Summary: ACL Learning 2.0 Journey

Finally, I am finishing my journey of ACL Learning2.0, the new MP3 is just “right around the corner” (just kidding, learning new things is much more important than a MP3). Anyway, I am still exciting to expect the MP3 coming.

To be honest,It has been really a long journey for me. it’s a huge challenge in my life. The programme is much much harder than my predicting, and I’ve spent plenty of time and energy to finish it. Sometimes I’ve been sticking with my laptop for all night, which rarely happened before.

While I was quite enjoyed the learning process. From it, I’ve learned so many new things. I assumed that I wouldn’t know them without this programme. It gave me the chance to challenge myself and catch up with the latest web technologies; in particular, we really need to know this stuff not only to serve customers but to face the challenge from Library2.0 or even 3.0. Society is changing, so are libraries… we also need to change. Thanks for the programme, it gave us opportunity to recognize the reality and forecast the future. I hope I have chances to apply these knowledge and practice the skills later on. There are still so many “Things” to know and learn.

I appreciate the hard work and excellent comments done by the ACL Learning admin team. Thank you very much. Hope see you again!

Netlibrary and Audiobooks

I visited the Newlibrary site and set up an account. Currently, there are 773 eContent collection. (But when I clicked the subtitle with ‘Publicly Accessible eBoods’, I found out 3,456 results, I was totally confused with these two different collections).

I randomly chose one children’s book, which titled “The Get Soon Well Book” and then I opened it. I was amazed to the beautiful pictures on the screen. They are very clear and colourful. It looked like a picture book. When I clicked the button of ‘next’, I was feeling that I was turning over the real book pages. Real cool, eBooks!

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed was that we can select the interface language. I ‘ve tried Chinese and then it worked out. The words on all the buttons changed into Chinese, which is fantastic. It’s such a friendly-use web and I love it so much. As for me, it seems a book treasure ant I’d like to read them later on.

Podcast

I’ve never known the term “Podcast” before I started this learning programme. When I read the information about Podcast, I was astonished to find out that “Podcast” was the Word of the Year 2005. The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected ‘podcast’ as one of the Word of 2005. It’s defined as ‘a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player’. Now we can hear ‘Podcast’ everywhere, thousands of podcasts are available at the iTunes Music Store and iPodder etc.

I’ve explored a few podcast directory and finding tools, like Podcast.net, Podcastalley.com and Yahoo.podcasts. They seemed out of date and my workmates suggested me to search for the library podcast, which named as “Denver Public Library Podcast”. It’s good and we can download many useful stuff, like songs. For the news podcast, CNN podcast is very cool and I like it.

YouTube

The first time I heard the word ‘YouTube”, I was reading the free newspaper “Aucklander”. There was an article talking about some bad things happened with YouTube. Quite a few students used their real names, addresses and phone numbers in YouTube, and then troubles came in. Their families have got too many threaten phone calls and letters etc. From then on, I knew that there is a web named YouTube, but I was quite scared to use it as the influence caused by the report. Sounds funny? But this is true. Some people are easily influenced by the environment where they are living, including me.

When I am getting to know more about YouTube, I realized that I misunderstood the web; while it’s a very great site with tons of cool videos, they have been continually added more and more. I’ve watched some of them and I really need more free time to watch these video. From my experience, I conclude that we should not fear to try new stuff as long as we do things in right way.
For practicing, I put a video bar showing video “ Funny Family Guy” and "Happy Thanksgiving" from YouTube.

Discovering Web2.0 tools

There are about 300-500 web2.0 tools available online. Amazing! Exploring the web2.0 Awards, I selected the link to the 'short list' for just the winners. Over there, I noticed that a few familiar name of Web site, which we've explored in the past. eg. Technorati, Bloglines, LibraryThing etc. I chose a few new sites to have a look.
1. Ma.gnolia http://ma.gnolia.com/
It's got a sign with a beautiful flower and a word 'Magnolia'. I like the design and it's colour. Also, there are quick links with several little windows, and we can open them by clicking on. There windows keep on changing after each clicking and give people more choices. How clever it is!

2. Lulu http://www.lulu.com/
I like the interface in Lulu's home page. But look around, it just like an online shop. People can sell, buy and even publish their books online by uploading the files. Everything is so easy just clicking the mouse. Continually explored the secxtion of "sell" and " buy", the only thing we need to do is following the simple instructions, step by step.................

3. Judy's Book http://www.judysbook.com/
I typed my city's name in the searching box, but it respond like this " Sorry, we did not understand your location...". So I supposed that it's may only for people who live in the USA. If this is true, then there will be no point for us to use!

Week 8 Online Productivity tools: Zoho Writer

I created an account in Zoho Writer. This is the first time I use it and I've never heard about it before. I think I really need to have more chances to know more new knowledge online.

When I logged in the web of Zoho, initially, I supposed that it just a kind of Microsoft Office Word. But when I looked around those features and I was surprised with its special functions. eg. with Zoho Writer, we can have our documents done online or even offline. We also have access to them from any computer. So we don't need to email the uncompleted work back-and-forth. It's such a cool new stuff. I think it's very useful , in particular for people who are studying while working, they can continue their documents at any convenient place and time.

