Johnny! Johnny Dollar!

And a Happy New Year!

The Trogluddite wishes everyone a Merry Christmas!

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?

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!

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

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?

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!