuff out again. It's been very useful.

A lot of the stuff doesn't apply to my job, and some of the stuff seems like it's double or triple the work. I noted that in my blogs. But that's okay, because at least I know it's out there, right?! So that's still good!

I would probably participate in a future discovery program, provided it was offered again during a "slower" time so that I had time to work on it. It's been really fun and I thank you for doing this program!!!

#22 supplement.....

By the way, if you want to be friends on MySpace or Facebook, I'd love to add you to my Friends List!
You can check out my profile on MySpace at

http://www.myspace.com/singinmomontherun

and you can find me in Facebook in many of our Library staff's Friends lists or in the following groups: Athens High Alumni ▪ Ohio University ▪ Athens Townies ▪ The Official LOLCATS ▪ Ohio for John Edwards ▪ I want a Morelli or Ranger in my life! ▪ I want to be Stephanie Plum ▪ A Tribute to Stargate SG-1 ▪ Circ Kids For Facebook!

#22

Facebook and MySpace are so much fun! My students and some of our younger staff members got me involved in it at the beginning of the summer. Both sites are fun but I definitely prefer Facebook for several reasons.

MySpace is very glitchy. All the fun in MySpace exists in developing your profile...you can do the coolest stuff simply by adding html code in certain locations! But half the time you'll be in your profile and it will crash MySpace and then you'll have to go log in again, and sometimes you lose stuff and it's all very frustrating at times. I have not spent as much time developing my profile on MySpace or developing my Friends list. My one thing that I like best about MySpace is my Playlist -- that's a list of my favorite songs that I can listen to when I want to...I really like being able to listen to my music!! Until, of course, MySpace crashes and then I have to go log in again. The only interaction you really have with your friends on MySpace is if you go check out their profiles and send them a message or just write a comment on their profile. You can post a bulletin to all your friends, but overall, MySpace gets a little boring after you succeed in getting your profile set up. And it wasn't easy to set up the profile either...I had to have all kinds of help, so not exactly the most user friendly thing in the world.

Facebook, on the other hand, does not offer music...(if it ever does, I'll probably trash my whole MySpace account and just keep a Facebook profile instead!) Facebook does not allow you to post html codes in your profile either, to link you to funny pictures, videos, etc. It would be nice if it did....but Facebook is a lot more FUN! It's a lot more socially interactive. I've spent a lot more time developing my friends lists. You can message your friends, write on their "wall", draw pictures for each other, etc. And there are tons of Applications you can add to your account that are just play related. You can join groups that have similar interests that you have. You can Poke your friends, which is just a playful way of reaching out and saying hi to someone. I have created my own quizzes, I have located people from my past that I'd lost -- I even found a lady on Facebook that I used to walk to Middle School with back in the early 80's, who I haven't seen in 25 years! She moved away and is now living in Canada, and I found her on Facebook through joining an Athens High School Group. What are the chances?? I HIGHLY recommend everyone joining Facebook and keeping in touch with each other. It's especially nice in keeping up with old student employees! It's fun to collect friends and every now and again you come across someone who you had nearly forgotten about and you can get caught up!

Another YouTube

I can see ME in every one of these!!!!

Sisters

Here is my sister Rachel Whitaker and Me (Kim Brooks).

Precious picture

On Saturday August 4, 2007, Grammy turned 97 years old. Here is the Oldest and the Youngest in our family....Grammy (Bonnie Arnold) and Elijah Brooks, 5 years old. Great picture!

#21

Podcasts seem sort of random. I listened to part of an interview with Jason Statham, who is one sexy man! That was on the Yahoo Podcast site. There were a lot of links that didn't go anywhere - kept telling me it couldn't find it. That didn't impress me, and in fact frustrated me because I don't really know what I'm doing half the time and then when I follow the directions I'm given and it still doesn't work...AUGH!!!

Then I checked out Podcast.net but it seemed like everything I tried to play/listen to I got a box that said "Click to run an ActiveX control on this webpage". ???? I don't know what that means. Then it kept wanting me to restore MIME type associations to QuickTime...I don't know what that means either. I didn't know if it was safe to do that or not, so I told it NO. When I finally got to the actual point that it would play something, it just kept saying "rockin'pop-cast" and "rockin'pop-cast.come" over and over. That didn't impress me either. I must be doing SOMETHING wrong.

I also went to Podcast Alley -- had trouble locating anything I actually searched for. I typed in Janet Evanovich (one of my favorite authors) and got ten hits...none of which had anything - and I mean ANYTHING -- to do with Janet Evanovich. Nothing. Sooo....either I'm doing something completely wrong, or it's just not all that easy to use. At least for us technologically slow people.

