Monday, October 30, 2006

 
This is it! Finally here! As you can see from the picture posted below, the Trogluddite has completed all 23 steps and evolved into fully human form. Well, not quite--this learning process has expanded my brain from the size of a walnut to that of a large persimmon. The reason my brain my has not reached its full size is that I need more time to explore and absorb all the fascinating things I've learned. This has been a lot of information to digest. I've had to rush through things the last few weeks because we've been so busy. Fortunately, the last few items, Zoho Writer, You Tube, and podcasts have been easy to learn. I will need to go back and spend more time with wikis, Library Thing, blogs, del.icio.us, and RSS feeds to fully master them and appreciate their usefulness. I'm glad I've gone through Learning 2.0 because it will make me a more useful library worker. There's no doubt that Web 2.0 will affect how libraries interact with patrons. This journey has helped prepare me for that future. But I have to wonder if the time will really come when library/patron interactions are entirely online. The Trogluddite remembers the Stone Age days of the late 70's and early 80's when there was a serious discussion of whether or not people would continue to go to movies with the advent of videos and cable tv. We've seen of course, that people still go but yet watch their videos and cable. I think that's what will happen; librarians will disseminate information online and in person. We'll need to know Web 2.0 skills and good interpersonal skills for our face-to-face interactions. I am also glad to know that our Learning 2.0 site will be here permanently. I spoke with the Great Wise One on All-Staff day and she assured that it would always be here. That's good, because I was afraid that it would disappear soon after Oct. 31 and those of us just emerging from the caves wouldn't have time to learn all this completely.
Let me leave everyone with a few questions: What about the Digital Divide? We all have patrons who can barely afford school supplies, much less computers. Where will the Web 2.0 movement leave them? Is there a way that those who have been so busy that they couldn't complete this by Oct. 31 still get there MP3 players? Is there ANYONE who could tell me how to put LIBRARY THING back into my sidebar? One of the few complaints I have is the difficulty in getting questions answered. Sometimes I've received quick responses and other times no response.
I hate to call this my final entry. I think we should keep posting to our blogs. How about you?

 

Trogluddite's Evolution


Trogluddite's Evolution
Originally uploaded by schw4452.
You see the before-and -after pictures of the Trogluddite. The bottom picture is the Trogluddite before starting Learning 2.0.

 
I'm trying to add a few things before my post for item #23. Here's a very funny video from You Tube. It's unintentionally funny, the best kind. This is from a Korean show called "Love Letters". It seems to be a Korean cross between American Idol and The Dating Game. These male Korean stars try to impress these female Korean stars, apparently to get dates. But these guys-----they're handsome enough, I guess, but most of them try to dance and none do it well. then they dress in these outfits that look like leftovers from the 90's, 80's, and 70's. Then when this comedian ("Korea's top slapstick comedian!") comes out...! Is it ever silly! Then this obnoxious and loud announcer...! Then the translations...! It's all great. Watch the first montage of the male stars--if you look quickly, you'll see one of them wearing an NC State shirt! It's a long video, about 10 minutes, but worth it. Enjoy!

 

 

Fully Evolved Half and Daughter


Fully Evolved Half and Daughter
Originally uploaded by schw4452.
This is the Trogluddite's fully-evolved half. She has been working with computers (especially Macs--the only brand for the most highly advanced species) since the Trogluddite was chiseling words onto rocks. I have learned a lot from her. Next to her is our daughter, Kaylee. As you can see, she is a true princess.

 

Peeking Princess


Peeking Princess
Originally uploaded by schw4452.
You see my lovely daughter peeking from behind the skirts of Princess Willow, aka Leah Webb. This was our Royal Rumpus program at IMG.

Friday, October 27, 2006

 
Time is flying! We are so busy that I must make this post cover items # 21 and 22. I have been able to give them only the briefest overviews but, fortunately, they are easily understood, even for those with prehistoric brains. I looked for and found several podcasts on storytelling. I listened to (a part of) Mr. Howerton reading Kipling's "How the Leopard Got Its Spots". This seems like a good place to find podcasts for kids. Then I created a free Netlibrary account and looked for audiobooks on the Civil War. I should have put in "American Civil War" because I got audiobooks about eastern Europe and other places around the world as well as the USA. I will go back and devote more time to these items; right now we are so busy that I barely have time to write this. ON top of that, that sound on my computer went off. The Wise Ones are debating what happened; one says that the driver has failed and the other thinks that my sound card has died. Right when I'm covering podcasts and audiobooks! Well, I hope to cover item #23 soon and get that MP3 player so that I could hear one of those books!

