The 23 Things


Week 1: Introduction
1. Read this blog & find out about the program.
2. Discover a few pointers from lifelong learners and learn how to nurture your own learning process.

Week 2: Blogging
3. Set up your own blog & add your first post.
4. Register your blog on Nhulunbuy Library Learning and begin your Learning 2.0 journey.

Week 3: RSS & Newsreaders
5. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Google Reader account.
6. Locate a few useful library related blogs and/or news feeds.

Week 4: Photos & Images
7. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
8. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites.
9. Play around with an online image generator.

Week 5: Play Week
10. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.
11. Roll your own search tool with Rollyo.
12. Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week.

Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati
13. Learn about tagging and discover Delicious (a social bookmaking site)
14. Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts.
15. Read a few perspectives on Library 2.0 and the future of libraries and blog your thoughts.

Week 7: Wikis
16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.
17. Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki.

Week 8: Online Applications & Tools
18. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.
19. Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it and write a blog post about your findings.

Week 9: Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio
20. Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos.
21. Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts.
22. Take a look at a couple of eBook projects.
23. Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog.
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Thing 23: The Finale!

Congratulations!! You’ve reached the 23rd thing. Be sure to give yourself a pat on the back for completing the program.

For your last and final exercise for this program please reflect on your learning journey and post a few thoughts.

Here are some questions to prompt you if you're drawing a blank ...
  • What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
  • How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
  • Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
  • What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
And last but not least…
  • If you were offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?
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Thing 22: Books Online

For thing #22 we're going to look at a couple of eBook projects: Google Books and Project Gutenberg.
Google Books
Why Google Books? We all use Google. We use it at home; we use it at work. Did you know that besides searching the web, you can use Google for searching through the full text of books. Google Book Search aims to allow people to search all of the world's books. It offers full view options for many books in the public domain and preview (or snippet) view of others that still retain copyright. You can limit your search to full view if you only want to retrieve books that are completely available in digitized form.

Google has partnered with the University of Michigan, Oxford University, and other prestigious libraries to digitize their large collections as part of their Google Library Project whereby millions of books will be available to be searched online.

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg's philosophy is to "make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search". It commenced in 1971 and now has over 28,000 books available from their website and over 100,000 books through their partners, affiliates and resources websites.

Copyright provisions vary depending on what country you are in: a book for which copyright has expired in one country may still be copyrighted in other countries.

Discovery Readings:

To finish Thing #22:
  1. Visit Google Book Search. Try a sample search on a topic that interests you. Click on a book to view. Look at how you can explore the pages by browsing, the table of contents (if there is one), and searching within the book.
  2. Repeat steps one and two on Project Gutenberg.
  3. Create a blog post about your experience. What benefits does Google Book Search have for our libraries? What does it mean for extending access to information? What don't you like about this site? What are some of the copyright concerns? Let us know your thoughts.
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Thing 21: Podcasts

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.

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Learning 2.0 program) 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 you 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 Google Reader account as well, so that when new casts become available you’ll be automatically notified of their existence.

Discovery Resources:
There are many, many podcast directories and finding tools out there. Here are just two of the more popular ones that, unlike iTunes, don't require a software download:
Podcast.net
Podcastalley.com

What? You want to learn how to be a podcaster too? (Optional Resources for those who want to learn create podcasts)
Beginner's guide to Podcasts & Creating Podcasts
How to podcast tutorial

Discovery Exercise:
  1. Take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. See if you can find some interesting library related podcasts here like book review podcasts or library news.
  2. Add the RSS feed for a podcast to your Google Reader account
  3. Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?

Optional:
If you're ambitious, why not try out the Gabcast service and add an audio post about your experience to your blog.
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Thing 20: You Too Can YouTube!

Online video hosting sites allow users to easily to 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 hundreds of millions of 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 kids singing about bloopers here. Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot 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 worth adding as an entry in your blog.
  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 componets of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?

OPTIONAL:
Try placing the video inside your blog using the copy and paste code for the for "Embeddable Player.”
Note: you'll need to use Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting this code.


