Friday, November 30, 2007

#19 - Podcasts

Lesson #19 was to listen to a podcast, so that is what I did. I looked at all three podcast directories that were listed in this lesson. The three recommended podcast directories in this lesson were: I had trouble finding what I was looking for. So I decided another good laugh would work. I found the podcast for Larry the Cable Guy and "Shopping at Wal-Mart".

I personally don't care for podcasts. I prefer the idea of YouTube just because I am a visual person. There is something about a podcasts that bothers me, sort of like talk radio (unless it's Dr. Laura). I even noticed that when doing this learning 2.0 lessons, I hated the ones where I had to listen to the podcast. I wanted to just read the text and be done. Maybe I need some patience :-)

#18 Video - Discover YouTube

This lesson has far been my most favorite lesson of all. I have really enjoyed watching YouTube. So this week's lesson required us to find a clip on YouTube that we liked and blog about it, so here ya go!!!

The clip I am posting is "Larry the Cable Guy - The Night Before Christmas".
I love Christmas and since everyone is so worried about being "POLITICALLY CORRECT" I couldn't resist passing this one up. I know that Larry the Cable Guy can be rude and crude, but who cares. We all need a good laugh now and then. Maybe this is my redneck country girl side that is coming out. I hope you all enjoy it. Git r' done!!!!!!

#17 - Processing Words on the Web

First off I want to praise "Google Docs". I recently started using Google Docs this semester in my HEA 345 Drugs & Society class. Another student and I decided to work together in creating our study guides. This way we both were able to type up the questions and answers and share them with each other. By using google docs it saved me time and headaches.
As for the Google docs applications, I personally think it is very easy and user-friendly. I also like the fact that I don't have to have my flash drive with me all the time. I can just log in no matter where I am and type away. My life is all about convenience and time management and this is just another benefit for me.
I think that this application would be very good for professors to use in the classroom. A could see a professor posting their study guides this way. Then the students could look up the answers and post them so that each person is not individually looking up all the answers, but they all could participate and benefit from the results. Which means more time reading the necessary material in class and the chance to study for exams early.
I personally recommend Google Docs to any non-traditional student who is juggling the responsibilities of work, school and family!!!

#16 - Intro to Web-Based Applications

Web-based applications, so many to choose from!!!! The first part of this weeks lesson was to visit a blog at UCD Library 2 go and read some of the posts that the have published. I looked over this blog and thought that is was very interesting. About 4 years ago here in the reference department created a blog for our team members of our frequently answered questions. This was a nice tool for us to go to when we needed an answer fast, however the enthusiasm of this died fast.
The UCD Library created this blog for their students though, which makes this more exciting. I am not for sure how much the UCD students use it and I don't know that EKU students would use it but it's a nice concept.
One blogpost I found interesting was the one on Snippy. Snippy is apparently a way to cut and paste is any shape possible not just highlighting a section of a document and pasting it. I thought this might be a cool application to use when I am typing out captions for my scrapbook. I have not tried this application yet, but I have definitely added it to my list of things to do. (Like I have time for anything else) :-)

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Bill Mecks - Weather 101

My daughters school was visited by Bill Meck of LEX 18 news to present his weather 101 class. B really enjoyed this class and learned a lot of information. Actually so much that she would not shut up last night. So when LEX 18 comes to the schools they video the class. B is sitting in the back and I actually can't see her but my best friend is sitting in the front right hand corner.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

# 15 - Get your hands dirty in the wiki sandbox

This weeks lesson in learning web 2.0 was to play with using a wiki. I went to the the EKU Libraries learning 2.0 wiki and listed two of my favorite television shows. By the way, I really love "Desperate Housewives" and "Reba".
Making changes to the wiki was really easy and quick. As I said in the earlier post I like the idea of having just "one go to place" where many different people can edit the page. This is so much simpler than trying to keep track of emails going around to a large group of people. I am not really for sure that I will use a wiki for personal use any time soon, but I am sure that I will use one in the future. I really see the potential that this tool can offer.

#14 - Gettin' wiki with it!

This weeks lesson is discovering the Wiki. To find out more information about Wiki's click here.
Basically a Wiki is a place where a group of people can type information about a topic that allows each person to edit each others information or just add new information. (hope that makes sense)
I think that using a Wiki can be very beneficial in many settings such as between friend, family and totally in the workplace.
I looked at some library wiki's and like being able to see suggestions and things going on at other libraries. I liked the idea of publishing a thought or idea on a topic in a wiki and then getting other peoples feedback by having them edit, change or add to my thoughts. Wiki's can be very useful and I am looking forward to using this application in my field of interest in the future.

#13 - Tagging, part 2

Exercise 1 - Folksonomy
Basically my conclusion on folksonomy is this is just tagging. I like the idea of being able to organize, but tagging is good, but to a to minimum. Some of the websites I have seen that allow tagging is just crazy. For example Librarything, I loaded my books into my account and started to look at what other people are reading and tagging about. I like tags that really relate to the topic, not just a tag like "fun" or "exiting". So overall tags are okay, but some people are having a bit too much fun when tagging!

Exercise 2 - Encore
I did a search at a library webpage that has the Encore software. My search was on HPV, most of the tags that were displayed made perfect since. However I was surprised to find that there was not a tag for teens, females, women, but there was a tag on men.

Exercise 3 - del.icio.us
I really didn't understand the concept del.icio.us until I watched the video explaining the benefits of it. At this point in my life I don't have a need to bookmark my favorite sites. I do think that if I was doing specific research on a topic that this could benefit me by allowing all the websites of my interest to be loaded into one site. Plus the ability to search and use the websites that other people are using about the same area of interest as myself.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

#12 - Tagging

For this web 2.0 lesson we were to explore the idea of tagging. What in the world is tagging, is what you may be wondering. To learn what exactly tagging is click here.

In this lesson we were to do a search in Google and then do the same search in eQuest, the library's catalog. Since I am a community health education major, I decided to search for something that is a hot topic in my area of study. I did a search in Google on HPV. This search resulted in over 10 pages of results. The results were an array of resources such as scholarly information, newspaper articles, pictures, to statistical information on HPV and the new vaccine. I did the same search in the library's catalog, but my results list was a lot smaller. How about this, I only found one book and one government document that discussed HPV. There are a few reasons why this may have occurred, in particular the keyword HPV might not have been a good search term to use. The library catalog suggested subjects terms such as sex, sexual ethics, or "sex and law."

In my opinion I think tagging is a form of cataloging. Actually I think it is a better way of cataloging. The logistics behind tagging is good, but the key to this is to use a lot of different words in tagging. Tagging will not be very beneficial with just a few words. The old saying "the more the merrier" can be applied to this lesson of tagging.