Saturday, January 19, 2008
Rereprise of #32
I thought while I was still in Learning 2.1 mode that I would go back to Omnidrive. I did - and with exactly the same result. There is still a problem registering. I sent them a screen dump of my problem when I first encountered it over Xmas and New Year and have simply not heard a word since - brilliant customer service! Other Boroondara staff doing Learning 2.1 have also not been able to access registration. These sites sound wonderful and an answer to one's dreams, but if one can't register....
#42: Google Groups/Usenet
Like RA Meyer who was composing task 42, I was pretty amazed to discover that newsgroups were still around as these electronic bulletin boards seemed a thing of the past. But they are obviously still there, if not quite getting the same use as they did before Google took off. I clicked on the Society.libraries.talk site and had a look at the usage, i.e. it was great in the early days of the internet but has decreased greatly in recent years. Surprising? I don't think so.
I then did a search in Google Groups for breast cancer and came up with 6,690,000 groups!! I hunted through a couple of the lists for their postings and wondered where a newly diagnosed person would start? Well, probably they wouldn't start with Google Groups but with Google, and the question of what he or she might find there is another one.
I then did a search in Google Groups for breast cancer and came up with 6,690,000 groups!! I hunted through a couple of the lists for their postings and wondered where a newly diagnosed person would start? Well, probably they wouldn't start with Google Groups but with Google, and the question of what he or she might find there is another one.
#41: Live Mocha - learn a new language and make friends along the way
Like many people I know, I have the desire LATER, like when I retire, to go back to languages I have learned in the past and try to revive those competencies, or to start new languages. I know that to some extent this will always be a dream. I have never had any trouble learning the grammar of a language or reading it, but when it comes to oral competency just forget it! I do not have the ear for it. So, I am interested to see how this site works. I really want to brush up my grammar and reading skills in a couple of languages and think that I am capable of doing so, but do I still dream of the oral competency?
I was interested to notice recently on Facebook an ad for another social networking language learning program, My happy planet. This program also talked of connecting with others to learn, though it was closed down for production when I sourced it. However, it seems that the idea is not limited to LiveMocha.
So I logged in and joined LiveMocha. It seems that one can learn, practice and return the favour there,i.e.help people who are learning your native language. A whole list of languages was offered initially and I chose French because I'd like to revive my competency in that. I did study it for six years at school and for a year at University so I am hoping that I can get into this reasonably easily. Louise and I, however, were quite challenged a couple of years ago when we thought we might get back to French at Alliance and were freaked out by the induction test.
Once I had chosen French, I discovered that despite the long list of languages being offered, in fact the only ones really offered were English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi and Mandarin. Others are "coming soon". There were a few people who were learning French whom I asked to be my friends, though I think that for this program to be effective there would need to be a greater network.
I then embarked on French 101 (I was offered 101, 102, 201 and 202) and completed the first lesson. The course (French 101) is supposed to take a total of 50 hours but as yet I haven't any sense about how long it will take me. I found it quite confusing in each section as there were no instructions and I had to play about trying to work out what to do. I lost scores while playing around and felt that with clear instructions I would not have, as absolutely none of the language was new. I wondered what it would have been like to start a course with absolutely no knowledge, and maybe that is really what I need to do to test the usefulness of the site.
It's an interesting concept and maybe an area where social networking can really help one's learning. I think from my experience of LiveMocha and MyHappyPlanet that this is still very much in an embryonic phase but I'll continue with the French and maybe later when I have time to ponder it I will have access to the other languages I am interested in.
I was interested to notice recently on Facebook an ad for another social networking language learning program, My happy planet. This program also talked of connecting with others to learn, though it was closed down for production when I sourced it. However, it seems that the idea is not limited to LiveMocha.
So I logged in and joined LiveMocha. It seems that one can learn, practice and return the favour there,i.e.help people who are learning your native language. A whole list of languages was offered initially and I chose French because I'd like to revive my competency in that. I did study it for six years at school and for a year at University so I am hoping that I can get into this reasonably easily. Louise and I, however, were quite challenged a couple of years ago when we thought we might get back to French at Alliance and were freaked out by the induction test.
Once I had chosen French, I discovered that despite the long list of languages being offered, in fact the only ones really offered were English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi and Mandarin. Others are "coming soon". There were a few people who were learning French whom I asked to be my friends, though I think that for this program to be effective there would need to be a greater network.
