Task 23 - The Finish Line

Wow - and what a journey it has been. I can say without a doubt that I have been challenged over the past weeks. My favourite Tasks were Library Thing, Youtube, image generators, del.icio.us and podcasts. The most difficult task for me was RSS feeds.

A working knowledge of Library Thing will definitely come in handy as Kingston Libraries is using it in conjunction with our Library Catalogue. It will be a another resource for readers advising. The best thing about it was that it was so easy to use and I think it will become popular with the general library public.

Youtube and video downloads was just plain fun. It was great to be able to locate videos that had been sent to me via email; and also its great that videos exist of some of the old favourites (like Charlie Brown).

Thanks for a great time -

Barb

Task 22 - eAudiobooks

This post is from the perspective of a Youth Services Librarian - my favourite type of books are picture books. eAudiobooks are not suitable for this format, as the illustrations are what make the books.

Also, when looking that the suggested websites, the emphasis is on U.S. literature and awards and much of the eAudiobooks are "Classics". I feel that these sites fail to cater to the specific group of youth who like reading non-fiction for pleasure -there are no dinosaur, shark or insect titles; and the Children Books Awards Highlighted are the Caldecott and Newberry Awards (U.S.) There were no titles by A. Griffiths or D. Pilkey listed.

This having been said - I do see the advantage of eAudiobooks for the Adult population. I listen to a large volume of Audio Books and I could see myself downloading eAudiobooks for my own personal use. With the availability of eAudiobooks, comes the responsibility of educating the aging population in the use of the "new technology". We still have some patrons that have been unable to make the jump from Audio Books in tape format to Audio Books in Cd format.

Just One More Book

When I was searching for podcasts, I found this marvelous site called Just One More Book, which is listed in my previous post concerning podcasts.


The website does podcasts of author interviews, books and has a list of authors on the right hand side of the page, and is a tremendous resource for reading advisory for children. In addition to this, I found a link to Robert's Snow: for Cancer's Cure (see below). How great would it be to have a Christmas ornament illustrated by Graeme Base!

"It’s not too late to start saving up for your very own Robert’s Snow Snowflake.

Perhaps you’ll choose A Bundle of Love by Graeme Base. Bidding on Graeme Base’s snowflake, “A Bundle of Love”, takes place November 26-30, 2007.

Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure is a unique fundraiser for cancer research. Between November 19th and December 7th, 2007, you have the chance to bid on 200 wooden snowflakes, hand painted by prominent children’s illustrators, through a series of three online auctions.



Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure is a unique fundraiser for cancer research. Between November 19th and December 7th, 2007, you have the chance to bid on 200 wooden snowflakes, hand painted by prominent children’s illustrators, through a series of three online auctions."

Podcasts - Task 21

HAMMER KING

Scary- Ghost Car

Task 18 - Zoho Writer; Task 19 - Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Zoho Writer: - I enjoyed playing with this site - what I tried to do was to use a template for Recipes and then add my own recipe for Gingerbread Houses. I found it difficult to get the page to down load the way I wanted it to, and probably should have just created my own word document from scratch. It took about 6 tries with font size, justification, etc to finally get it to load properly on the page. I still have double spacing between the instructions which I tried changing multiple times.

Web 2.0 tools - I had good fun with this - I updated my Library Thing with tags and had a play - felt this was a good site to become comfortable with as our library is using it with our catalogue. I also has a go at downloading Flickr pictures.

I video sites and found YouTube to be the easiest to find specific types of videos; and the music sites have their limits due to copyright restrictions.

Another photo from Flickr

Someone's been eating my House!

Gingerbread House Photo from Flickr

Gingerbread Dough - Zoho Writer

Creating Recipe

Name of the Dish: Gingerbread House Dough

Type: Dessert

Serves: Unlimited

Ingredients

1 cup Melted solid Crisco (copha) 1 cup Granulated sugar 1 cup Light Karo Syrup 2 Large eggs, room temp. 1 tsp Salt 1 tsp Baking soda 1 tsp Ginger 2 tsp Cinnamon 1 tsp Cloves 1 tsp Nutmeg 5 1/2 cup to 5 3/4 cup Flour or-more to very stiff

Directions

Method : To Mix GB Dough:  Pour melted Crisco into mixer bowl.  Let cool slightly; add sugar and Karo,  blending well.  Add eggs, mising all until smooth and creamy.  Add salt, baking soda and spices into mixture and begin to add flour, just  a little at a time.  Knead the flour in when dough becomes too stiff for mixer.  Don't hurry this step!  Continue adding  as much flour as the dough will absorb. To Roll Out Dough:  Refrigerate dough before using.Cut pieces of the dough to roll out.  Roll between two pieces of waxed paper.  The dough should be a pproximately 1/4 inch thick.  Cut the gingerbread house pieces out and place on foil.  Leave about 1 inch between pieces.  Slide the foil onto cardboard and put in oven.  Remove the cardboard before shutting the oven door.Bake house pieces at 375 degrees F (180 degrees C) for 5-8 minutes, or until the edges are light brown.  Silde the cardboard under the foil to remove the pieces from the oven.  Cool on a flat surface and remove from foil once cooled.

 

 

Discovery Tasks 16/17 - Wikis

Really enjoyed this module - and I can see many useful ways to use Wikis. On the other hand, I'm a bit hesitant to give an overall acceptance for the technology. I would love to use the technology in creating reader's advisories for children and young adults, where the kids can add to the wiki. My hesitation is in the area of reference or the gathering of information - too many children already see Wikipedia as a primary reference source (some teachers do too).

I hope we can use this technology on our Library webpage at some later date.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Something I think many of us can relate to.

Charlie Brown's Halloween Special: I got a rock.

Task 14 - Technorati Widget

This shows what users are searching for at the moment


View technorati.com

Technorati Top Tags
Technorati Top Tags


Technorati Top Searches
Technorati Top Searches

Task 13 - Tagging, Folksonomies and Social Bookmarking

Here are my favourites on Del.icio.us

http://del.icio.us/puppets222