But it's a bit disappointing, because it's very slow when I tried to add pictures or colour to it. It seems not easy to edit my document, compare with Microsoft Word document. Other than that, it's quite a useful tool!http://writer.zoho.com/index.do?docId=Week-8-Zoho-Writer

Playing around with PBwiki

I signed up in My PBwiki. I created an account simply by typing in my email address and password. That’s all! It’s so easy, I love this. Then I’ve successfully logged in My PBwiki. But I’ ve got problems with the next step: add my blot to the Favorite Blogs. I spent about 1 hour to get this task done and I’ve tried several times. Password? Edit Page? etc. I have been a bit confused about the instruction for a while. Finally, I did it in right way and my blog name appeared on the page of “Favourite blogs”. However, I don’t get the point for doing this. Why doing this? please find my blog in the Favorite Blogs page: (http://acllearn.pbwiki.com/Favourite+blogs)

Week 7: Wikis

Wiki is one of the most incredible new tools on the internet. Initially, I didn’t know that the information could be inserted by anyone in the Wiki. I think this affects Wiki’s credibility. We can’t trust the information on Wiki’s unless we double checked with other formal and accurate source.
Anyway, I still admire the concept of Wiki. It’s a cool idea for gathering information by a kind of ‘DIY’ way. I like it personally, and we still can find some general information there easily and quickly. I’was shocked by an article, it says ‘the chance of Wikipedia having mistakes is less the Encyclepedia Britannica’. Sounds funny?

I was not sure about the meaning of “OPAC”, so I search it by Google. Guess what? The first web I found is exactly “Wikipedia”!!! How popular Wiki is nowadays! We can feel that. Also I’ve got the right answer from there. Not bad! I like it.

On Library 2.0&Web 2.0

From my exploring webs this week, the most important thing I found out is the term ‘Library 2.0’ and ‘Web 2.0’. Web 2.0 means a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services, like Wikis, Weblogs, RSS feed etc. Their aim is facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. The term ‘Library 2.0’ is a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users. It’s borrows from that of Business2.0 and Web 2.0. Such a good idea, vivid and easy to follow! It includes online services like the use of OPAC systems.

I’ve read through those five perspectives, and I chose two of them to disscuss.
1. Away from the ‘icebergs’—Rick Anderson
Reading through this article, I was quite shocked by the author’s opinion and the statistic that mentioned in the article, he said “in my library, we’ve seen a 55% drop in circulation rates over the past 12 years’. In this Digital era, traditional libraries are facing a huge challenge. They are losing traditional customers who borrow books regularly, mainly because the using of other electronic resources, such as Internet, DVD, CD-ROM or CD. After reading the article, I started to worry about the future of libraries. Perhaps we really need to think about it seriously.

2. Into a new world of librarianship—Michael Stephens
This article also talked about the libraries’ circumstance and challenges they are facing. As technology keep on developing, the librarians are also required to develop their skills to catch up with it. Though we don’t know exactly what change our libraries may have, but we can equip ourselves to adapt any change. Perhaps, the things we can do including planning further studying, grasping Web 2.0, recognizing the contemporary world, seeking information and so on, to receive any challenges, Be Brave!

Technorati

I took a look at Tchnorati and tried to do the keyword search for ‘Learning 2.0’ in posts, Blog and tags. I found out 6965 results in posts, 715 in Blogs and 345 in tags. I assumed that not everything was added the same tags about ‘learning 2.0’. With the function of Technorati, we can check out those popular tags or blogposts to find out easily what people’s hot topics are currently.

Week 6 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

I have heard about ‘tag’ for a while but I’ve never found opportunities to know more or practice it. I’m a ‘bookworm’ instead of ‘webworm’. I read quite a lot books but not websites. Basically, I’m still a traditional type of person. Nowadays, everything seems become new to me, new terms, technologies or devices etc. I’ve to catch up with others, and that’s a big challenge fro me.

From WiKipedia, as a term in computing science, ‘tag’ can be Tags, HTML tag or Tag system etc. I assured that the ‘tag’ here refer to the definition of tags, which is a relevant keyword of term associated with or assigned to a piece of information, thus describing the term and enabling keyword-based classification and search for them. Tags are usually chosen informing and personally by people. I’ve also learned ‘tag cloud’, which is a visual description of content tags used on a website. I’ve ever seen them a few times but I didn’t realized that they are ‘a group of tags’.
The ‘tag’ we’re talking about here is different from the one for library subject cataloging. It’s more freedom and casual, they’re chosen by us, we can rename, save or delete them anytime.

I’ve explored Del.icio.us. I love this name, it’s pretty cool. I found out that a huge number of links already there for nearly everything. We can find anything we interested. I’ve tried to search the tag ‘web 2.0’, and then I got quite a few links and clicked some of them, they are very relevant. Next, I created an account in it, which is very ease to access. I added 3 tags in my account and saved them in my favourites. See http://del.icio.us/kathyfu2007/. It’s not hard but takes time to get familiar with it. I’ll do more later.