Findability is Key

Learning 2.0 Wrapup

2007-09-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

It's been an interesting summer, thanks in large part to the Learning 2.0 project initiated by Andrea. Because of the project, I took the time to explore some web technologies that I had wanted to, and was introduced to others that I didn't know much about. Reviewing the summer, I found that we explored (no attempt was made to be comprehensive):

Blogging
RSS
Newsreaders
Flickr
MySpace
Tagging
Del.icio.us
Technorati
LibraryThing
Wikis
Web 2.0
Custom Search Engines
Web-based Apps
Discovering Web 2.0 tools
YouTube
Podcasts
Podcast Directories & Search Tools
LibX
Zotero
Firefox Extensions
Second Life

What did I explore that I'll continue to use?

Well, I was already using RSS and newsreaders on a daily basis. This is one of the main ways I keep up with what's going on in LibraryLand. I had used Flickr and YouTube, although I learned a lot more about these tools during the course of the summer. I also had listened to podcasts (a few), tagged resources in different environments, used Firefox extensions, and had dabbled with a Wiki. So I disqualify all those 'things' from consideration as 'new' things that have become or will become part of my regular habits. The really 'new' things I did -- that I found really useful -- were creating a podcast, inserting podcasts and videos in a blog post, and blogging on a regular basis.

The really significant thing I experienced, though, was the sense that I was witnessing the birth of a new community of interest among those playing with the Learning 2.0 tasks. An increased level of communication among a group of coworkers around issues that are of interest to me. I would like to see that community continue and evolve. A group that wants to continue to explore technologies and ideas that may be useful to our faculty, students, or library staff at some point in the future.

Are there others that would like to continue the journey? Maybe that's something we can talk about when we meet for the Learning 2.0 wrapup meeting. It would be stimulating to work with a group of people who are curious, who want to continue to explore new web tools, and who want to encourage each other to continue playing with new tools and concepts that challenge us to exercise our imagination. Some things I've been wanting to explore more are Facebook, Ning, and Jing.

I'm glad I participated in the WWU Summer Fun project, and I really don't want to allow myself to settle into the same old rut. Here's to playing and exploring! May we always be a bit like Alice, wandering through a world which is always new, and always interesting.

Embedding Google Maps - Update

2007-08-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

This is one of the good news/bad news updates. I had expected the embedded map to be a static image. Instead, the reader can zoom in and customize the embedded map. That the good news -- I think (I'm not sure how I feel about not having control of the image I embedded).

The bad news is that, when I went back to Blogger to add this update to my previous post, I was unable to edit that post. The post would appear in the edit window for about one second, then the post would disappear and leave a blank edit window. It appears that possibly Blogger doesn't like the HTML that I posted from Google (at least in edit mode). Hope they get that resolved soon. After all, Google owns Blogger.

Embedding Google Maps

2007-08-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

Saw a post on Lifehacker that said Google has now made it possible to embed Google maps in web pages, blog posts, etc. So I just had to try it out. To see if it works, I created a map to Boomer's Drive In. Once I had my map created in Google Maps, I had to click on "Link to the page". One the resulting dialog box, I could have copied the offered URL and pasted it my blog post, but I hit 'Customimze and preview embedded map' just because I was exploring. Much to my surprise, the map I originally would have linked to is not the map I had built. It was a much lower resolution. So, I fiddled with the preview map and will insert the code snippet it offered. We'll see how it looks:

View Larger Map

Well, in preview, my embedded map looked pretty good. And doing it was simple enough that I'm pretty sure I'll remember how when I need to do this in the future. Now if they'd just let us embed the Hybrid maps I'd be really happy (I love those satellite photos).

The Myths of Innovation, or, Why Systems Can't Solve The Problem

2007-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently being seeing some impressive reviews about Scott Berkun's new book, The Myths of Innovation. So, since neither our library nor BPL have a copy of this book, I went over to Amazon to get the info so I could have it ordered for our library. At Amazon, I find that they have a video of Scott giving a presentation. Great marketing! But as I'm watching the video, I realize he's telling us that no matter how much we improve our tools (like the web interface -- and that is very important), without the other phase, it won't really have much of an impact. Watch the video and see if you agree.

LibX & Zotero

2007-08-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

The newest 'thing' in our Library 2.0 project was timely for me. I had installed the Firefox extensions for LibX and Zotero months ago -- and had to struggle to figure out (again) how to use them. But I did, and it didn't take long at all. LibX, in my life, is mainly a tool to remind myself to check the library before buying a book -- a very useful reminder.

Zotero, on the other hand, is essential for anyone that ever needed to build a bibliography for anything -- something you were keeping up on, an article or paper you were writing, or just information on a hobby you wanted to keep track of. I wished I had the time to do a side-by-side comparison between Zotero and, say, RefWorks (anyone in reference interested in tackling that one?). Once I figured out what all the icons did, I was able to get a decent bibliography created with almost no work. However, on many of the articles for which I had created a citation, I also added a snapshot of the extract and a link to the online version (when available). Zotero, for some reason, created a entry in the bibliography for each item linked to the main citation record. If anyone figures out how to tell it to only include main items in the bibliography, please let me know.

Go Hyperlocal & Involve the Reader

2007-08-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Just read an article in Wired magazine on the newspaper industry the really got me thinking about libraries. The article is mainly on what one company (Gannett) is doing to totally reinvent the newspaper business model. There two Big Ideas underlying the project are to involve the reader in every aspect of the process, and take a so-called hyperlocal approach to news coverage.