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

 
Well, I've just completed another step. Here is a short little video downloaded from You Tube. I chose it because it deals with libraries and because my own daughter is Chinese. You Tube is very easy to down load from; much easier, in fact, than Zoho Writer or even Flickr. I've tried to follow the work-around directions for Zoho Writer and still can't get it to post to this blog. The Trogluddite's prehistoric brain is probably missing a step. Anyhow, I have one complaint about You Tube and it's the same that I have against other Web 2.0 sites--lack of instructions! You Tube is remarkably easy to manuver around in, but there are no step-by-step instructions on how to search that site. I'm starting to figure it out, but simple and concrete directions would help those of us with brains the size of walnuts. I hope to add another video later. It's rather long (almost 5 minutes) and took too long to try it now. Maybe later.

 

Monday, October 23, 2006

 
The Trogluddite has had fun playing around with Learning Item #19. Since time is running out so quickly, I've been able to give only a brief overview of this item. I'd like to go back and look at this (and many of the other learning exercises) in more depth later. They all require more study and time than I can give now, since we are so busy with young ones. I looked in vain for tools about boys and reading, so I decided just to have fun("Trogs just want to have fun") and looked around. I found a wonderful wiki called Wetpaint. It's a great hodgepodge of subjects. I looked at three and had a great time with them. One was Book Lust by Nancy Pearl, who has been called "the librarian version of a rock star". A terrific site about books. The other two were Strictly Southern and The Worst Album Covers Ever. I didn't have much time to spend with either one, but I enjoyed them both. There was a great section about barbecue on Strictly Southern. I visited only 2 categories on the Worst Album Covers (some should be avoided) but those 2, Extra Cheese and Fashion Victims, made me laugh out loud. Who out there remembers album covers?

Thursday, October 19, 2006

 
The Trogluddite is mildly frustrated tonight. I spent some time with Zoho Writer and was very pleased with it--easy to use and close enough to Word that my prehistoric brain could understand and use it. I was going to post my document to my blog as evidence of completing Step #18, found a button that said "Publish", and found a drop-down bar that said "Publish to Blog". How easy, right? WRONG! Whenever I did that, a dialog box came up and asked for my Blogger username and password. Every time, and I mean EVERY time, I typed it in, I was told that my username and password were incorrect. I tried uppercases and lowercases, thinking that it might or might not be case sensitive, but nothing worked. But I found out that I was not the only one--I spoke with a younger and more knowleable coworker and learned that the exact same thing had happened to her. Furthermore, I tried to insert a photo from my D drive into my Zoho document but couldn't. I asked another coworker (who is much more highly-evolved and tech savvy) how to work it but she didn't know. So I'm stuck. I like Zoho Writer but there are things about it that no one understands. Could anyone help out a poor bewildered trogluddite? And could anyone PLEASE tell me why Rollyo keeps migrating? And where Library Thing has gone?

Friday, October 13, 2006

 
A quick post--I played around on the PLCMC PBWiki and had a great time. Adding my blog and favorite restaurant was easy. It was also fun to see what my coworkers throughout the system enjoy. It'll take a lot of time to go through Favorite Books--don't get librarians started on that!

 
WHY is Rollyo rolling onto my postings? And WHERE has Library Thing gone?

 
Wikis are a fascinating topic. The Trogluddite has spent all morning looking up wikis, readng them, and following links from them. I agree with the many articles and blogs I've read about wikis which say wikis could be useful for tools for libraries to interact with their users (like the Bull Run and the SJCPL wikis) and for librarians to create pages to interact with each other (like the best uses wiki and ALA's 2006 New Orleans wiki). This goes along with the articles in exercise #15 about 2.0 and the future of libraries. Almost all of them agreed that libraries would become places of back-and-forth communication between librarians and users. Wikis could be a good resource for that. I noticed that PLCMC has been doing something similar with its adult and children's book review pages. The Bull Run wiki had a book review page and it was remarkably similar to our own Reader's Club. We've been ahead of the curve once again!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

