Thing #46: Stixy

Whoooo Hooooo Stixy!  I love Post-it-Notes, so I definetly love Stixy!  I am just like Kathryn.  At home my desk is plastered in sticky notes and they have even started moving to the small bookshelf next to my desk. 

Stixy is a wonderful tool.  I like it because it is very User friendly.  Everything you need is very easy to access, and right in front of you.   I think that Stixy could be useful here in the library, but we do already have a sort of collaborating tool.  Here in our library we have a thing called a Wiki where we keep in touch of upcoming events, brainstorm new ideas, and have a calendar for everyone to list when they may have an event, or meeting. Stixy is much more colorful though.  This is an interesting idea to include a link on our facebook page though and have students or instructors include upcoming events, or comments to use it as a bulletin board.

Stixy would be useful for a number of things but one thing that comes to mind is if a large family was planning on having a Family Reunion.  You could email everyone in the family the link to the Stixy Board.  Title it Someone's Family Reunion, and include photos of where you were hosting the reunion, what foods certain people are to bring, certain recipes, games being planned, and weather updates.  Stixy would be great for a public bulletin board or even a private collaboration of a large project.

My mock up board is simple, but I was inspired by anticipating Spring and to show off my YouTube Video I did for the NECC library.  Hope everyone enjoys, and my applause to Kathryn for helping suggest this as Thing #46!

You can access my mock up Stixy board at: 

http://www.stixy.com/guest/110045

Password is:  Nebraska Learns 2.0

 

 

Thing #45

Thing #45 Account Settings
I am a firm beliver in always checking your settings when you sign up for a new email account, facebook page, blog, or anything new to see what advantages that certain site may have over others.  I went in and checked my setting for my email account.  Things here that I found that I always think are interesting but I tend to never use is the setting for the vacation reminder.  A setting that will allow an automatic response to emails while you are away and on vacation.  This is also where you can setup your signature, a picture to go with your emails, and even pictures for your contacts. 
The other site that I wanted to mention was Facebook.  I actually think that alot of these setting are great.  I had a fellow co-worker that was asking some questions about facebook and didn't understand why she was receiving emails everytime anyone even (practically) looked at her facebook page.  I took her into the settings and showed her that she had email notifications on everything checked.  Obviously we went through and took alot of check marks out, and she was very happy! 
Just to bring up another quick one, I really like all the setting on Blogger.  For our NECC library blog that I have created, I have added the setting that keep a counter on how many times our blog is visited, which is a wonderful tool, and also I have added a little pond of goldfish to the bottom.  Some very cool settings are available here, so if you haven't checked them out yet, now is the time.  Thanks for Thing #45 great project.

Thing #44

Well this little assignment is quite interesting.... I have gone ahead and done all the little details of Thing #44 and it seems fun, but well it seems like a game on Facebook.   I mean don't get me wrong, I like it, it is creative, it is a game, it's fun, but it's not really all that useful.  Well, okay I take that back!  It is Useful, it is useful for businesses if they use it for promotion, the benefits of checking into things so often and deals you can post, but personally I don't think I'll be using it to much.  I work out quite a bit and I guess becoming the Mayor of the local YMCA could be impressive and a little fun to brag about though.
Anyway, this little game does not freak me out because yeah it's fun to see where all your friends have been, seeing them become a mayor of something a little off the wall, and checking out some new deals at a new coffee shop that opens in my town.
Our Library was not already listed, but our college was, which I am part of an academic college so depending on how you look at it, you could go either way on whether it was listed or not.  I did create a listing specifically for the library though, and under the campus listing we do have a mayor.
I also went ahead and checked out what some of the local listings were for businesses in our area, and I definetly was surprised to see how many were already listed.  Definetly something fun for anyone to checkout though.  If you are interested you can click HERE to check it out.

