Karen's Thing 23

This is the end of one learning curve for me, but hopefully the beginning of more like it. Although it took some tweeking of time to get the blogs done, it was well worth it. I have gained a lot more knowledge of what is out there in regards social networking tools and although I wouldn't use all I have learnt, I have already got the hang of RSS feeds (which keeps me up to date quickly with current news withing the library) and blogging. I will even explore Twitter further as I can see a lot of colleagues communicating with it, and definitely join LinkedIn to see what like minded people are doing in the world of Libraries! Most of all I think the advantages of doing this course is to know what is out there for our students and know how to communicate with them. I now have that bit more knowledge to impart on to them if needed. One client came up to me this morning and asked about books on Prezi. On telling him that our "Prezi for Dummies" was withdrawn because of obsolete information, he asked if I knew about Prezi. He was impressed that I did and I then told him about "23 Things". I felt a little bit smug that I knew what to help him with!!!
This course will help me with my PDP's and also my Diploma course, as I have to do a PDP for it too. I would recommend this course to all library staff and I haven't found one person that wasn't happy to finish it!

Thanks Kate.

Karen's Thing 22

From doing my TAFE course and reading about LinkedIn, I realise that having a personal learning network is important to career advancement. The only networking I do is with my work colleagues and when I go to meetings and conferences. I had a look at ACU profile in LinkedIn and saw that it is  valuable tool for career marketing. You would be able to make new contacts in your industry and also gain more knowledge from like minded people as well as create your own professional profile online which could be built up over time. Future employers would be able to view your career profile and this could potentially lead to career advancement. It has potential to be as useful as job seeking websites such as jobseek.com. I will join LinkedIn as it would be a good way to network with people in my industry and also to get my profile out there!!!!

Karen's Thing 21

I was there when Sarah and John introduced our library to QR codes. The scavenger hunt was an ideal way for both staff and students to experience this. I personally haven't used them outside the library except I did hear Sarah say that she used it when she did a tour of an art exhibition at GOMA in Brisbane. I think it is a good way to experience exhibitions instead of waiting for the tour guide. I have seen them also in monthly publications like Women's Weekly. They give you added information that the readers don't get in the actual article, like links. The google glasses are very futuristic looking and will be the way of the future. I heard a discussion about them on the local radio and they were say that you have to sign an agreement with Google that you will not lend these to anybody or they will delete all the information on them and you will not be able to acess anything, rendering them useless. At a cost of 1500 dollars each, I think people will think twice before buying straight away.

Karen's Thing 20

I have done the traditional class based learning and online learning whilst doing my Diploma. I actually prefer going to the classroom for a number of reasons:
1. One on one contact with the educators
2. Class discussions
3. Social networking
4. Any problems you can sort them out directly with the teacher.

Online courses do have their benefits such as convenience, but it does take a bit of time to communicate with your teacher and you can socialize online wth your fellow students, but you don't get to really know them. I do like the personal touch. After reading about MOOCS, I do feel like it will be the education of the future. I do feel that the current university education is too expensive and our students are finishing their degrees with a huge debt to start off their working life. Depending on the quality of this future of online teaching, I think it will change education in the future and I think that universities should jump onboard.
I would personally look at what courses are available to me to further my career prospects

Karen's Thing 19

I have just become a new fan of Twitter. I watched a youtube video "Twitter for Dummies" which was very clear in instructions and explanations. I can see why everyone is into Twitter. It is such an easy way to communicate with family and friend and for people wanting to build up their businesses. I like the way that your conversation can be private or public. I went to my first ALIA conference in Brisbane recently and was amazed to see the number of people tweeting during the talks. I was unsure if they were uninterested in the talks and were tweeting their friends to pass time or it was a way of communicating amongst the audience. I hope it was the latter! I personally would join Twitter as a way of connecting with colleagues when they are out and about (in meetings, conferences etc) and keeping in touch with fellow students whilst doing my Diploma course. Also a good way to see what the kids are doing. They would be shocked to see me join Twitter!!!

