NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Friday morning after class, I prepared to take in the numerous records I had been keeping all year to finally get my taxes done. When I turned on my computer, an error message come up saying it could not find the hard drive. Now, I am not very good with hardware, but even I knew that that was not a good message. I took my computer in to a store and hoped for the best. I came back five hours later and they were only 25% into reading my hard drive to try to save my information. My computer had my tax information, digital pictures, music, and my homework. So after a long weekend without my computer, I went back to the store where I was told that they were unable to recover anything. It's all gone. GONE! Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking "you should have backed up your hard drive." Believe me, I have been told that a million times. In my defense, I tried to back up my photos on Kodak Gallery, but there was an error in downloading the program. Plus, I was getting ready to back-up my taxes when my hard drive crashed. On the upside, I now have a good reason to get a new laptop (yes, I have a gadget addiction.) Until then I have had to make due and it has been rough. One nighgt, I used my sister's desktop with a dial-up connecction and another evening I spent at the public library. My favorite part of that experience was the women at the computer next to me who were looking up prison inmates so they could try to make a love connection. I am currently using my roommate's computer which seems to have a "y" key that is about to give out. (I had no idea I typed so many y's.) I asked the guy who worked on my laptop if there were any clues. He listed a few like running slow, problems opening files, etc. Every problem I had in class and trying to do our usaility testing. So I have learned that I need to get busy on ordering a new computer, get an external hard drive, and use more words that do not have y's.

New Toy

I feel like a little kid on Christmas! I have a new toy. My cell phone's battery was pretty much burnt out and my car charger broke at the same time when I got a serendipitous offer from my wireless carrier to upgrade early to a Blackberry Pearl. At least, I took it as a sign. My roommate has a Blackberry and it just looked so cool! The little kid in me still cannot resist something so shiny with lots of buttons to push. When I ordered it over the phone, the salesman gave me the warning that it would take some getting used to. I will have to say that he was right. I have never had a phone that gave its own tutorial as soon as you turned it on for the first time. So far, I love the large screen and the roller ball for navigating around the screen. However, setting up the e-mail has not been easy. The phone will not accept my work or school address, so I had to create a Blackberry address. I really did not want another e-mail address to keep track of. I have not attempted (yet) to get my work and school accounts to forward to my Blackberry address. The other trial has been my contact list. I thought I was being proactive and I registered on my wireless carrier's website to get a back-up created of my contact list. Downloading that worked great, but my new phone does not support the software. Unless my laptop is with me, the online contact list just is not all that helpful. I can go to a store and have it transferred, but that will be taking away the convenience of having the phone mailed to my home in the first place. I suppose that ultimately the moral of the story is if you ever decide to make the leap from cell phone to smartphone, you'd be smart to go to the store in person and spend 15 minutes with a real person as apposed to a few hours with tech support and a manual at home. But it's okay. I am still excited about my new toy and it will be awesome once I get used to it! If not, I'm sure my wireless company will offer me an even more expensive upgrade in the future.

Dark side of Technology

Often it is hard to come up with a topic for this blog, but today it was easy. Unfortunately. Today my parapro confiscated a digital camera from a group of boys. They were watching a video and making some very telling comments. For the sake of decorum, I will not share what the boys were saying. When she figured out how to work the camera, we found that a girl in the middle school had made her own little amateur porn video. I did not view the video and I did not ask for details (I do not need the nightmares) so I do not know exactly what was on the video or how explicit it got. Now I realize that I was on the naive side as a child, but when I was in middle school I was incredibly embarrassed just to hold my boyfriend's hand in front of people. This young lady is passing her camera around to several boys to watch. I sincerely hope this is a very isolated incident, but I fear that it is not. Tools like digital cameras, cell phones with cameras, and the Internet allow people to do so much without having to go through a third party. For example, you do not have to go to a photo department to get film developed. How does posting explicit videos or pictures in a public forum fall under doing things anonymously? As I work with teens and many adults, even though they are posting on a public forum they do not seem to understand that anyone can see it. Maybe they are counting on the sheer size of the web to protect them from people they know seeing what they post? I am not sure if people feel more bold because of the sense of anonymity or if all the outrageous things available makes some think they have to do something bigger and bolder. I realize I am being a bit cynical, but what is it about human nature that makes us take new technology and one of the first things that happens is we figure out how to use it for porn? Think about it. When a new technology starts to catch on, people bulk at it because it starts being used in relation to sex. Social sites are dangerous because sexual predators are on them. The Internet must be filtered because of all the porn. Movies must be rated so minors cannot see anything with the wrong rating. Music and TV must be rated for the same reason. Geez, it makes me understand why the Amish think technology corrupts. However, even with all the problems I am still willing to take my chances, I will just make sure that I never borrow someone else's digital camera.

