Skippyjonjojo

Slow but Sure (Well most of the Time) #23

2006-10-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve felt like the tortoise for the last few weeks, but here I am at the finish line at last! After a slow, frustrating start, I finally got myself organized and with the help of some friends (Gidget, Leslie, Tony, Joy, Geri and Emily to name a few) got going.

I learned a lot and started enjoying myself. These are some things I liked and will revisit:

My Library - looking forward to no more little slips of paper with book titles scattered all over the house.
Blogger - setting up a group blog for my sisters and our daughters. My younger sisters are really impressed.
Wikis - setting one up for myself primarily to remember birthdays, special occasions, possible gifts and other stuff.
Image Generators and YouTube - Fun! Fun! Fun!
Rollyo - never thought I'd use this, but have gone back to the search role I created on NC Indians several times. My department is going to set up a Rollyo account that we can put other frequently asked homework questions on.
Least favorite thing: Finding time to work on 2.0. I did most of it at home:(

I can recall clearly a picture from My Weekly Reader when I was in elementary school. It was what was referred to as an "Electric Brain", actually it was the Univac. It filled an entire room! "Cutting edge 50's technology." How exciting to have all of that power and much, much more literally in the palm of my hand. Can't wait to get my MP3 player!

eAudiobooks (#22)

2006-09-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

Though there were many steps, it was easy to create a Net Library account. I hope it's as easy to download a book. I liked the preview component. It was good to hear the reader's voice before committing to a few hours of listening.

While browsing, I first went into children's books. It seems Brian Jacques has a lock on this category. Twelve of the fifteen titles listed were his. Children's classics had fifteen titles. I was disappointed that there weren't more audiobooks for children. Hopefully that will change soon.

Did you know that you could become comfortable with the Albanian language in just four hours and fifty-three minutes? The blurb in Net Library assured me that you can. I think I'll pass, but I can see how useful language eBooks would be to patrons. I did put two mystery titles and a non fiction into my favorites to possibly download later.

Podcasts (#21)

2006-09-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

I was amazed by how many podcasts are out there. No wonder podcast was the word of the year. Working in the children's department, I started looking for things for children. There were quite a few. One I especially liked was Big Story Time, where the books are read by kids themselves. Parents have a lot of choices too. They can listen to a wide variety of subjects from autism to bedtime stories.

For myself I was delighted to find so many NPR programs. I will definitely be downloading some of them soon.

The Hardest Part is Standing Still!

2006-09-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

With so much to see on YouTube, I kept coming back to this view of the French Quarter. My daughter and sister live in New Orleans. A year ago they weren't sure if they'd be able to go back, but they did. Things do move on as the city slowly rebuilds. As the mime performer in the video says, "The hardest part is standing still". Isn't that true of life.

Web 2.0 Tools (#19)

2006-09-27T07:03:00.000-07:00

It was hard to decide on a favorite, but here are some I found interesting.

Pageflakes - put everything from Flickr to to-do-lists on one page, so that when you open your browser it's right there. It was attractive and seemed easy to use.
Wayfaring - allows you to create maps. Having moved more than 20 times I thought it might be fun to do a life map. When I tried it, I found it difficult. I'd like to go back and explore some other map-making sites.
Ning - the one I kept coming back to. It' a loose grouping of mash-ups from the silly to the practical. It can be confusing, but on those sleepless nights it would be entertaining.

Zoho (#18)

2006-09-26T10:58:00.001-07:00

I played around with Zoho today. I think it's a good idea since you can transfer documents from one computer to another without extra software. But even though I am somewhat familiar with Word, I had difficulty figuring out how to insert a table in Zoho. I couldn't find a help button anywhere or a tutorial.

Let the Safari Begin(#15)

2006-09-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, so many things to think about! One thing's for certain, libraries are changing and to me that's scary and exciting at the same time.

Working in the children’s department gives me a bird's-eye-view of why change is inevitable. A two-year-old will sit on a parent's lap enraptured by a book and the comforting voice reading to him. Nothing can or should replace that. That same two-year-old will sit down at a computer and with out any fear or hesitation, start manipulating and learning. This is often done to the chagrin of a parent who may be technologically illiterate. Is it any wonder that these "digital natives", as Dr. Wendy Schutz calls them, will continue to want more and more? They are growing up as comfortable with the digital word as they are with traditional printed material. Does this mean that children's librarians will be come obsolete? On the contrary, as Shultz states "people will still need experienced tour guides". We can help by being informed and open to new technology. We can also encourage parents to do the same. So grab your pith helmets and let the safari begin.