Karen's Thing 18

Well, I am almost there at the end of this enlightening course. I am particularly glad that I am doing 23 Things as I have discovered numerous new tools that would benefit me, and although there is quite a few I won't use, I have discovered a few that would greatly benefit me in my day to day life such as blogging, RSS feeds and setting up my own gmail account.  I have subscribed to Library Biz to keep up to date easily and this saves me from going through the hoops looking for it. It is all there in Outlook. For home purposes, I loved Animoto and am currently sorting my photos ready to put on videos to share with friends and families.I showed my kids Animoto and they just looked at me and said that you could do the same thing on Windows Movie player. I thought I was showing off!!!! I thought I might have had a bit of an edge over them after doing 23 Things, but they are still ahead of me in technology. I also loved scoop it. To get all the most up-to-date information on a particular subject in one hit is a great time saver, and I also like the fact that you can put your expert advice out there as well.

I was interested to see the new tools you can use for presentations and how the new technology is making learning more interactive and collaborative. Although I would not use these new tools in my job as a library assistant, I can see the librarians at our campus using these and also social media tools all the time.

I would also like to thank my 1 follower,Kate B. Thanks for following me!!!!!!!!!!!!

Karen's Thing 17

I had fun scouring the curation tools and loved the idea behind Scoop It. If you are looking for content on a particular subject all the hard work is done for you, saving you time and money. I also love the idea that you can contibute to it as well, collaborating with experts in that particular field. I can see that it would make a great search engine. I haven't downloaded the app. yet but will in time. I had a quick look at the suggested sites and was amazed at the variety of sources and the wide range of collaboration available.

I then went on to the content creation tools. I loved Animoto and can see myself rushing home to make videos with our old photos. This would make a great present for friends and family. It seems to be an easy process and I see you can add videos. It is a lot like digital scrapbooking.

Karen's Thing 16

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4Ezw2EeMHHo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

How long have I worked at ACU libraries and have not noticed this youtube video. I actually work on intercampus loans and now I know what to tell the students when they ask me how do I go about ordering books from another campus. It actually educated me in my own job!!!!


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qz5GU-azgps" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here is another youtube clip that is a good way of educating our students on Library searching.

I haven't used youtube much as I thought it was just a lot of homemade clips (Funniest Home Video style). How wrong I was. What a good educational tool for us to use to get our message across to the young ones.

Karen's Thing 15

I love slideshare. There is a lot of work that goes into these presentations and to make them available to all would prolong the life of someone's very hard work. What if you had missed a conference? You might be able to access the presentation on Slideshare!!!! What a bonus to be able to access such wealth of knowledge and information without the cost of attending conferences. It seems easy to upload your presentations, documents, videos etc. The instructions they give are fairly self explainatory.

Prezi is a fantastic collaborative tool  for presentations. I love the way that you can collaborate with others over timezones and the presentations are very innovative. The presentations end up to be a journey of information collaborated between people, that can lead to a journey of discovery. I am doing a unit, for the library course, that involves concept and mindmapping and this will come in handy for me.

Karen's Thing 14

I am a great fan of Skype. It is easy to use with very simple and clear instructions. I use Skype every night connecting to family. It is so refreshing to have a tool that doesn't cost a thing and I can virtually cancel my home phone (but not my mobile yet!!). I love the fact that it is the easiest way to keep in contact with relatives overseas and the cheapest. It has a great support system too, with lots of FAQ's.

I had a look at Cacoo, an online collaborative tool that allows you to create diagrams in real time. How fantastic would this be for meetings and you can even chat with collaborators while you are editing the diagrams. It makes you feel that you are all in one room together.I had a look at the pricing and it is free for the first 25 sheets and 1 shared folder. Up to 15 people can use the diagram for free and they have a reasonable price plan structure that allows for up to 100 users. All in all, I think this would be a great tools for library meetings!!!

Karen' Thing 13

I am not a fan of Facebook and I don't let my kids have a facebook account. I am concerned about the security and I must say the kids have never asked for one. It is a case of what they haven't had, they don't miss. A few colleagues have it to keep in touch with their friends and family and to share photos, but otherwise they say they wouldn't have one.
I have had a quick look at the privacy settings and  found that if you make a mistake picking which contact you would like to send to, then this could be a problem. The onus is on the user to get it right. For the uninitiated, one mistake could send the wrong thing to the wrong person.
I am sure the techno savvy students use it all the time, but I am not aware of it which makes me think that Facebook is just a part of their everyday life and is no big deal to them!!!!