#20 Cat Bloopers - YouTube

I chose this video because the first time I saw it, I laughed until tears streamed down my face! Those cats just crack me up!!!

I love YouTube - I think there is a lot of very funny stuff on there. I find a lot of garbage too, and I wish there was a way to isolate the stupid stuff, but that would be censorship, I suppose. But anytime someone sends me a funny video, more often than not it has come from YouTube.

I think YouTube would be a useful component if you could do tutorials or self-guided tours of the library -- is that an option??

#19

I went to the "short list" and found Facebook. I love Facebook, so I'm gonna write about it. Facebook is a social network that you can just "play" with your friends online. Seems like nearly everyone I know is on Facebook, so of course it definitely has a place in a library setting, but probably more as a use for communication than anything else. I keep up with former staff and student employees once they are gone from here. It's also a good way to contact students when email just isn't doing the trick. They are on Facebook more than they check email anyway, most of the time. It is just FUN and it makes you feel good. Aside from the playful nature of Facebook, some of the useful features include an email feature, a huge variety of applications that can be fun or educational, and it also gives you the opportunity to seek out "Groups" that you can join. The Groups tend to be forums based around a specific topic. You can keep up with things that interest you. This feature might be useful in a library setting.

#18

So I worked hard in Zoho writer, followed all the directions and tried to create this document to post to my blog:

• This is my writer.zoho.com document that I'm experimenting with. I have already practiced sharing a "test document" with Mark Mace...well...I received his, and I don't know if he ever received mine or not. ???
  Anyway....here it is. This is pretty cool actually! Except it's not posting to the blog, even though it says it is. So....it WOULD BE pretty cool...if it worked. Hmmmm.

So, it never would post...and I did everything right, I'm fairly sure. It even told me on the site that it had posted. Now I feel like it was a big waste of time. That's disappointing.

Kim's Grammy Arnold

This is my Grammy -- Bonnie Arnold. She will turn 97 years old this Saturday, August 4, 2007. Is she precious or what!?

Two of my favorite people

Rachel and Ash and me, at Grammy's house, Christmas 2006.

#17

The Wiki Sandbox might have been fun, but it was complicated to use due to having to wait long periods of time to get on the site. It kept saying that someone was already in the site, but I was on the phone getting help from that person and he had already gotten out and completely closed the browser and everything and the site (trying to add my blog to the favorites) remained tied up for over 6 minutes. Things that make you go "hmmmm".

Tried to figure out how to add my favorite book, but could not figure it out. ???? Overall, I ended up giving up on it. The description sounded fun, but it was not easy to use. So for someone like me, that means it wasn't all that useful. Bummer.

#16

The wikis are very interesting and I think out of the 5 suggested ones in our assignment, my favorite two were the The Bull Run Library wiki and the Book Lovers Wiki. Both were very..."human interest", I guess is what I liked about them.

My main concern about wikis in a research aspect would be that - as I understood it -- anyone can go in and edit them. I think that is problematic because (1) it would just add to the overwhelming amount of information out there and (2) you could never quite be sure that you were getting accurate information.

#15

I think that Library 2.0 has many benefits. However, after reading all 5 of the perspectives, the part that I think all these technologically savvy people are forgetting is the HUMAN aspect. I think we human beings that work in the library are becoming even important because we are going from large "paper" collections into an age of people being able to just type a few keys and access information on the computer...but it's even more gianormous and confusing than learning how to look up call numbers! And I for one don't think it's necessarily better! I've found that through all these new technologies, I'm more confused than ever. It's highly unorganized and seemingly unmediated and therefore even more difficult to locate what you are looking for. I think it's going to be more important to have a human being to turn to to say, "help!" when the avalanche of useless information buries you.

#14

The Technorati was okay, but not something I think I'll use all that much. I really enjoyed seeing some of the popular videos on it, such as the Prison Inmates doing Thriller and that Tay "person" (who looked like a girl but sang like a boy) singing Chocolate Rain, which was actually a really cool song!

When I did the Learning 2.0 searches, I got a lot of 'hits' (for lack of a better term), but much of it seemed inaccurate to what I was actually looking for. I got a lot about hp printers and a whole variety of things, including stuff about strip poker on a later page, so I wasn't impressed with that exercise. HOWEVER, I did some searches of my own and looked up some personal interest things and found several blogs relating to those topics, so that meant more to me. However, I'm not all that into going to OTHER people's sites and reading THEIR opinions about things. That's just not my thing...it's way too time consuming and I have more than enough other stuff to do, you know? I didn't link my own blog to technorati because it seemed to be optional, so I opted not to. Hope that's okay!

