Final Project

I wanted to provide links to my final project...

here is the screencast: Final Presentation

here is the wiki: wiki

Johnson part 2

I think my biggest take-away from Johnson's book is "don't be too quick to judgment" when it comes to relative usefulness of pop culture in education. As games, tv, and other media becomes more and more sophisticated there is the potential of learning important skills via these medium. Educators and librarians need to take a step back from quick criticism and really investigate what is out there. While I have some difficulty following the thread that video gaming has actually raised the collective IQ, I do truly believe that there is the potential of lots of learning "under the hood" of many seemingly entertainment based technology. As the digital world is so prevalent in society, writing it off as simply "pop culture" and of no use educationally is a big mistake. Embrace the changes and integrate the possibilities into the system...there are alot of great things to be learned.

Class structure

No, not another post about danah boyd’s thoughts on MySpace vs. Facebook…. a post about 598 and its structure!

In thinking back on the weeks and analyzing them as they unfolded, the only thing that I might think about changing is where Flickr fell in the order. To me Flickr would roll seamlessly after social bookmarking, which would enhance the project of getting to know your classmates (albeit only one week earlier…). I don’t think it is a huge change to flip–flop Flickr and wiki’s but it was really the only change I could think of! I think the class is a winner as is, providing TONS of information on new trends that are relevant to the library. Being guided through foreign territory was a huge benefit for me. It isn’t that I couldn’t have learned the things on my own but having a choreographed roll-out really helped develop the knowledge. The only other small thing I can think of is in the Delicious week… making a stronger statement on the use of descriptions to assist others in “why” a bookmark was selected to represent *you* would have helped me as a new user. I think I didn’t really *get* that until later, I was too focused on the technical aspect of what things to click and load and do.

Well there you have it. I feel confident that I understand enough about social software to “get” why it exists, how it plays out in the library world, and how to jump in if the need arises. I know that I only scratched the surface on some things but feel like I have the tools to now tackle new things as they come, which we all know they will! Thanks for providing a safe place to jump into the deep end of a potentially scary pool!

Minerva survived with her virtual virginity intact!

I found SL to be very frustrating and futile in my first few hours… I figured out how to move around easily enough but really saw no purpose for my movements! I had a hard time finding anyplace I wanted to go. I spent some time trying to change my appearance and was also not hugely successful. I did find some cool red shoes that someone gave me for free in the Cat’s Lair, but struggled with changing my appearance using the edit--> appearance function. I got pretty frustrated just trying to get some jeans and a t-shirt on, I finally gave up trying to change my hair color! I did add some nice freckles though….I do believe that if you are persistent enough or are willing to plonk down some Linden bucks you can get pretty creative about your “look.”

By about the 6^th hour of invested time I could quickly search for new places to try and teleport there but was still struggling with “why” I would want to. I visited Princeton, admired some paintings, rode a merry-go-round and swung at a park, went to a pub but still really found nothing compelling enough to want to do this for anything other than an assignment! I found my prevailing emotion was stress as I was wandering around so I spent some time in the immersive aquarium where I met another noob and we chatted a bit – kind of a cool place to relax for awhile. I did find my way to Info Island and stopped at the readers Advisory station in the library. I was lucky enough not to have to deal with any virtual propositioning... must have been those added freckles!

I guess bottom line is this… if I was looking for information on a college or book I would rather just go to a website and get the information. I am, apparently, just not that interested in socializing with other virtual people. While I “get” the appeal for some people I am just not one of them. Give me a real coffee house or pub and a ftf chat with some random stranger or a friend any day! I am actually kind of surprised that the virtual environment didn’t appeal to my rather nerdy qualities more than they did…. I thought for sure I would find this all extremely fascinating. So I end my SL a little disillusioned but at least I know what it looks like and could reemerge in some other place and time for a second chance at a second life.

Popular Culture and stupidity

The information in Johnson's book was very interesting and he had some valid points. I do agree that there are many things in today's popular culture that do provide great arenas for learning. His points about some of the knowledge gained from certain types of gaming is quite accurate. If you do spend time playing very complex, multi-layered games you can exercise your decision making skills, your ability to strategize, hypothesize, etc. The same can be said for high quality TV and film, there are things to be learned in every medium when the end product is well developed and written to appeal to higher order thinking. So, on the whole, I do not believe that videogames are evil and useless. Nor do I think that people would be better off only playing Zelda than reading a book or playing a sport. There is a place for all of it in a balanced life.

I do believe, however, that he bases most of his "electronic media is good" argument on a small percentage of the actual end product. While he puts forth an effort to say that the dreck of today is still better dreck than the past, really I cannot find that a compelling argument for it's worth.