Quotes taken from the article "To a tempory place in time..." by Dr.Wendy Schutz.

Cool Kat in a Sandbox (#17)

2006-09-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

While listening to jazz on my favorite radio station, I heard a fantastic rendition of "MY Heart Belongs to Daddy" by Roy Haynes. I'm embarrassed to say I had heard the artist name before but didn't know much about him. Thanks to a post under "Favorite Music" in the Learning 2.0 Wiki Sandbox, I found All About Jazz and learned all about Roy Haynes.

The sandbox was really easy to edit. It was good to see what a fun, diverse group we are. I added to favorite books, restaurants and of course, music.
Photo of Roy Haynes, jazz drummer, by Jimmy Katz and Sputnik.

Rollyo to the Rescue

2006-09-20T17:00:00.001-07:00

At work today we had a question about the Occaneechi Indians. I went straight to the N. C. Indian searchroll that I created in Rollyo and voile - the Occaneechi Homepage.

Wikis (#16)

2006-09-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

It's interesting that one of the advantages of wikis, namely the ease of editing and updating information by anyone, is also its disadvantage. I was a little leery of Wikipedia because of this. But after exploring the site I think I will use it more often. It was fascinating to ramble from materials as diverse as current Canadian rock bands to the ancient Cave of Painted Hands.

Reading the articles on wikis in libraries opened my eyes to what can be done. I think having a wiki here at SOR would be a great idea. We are forever changing things around, like new areas for our growing DVD collections or graphic novels. It would make work easier to put that information in one place where it could be accessed quickly. Having policies and other info such as updated telephone numbers would also be great. The best part would be that any staff member could update it at any time.

Household wikis were also interesting. My sister was undergoing radiation therapy in New Orleans, when "Katrina" hit. Thanks to the internet, she was able to piece all of her information together and is now fine. But I thought how much easier it would have been to have all of the information on medications, insurance, etc. in one easily accessible place like a wiki. It might not be a bad idea for someone facing retirement in two years either (but whose counting).

Technorati (#14)

2006-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

I just spent two hours playing with Technorati. It's opened up a whole new world for me that I knew existed, but didn't know how to get to. As a novice blogger this is the most user friendly site I have encounter these last couple of weeks. The tags make it super easy to navigate. When I looked up learning 2.0, I found :

179 posts under blogposts,
69 under tags and
2 under blog directory.
8 under photos including a picture of our own Helen B.

A search for "Skippyjonjojo" came up with 2 blog posts. I had tagged one of my photos Jojo, and a search brought up over seven thousand hits. Needless to say, I'm learning to be more specific with my tags.
I haven't even mentioned the popular blog searches, the video searches etc. I do like this site. At first I didn't see how it would help me at the library, but I think I do now. To be able to help a patron you have to know where they're coming from. We have to catch up and learn their language.

Thirsting - for knowledge of course! (#13)

2006-09-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

I learned a lot of new words today like Gmail, flat hierarchy and folksonomy. I'd be hard pressed explain them to anyone, but I think I'm getting the gist of it. These tools don't tie you to separate folders for your information but are open-ended which gives you many options and makes it easier to search and navigate. It has to do with making the tags multi-tiered and more accessible. I found the "del.icio.us" site very interesting and undoubtably useful. But I didn't complete my account when I found out I had to install new hardware. All of the warnings made me nervous, especially when I not sure how much I would use it. I do wish that this had been around eons ago when I was in college.

Thanks to Marvilus for the inspiring picture.

Round and Round We Roll (#12)

2006-09-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
-- Jerry Seinfield
Jerry must have forgotten about libraries. I got this quote from a search on Rollyo. At first I thought it was very easy, but when I opened my account and try to put things on,I found it a bit confusing. (Couldn"t Be Me!) I did manage to create my own search roll on N.C. Indians . I work in the childrens' department and we get a lot of questions on this topic. I do think I'll find this very useful.

LibraryThing (#11)

2006-09-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

This morning I set up an account with LibraryThing. Within 15 minutes ,I had catalogued ten books from my collection. The site posted a picture of the book, the date, publisher and even the ISBN. I put in tags and later I'm going to put in comments, especially on my favorites.
I searched under author for Elizabeth George and got over a thousand hits. Need less to say, she's not quite that prolific. I need to explore and see if I can go in under the series name. I see this as a great way to fill in gaps in my meager collection. Look out "used book" sales.

Image Generators (#10)

2006-09-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

FUN! FUN! FUN!
I could have spent hours playing with the image generators. I was amazed with how simple they are to operate. I could see using them to create signs and fun stuff for childrens' programming.

Here's a link to the generator I used.