Thing #43 Libraries and Hyperlocal Information

I think that these are very interesting and could be wonderful tools.  I do not think that they should, would, or could even be considered for replacing local newspapers though. 
First of all the obvious decline of these certain sites are that being from Nebraska none of these sites pertain to my local news.  Even when I decided to look up a small town in California they did not have any listings for the town.  I realize smaller towns will take some time to show up on such sites, but there is a definite fall back to this. 
I did like the EveryBlock site but then again I would never consider what I found to be breaking news that I must know about.  This website is intresting and informative, but it would not be able to take the place of a newspaper. 
Finally, I also visited the Placeblogger.  I liked this site!  I even decided to sign up for it and added my NECC library blog to the list of available blogs.  I think it was interesting and could be fun for business, individuals and local newspapers.  However, I also found another downfall:  I couldn't find our blog that I had posted for Norfolk, Ne. 
Overall, these sites are great, fun and informative.  For these sites to be considered for taking over local newspapers though, I wouldn't say that it is impossible, but I would have to say that it is definetly going to take some time and tweaking to get to that point.

To understand what these things are that I am blogging about please click HERE , or to see our NECC Library Blog for Norfolk, Ne Click HERE . 

Thank you!

Thing #31

I really enjoyed this video, but it is definetly intresting to check this out almost a year after is was assigned.  The presentation by David Lankes was talking about the downfall of the ecomony which we are definetly facing still now.  Mr. Lankes had some very interesting points, but I will only highlight a few of them here.  One of the highlights I really liked was about Facebook.  Why be on facebook?  We need to have more in depth ideas than just knowing that Facebook is a popular social media and we need in on it.  We as librarians need to have sources and ideas on our facebook pages that would attract people, members, and patrons.
Same with the blog idea.  Some may see it as it's popular we need to get this, they do the blog thing and then no one is viewing the blog. You need to incorporate up-to-date ideas.
I also really liked the discussion on 2-way conversations.  Converesations can teach us things, but we need to be interactive.  We have conversations even when reading a book.  It's not a conversation with the book, the author, or even the book.  It is a converstaion with ourselves.  What is going on in this book, how does this affect me, the character, all sorts of questions and answers that we ponder while reading. 
Overall, I thought it was a great presentation, very interesting, wonderful point, and definetly some points I think I will work on as a librarian.

Facebook Update

Hi everyone,
I did it I made a facebook page for the Northeast Community College Library.  I am very happy with it and would like anyone who is interested to go ahead and go check it out.  Here is the link and thank you Nebraska Learns 2.0.  I think I got alot of my courage from you.  NECC Library Page

Thing #41

I went ahead and checked into the examples given and I checked out the knitting socks and really discovered that knitting socks is rather complex and difficult.  The How to Cook a Steak Video was interesting and I think should be mandatory for cookse everywhere to see this video.  The keyboarding tutorials for kids I thought was great.  I am always trying to find ways as to how to better my typing skills and those are fun for adults as well as children. 

I also looked into the other "How to" sites mentioned like Grasper.  I really thought this was another useful site to find many of these how to videos.  I felt that I did not get the full benefit of Instructables.  I think if I were to have signed up for the full benefits I could of found it more useful, but honestly I was not a big fan of the instructables site.  Monkeysee on the other hand seemed like it had everything.  I really found some interesting How To videos, and that is were I got my links to post. 

Since I swim laps for recreation as much as I can I thought this was an interesting.  I found a How to video on freestyle lap swimming to improve my form.  See this video at the link below that I included from Monkeysee.
http://www.monkeysee.com/play/9107-How-to-Swim-Advanced-Freestyle
The other How to video that I found interesting was on cake decorating.  I am not this advanced at cake decorating but it is really neat to see how it all comes to together.  I got the idea to check this one out because of a friend that said she was taking a cake decorating class.  I will have to show her what I found as well.  Check out the How to Cake decorating video that I found at the link I included below.
http://www.monkeysee.com/play/15852-Fondant-Cake-Decorating-Making-Flowers

As described in the Nebraska Learns 2.0 Thing #41, sometimes seeing how something is done instead of reading instructions on how to do it can be much more educational.  I think both ways of doing things can be helpful it is just depends on how you learn and what it is you are trying to accomplish.