I guess the bottom line is he believes that media shapes the culture rather than culture shaping the media... a bit like the chicken and the egg...which did come first? He has not convinced me that media drives the cultural and intellectual advances.

I am no gamer...

The challenge this week was to find a game that I could:
A) understand how to play AND
B) find an opponent to play with AND
C) screencast as I played

That proved to be like teaching an elephant to ride a tricycle! I finally gave up on grown-up games and found myself on Webkinz.com in my 6 year old daughter's account. So, to be fair, everytime I go to the library I see kids on the computers playing Webkinz... I decided that if you werent a parent you might never have seen how Webkinz works. With my limited gaming skills I found that ones designed for the under 10 set were just about my speed! So here is a screen cast of Webkinz bowling....

bowling

Best practices for screencasting

Here is an outline of my best practices and a screencast - not sure which you were looking for and was too lazy to ask!!

1. prepare your environment - turn off the stereo, open the programs you will need to show, close unneeded programs so as to minimize potential distractions
2. have a general outline of what you want to say and do, try it once so you have all required info at your fingertips
3. briefly explain any moves/mouseclicks you do if you are making a step-by-step instruction screencast

here is a screencast of "best practices"- after I did it I realized I must not play my music that loud as you can barely hear it in the background! So I guess I can keep my tunes on!

best practices

xboxes, playstations, and wii's - oh my!

You're in charge of getting a gaming system for your library or a local organization...

• How would you research?
• What would your criteria be?
• Which do you think you would get?

Okay - sounds like an easy enough question right? Boy was I wrong! I spent several hours reading reviews and trying to understand all the techno-gamer language to try and start forming an opinion. So here is my answer to the question...

Research --> first you need to decide who the gaming audience is - all library patrons or 18-24 year old boys - because the answer of which console to buy is heavily dependent on who is going to be playing. You can read reviews on any number of websites but I was actually able to follow most of the jargon on this site --> digital trends.

Once you have figured out your target audience then you can worry about building your criteria list on things like price, backwards compatibility, size of the unit, graphics quality, number and type of games available, type of screen it will be played on, etc.

My bottom line.... if I had to buy a console for a library first I would go home and cry....then I think I would settle on the Nintendo Wii, basing the decision on its relatively decent price ($300 to start vs. ps3 at $600), its appeal to users of all ages (vs. xbox 360 where most games seem to be for older teens), its compact size for storage (vs. the ps3), its backwards compatibility with GameCube games (both xbox and ps3 appear to have some backward compat. issues), and its generally more "fun" gameplay. Now having said this... I think that if your target audience is serious gamers who want the more mature games, then Wii isnt the answer. But if I ran a library and could only buy one I would try to appeal to the masses with the Wii.

boyd readings

Based on the readings by danah boyd (does anyone know why she does not capitalize her name?), libraries need to understand that if they want to connect with young users they need to have a presence on multiple SNS networks. There is an apparent socio-economic divergence between MySpace and Facebook users, so each system needs to include accounts in order to reach all of the target audience. There are other smaller niche markets which can be assessed, but primarily teens and young adults are using one or the other of these SNS in order to keep in touch with people. Understanding the different audiences and building a profile to enhance that knowledge would be very important research that a librarian or staffer would need to conduct prior to launching their "presence."

Ning seems interesting!

I can see Ning as a more compelling use of SNS...building a social network of specific people for a specific purpose makes some sense to me.I could see using it to prepare and promote a conference that would showcase events and the people involved or to gather feedback on an idea from a specific user group, etc. In the library world I could see creating a Ning based on shared interests...bookclubs, online gaming clubs, etc. Having the ability to appeal to the social networking principles but with a more selected and purposeful group...yeah I see that.

I am sure that the limitations of "upkeep" are more difficult than with MySpace or Facebook exposure - you would have to explain more and justify why you weren't just using a mainstream SNS. But I think the overriding usefulness would be compelling enough if the ning was well thought out and designed.

Sticky = voyeurism

So I have decided that voyeurism is a huge part of why MySpace and FaceBook are "sticky" sites! As a brand new SNS user I found that I could have spent quite a bit of time strolling down memory lane to see what old classmates (that I havent communicated with in over 25 years) are doing. But really do I need to? Or is it some crazy desire to peek into their windows without just knocking on the door? Same goes for old co-workers...I worked in the Silicon Valley during the crazy internet years - there were alot of shared experiences that are not easily repeated and you develop oddly intense relationships at work at 3 AM. But I left that world and the people behind, until I started peeking at them too! So I guess I am just a voyeur at heart - didnt want to actually communicate but had a great time poking around! I think that is a large part of what makes these sites "sticky" - you can see what many people are doing with little personal committment.