Random observations

Technology has been pretty good to me these last couple of weeks, so I will be making a few short observations as opposed to one long blog on a single subject.

I took on the part of the wiki where we are posting the reference librarians' favorite resources. The purpose of this part of the wiki is to provide the student workers a quick list of ready reference sources. I assumed that since we were approaching the full-time academic reference librarians for suggestions that I would get back mainly print sources. Lo and behold, so far they have all only given me websites. I am totally surprised! Maybe it is because I am currently taking my reference course, but I thought I would get answers like World Almanac or assorted encyclopedia sets, maybe a few odd books that Notre Dame students often need. I feel so mislead now in my reference prof.

Last week, I taught a unit with one of the English teachers. We decided to write obituaries. Seriously. To introduce the kids to authors, we had them pick one from a list or they could get one approved. Then they researched the author's life and works using the Biography Resource Center through Inspire. Once they were finished with their research, then they used the timeline template in the Inspiration program to create a pre-writing graphic organizer. The hook and the impetus for this project was the story that the AP has written Britany Spears' obituary just in case. I really thought that the teacher and I did a nice job of incorporating technology into a lesson in an authentic way. The students did a better job using a database and navigating Inspiration then what I have seen them do with other lessons.

Speaking of other lessons, a project that is a staple around here is the disease brochure. In this lesson, the students research a disease and make a brochure about it with pictures. So far, in the many times I have witnessed the health teachers doing this project, the main goal of many of the students seems to be "how can I get a really disgusting or naked picture around the filter." Breast cancer and elphantitus are both very popular with the male students for those reasons.

Cobbling technology

As I have discussed before, I work in a high school with some old technology. As far as I can tell, the school won a technology grant in 1999. Most of our laptops, digital cameras, data projectors, and other various pieces of equipment are from that year. This means I often find myself cobbling together different pieces to make one usable unit. For example, one DVD player stopped working. I used the cables on another DVD player and the remote went to another unit. Then I took the TV it had been hooked up to and traded it out with another TV whose sound had started to go. When teachers need a laptop with a projector, we have a session of twenty questions. I have one laptop that can be hooked up to the Internet. Another that has a USB port and another that can only take floppies. Then there are two more that are newer and are tablets. One is missing the stylus pen and while both of them can hook up to the Internet, both of them have broken ports where a data projector would be hooked into. It becomes very frustrating trying to meet the needs of teachers and students. Also, it can be a bit embarrassing. Sometimes I do not ask all the right questions or the teacher comes in and signs-up for the projector themselves. If they sign-up for a projector that does not meet their needs, then I am called in to fix the un-fixable. It is hard to constantly have to apologize for it and then the teachers are frustrated because they have to change their plans on the fly. On the bright side, I have found that I can be pretty creative on finding my way around these problems. Before you know it, I may be the MacGyver of LHS.

The Wonderful World of Wikis

For our service learning project, we decided to look at some other wikis to get an idea of what is out there. I have to say, that I saw some really impressive things. I like working with wikis. We learned how to write in html code in 401 and I have attended a few workshops for using various webpage building software, but I had never even felt remotely comfortable creating webpages. Wikis are different. They are so easy to use! However, I thought the the trade-off was a very "plain jane" looking site. Now I now know that this is not so. There are some excellent, very visually appealing wikis out there. What I find truly amazing is that I first worked with a wiki just three years ago. The level of sophistication was much lower and that is where I developed my opinion that wikis cannot be pretty. I know technology is moving along at a nice clip, but the rapid pace that improvements are being made in the realm of social networking technology still manages to astound me. The examples I have seen have shown me for one that the page formatting possiblities are much broader than I had imagined. Plus, to reference an earlier post: the widget possibilities are amazing and several are offered for free. The free part just blows my mind! We have spent so much time being constantly warned about the dangers and depravity of the Internet, that it is hard to believe that some are creating this cool tools and then just giving them away for the good of everyone. It's nice to see a creative endeavor that was made to help, not just for a profit. Some of the more tradtional arts have lost that spirit. Now I find myself wandering into the area of copyright, so I will end this here before things get ugly.