I then embarked on French 101 (I was offered 101, 102, 201 and 202) and completed the first lesson. The course (French 101) is supposed to take a total of 50 hours but as yet I haven't any sense about how long it will take me. I found it quite confusing in each section as there were no instructions and I had to play about trying to work out what to do. I lost scores while playing around and felt that with clear instructions I would not have, as absolutely none of the language was new. I wondered what it would have been like to start a course with absolutely no knowledge, and maybe that is really what I need to do to test the usefulness of the site.
It's an interesting concept and maybe an area where social networking can really help one's learning. I think from my experience of LiveMocha and MyHappyPlanet that this is still very much in an embryonic phase but I'll continue with the French and maybe later when I have time to ponder it I will have access to the other languages I am interested in.
#40: Retroland - reminisce about the good old days
When I am not being a librarian or a manager, I'm an historian. In fact, I started the day today surfing around the online MMBW maps at the State Library of Victoria for some guy in the UK who is trying to trace some information about a family member who was in Collingwood in the 1860s-1870s.
I love the past, but I don't find that that makes me a fan of Retroland. It's a site where you can reconnect with things you liked in the past and, as it also has a social networking role, you can connect with people who are interested in reminiscing about the same things that you are. I found a lot of the stuff, such as food and music, very U.S. based and didn't connect with it a lot. However, it is good to know that this site exists in case I want to find out some information about clothing, food etc from a particular era. So I can see that application for local and family history. It just needs to be taken with a grain of salt and a bit of awareness that things might not have been quite the same in Boroondara.
I love the past, but I don't find that that makes me a fan of Retroland. It's a site where you can reconnect with things you liked in the past and, as it also has a social networking role, you can connect with people who are interested in reminiscing about the same things that you are. I found a lot of the stuff, such as food and music, very U.S. based and didn't connect with it a lot. However, it is good to know that this site exists in case I want to find out some information about clothing, food etc from a particular era. So I can see that application for local and family history. It just needs to be taken with a grain of salt and a bit of awareness that things might not have been quite the same in Boroondara.
#39 Animoto - make video clips like pros!
Animoto is absolutely cool! After my lack of skill and enthusiasm about the comic relief topic, it was great to get into Animoto and let them create a professional video for me. I continued on the theme of Agatha Christie and Egypt that I started in Photobucket a number of things ago and also carried on with in Scrapblog. Animoto was easy to join up to.
The first glitch came when loading from Photobucket was not available as an option, even though it was listed as one and they had apparently promised that it was coming in September 2007. But as I had loaded some of the Agatha Christie and Egypt photos onto my hard drive, I loaded them from there. That was pretty straightforward though it took a bit of time. I could then spotlight photos I wanted highlighted and reorder them or delete them. Then I needed to choose music. I could have uploaded some from elsewhere but chose to use some of theirs. The range was not great - Electronica,Indie rock, hip hop, Latin and Singer/songwriter - and none of it probably suited my archaeology and sleuth theme.
Animoto then analyzes the images and the music and pieces it together into a video clip. It took a while for this process to happen, but they warned you and offered some entertainment. Once the video clip is produced you can then remix it or tweak it yourself. I was happy and easily uploaded it here to my blog and also onto the Boroondara Learning 2.1 ning. You can do 30 seconds clips for free and these take about 10-15 photographs, or you can join up and pay for longer videos.
I was so excited I decided to start another one based on some photographs of Polyxena and Hecuba. Those photographs are higher resolution and took quite a time to load. I also remixed them and changed the photos. It all takes time but it is fine. Some of them turned out quite grainy in the application and I'm not sure why. With this one, I also uploaded it to the blog (see next post), to the Boroondara Learning 2.1 ning and also to Facebook. It all worked fine, though I am now wondering about the automatic start here on the blog as both want to start in conflict. Sigh! The challenges of technology.
The first glitch came when loading from Photobucket was not available as an option, even though it was listed as one and they had apparently promised that it was coming in September 2007. But as I had loaded some of the Agatha Christie and Egypt photos onto my hard drive, I loaded them from there. That was pretty straightforward though it took a bit of time. I could then spotlight photos I wanted highlighted and reorder them or delete them. Then I needed to choose music. I could have uploaded some from elsewhere but chose to use some of theirs. The range was not great - Electronica,Indie rock, hip hop, Latin and Singer/songwriter - and none of it probably suited my archaeology and sleuth theme.
Animoto then analyzes the images and the music and pieces it together into a video clip. It took a while for this process to happen, but they warned you and offered some entertainment. Once the video clip is produced you can then remix it or tweak it yourself. I was happy and easily uploaded it here to my blog and also onto the Boroondara Learning 2.1 ning. You can do 30 seconds clips for free and these take about 10-15 photographs, or you can join up and pay for longer videos.