 
All right, the Trogluddite has taken a break, gone outside his cave and into the sunshine, gotten some iced tea, and cleared some of the cobwebs out of his prehistoric brain. He has also read all five articles on exercise # 15 about Library 2.0. Once again, this is a very big topic and I need some time to digest it fully and give some quality thought to it. However, I think Dr. Wendy Schultz's article is the most accurate. I believe that libraries will evlove from their current state of buildings with lots of information stored inside to centers of collaborative information sharing and back to buildings which aesthetically pleasing and draw people inside. I tend to agree that 2.0 will change the way libraries their services. The cyber world will break down barriers between libraries and other information institutions (such as Amazon.com), between libraries and users, and even between libraries in different locations. At the same time, people will always want to come to a library to get a book or look at magazine or do scholarly research. Does anyone remember the book Megatrends by John Naismith from the Stone Age days of the late 70's and early 80's ? Does anyone remeber his theory of High Tech/High Touch which said that, as the world get more high tech, people will also want to remain connected with each other out in the "real" (the physical) world. I think that's still true. People will always want to come in to a library. Yet I also believe that 2.0 will change the way we provide services.
Hey, not a bad blog for running on a tired brain. Didn't think I could do it. Let me toss a question out to everyone--how do you think 2.0 will affect children's services? I'm in a children's area am, of course, curious to know how 2.0 would impact us. What do you think? Will 2.0 change children's services? How?

 
And where has Library Thing gone?

 
Once again, the Trogluddite's head is spinning from trying to absorb all this new info on Technorati. I must say, though, that it is a very impressive site. There are a lot of fascinating blogs out there (I even found one by Will Wheaton, the former Wesley Crusher of Star Trek Next Generation fame) and that was just from a brief search of the Most Popular sites. I would really like to look up blogs on boys' reading and CS Lewis, two of my favorite subjects, but time won't permit me right now. We have been extremely busy with many young ones coming to the cave. That makes time to work on Learning 2.0 rare. Since today is Oct. 12 already, I also feel that time is flying away faster than a pteradactyl with its tail on fire and I have yet to deal with such potentially complicated subjects as wikis, podcasts, YouTube, and other unknowns. There's much to learn and little time for it. So I am trying to get a good overview of these 23 Things and then go back and explore them in depth later. That's why I haven't signed up with Technorati yet nor have I tried to "claim" my blog. (By the way, both PLCMC and Technorati state that claiming a blog is easy--simply insert some HTML code into your blog. BUT does anyone tell you WHERE in your blog that code is supposed to go??? I haven't found out. The same thing happened with Library Thing. I could never understand where to insert the widget code--even though I appreciate HB's doing it for me) Well, the Trogluddite is starting to ramble. That's a sure sign that I need a break. Just to let everyone know, however, that I did look up "Learning 2.0" under tags, blog posts, and blog directories and found some steiking differences. When I went under tags, the results seemed to be topic-related. It was very general, referring the searchers to sites or blogs that talked about Learning 2.0. Going under blog posts and directories, the results were much more specific, referring me to individual blogs that had written about Learning 2.0 (and I was very glad to see many of our library people's blogs in there) SO, to sum up this long post, I am glad I explored Technorati and plan to go back. Right now, the Trogluddite feels just as he does after eating a whole brontosaurus--very full and needing to digest it all. My prehistoric brain needs to absorb all this new info before moving on to the next exercise, which I hope I can do today.
By the way, Rollyo is still migrating from the sidebar and into the text. Does anyone know why?

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

 
Never mind! It's migrated back to its regular spot.

 
P.S. Could anyone tell me why Rollyo has started migrating around my blog? I know it's fall and it's time but...

 
The Trogluddite has taken step #12 on the 23-step path to higher evolution. I'd added del.icio.us to my collection of useful tools such as fire and the wheel. As usual, my prehistoric brain became overwhelmed with all the information thrown at me, but after some time to absorb it all and some help from a younger and more knowledgeable coworker, I figured it out. This tool could come in very handy. I've already added 4 bookmarks to it about boys' reading. I'll go back and add more things later because we've been very busy lately and time to work on 2.0 has been short.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

 
The Trogluddite is making another quick post--I have 5 minutes until lunch. My prehistoric brain has just wrestled with Rollyo for almost an hour. This site, like Flickr, gives you everything you need except INSTRUCTIONS!!! Apparently the creators don't understand that there are some of us who need very basic, very detailed, and very concrete step-by-step instructions on how to use their products. I would never have been able to create my search roll or put it into my blog had not TWO of my younger and more knowleable coworkers shown me what to do, and even then they had to hold my hand and guide me. The Trogluddite wishes that these sites would remember those of us with brains the size of walnuts. Some one like me who tried to figure this out on his own would have a terrible time. It's a good thing that this is a collaborative learning project--but just think of the other poor trogluddites out there alone who don't have any highly-evolved coworkers to help. That's my gripe for today. Thanks for putting up with it. I'll have time to reflect on it later and say some more, but now it's time for lunch--must get my spear and look for mastodons.

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