Exploring Feeds

2006-09-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

I went to the four feeds mentioned in #9.

The one that I found easiest for me was Technorati. The tags were very easy to navigate and I found myself doing a lot of exploring.
Topix.net would be a good place to find current news articles. I could see using it at work.
Feedster seemed a little unwieldy. I'd need some help with it, but it would be worth investigating more.
I just didn't get Sydic8.com.

I'm still adding feeds to my bloglines account. I think it's a terrific tool.

(For some reason spell check won't let me in:( So please excuse the typos in the last couple of posts)

Learning a Lot!

2006-09-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

The assignment was to post any tecknology that was of interest this week. Three things stand out.

I finally learned to use the digital camera and am amazed by all of the things you can do with it. I look forward to doing more exploring.
Through my colleague, Joyful Joyful, I was intoduced to YouTube. I can't wait to find more video sites (#19). Thanks Joy.
When talking to my two younger sisters I thought it would be a great idea to have our own private blog. I'm in the process of setting that up now.

(My participation log is a little mixed up. This should actually be #7, but it's in the#6 spot and visa versa.)

Flickr Revisited (#5)

2006-09-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

This morning I took this picture of some flowers that I got from a neighborhood vendor. I've taken pictures on a digital camera before, but always relied on my husband to download them. This time I figured out how to do it myself, got them on to Flickr and then to my blog! Unlike my initial attempts to put a Flickr picture on my blog last week, this went very smoothly.

#8 RSS

2006-09-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

Things have really started to click into place for me this week. I signed up for a bloglines account which has really helped to get me organized. After a few initial missteps, I found it really easy. Now I'm seeing those little orange rss icons everywhere. I'm up to 20 feeds and I see no end in sight. The Charlotte Observers feeds will probably be the ones I use most. They won't take the place of my morning newspaper, but instead of clipping articles I can print them out directly.
That said, my favorite nonsense feed is Stuff on my Cat.
http://bloglines.com/myblogs/maryjane

What's in a Name?

2006-09-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday I got the nicest surprise. Someone in Sacramento pushed the "Next Blog" button and up came my site. She commented on it and asked if she could check in from time to time. I'm very excited and encouraged. (Not to mention the envy of my department). Unfortunately my efforts to comment on her site did not go through, but I'm working on it.

In answer to where I got my blog name, Judy Schachner wrote a wonderful childrens' book called Skippyjon Jones. Skippyjon is a small Siamese with lots of attitude. My part Maine Coon cat, JoJo Jones, is a big, lay- back sweetie with no attitude. They're sort of the ying and yang of cats, but they're both Jones, hence the name.

Tecknocat Unveiled

2006-08-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

At last a picture of the handsome JoJo Jones, aka 'Skippyjonjojo'. I some how made the very simple procedure of transferring a picture to my blog very complicated. But I learned a lot in the process and things are getting a little easier over all.

Found!!!!

2006-08-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

My lost blogs are found. Thanks Amy for telling me about the republish button.

Lost in Space

2006-08-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

My last two blogs are not showing up on my home page. But they can be found in "search this blog".

Where is tecknocat?

2006-08-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I entered my fourth blog, "tecknocat - who me?". Unfortunately it does not come up on my home page. But if you take a secret route via "search this blog", it's there. Is Blogger trying to tell me something?

Tecknocat - Who me?

2006-08-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got a chance to play around with Flickr. I set up an account and even sent a picture from my E-mail to it. Of course the picture was of my cat, JoJo. I still haven't discovered how to get the picture to my blog but I'm still trying. One of the things I discovered was what a mash up was. I went into fd's Flickr Toys and found some neat ones. When I have some time I'd like to try a magazine cover or a trading card. I' sure my teen-age niece and nephew will be impressed (when they stop rolling their eyes). The big problem I have is remembering how I did something (like how did I get to Flickr?). I've decide to go very old school and keep a hand written record.

Librarian of the Future

2006-08-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Here I am in my spaceship with my cat and my books and nothing to do but read!

I loved playing with avatar. It's fun and really simple.

Second Post

2006-08-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited to be a blogger. It just sounds so cool. My husband and my cat are totally impressed, of course my cat is impressed with anything his food provider does.
My weakest point of being a life learner is definitely (#6) the fear of technology. When I started working at the library eight years ago I couldn't even find the "on" button without help. I was always petrified that I'd break something. And now here I am with my own blog.
I sometimes have to be dragged kicking and screaming into new learning situations, but once there, I do embrace change and have a great time (#71/2) playing and learning.

First Entry

2006-08-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

It took me so long to pick a blog name that I'm out of time to write anything.