Karen's Thing 12

Like information literacy, digital media literacy is a must for both students and staff to keep up with evolving technologies. There is a wonderful world opening up for everyone but they need to be educated on how to use this new technology. We can't assume that they know. Luckily we have programmes like 23 Things to help us. This is a new age where information is delivered to students via smartphones, tablets etc and then in turn can be shared amongst others. We have the opportunity to collect information at any time or at any place and at a rapidly increasing speed, giving students quality teaching and learning.

Karen's Thing 11

I just had a look at Instapaper. This I would use. I am impressed with the fonts (Dyslexic and FS Me). It is great that they are looking after people with disabilities. I am constantly reading half an article from magazines and newspapers due to time constraints. It would be good to go back and finish them in my own time.
I then went on to look at Remember The Milk. As I live an hour away from work and drop off two kids at school along the way, I am constantly thinking about lists. Lists of ingredients to get for dinner, lists of what child does what sport on which afternoon and lists of things I have to do at work. Lists, lists, lists going around my head all day!!!! I would love to just put my lists down and refer to them when need be.Now I have to make a list of what tools to add that I have discovered. Thanks Kate.

Karen's Thing 10

I am catching up fast!! After reading about social bookmarking, I went to the Delicious site and browsed. I found that Delicious has Bookmarks that allow you to access your Delicious account from your iphone. That would be handy and I found that it has an app called Dishpal where you can share recipes with friends.Best of all it is free!!Delicious also has blog postings and an app for Facebook.
I have had no previous experience with social bookmarking and may not find that I would use it in the near future. I do not have many favourite websites and the few that I do (eg. SMH and Courier Mail)  have RSS feeds. I hope that this doesn't make me look like I am a dinosaur when it comes to computer literacy. I am open to trying social bookmarking though and I will see if it will fit into my life.

Karen's Thing 9

Australian Native Violets
from aussiegall  from Flickr

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/181/412460185_7910d9a89b_m.jpg

Another world has opened up for me. I investigated a lot of photos that are relevant to my interests. These included Australian native flowers (isn't this native violet beautiful) travelling Italy, cooking and rabbits. Lots of beautiful photos and I will spend more time looking at these and creating my own album to share.

I think I need more time to explore Flickr as I had trouble downloading the image onto my blog. The images kept coming out blurry, but after the zenith go it worked!!!

This would come in handy for promotional material and for book displays.

Karen's Thing 8

I have had fun playing around with RSS and subscribing to local new and national news updates. The best thing I like about it is the speed at which I can now access these. Being a Queenslander, I should subscribe to weather. It would save me looking out the window at work, waiting for those summer storms to arrive in the afternoon..
For work I have subscribed to library news and library biz as recommended. These have previously remained unread as I hardly get to sharepoint. Now I can access these posts readily and get the news as it comes.. I just saw Ballarat Campus's new photo booth in their library. I would have missed this if it wasn't for RSS. I am going to use RSS feed in my studies. I will then know immediately if my teacher sends me a message.
Libraries will have to educate their students first about RSS. Like everyone doing 23 Things, they need to be educated about this tool and then the libraries could suggest some related sites to subscribe to, just as Kate had suggested to us. I particularly like the fact that it can be used to alert us when new blogs are posted.
I think like everyone the news headlines will be a favourite. I have subscribed to Courier Mail and SMH and their entertainment section for a bit of gossip!!

Karen's Thing 7

Hi Everyone. I am back into the swing of things after a good holiday. I am a fair bit behind everyone,
but be patient. I will catch up quickly. I enjoyed Thing 7 (RSS feeds). I was one of the ones that use to spend time going back to certain websites for updates. I have now put library biz and library news in Outlook and wonder why I haven't discovered this earlier. Glad to have it now. Soooo much quicker!

Karen's Thing 6

I like Google Drive for the simple fact that it is easy to share documents and for it to be edited by others. As a Library Assistant, I do not think I would have much use for this but could see the value of Google Drive in managerial roles. I am going back to studying this year so I know it would be of benefit to me in group presentations. I will keep this in mind!!!