Thing #11 Wikis

I have not used wikis a lot, but I can see so many applications for their use in the library: class collaboration projects (with a built-in participation history!), staff collaborations, district collaboration, and more. I think it would be an extremely valuable project for a research project in a class -- students, knowing their work would be "published" online, would really take ownership of their research, writing, and giving credit for materials used. Participation can be documented throught the history feature of the wiki space. Perhaps this could replace individual research papers -- at the same time increasing collaborative planning, editing, and publication.

They are available for all members (or anyone if unrestricted) 24/7 -- but, not necessary all of us at once as we discovered last week. The key is to save early and save often to ensure your work is not lost should anyone edit on top of you. Also, to be aware that others could be editing at the same moment is important.

A wiki can be a perpetual document so members can add, edit, and expand into the future. I think that our Media Clerks job manual wiki will be a very helpful document for us to collaboratively build upon for ideas, "how-to's", and an excellent documentation of our job.

Thing #7 Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us has been one of my favorite "cool tools" for a long time. I save so many websites, blog posts, and information sources for use in...well, everywhere. My procedure for transporting my "Favorites", from my browser, was to upload/download the file to my flashdrive and carry it back and forth to work, when I travel, and to use on multiple computers at home. Not a bad method, but time consuming.

Thank goodness we are moving to the age of less hard drive capacity dependence, and towards storage on the web. Of course, I've been around long enough to NEVER depend on a hard drive, disk, network server, or web-based server to store my precious and/or important data. I always back everything up, regardless of the promises of data storage integrity.

Del.icio.us has been a godsend. Learning to tag and catergorize has been the key to management of my links. But, links do "die" and/or change, as well. I do want to have active, useful links. I have found a great post, Absolutely del.icio.us Tools Collection, with lists of official and 3rd party del.icio.us tools for everything: archiving, backing up, cleaning and verifying links, and tools for using del.icio.us on blogs, websites, and other collaborative platforms.

As far as uses in the library...well, there are so many. The first, and most obvious, use is to build a resource of curriculum subject links for students to use in research. Time is probably the only issue -- time to search for useful links to populate a useful database (to make it valuable enough to discourage "googling") and time to update/maintain. Another use -- teach kids to use it to store their resources for projects, papers, and research. What a great "file cabinet" for all their links -- and, it is something that is portable (school, home, public library, etc.) for them as well.

Thing #5 Flickr

The more I investigate Flickr, the more I like it. I have hundreds of photos stored on another online photo site, but Flickr has many more features. It will be a monumental job to transfer and upload all my photos (days and days), and probably years to tag everything, but it is now on my "to do" list. A few at a time...a few at a time.

I think that the organizational features of Flickr will be great. I use photos for many, many projects -- personal and at work. I can keep great blogging photos in a "file", personal photos to share, to scrapbook, to archive, to "keep all for myself".

The possibilities are limitless. I also love the feature to be able to send my camera-phone photos directly to Flickr. That's a handy tool. All kinds of possibilities come to mind for the library.

Use in the library? I do see this as a good alternative to kids Googling everything. I can filter the results as for safety (Advanced Search settings) and owner permissions (Creative Commons). I will probably set up a link on a search page on the website to see what kind of use it will get. Always an uphill battle with the easy Google search...

Now, I need to get all my 8mm film and videos digitized for safe keeping and make them easily viewable.

So much to do...so little time.

Thing #3 RSS

If I didn't shout loud enough, in class, on how much I love my Bloglines...I'll do it here. I've used Bloglines for quite some time. I've opened a Google Reader account and will need to explore that one to see if it may serve my needs better. ...when I have time.

I find aggregators, such as Bloglines or GoogleReader, indispensable in delivering the blogs I like to read. I like to know if there is a new post, or comments, on my favorite blogs...without having to visit each one individually (only to find out that there are no new posts) -- THAT is a time saver. There is nothing like keeping a finger to the pulse of what is happening in the areas I find interesting and important. I don't HAVE to read every blog, everyday. I can skim the posts and read it should I desire. Or, I can skip right over it to find something that is more important to me at any given time.

I use a web-based page to aggregate all the newsfeeds I like to read. I can subscribe to the sections of favorite news services I like: sports teams, election news, world headlines, Colorado news and events, investment news, technology news, weather, travel, commentary and editorials, etc.

If I wanted to search all those articles in the different newspapers and magazines... I'd be spending MUCH more time sifting, skimming, and ferreting out the news I want. I see using aggregators as an incredible time saver. I don't have time to go through all the articles, ads, and filler in newspapers and magazines.

Yea, RSS! My next favorite tool is del.icio.us...but we'll cover that next week...

Thing #2, Blogging

Speaking of moving outside of my comfort zone -- blogging is the place I need to start. First of all, I think that blogging, for anyone, is one of the most powerful tools we will cover. Here is our direct route to conversations, interaction with the world, and learning through doing. Here is the path to document our learning journey and share it with others.

I have never been a particularly good writer -- I have forgotten most of the grammar rules I learned (a few decades back), my spelling leaves much to be desired, and my focus has tended to blur recently. So what do I do? Put it all out there for all to see -- and even expect comments in return. Yikes! I guess that if you don't jump in with both feet, you'll never learn to swim.

Is blogging a powerful tool for students? Absolutely! Students, frequently lost in the crowd, given little or no voice in their own education, and dealing with educators who think that social networking is valueless, can finally find their own voice. Kids are creative. They are inquisitive. They want to learn. And, they have a lot to say. They want to learn, play, experience, and grow with their friends. Let them have a voice, a direction, and a responsible part of their own education process. I really think that we will be amazed.

Students are "in their element" in the world of social networking. That is how they get through their days, how they interface with the world, and how they, consequently, want (need) to learn. They create and interact on MySpace, Facebook, Deviant Art; they create and mix up music and video, they share, learn, and create. Until they get to the classroom.

Although we, as media clerks, aren't teachers, we can be educators. We can influence, guide, and show our students new and exciting ways to communicate with the world (and they can teach us much, as well). What a nice symbiosis. What if we can also have an influence on the education process in our building? Now, that’s exciting.