I was so excited I decided to start another one based on some photographs of Polyxena and Hecuba. Those photographs are higher resolution and took quite a time to load. I also remixed them and changed the photos. It all takes time but it is fine. Some of them turned out quite grainy in the application and I'm not sure why. With this one, I also uploaded it to the blog (see next post), to the Boroondara Learning 2.1 ning and also to Facebook. It all worked fine, though I am now wondering about the automatic start here on the blog as both want to start in conflict. Sigh! The challenges of technology.
#38 Comic relief
I am afraid that this topic didn't do much for me. I got onto ToonDoo and looked at the comic strips linked to library in the cloud of tags. Some of the Self Check ones were good, and I liked Library 1 and Library 2 about the implications of not talking in the library. However, when I signed up I didn't become instantly creative. I played around for a while on the theme of trying to encourage people to become computer savvy seniors at the library and experimented with a witch and a Santa who looked like they could do with some computer skills. But I'm happy to keep my results private.
I can see that such a tool could be used in a public library to promote events and activities. I like reading comic strips and get an RSS of Unshelved regularly so I like the library theme. But I don't think I have it in me to create them.
I can see that such a tool could be used in a public library to promote events and activities. I like reading comic strips and get an RSS of Unshelved regularly so I like the library theme. But I don't think I have it in me to create them.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
#37 Music to our ears
Task 37 is about expanding musical horizons by using online radio stations where the user tells the station what they like listening to. We were given two options, Pandora or LastFM. Fortunately Fiona had done this task before me, so I knew that Pandora wasn't available in Australia, so that left me with LastFM. You can join up and listen, select music, link it together in albums, and then embed the link to your blog or to other social networking sites - I used Facebook.
I focussed on folk music, though there did seem to be some classical music there as well. Judy Small was unknown, but Martyn Wyndham Read and A.L. Lloyd already had "stations" and I uploaded them to the side bar of my blog, though I later put them in this post as my sidebar seems to be getting widgeted-out.
I could also have contributed information about these artists to LastFM as neither of them had any, taken part in discussions, found friends with similar tastes, journalled and found out about nad posted events. I could also have uploaded a software link that would have enabled LastFM to track what I was playing and link to my profile, what they call "scrobbling".
This is an interesting concept in social networking based on musical tastes and again the assumption that one wants to link to other tools such as blogs and Facebook. I can't see a great deal of use for this in terms of family and local history but it is obviously yet another tool that could be of use to publicize events. This seems to work something like Facebook events and there were certainly events in Melbourne.
I focussed on folk music, though there did seem to be some classical music there as well. Judy Small was unknown, but Martyn Wyndham Read and A.L. Lloyd already had "stations" and I uploaded them to the side bar of my blog, though I later put them in this post as my sidebar seems to be getting widgeted-out.
I could also have contributed information about these artists to LastFM as neither of them had any, taken part in discussions, found friends with similar tastes, journalled and found out about nad posted events. I could also have uploaded a software link that would have enabled LastFM to track what I was playing and link to my profile, what they call "scrobbling".
This is an interesting concept in social networking based on musical tastes and again the assumption that one wants to link to other tools such as blogs and Facebook. I can't see a great deal of use for this in terms of family and local history but it is obviously yet another tool that could be of use to publicize events. This seems to work something like Facebook events and there were certainly events in Melbourne.
#36 Dressing up your photos
This task is looking at sites which will allow you to play around with photos - crop, resize, recolour, fix red eye and add features. We were given a couple of options Picnik, Fauxto now called Splashup, Pixenate and Snapfish as well as some other less well-known ones.
I chose to sign up with Picnik and found it very easy to use, though I did keep on getting tantalized by the Premium components which I would have for US$24.95 a year. You can upload photos from your computer, do web searches or link to various sites. I easily linked to my Flickr, Photobucket and Facebook accounts but ended up loading a couple of very familiar photos from my PC - they are the ones featured in this blog for Polyxena and Hecuba.
I played around with colour options (B/W, sepia etc), adding text and stickers and borders, and cropping and resizing. In both cases I added the vignette tool to highlist the cat, though this is not quite so clear with the Xmas trappings added. Then I saved my photos. Initially I thought I could only save back to the source where I had uploaded, but with the second one I discovered that by clicking on the Flickr tab I could easily save to Flickr.
I don't know what the other tools are like, but this is a great one. I can see great use for it both for staff who don't have access to Photoshop and also for use on public PCs.
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