Week 6, #13, 14, and 15

Exercise #13 is about tagging and social bookmarking, mainly via a website called del.icio.us. This site reminded me of the RSS feeds we discovered during a previous week. Although this site isn't for continuous updates, the social bookmarking website allows people to save bookmarked pages, as they would on their personal computers at home, onto a del.icio.us homepage and access them from any computer in any location simply by logging on to the site. When I visited the SJLibraryLearning bookmarking site, I was able to see the resources used and the number of people that also subscribed to the site. One of the options allows you to see the other tags used by people to search for the particular website. The link I explored was infoisland.org. I saw that the link was saved by 113 other people and had common tags such as blog, community, library2.0, secondlife, sl, social, web2.0, etc. I think this tool can be useful for students that have to do research projects or papers. They can use the websites that they found most useful from anywhere, whether it be at home, at school, or at the library.

Exercise #14 had us explore Technorati. This site allows for searches in blogs and in the blogging community. When I searched Learning 2.0 in the search engine on the site, each of the three categories presented me with different results. When I looked through the popular blogs, searches, and tags, I saw that many people tagged popular sites that I also visited. I found one video that I thought was interesting. It was a youtube.com video about a rare, prehistoric shark called the frilled shark that was caught off the coast of Japan. According to Technorati, a lot of people use and tag youtube. Tagging and bookmarking, along with the RSS feeds, can be very useful tools. They allow for more efficient and quicker researching and updating.

Exercise #15 asks us to reflect on Library 2.0 and what it means to us. In a perspective written by Rick Anderson, he talks about how libraries today are trying to create stronger bonds between library patrons and librarians. This would minimize the unneccessary time currently spent by patrons and librarians dealing with programs and search engines that neither understands. With a stronger relationship, patrons and librarians can work together, learning and efficiently researching to find what they are looking for. To me, Library 2.0 is a constant learning experience.

Week 5, #10, 11, and 12.

For exercise #10, we had to explore an image generator and post about one that we liked. My favirote one to use was fd's Flickr Toys. I used the Warholizer because Andy Warhol is one of favorite artists. I think he is a pop art icon <3.>

This is the original photo. This is my "brudder" and I.

And this is what the "warholizer" did to it. I think it looks awesome =).

You can find this image generator and more at BigHugeLabs

For exercise #11, we had to explore one of the sites listed on the Wed 2.0 Awards winners list. The site that I chose to explore was Facebook.com. This site is like myspace.com except for college students and alumni. I think they recently expanded it so that other people from other networks can join also. I liked this website because you can find your classmates and old friends and continue to keep in touch. Also, you can post pictures into the photo albums on your personal facebook webpage. I thought it was nice to have an online community dedicated mainly to students because it makes it easier to relate to them. The only thing I didn't like about the site was that the expansion allowed younger kids, such as high school and middle school kids, to sign up for an account, which pretty much takes away the initial purpose of having an online site for college students. Here's a tag to my facebook webpage =).

Oh, another good thing about Facebook is that you can make a group and people with similar interests can join. For example, we can make a library group and people that work in the library or have worked in the library can join. It's an easier way to keep in touch with old coworkers in case you transfer branches.

The last exercise for this week is exercise #12. This exercised asked us to explore Rollyo. This site allows people to search only on certain websites that they choose. I do a lot of online shopping so I decided to create a search roll for the websites I usually visit. Here is the link to my searchroll. I think this tool can come in handy because you can specify searches even more and get more accurate results.

'Kay, that's all for this week. Byee. :D

Week 4, Item #8 and 9

This week, I discovered RSS feeds. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. At first, I honestly didn't know what this was. I had never heard of it before. After reading the discovery resources and going through the tutorials, I realized that the RSS feeds are sorta like podcasts. I learned about podcasts from my aunt a few months ago because she works at Apple computers and owns like a million iPods (no, not really. I'm exaggerating). One of the popular RSS sites is called Bloglines. It's mainly used for keeping updated about blogs. The website regularly updates you on certain blogs and news feeds that you subscribe to. The updates come to you on your Bloglines homepage as the site acquires new posts or news. The tsstutorial describes it as "Feed readers grab information from feeds as it becomes available." I think that this can simplify everyday life because the syndication allows for regular updates on blogs, email, and news feeds all on one website. It takes away the hassle of going to several different websites.

Week 3, Item #5, 6, and 7

So this is a blog about what we were supposed to explore for Week 3. I'm going ahead, but I think that's okay. As long as I keep learning right? :)

For this week, I'm supposed to explore and blog about something technology related. The sjlibrary blogspot site suggested Flickr as a photo-hosting community. I have used Flickr before, but mostly I use to to share photos with my family. Flickr isn't the only hosting site I use to post pictures. I've used various different sites to post my pictures, including yahoophotos, imageshack, vox, etc. My favorite site to use is actually Photobucket because it allows me to post images without actually linking the URL. This comes in handy because some people follow the links on the photos to look at my other pictures. This made me very uncomfirtable because it was like an invasion of privacy. Photobucket makes me feel more secure about my pictures and who I get to share them with.

This is a picture of me, my brother, and my best friend uploaded from photobucket.com =).

Week 1 and 2, #1-4

So, the 7 1/2 steps to lifelong learning was pretty interesting. It reminded me a lot of my Life Skills class I took last year. The steps were really informative and gave me insight on how to organize my time and the processes to establish and complete various goals in my life in and outside of the library.

Exercises 3 and 4 told me to blog, so here's my first blog entry. I haven't done this in a long time and whenever I do, I never seem to keep up with it. I hoep I do this time :D.