#13

I thought that the Del.icio.us website was kinda cool. But I still think that having an account like this is time consuming and redundant. I can't imagine anyone else caring what I like to have bookmarked. So to take all the time to set this account up is sort of a waste when I already have my favorites bookmarked on in my Favorites list in Internet Explorer. That's more than sufficient to locate my bookmarks. Certain things have shortcuts on my desktop...those are the ones I use a lot. To go in and then duplicate all that in a Del.icio.us account seems like a waste of time.

#12

I can't see me using Rollyo, probably because I don't research that much. If I was constantly having to look up similar information and needed to keep it straight for research purposes, I can see where Rollyo would definitely come in handy. On the rare occasions that I would need to find information on the web, however, I would probably just Google what I needed.

#11

LibraryThing was very cool! I was able to set up an account and get several of my favorite's cataloged in my list - namely Harry Potter series and Stephanie Plum series. It will be nice to keep a running list of favorite books because often I remember the storyline, but I'll forget the author & title and then I can't find a book again.

#10

I found Pimp-My-Profile at http://www.pimp-my-profile.com/graphics/list.php?nh=40&cat=5&cname=Funny+Pictures&kw= and had a blast viewing the funniest pictures I have ever seen. Unlike many of the others, I WILL use this site to Pimp-My-Profiles on MySpace and Facebook for things like the Ugliest Dang Dog I've Ever Seen, and Fluffy, Destroyer of Worlds!

#9

I really like the Topix newsfeed! I found a lot of information that actually pertained to me or my area of life and that's unusual. Usually everything is worldly and I don't care about it. But the very first thing I found was about that SUV that knocked the OU Grad student off the Richland Ave. Bridge ... and since my sister was a witness to the accident, it actually pertained to MY life. Amazing!

#8 RSS

This RSS stuff is completely cool and pretty time consuming to set up. But I think I've finally gotten the hang of it. I think.
I'm not much of a news-hound. Actually, I pretty much avoid most current event news, as it is usually fairly depressing and I prefer to live within my own bubble of existence. I don't need to spend sleepless nights pondering the latest war-news or the most recent slaughter of innocence.
But I enjoy keeping up with my friends' blogs and it's pretty cool to subscribe to their blogs! I subscribed to local weather and that library cartoon Unshelved. In time I might find some other things to subscribe to, and I will probably keep up with this account!

#6

I nearly skipped an assignment! Eeek! I added some photos using Flickr (#5) and I talked about the technology stuff (#7). As far as #6 goes....I think those Zazzle Postage Stamps that they show in the tour -- omigosh! I am so going to try that once I get a little smarter about all this!!!! I am an avid letter-writer and if it's not overly expensive, I could really get into sending postage stamps that have personal photos on them. That is completely incredible. I'm going to track down the website and find out more about it.

Technology Interests Assignment

By the way, I posted the photos with Flickr....that was fun! I don't understand 1/2 the stuff I'm doing, but it seems to be working, so hey! As for the assignment of posting a blog about TECHNOLOGY - it just baffles me as to how all these totally different sites talk to each other and I just have to click a few buttons and type of few things and voila! it's all linked together! It sort of scares me too because it seems quite unsecure. Since I am so INSECURE with all of this TECHNOLOGY, I'm wondering how safe it all is. Anyone care to put my mind at ease???

Grammy's 94th Bday Luau, 8/7/04

family
Originally uploaded by brooksk1967

This was only moments after I broke my ACL. You can't see it but my ice pack is sitting on the step below me, behind Ben. Hard to believe that's been nearly 3 years ago!

Mother's Day picture 2007

Mother's Day picture 2007
Originally uploaded by brooksk1967

This is one of my favorite photos ever!

Chinese Horoscope...

It's so comforting to me to know I was born in the Year of the Sheep. Baaaaaah.

Awkward

This seems to be a very user-UNfriendly site. I posted a blog and everything else seems to come up as comments. Not sure if I'm posting correctly or not. Here was the assignment info I posted last week....but it was under comments, not the "blog" area.
Easiest Habit for me is 7 1/2 -- PLAY! I'm a visual learner. I cannot read directions very easily and figure out what I'm supposed to do. If someone will sit down with me and SHOW me what to do, then I will play play play and figure it out from there. I usually have a lot of questions though! The workshops will be helpful, but I'm probably not patient enough to wait until then. The hardest "habit" for me -- probably #4 -- having confidence in myself as a competent, effective learner. I'm a high maintenance learner when it comes to technology and need guided, hands-on teaching. All this new stuff is scary to me. I feel stupid and ineffective. I need someone holding my hand and showing me what to do.

June 12, 2007

Three hours ago I didn't even fully understand what a BLOG was. Now I've created one. How scary is that?! I might actually learn how to do some of these new-fangled things and actually understand what my students and my husband are talking about! Until now it's all been a foreign language to me.
Will wonders never cease?