Follett Destiny

My library is currently operating on Follett Circulation Plus system and we have not updated in a few years. I have been trying to persuade our tech guy that we needed to update our system and move our OPAC to the Internet. So, I was very happy when our tech guy sent me an invitation to a webinar on the Follett Destiny system. One, I am excited that the upgrade I have been pushing for is being seriously considered, and two, I have never been to a webinar. As with a lot of things technology-based, the webinar did not go on without a hitch. The e-mail with the address we needed to go to was captured by the spam-filter. Then, the sound did not work. Luckily, the Follett people were prepared. They had it set-up so we could listen over speakerphone. The webinar itself was rather bland. It was a Powerpoint with someone reading a script. Some features that I would love to have are mainly in the OPAC. One, we have some of the Web 2.0 features. The OPAC would have pictures of the book covers and students could write reviews with star ratings (the reviews are approved by the media specialist before being posted.) I think this would be a great tool for teaching the students about the OPAC while giving me a great tool for collaboration with the teachers. Another thing I really liked was that the OPAC would be on the Internet. I think this would ultimately help out our three elementary schools. They are small schools staffed by paraprofessionals. By making all the collections searchable by all the schools, my hope is that they would use that feature to start doing loans between buildings. The final feature that I was excited about is that they will enhance our MARC records. As I pointed out, out of our five schools three are staffed solely by parapros and another has a media specialist, but her parapro does the cataloging. I took over the cataloging from my own parapro when I came to the high school. While these ladies have done an outstanding job (with no training), the catalog has definitely suffered. I would much rather have Follett clean up the records then have to do it myself. I am one of those weirdos who likes cataloging, but that would be too much of a good thing.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I have had a question keep popping up in my head since this class started, but instead of risking ridicule by my peers, I kept it to myself. But it is time to stand up and be strong. My name is Jenny and I don't know what a "widget" is.

I thought widgets were what George Jetson's company manufactured, but I doubted that this was the same context.

Okay, I know now, but every time Dr. Ball threw that term out there I would just let it slide right on by. "Maybe someone else will ask this time?" I feverishly hoped. Alas, it was not to be. I had noticed the "widget" button on the wiki page when I was in high tech learning last semester, but by the time we were that far into the class I was drowning in so much new technology I just could not bring myself to figure out something else new (that wasn't required.) I never thought it would come back to haunt me.

Finally, at our small group meeting which felt like a safe place (that's for you Tara) I confessed to my "widget" ignorance. My group very nicely and patiently explained what they are, but the real bonanza came when I (finally) opened this month's copy of School Library Journal and there was an article called "Widgets to the Rescue" by Ellyssa Kroski. I now practically have information coming out of my ears!

Now, while I feel excited and liberated to finally know what Dr. Ball's been talking about, I do feel the need to reassure her that I do not plan on convincing my group to make our wiki a wall of widgets. However, I cannot promise I won't use anymore over-the-top alliterations. I have only so much self-control.

Teamwork

What makes a team work? I believe that the most important thing for a team to be successful is communication. As I have stated before, I am a media specialist in a high school. Recently, a report from our web filter came through. Apparently, this report was supposed to be a regular occurance. It showed that in one week over 240 students in a 725 student school were shown to be visiting websites that they were not supposed to be on. So while the person in charge of discipline sorted through all these, every student on the list had their internet shut off for a week. However, teachers were not warned. Teachers did not find out what was going on and why until we were two or three days into the week long suspension of privileges. That had a huge impact on instruction. Projects that had already suffered setbacks from weather delays and cancellations were further crippled by no internet access for parts of the class. Once the situation was explained, most teachers understood and thought the punishment was appropriate. However, they often asked why they could not have been told what was going on sooner. A lack of communication made a difficult situation worse. It left the teachers feeling out of the loop. It is hard or even impossible to feel like a valued member of a team if one is not consulted or informed of important decisions that affect the entire team. Now, I am not saying that every little decision needs to be decided by a committee, but the whole team needs to be kept informed or it stops being a team.

On the bright side, several teachers improvised by having their students use books from the media center! The lack of team work from others allowed me the chance to show I was a team player by helping teachers and students do research on the fly. (Flexiblity is also a trait of successful teamwork, but that is a topic for another posting.)

Library 2.0

Many of our readings and part of our discussion last class (1/24/08) was centered around the idea of Library 2.0 and the OPAC. The question was raised whether it is a good idea or not to let patrons participate in the OPAC. I would have to say: a little. Many of our readings take an extreme view of keep up the status quo or turn over everything to the people. I really doubt many feel this way, but you often have to make an outrageous argument to get published. Moderate stances are not exciting enough to sell journals or get blogs read, but I digress.

The main argument made for scraping the current system of librarian based tagging is the popularity of Amazon.com and other sites like Flickr and Library Thing. Those sites work great with user tags, reviews, and recommendations, so the idea is why not bring that to the OPAC? I have a concern that I have never seen addressed. How do we adapt a system used by Amazon.com with its millions of users to one for a single library that has significantly fewer? Think about it. How many times have you looked up a book and found no reviews or just a few? It happens to me all the time. Now there are books that have hundreds of customer reviews, but statistically 400 reviews: 4 millions copies purchased is not a high ratio. I still think patron reviews would be a cool thing to add to the OPAC, but I do not believe it would work as well as it does for Amazon.com. I wonder if patron reviews could even be used by censors to discourage others from reading materials they find objectionable? Would staff time be used to read every review posted? Would any reviews be deleted? What criteria would be used? It could be quite the can of worms.

