# 23 (Week 10) Play Week and Catchup

Wow! Congratulations!! You’ve reached the 23rd thing. We hope the experience has enhanced your Web 2.0 skills, provided you with the information and knowledge to provide better service to our customers, and has been a fun and rewarding experience along the way.

Be sure to give yourself a pat on the back for completing the programme!

For the last Exercise:

Please reflect on your learning journey and write a few thoughts about your journey on your blog.

• What were your favourite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?


• How has this programme assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?


• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #23 in the subject heading.

When we sign you off for this last exercise we will send you an email to confirm completion of the programme and will arrange to have your reward and certificate sent to you in due course.

The programme officially closes on Monday 5 October 2009. There will be a one week extension for those who have fallen behind to finish and be eligible for the reward.

In closing, we want to thank you all for joining us on this journey of discovery and learning.

NSL Training Support

# 22 (Week 9) Read some articles on social networking and libraries and write a post with your thoughts on social networkings

Libraries are using new ways to communicate with their patrons and social networking is one of these. By choosing the methods that patrons prefer, a wider section of the library community can be reached. Young people especially are keen users of social networking and this is an excellent way to reach them.

Check out the articles below on the ways libraries are using social networking, and some of the issues involved.

Discovery Resources:

Ways libraries are using social networking and some of the issues involved:

A list of Libraries Using MySpace
Libraries in Social Networking software (you may have to scroll down to find text).
Libraries Get Social
Your Space or My Space?

Discovery Exercises:

• Check out some the articles above.
• Set up another blog post and write about your thoughts on libraries' use of social networking.
• Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #22 in the subject heading.

# 21 (Week 9) Get social - MySpace and Facebook

You may have heard of websites such as MySpace, Bebo, Facebook etc. - but have you taken the plunge and joined?

In general, social networking services, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, allow users to create a profile for themselves. Users can upload a picture of themselves and can often be "friends" with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked. For example, if Alice lists Bob as a friend, then Bob would have to approve Alice's friend request before they are listed as friends. Some social networking sites have a "favorites" feature that does not need approval from the other user.

Social networks usually have privacy controls that allows the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc.

Discovery resources:

How Stuff Works - Facebook
MySpace safety tips from Australia's Sunrise TV show

Discovery exercise:

• Check out Auckland City Libraries and Rotorua Public Libraries to see how Libraries are using Bebo to let their patrons know what is going on at their libraries or as a social network for staff.
• Visit MySpace and take a look around. Find out about your favourite band, radio station or something of interest.
• Look at Facebook. - As well as connecting with your friends here and overseas, Facebook has groups you can join on topics that interest you, and an event feature that lets you know about social or professional events you might like to attend. LIANZA has set up an event page for Conference 2008, Poropitia Outside the Box. North Shore Libraries has a Facebook Group, so check it out and join if you'd like to.


• Set up another post in your blog and write about your experience with insights into what you've discovered and learned. Feel free to share what worked for you...and what didn't....what surprised you...what frustrated you....what amazed you...or even which of the social networking sites you liked best. As before this post should be at least 3-4 sentences.


• Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #21 in the subject heading.

# 20 (week 8) Take a look at ebooks

Books come in many forms these days. You may have seen ebooks for sale on sites, such as Amazon who has recently launched Kindle, their ebook reader.

Project Gutenberg, started in 1971, is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or ebooks. Project Gutenberg is the original free digital library of books no longer in copyright. So you'll find a great many classic literary texts here.

Many of the free ebooks can also be downloaded as a podcast or audiobook. LibriVox is one of the many websites that provides free audiobooks from the public domain.

Discovery Resources

• What is an ebook? gives information on the format and ebook readers
• Read this blogpost on free ebooks
• Google Book Search
• Read this interesting article on Google’s big book project
• Find out How does Google Book Search work?
• Look how Google Book Search is being used

Discovery Exercise

1. Search for a classic from the public domain (like works from Shakespeare) on any of the above mentioned web sites.


2. Write about your experience in your blog. Was it hard to find the title? Where there a choice of format(s) offered? What interesting things did you discover?


3. Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #20 in the subject heading.
   

# 19 (Week 8) Podcasts (You don't need an iPod)

The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.

In 2005, "podcast" was named the "word of the year" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the last few years it’s easy to see why.

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Learning 2.0 programme) to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker.

iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple, is the directory finding service most associated with podcasts, but if you don’t have iTunes installed there are still plenty of options.

For this discovery exercise participants are asked to take a look at some popular podcast directory tools. Do some exploring on your own and locate a podcast that is of interest to you. Once found, you can easily pull the RSS feed into your Bloglines account as well, so that when new casts become available you’ll be automatically notified of their existence.

Discovery Resources:

• To find out more about podcasts start with this tutorial
  
• There are many, many podcast directory and finding tools out there. Here are just four of the more popular ones that don’t, like iTunes, require a software download:
  • Podcastpickle.com
  • Podnova
  • Podcastalley.com
  • Yahoo audio search - this service supercedes the Yahoo! Podcasts directory.

Discovery Exercises

1. Take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. Look for some interesting library related podcasts like book review podcasts or library news.


2. Add the RSS feed for a podcast to your Bloglines account. Look at the comments link at the end of this post for some tips to do this.


3. Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?


4. Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #19 in the subject heading.

Optional: Do you want to learn how to be a podcaster? Here are optional resources for those who want to learn to create podcasts:

• How to Create Your Own Podcast
• Odeo Studio – online recording studio.
• Beginners guide to Podcasts & Creating Podcasts
• How to podcast tutorial

Note: You don't need a podcatcher like iTunes to listen to podcast. There are many podcasts you can download as mp3 files and listen to on your computer (using Windows Media Player for instance) or mp3 player. Some podcasts however require a podcatcher. If you are interested, use the PodcatcherMatrix to compare the features of the different podcatchers.

# 18 (Week 8) Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos

Over the last few years online video hosting sites have exploded - allowing users to easily upload and share videos on the web. Among all the web 2.0 players in this area, YouTube is currently top dog serving up over 1 million video views a day and allowing users not only to upload their own video content easily, but also embed clips into their own sites easily.

Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. You'll find everything from 1970s TV commercials and 60s music videos to library dominos and a video made by library school students for National Library Week. There's also the cult classic Conan the Librarian. Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot of stuff not worth watching too. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore and see for yourself what the site has too offer. :)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore YouTube & find a video that interest you. Have a further look at The best of library videos blog and Infotubey-award winning library videos. Do you think library videos can be a fun marketing tool or 'infomercial'?


2. Create a blog post about your experience. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Can you see any features or components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?


3. Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #18 in the subject heading.

OPTIONAL: Try placing the video inside your blog using the copy and paste code for the "Embeddable Player.” Note: you'll need to use Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting this code.(YouTube has instructions on how to do embed a video.)

Have a look at the fun this library had:

# 17 (Week 7) Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it and write a blog post about your findings

Throughout the course of this Web 2.0 program we’ve explored just a small sampling of these new Internet technologies and websites that are empowering users with the ability to create and share content. But given time there are so many more we could explore.

For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to select any site from this list of Web 2.0's Top 1000 and explore it. With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you (like Books or Personal Organisation) and then simply select a tool/site to explore.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Select any site/tool from the list of Web 2.0's Top 1,000. Be careful to select a tool that is free and that doesn't require a plug-in or download.

2. Explore the site you selected.

3. Create a post about your discovery. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting.

4. Use your gmail account to email northshorelibraries@gmail.com with a link to your blogpost. Please put Exercise #17 in the subject heading.

Web 2.0 – with so much to explore, just start with ONE. :)