Then there are the other users, who use the sites to truly live their life in a digital world. I think I am too old to get on that bandwagon!

Deleting friends in MySpace

Screencast of how to delete a friend on MySpace. Since my account is getting deleted every night I have now mastered the deletion of "Tom" the random MySpace friend - so thought I would share it with any other new to MySpace users.

http://screencast.com/t/nIC1eAwn

Copying Gabrielle!

So I saw this on Gabrielle's blog and thought it was pretty clever.... here is my Dewey Section:

Tamara's Dewey Decimal Section:

194 Philosophy of France

Tamara = 013181 = 013+181 = 194


Class:
100 Philosophy & Psychology


Contains:
Books on metaphysics, logic, ethics and philosophy.



What it says about you:
You're a careful thinker, but your life can be complicated and hard for others to understand at times. You try to explain things and strive to express yourself.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

My favorite videos

While I was very impressed with all the videos... I was especially impressed with (in no particular order) Gabrielle's, Roel's and Renee's.

Gabrielle's was just plain hilarious besides being technically great. --> link

Roel's pictures were stunning, so even though making it caused great grief the final result was worth it! --> link

Renee's was very clever with a nice music/picture combo (plus a great idea that I will use next time I am expected to bake cookies). --> link

Great job everyone!

How To use WordArt

This screencast will give you simple instructions on how to use MicroSoft Word to make bookmarks for storytime at the library.

WordArtDemo

Learning how to perform the Cruyff turn

In this short video a soccer player can learn how to perform a Cruyff turn, named for the famous player Johan Cruyff. It is used in order to change the direction of play if an attacking player is approaching.




Click to play

link:

http://blip.tv/file/1423187

My Monsters

Here is a real quick video of my kids in various Halloween's past - figured it was "that time of the year"... (there are some classroom shots - they aren't ALL my kids!).





Original video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp9O_SRoSfQ

educational vs. entertainment

In the Pew report on Online Video usage, the general statistics certainly point to much higher viewing numbers for entertainment videos versus educational videos. This statistic is not surprising nor is the data that points out the significantly higher viewing stats for younger vs. older viewers. What was interesting to note in the report was the consistency of viewing for educational videos across all demographics. While the numbers are not as high, they are much more balanced - old, young, male, female - roughly 20% of the population turns to the Internet to learn something via online videos. So while educational videos may not ever see the sheer number of hits that an entertainment video might, there is a significant market "out there" for online educational videos!

As the digital generation ages, I would imagine that online use of educational videos will keep pace. It is a format that they are used to and turn to quickly when looking for information. Producers of online educational videos should feel comfortable and secure in the market place (as long as they don't expect anyone to pay for the use!).

We Are SCILS598f08 (sung to the tune of "we are family")

It was a very interesting study of our school and personal lives to review the Flickr groups. What I discovered was...

We are a very mixed bag of grad students when it comes to how we are completing this program. Some on-campus day students, some on-campus night students, one that this is their first "only online" class, a few strictly online students... really no clear "winner" in this category. I think that speaks to the outstanding nature of this program that 20 people seeking the exact same degree are able to complete it in such a variety of ways. I feel like Rutgers is on the leading edge of education with this model, and am quite happy to be a part of it. After viewing the pictures of the "chairs of death" I am especially happy for my comfy, ergonomically correct, rolling wonder in my basement! I also learned we all have the same books at home :)

Personally, we all seem to be focused on many of the same things; our families, pets, outdoor enjoyment, books, and travels. We have a couple of oddball hobbies (not that the hobbies are odd, but that each one is not universally represented...) and more than a few caffeine addicts - but I think that goes hand in hand with grad school! I think we are a pretty interesting bunch, I would like to meet us!

PS - There are definitely a few very good photographers here as well (not me though - I am happy if people all have heads in my photos...).

It is all about balance

With shelf space being a "fixed" quantity, pushing collections into the long tail requires balance. By lengthening the tail in each library that would require shortening the head. There is only so much physical space, so the more that libraries play into the niche's, the less they can provide for the masses. But is a niche in one library a part of the mass in another? The best way for libraries to effectively represent the entire tail is the use of consortium's and inter library loans. Page 148 of Anderson's book says it all about the balance between heads and tails:

" If you just have the products at the Head, you find that very quickly your customers want more and you can't offer it. If you just have the products at the Tail, you find that customers have no idea where to start. They're unable to get traction in the marketplace because everything you're offering is unfamiliar to them. The importance of offering the stuff at both the Head and the Tail is that you can start in the world that customers already know: familiar products that tap into and define a space."

Libraries have to work hard at balancing the head and tail as well as locating for their patron's things they cannot immediately provide. Then they can tap into both the Head and the Tail.