Other popular video hosting sites:
Yahoo Videos
Google videos

Here’s a video I embedded that I found on YouTube:

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Thing 19: Your Choice!

Throughout the course of this Learning 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.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to select any site from this list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees and explore it.

With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you (like Books or Social News) and then simply select a tool/site to explore. Be careful to select a tool that is free and that doesn't require a plug-in or download. The majority of these are free, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Discovery Exercise:
  1. Select any site/tool from the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees. (If you prefer to select from just the winners, here’s a link to the short list.)
  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?

Web 2.0 – with so much to explore, just start with ONE. :)
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Thing 18: Online Productivity Tools

The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past two years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the internet without the need of installed desktop applications.


  • They eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC.
  • They accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf).
  • You can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs to author and publish posts to your blog.
  • It’s this type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing.

Discovery Resources:


Discovery Exercise:

  1. Explore Google Documents. Take their tour
  2. Log in in using your blogger user account and password. Create a simple document, spreadsheet, or presentation (or all three!)
  3. Record your discoveries in your blog. How could this be helpful for library staff? Students and other patrons? Presentations and programs?
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Thing 17: Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki

"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play.

For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a whole Nhulunbuy Learning 2.0 Wiki* that’s for nothing but play! For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two.

The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite holiday destinations, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page.

Discovery Resources:

Discovery Exercise:

  1. Access the Nhulunbuy Learning 2.0 Wiki and create a login account for yourself.
  2. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there.
  3. Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite Books, Favorite Holiday Destinations, etc).
  4. And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book review or short travel essay and link up to that.
  5. Create a post in your blog about the experience.
* NOTE: The Nhulunbuy Learning 2.0 Wiki was created using the free version of PBWorks, a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit.
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Thing 16: Wikis

So what's a wiki?
A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide, the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:

  • Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
  • Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
  • Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
  • And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.
As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALIA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:

Use these resources to learn more aboout wikis:

Discovery Exercise:

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding.

Here’s a few examples to get you started:

Create a blog post about your findings.

  • What did you find interesting?
  • What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?
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Thing 15: Library 2.0

Library 2.0 is term used to describe a new set of concepts for developing and delivering library services.

The name, as you may guess, is an extension of Web 2.0 and shares many of its same philosophies and concepts including:
  • Harnessing the user in both design and implementation of services
  • Embracing constant change as a development cycle over the traditional notion of upgrades
  • Reworking library services to meet the users in their space, as opposed to ours (libraries).
Many have argued that the notion of Library 2.0 is more than just a term used to describe concepts that merely revolve around the use of technology; it also a term that can be used to describe both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within libraries to make our spaces and services more user-centric and inviting.

Others within the profession have asserted that libraries have always been 2.0: collaborative, customer friendly and welcoming.

But no matter which side of the debate proponents fall, both sides agree that libraries of tomorrow, even five or ten years from now, will look substantially different from libraries today.

Discovery Resources:

Discovery Exercise:

  1. Read two or three of the perspectives on Library 2.0 from the list above.
  2. Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these? Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?
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Thing 14: Technorati and Tags

Now that you've been blogging for a while, it's time to learn to find your way around the "blogosphere!" It doesn't take long to go from "gee, I can do this" to "how do I find out who else is blogging and are there blogs in my areas of interest?"

Technorati was one of the first searchable blog directories available online; Google and Yahoo also have blog directories. We're going to look at Technorati, which provides users with the ability to search blogs through a variety of search fields ranging from keywords to "authority," meaning how many people are referring to it. You can also "claim" or register your blog through Technorati and other blog services, which will increase your blog's visibility in the blogosphere.

Discovery Resources:

Discovery Exercise:

  1. On the home page on the Headlines tab, what are the "Rising Blog Posts by Attention"? How about "Rising News Stories by Attention"?
  2. Click on the "Rising Posts and Stories" tab, then choose "Blogs" from the drop-down menu. How do the results differ from choosing "Blogs and News" from the drop-down menu?

