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My first video was made using iMovie (SO easy!) and it is a compilation of photographs from my wedding in January.

My Podcasting Adventure

I am very apprehensive about recording anything, so this was a big adventure for me! Here's my story.

I told a very short story little story about my spring break. I went to Canada on my honeymoon--opposite end of the earth from south Texas! We had a great time skiing and enjoying mountains and snow. I hope you all enjoy my little podcast!

Podcasting v. Blogging

The benefit that I see to podcasting over blogging is that it is a little more personal, a little easier to express yourself as you share material. As we all know, text can sometimes be misinterpreted. With a podcast, you have the added benefit of hearing the voice of the podcaster and it becomes less difficult to interpret their true intentions, meaning and emotions as you listen to the material.

I think podcasting would be a great way for a school librarian, or a children's librarian, to share the joy of reading aloud with online patrons.

Libraries and the Long Tail

Libraries and librarians have to actively make a decision to utilize the "long tail" of their collections. It can't and doesn't just happen. However, with strategic practices in place to make the long tail a useful tool, not an unnecessary obstacle, I think the idea of it presents a lot to offer libraries striving to fully enter the 21st century through the services they provide and the materials in their collections.

Flickr and my EdExperience

I've known about the existence of Flickr for a long time, but never used it. Now, I'm not sure why, because--as with just about everything else I've encountered in the course of this class--I love it, and I see the potential for so many different sorts of projects that could incorporate it.

And now on to the real topic of this post--my educational experience at RU. I was a little unsure about online learning when I first started the program a little over a year ago, but I have grown to love it. Even in my far south, almost-Mexico locale, my online learning experience has made a great education very accessible to me. With the benefits of my MacBook and wireless internet at home, it's also very easy to be connected and get work done, even when collaborating with my classmates.

Check out all the photos at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/scils598s08-edexperience/

Collaborating with Google

I can see lots of potential benefits to using Google Docs in collaborative projects for class. Using it for our group project this week has been a good way to share notes and thoughts. However, I think that wikis are better, for a number of reasons.

• Sites like PBWiki seem generally more user-friendly than Google Docs
• This is important when trying to sell less technologically advanced group members (or faculty members!) on the value of the tool
• PBWiki has a more polished look to it, I feel

Nevertheless, Google Docs are a great way to get where you're going, if not for use as the finished product.

Look what we did!

I love del.icio.us! I'd never used it before last week and I don't quite know what I did without it. :) It's such a great way to share favorite sites, and I loved getting to see everyone else's bookmarks. I think this would be a fabulous way to get to know each other in a virtual classroom.

Wikispaces v. PB Wiki

I am more familiar with PBWiki and so I'm inclined to say I like it more, but I want to give Wikispaces a fair chance. I did like it. Both PBWiki and Wikispaces are very user friendly. I found that the introduction on Wikispaces was very nice--it popped right up after I created my account so I didn't have to hunt around for a tutorial or anything. And it was very thorough--possibly more so than the introductory info on PBWiki. But again, I didn't need much of an orientation to PBWiki. Both of these sites, however, are wonderful and would lend themselves well to classroom or school library needs.

Shelfari

Since I tried out LibraryThing last week, I thought this week I would take a stab at Shelfari. I like it--and I actually think I like it better than LibraryThing, at least for the purposes for which I would use it (a classroom library online catalog, to be shared on a class blog or wiki.) Here are some features of Shelfari that jumped out at me:

• Very easy, with the click of a button, to add your shelf to your blog.
• Books easily divided up into "reading" "read" and "want to read."
• Fun bookshelf graphic display would appeal to my students.
• It's super-easy to navigate and to add books--even if you don't know the complete title or author.