Tagging works on the web because of the large volume of people doing it. Statistically, someone else has to tag the same way you do. Weren't standard subject heading invented in libraries to provide consistency because when everyone was left to their own devices it was chaos? A tag cloud looks cool, but really how useful is it? I think the real thing needed here is a program that can be downloaded onto any OPAC that will update some of LC's outdated terminology on every bibliographic record. For example, install the program and every subject heading that says "Cookery" would be changed to "Cooking." That would be progress.

The whole if you liked "Book A, why not read Book B" aspect of Amazon.com is also very helpful, but it has to be modified for OPAC's. There would need to be a way to ensure it only recommends books the library has. Amazon.com sells all those, that is why they can make so many recommendations. Patrons at a library will not find it helpful to be given five book recommendations just to be told five times the library does not own any of them. This would need to be a service offered by large library systems or consortia, if patrons are patient enough to wait on ILL.

My basic argument has centered around the disparity in the customer volume that a library would serve and Amazon.com serves. Many of the authors harangued OPAC's for not offering many things that Amazon.com does. I disagree. I have seen several public library OPAC's that feature cover art, reviews (from professional review sources,) and even relevancy ratings. Usually if I am having an difficult time finding the book I want, it is because the library does not own it. Amazon.com will find it because they sell everything. In the quest to sound more "cutting edge" when it comes to technology, many total Library 2.0 advocates ignore that often is more a matter of lack books to choose from then difficulty of navigation for OPAC systems or users. The OPAC's I have trouble navigating are the ones that have bibliographic records created by untrained personnel that were hired to replace expensive librarians. These are the OPAC's full of records with no subject headings, no book summaries, and the information that is there is entered incorrectly; but that is a whole other can of worms.

Multi-tasking Among the Immigrants

I am not going to reveal my age, but I am old enough to be considered an digital immigrant. I am proud to say that I seem to be doing a better job of assimilating into the digital native culture. My roommate is a doctoral student and we find ourselves on a Sunday night watching football while we each are on our wireless laptops. I am blogging while he looks up videos on YouTube. He is also on his Blackberry making jokes about blogging. (Due to the public nature of this forum, I will not go into detail about that.) However the non-native in me cannot help feel like my attention span is being compromised. Am I getting more done because I am doing more at once or am I just doing sub-par work on several things at once? It is hard to tell sometimes. Another sign that I am not completely part of this new culture is my dismay at a series of commercials. These commercials are aimed at encouraging kids to go out and play. I am all for encouraging kids to go out, the part that makes me cring everytime is at that end of the commercial they encourage kids to go online for ideas for what to play. Looking at what they can create with technology, surely kids today have enough imagination to play without consulting a website. I am not sure my attention span is up to doing all these things at once as the natives seem to do with ease. Are the digital natives really able to do several things at once with no adverse effects? Are their brains wired differently because they have grown up with all this technology? Surely there is a study out there. I will have to Google that...

The "skimming" trap

I am guilty of an offense that I get on my students about: skimming. Yes, it's true. While I was reading the syllabus online, I did not see where it told us what we were supposed to be blogging about. I decided that the first must be your standard introduction and the topics for the rest would be discussed in class or posted in "Resources" in OnCourse, so imagine my surprise when in class I discovered that my second blog was due a few hours earlier. "But I couldn't find what we are supposed to write about!" I lamented to my classmates. Rusty pointed out to me exactly where it was in the syllabus. A document that I would have sworn I had read more than once. I then realized that I had fallen into the trap of online reading: skimming. I see a lot of people who have become so accustomed to the quick answer that we do not read "deeply," especially when the text appears on a computer screen. If the answer to our question is not in the first couple of paragraphs, we just zone out for the rest of our reading. This illustrates why even though it is old-fashioned I will often give short research assignments where students are not allowed to use the printer or cut and paste. They must (gasp!) take notes by hand. It is one way I try to get them in the habit of actually reading what they are reading. Plus, I want to break them of the habit of printing sixty page articles when they only need something in the first page. Any other suggestions to break the skimming habit?

Welcome to my blog

This blog is to supplement the project we will be working on with an area public library. My background is in education. I am a high school media specialist. I have also worked at the elementary and middle school levels. Technology is obviously an important issue in education and librarianship, which is why I am taking this class.

Since my school system uses paraprofessionals at the elementary level, I am working on a wiki to help them with lessons and to keep them involved. You can visit it at lhsmc.wikispaces.com/