  3. On the right-hand side of the home page, check out the section called "Tags from What's Rising." What are bloggers talking the most about right now?

  4. Click on "Blogger Central" from the top menu bar. Under "Top Tags", click on 'Sport", then "View Posts". Note the use of everyday language in the tagging - this is called a "folksonomy."

  5. On the top right-hand corner of the page, click on "Advanced Search." Scroll to the bottom and under "Tag Search," type "libraries" into the "Find Posts Tagged" field. How do the results look?

  6. In the field labeled "URL Search," type "plcmcl2-about.blogspot.com" into the search field. Take a few moments to study the list of blogs linking to that site!

  7. Now click on the "Blogs" button in the top menu bar of the home page. Spend some time browsing the blog directory and clicking through some of the categories. Are the results as accurate as those produced through searching tags?

  8. If you would like to "claim" your blog with Technorati, click on "join" at the top and register with the site.

To finish:

  • Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.
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Thing 13: Tagging and Delicious

Tagging
Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want.

In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored a few sites – Flicker and LibraryThing to name two --that allow users to take advantage of tagging and in week 3 many even used a common tag (Nhulunbuy Community Library) to create an association between photos that we individually uploaded.

Delicious
Delicious is a social bookmarking manager which allows you to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize your bookmarks. Because they're stored on the site and not your computer, your bookmarks and favorite links can be accessed from any computer anywhere.

Many users find that the real power of Delicious is in the social network aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you.

You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at Delicious and learn about this popular bookmarking tool.

Discovery Resources:

  1. Otter Group Delicious tutorial (8 min video) - Highly recommended!!!

  2. Useful: A beginners guide to Delicious

  3. Several Habits of wildly successful Delicious users

Discovery Exercise:


  1. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?

  2. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
OPTIONAL
If you’re up to the challenge, create a Delicious account for yourself and discover how this useful bookmarking tool can replace your traditional browser bookmark list.
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Thing 12: Blog About Technology


Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week.

Absolutely anything that relates to technology!

Something you've learned, something you'd like to learn, a games site, your favourite thing so far. Anything. You just need to share a few thoughts.

PS: Also be sure to read your colleagues' blogs and add at least one comment. That's what online communities are all about - connecting and communication. :-)
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Thing 11: Rollyo

Do you have a group of websites that are your favorites? Or a set of online resources that are similar that you frequently use to answer homework or reference questions? Well Rollyo may be the tool for you. Rollyo allows you to create your own search tool for the just the websites you know and trust. Take a look at some of these search rolls that have already been created:
Public Domain e-Books Search
Rare Book Library Search
Quick Quotes
Explore other rolls here.

Try a search for broad terms like "homework” or “history” to see results listed from multiple sites.

Here’s a searchroll I created to search five Storytime Activities websites

Discovery Exercise:

  1. Explore Rollyo and create an account for yourself.
  2. Create a search roll for any subject you like.
  3. Create a post in your blog about your experience and link to your search roll. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?
OPTIONAL: Add your searchroll to your blog using the "Create a Searchbox" tool.



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Thing 10: LibraryThing

Are you a book lover? Like to share good books that you've read? But how do you remember everything you've read or what's on your 'To read' list?

LibraryThing is a cataloging application that allows you to keep track of all the books in your life, whether it's one you've just finished or a title you've heard about and would like to read sometime in the future. LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

If you want it, LibraryThing is also an amazing social space. Like Flickr, it employs tagging, meaning you can add your own genres and descriptors to help keep all of your children's picture books or historical fiction together.

You can check out other people's libraries, see who has the most similar library to yours, swap reading suggestions and so forth. LibraryThing also makes book recommendations based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries.

For Thing #10:
1. Take a good look around LibraryThing and start your own account.
2. Add at least 5 books, tag them, and take a look at what other people are saying about those titles. Explore the groups, find friends, and see if you can find a new book that interests you.
3. In your blog, talk about your experience and post a link to your new account.
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