Generators

This week I had an opportunity to explore online image & text generators. I started by going to the website Generator Blog. Once again, several sites were blocked by Websense and couldn’t be viewed. However, I did get a chance to experiment with various generators. Some of my favorites include:

The Chocolate Bar Generator (where you can design your own customized candy bar)
The Hair Mixer (allows you to “try on” various celebrity hairdos, or see how one celebrity looks with another star’s ‘do).
The Warholizer (lets you turn any image into an Andy Warhol-like print)
The Graffiti Generator (gives you a chance to creatively deface your own cyber wall)
The Jennifer Aniston Consolation Letter Generator (self explanatory…and funny)
The Sick Call Excuse Generator (gives you hilarious excuses to use for playing hooky…I might have to jot a few of these down for later use)!
Finally, I added the image above from the Bart Simpson Chalk Board Generator, (hopefully, it will not become a self-fulfilling prophecy)!

Library Podcasts

This week I had an opportunity to continue exploring the wonderful world of podcasts. More specifically, I “attempted” to examine some of the many library related podcasts out there. I say “attempted”, because several of the sites, (Lansing Public Library, Lindenhurst Memorial Library, Thomas Ford Memorial Library, Oklahoma Department of Libraries and Wadsworth Public Library) had broken links. And once again, other sites, (Arizona State University Library, Denver Library, Mohawk College Library, Cheshire Public Library, Orange County Library and the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County) were all blocked by Websense. I did, however, manage to listen to a podcast interview by two librarians from Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University. I also listened to a teen poetry slam podcast from Kankakee Public Library. I then explored a few more sites to get a feel for how Libraries use this particular type of technology. Some libraries have podcasts of various library sponsored programs and events. The Sunnyvale Public Library system, for example, has podcasts of a series of business lectures on their website. The Pierce County Library system includes book reviews for interested customers on their Podcast Blog. Some Systems, such as the Boulder Public Library & the Manchester Public Library encourage their teen groups to post webcasts on their sites. And of course, many libraries offer storytimes for their younger patrons (a prime example of this can be found on our very own VBPL webpage).

In the spirit of this week’s topic, I added the following video (it is a trailer for the animated version of the children’s book, The Librarian from the Black Lagoon, by Mike Thaler).

Podcasts

This week’s exercise focused on locating podcasts. We were instructed to review a couple of the suggested podcast directory tools (Yahoo Podcasts, Podcast.net & Podcastalley.com). Of those three, only Yahoo could be accessed via staff computers. Both Podcastalley.com & Podcast.net were both blocked by Websense. We were told we could access them using the public computers; however, I opted not to. Instead, I listened to a delightful book review I found while exploring Yahoo Podcasts. The critique was of the Walter Lord book, about the sinking of the Titanic called, A Night to Remember, and the reviewer was a young man, (possibly 9 or 10 years of age) named Ken.
Next, after a brief Google search, I went to Audiopolis, a website that reviews audiobooks, and listened to a podcast of the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. The reviewer was Leslie Fine, and the podcast included an excerpt read by the actress Sissy Spacek. I then added an RSS feed to Audiopolis to my Google Reader account.

Video Hosting Sites

This week I explored various video hosting sites and learned how to add a video clip to my blog post. I began by going to YouTube to select a video. I chose Lolly Lolly Lolly get your adverbs here. I spent many a Saturday morning, in the 1970's, watching cartoons on ABC. The Schoolhouse Rock segments were some of my favorites. I wish I could say the entire process was easy...but it was not. Following the instructions we were given, once in Blogger, I selected the edit html tab & pasted the code in the window. I then selected the compose tab and attempted to type my comments. Not only did I have problems adding my comments, unbeknownst to me, the entire code wasn't being displayed. After much frustration, I consulted with a much younger colleague, who advised me to paste the code into a word document and copy it again. Finally, on my third attempt I got it to work. Below is my video. Enjoy the clip:

Video Hosting Sites

Uploading Videos

Mashups

This week I had an opportunity to explore Mashups & 3rd party sites. As defined by Wikipedia, a mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. The sites I examined all used Flickr images in their mashups. The first site I looked at was Mappr, which takes photos that have been uploaded into Flickr, and if they have been tagged with place names, sticks them on a map of the United States. Very handy, if a user is trying to locate photos from a certain region or area.
The next site I explored was Flickr Color Pickr. This mashup allows the user to select a specific color and then view groups of pictures in that particular hue.
Finally, I looked at FD Toys’ Trading Card Maker. This is a mashup that allows users to create their own customized trading cards using digital photographs.
Of the three mashup sites I explored, I would have to say that Mappr appeared to be the most useful, but the Trading Card Maker was the most entertaining.

