Week 6, Things 13, 14, & 15

I created a delicious account a while ago, after learning about it at a workshop. However, I don't use it much and always forget it's there. After exploring it some more for Thing 13, I added all the cool sites I've learned about in earlier weeks (like imagechef and library thing) and I'm hoping to really start using it. My bookmarks/favorites are a mess anyway. It's kind of cool to see who else has tagged the same sites and what they have to say about them.
I spent some time with Technorati, searching it in different ways, discovering that the whole world of blogging is much bigger and more complex than I previously imagined. I read about what gives a blog "authority" according to Technorati and how to build your blog's authority. At this point, the only thing I blog about are the "things" for this course, so I'm not too worried about attracting readers to my blog--but the whole idea is rather interesting. I'm getting used to the idea of tags--as a librarian it's freeing to be able to tag posts, pictures, and other things however I want without worrying about the right way to do it. I haven't really used the tags all that much because, again and again and again it's a little overwhelming!

Week 5, Things 10,11, & 12

ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

Week 5, Things 10, 11, & 12

I had a lot of fun playing around on imagechef. Again, endless possibilities. I used a photo of my new nephew, added a frame and speech bubble and emailed it to my brother. Very easy. Then I found an image of Abe Lincoln on the web and played with the poetry blender tool and uploaded the results here. Imagechef.com made it really easy to post it to the blog. Once more, just scratching the surface of all these cool tools.

I choose librarything.com from the web 2.0 awards list because I had recently read in SLJ about sites that allow you to keep a bookshelf. It's easy to use and there are endless possibilities. Over the years, I've tried a variety of things to keep track of books I've read, books I want to read, books I could recommend--I can see that this might be the best way. Now, I just have to remember it's there, that I have an account and that it might be useful to spend some more time building my library on it.

I created an account and played around with rollyo. I can see how it could be useful, but at this point in my web life, it's a little more than I need. It is fun to see what sites others list in their personal search tools.

Week 4, Things 8 & 9

I've taken a long hiatus from the Web 2.0 course and now hope I can finish on time. I got sidetracked by thing 8 when I attempted to create an account on Bloglines and kept getting a message to first respond to the email to verify my account but never got the email. Anyway, I ended up coming back to it weeks later and setting up a Google Reader account. I understand the idea, but am a little overwhelmed at the possibilities. There's so much out there, it will take some time to really focus on the useful and not get carried away adding endless feeds. Starting a new habit of checking my Google Reader page on a regular basis is probably the best way to really use the technology effectively.

I used Google Blog search to look for school library/children's books related feeds, and once again I was overwhelmed by the possibilities. I subscribed to some, including About.com's Children's books and the ALA's library advocate. Now I just have to keep up with them, determine if they are useful to me, and generally maintain my Google Reader page so that it is a valuable tool for me (instead of another place to lose myself in the endless possibilities of the web).