Flickr & Tagging

This week I had an opportunity to continue exploring the site Flickr. As stated before, Flickr is a photo-sharing website that allows users to store digital images and organize them using tags. Although there are many photo-sharing sites, Flickr is by far one of the most popular and widely used. Flickr probably owes its’ immense success to their thriving Web 2.0 community. Other users can view your pictures and add comments, and contacts can be given permission to organize your photos. Also, users can create groups and these groups can host discussions. Besides offering opportunities for users to collaborate and network with one another, Flickr also offers a wide range of nifty features, like tagging. In addition to allowing searchers to find images on a certain topic or subject matter, Flickr also provides tag clouds, which give users access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. Other features include, RSS feeds, geotagging, photo streaming, slideshows, and the list goes on.

Flickr

This week I had an opportunity to begin exploring the site Flickr. Flickr is a photo sharing website that allows users to store digital images and organize them using tags. I began my exploration by first taking a guided tour of the Flickr site and learning about the various tools it offers. After looking around a bit, I selected an image to blog about and post. The image I chose was a photo of a road sign for the small, Bavarian town of Neu-Ulm. I selected this particular image because back in the late 1970’s, my family lived there for three years, (my father was in the Army, and was stationed there). That sign brought back many memories of my life as an adolescent in Germany. After choosing a photograph, I saved the image to my U: drive, then went to my blog and uploaded the picture.

Web 2.0 Awards

This week I had an opportunity to learn more about the Web 2.0 Awards list. The Web 2.0 Awards were created by the company SEOmoz, who reviewed hundreds of sites and then rated and ranked them. Honors were awarded in 41 different categories.
As instructed by the Discovery Exercise, I selected a few of the sites on the list and explored them. The first site I chose was Healia. Healia is a consumer health search engine that allows the user to find high quality & personalized health information on the web. The next site I reviewed was Guess-the-Google, a fun game in which the player guesses which Google search term returned the images that are displayed. Finally, I tried the site Biblio.com. Biblio.com is a marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books.
Out of the three sites I explored, Healia & Biblio.com were probably the ones that would prove most useful in a library setting. However, I found Guess-the-Google to be the most entertaining.

Technorati

This week I had an opportunity to learn more about Technorati, which is a search tool and leading authority on blogs. Technorati currently indexes 112 million blogs and tracks over 250 million pieces of tagged material. I began my exploration by first watching a videocast tour of the site, which highlighted many of its’ new features. I then began performing various searches using the phrase Learning 2.0. Results differed depending on the type of search that I used. I received the most hits, (20,136) when I did a keyword search in Blog Posts. Using the Advanced Search feature, I then searched the same phase under Tags and under Blog Directory. There were 1,339 posts that used Learning 2.0 as a tag and only 933 blogs “about” that particular topic.
Finally, I took a look at the popular blog searches and tags. I guess what I found most interesting were the blogs from other countries, like Japan & Germany.

del.icio.us

This week I had an opportunity to explore the social bookmark manager del.icio.us and learn about tagging. I must say, this week’s lesson has been the most taxing one so far. Let me start by saying, I like the idea of bookmarking. The concept of creating a list of links that can be accessed from any computer is appealing. What wasn’t appealing were the Discovery Exercises, or more specifically, the del.icio.us tour. I tried viewing the recommended 8 minute del.icio.us tutorial, on various computers but could never get the file to open.
I finally gave up, and just played around on the site myself. I reviewed the Help screen and the FAQ’s, however it would have been nice to have the actual tutorial, for a better overview. I think overall, social bookmark managers, such as del.icio.us, have the potential to be great tools for research (especially, since they can be used to keep track of all the source materials and commentary that you find online). But they also offer great potential for fun.