In a number of meetings lately, a common thread has been surfacing. That is to offer content that is relevant to the interests of the person using the library website. It could be a metasearch pre-configured with the most useful databases for the user's major, or an FAQ on the citation style used in the discipline, or a constantly updating list of the items recently added to the library's collection with the discipline, or an updating section on the latest news in the field. The hyperlocal approach may be the right way of implementing this approach. Maybe, in addition to the generic library website, we need to develop a set of discipline-specific websites, with every page and tool (as much as possible) customized for a particular discipline.

One of the (many) challenges would be how to create a site design and tool set that allowed librarians to focus on adding content without becoming experts in the tools being used, i.e., if every staff member involved in building the site has to learn how to build web pages, we'll never get there. There would, I think, need to be easy to use templates for each type of page -- templates that someone could dump content into without having to learn the underlying tools or technology.

There's the challenge. Can our new Drupal environment provide the tools needed to create an environment where we could quickly build dozens of 'hyperlocal' library websites? Let's play and find out!

Google Docs

2007-07-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've actually used Google Docs, although I've read quite a bit about it. Of particular note, Arizona State University switched to Google Apps as their primary office suite last October. That's 40,000 students and zero licensing fees.

The really unusual task that was placed before us this week in Learning 2.0 was using Google Docs to create a document, then publishing that document as a post on our blog.

So, if you're reading this on my blog, it must have worked.

Update: Although the document was correctly transferred to Blogger as a new post, the document title was not brought over as the title of the post (I had to add it after the transfer).

2007-07-26T08:05:00.001-07:00

If you described to someone, because they asked ;-), what was really important to you -- and then they looked at your calendar and compared how you spent your time to what you said was really important in your life -- how would the two compare? I keep coming back to the need to be in control of where I invest my finite amount of my personal time and attention. Am I letting everyone else determine how I will make my investments? Or am I actively managing this are of my life?

A well known guru of personal management, Merlin Mann, recently gave a presentation at Google on what he calls "Inbox Zero". It's an hour long, but if you have any twinges of guilt when looking at the emails in your inbox crying for your attention, this presentation may help you. I'm in the process of watching it, and have once again vowed not just to think about taking control of my inbox, but actually DOING it. [This is also a Learning 2.0 experiment for me on embedding a content from the Google Video site.]

Are we finally ready to listen to Maurice Line

2007-07-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

This post is really a test to see if a link to subscription databases will work. It should work for anyone clicking on the link *from a WWU ip address*.

Andrew Pace has just written a post about an article by Maurice Line, who worked for the British Library and was a consultant before he retired in 2005. "Librarianship as it is practiced: a failure of intellect, imagination and initiative” [pdf] was reprinted in Interlending & Document Supply (33/2, 2005, pp. 109-113).

Mr. Pace states, 'He paints a somewhat sorry state for libraries in terms that we can probably all relate to.

"Trying to hold on to unused publications that libraries no longer have room to house, having theological arguments about the contents of catalogue records, and indulging in the numerous other irrelevant, inappropriate or trivial activities of which librarians are so fond, with their unerring eye for the inessential."

Ok. So nothing real surprising there, but I was saving the punchline. This reprinted article is from an address that Line gave in 1983.'

"It is criminal to stand by rigid cataloguing codes (even if they were soundly based) if this means the existence and even growth of a backlog of books awaiting processing. If such a stand is made for long enough, it may well prove to be 'Cutter’s last stand'." - Maurice Line

On the other hand, Line's poignant criticism gives me hope because I think we are the midst of a library era of imagination and initiative led by a cadre of intelligent librarians and technologists. To end with Line's own words, "We have nothing to lose but our mental laziness, our spiritual dullness, our introspection and our inhibitions.'

Firefox Extension

2007-07-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I saw a mention of a Firefox extension in a blog post. This is an extension that I'm going to try out. I wrote before that I prefer managing my bookmarks in folders within my browser. This extension provides two panes on the left side of the browser window. The top pane contains the folders of bookmarks, while the bottom folder contains the bookmarks within the highlighted folder. Very nice. If interested, Go get 2 Pane Bookmarks for yourself.

P.S. After installing the extension, you have to go to Vew | Sidebar and click on Bookmarks (or just hit Ctrl-B) in order for the new sidebar to appear.

Del.icio.us

2007-07-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's thoughtful post on RSS in Tom's Plog started me thinking - why don't I use Del.icio.us in my daily tasks?

I've been introduced to/been asked to use Del.icio.us a number of times by friends. I go look at it, use it, and never go back. Why? I think that, as many have said in their Learning 2.0 posts, people usually adopt a method of operating in each sphere of their lives, be it bookmarks, keeping up-to-date with info in their field, how they file things they want to be able to find again (I use folders in my email client), or whatever. The measure of success is not, is the best method available - but rather, is it good enough for doing what needs to be done.

For bookmarks, I am used to using the bookmarks toolbar (and to a lesser extent the bookmarks folders) in Firefox. Del.icio.us (and the other similar services) just hasn't given me a big enough reason to undergo the discomfort of changing my current habits.

I am looking forward, though, to participating in some workgroup in the future where we want to share bookmarks to resources we've found with others in the group. Del.icio.us would be a great tool for that, and it would be a need that my current tools would not be able to meet.

So until then, I'll stick with my Firefox bookmarks toolbar.

How to Achieve Ubiquitous Presence

2007-07-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

While I was on vacation, 'The Ubiquitous Librarian' had an interesting post, Making a Good First Impression: FaceBook & Incoming Freshmen. The freshmen at his university have set up a group in FaceBook to share information on majors, dorms, parking, clubs, pranks, streaking, etc. etc. I'll just go ahead and copy much of his post (I can't say it any better):

"This type of group provides academic librarians with an opportunity to “know thy user” but is also a chance to make a good first impression. I’ve started posting answers or responding directly to individuals on topics such as safety on campus and around Atlanta, laptop computer requirements, places to eat, the music scene, trolley and subway transportation, weather, and freshmen orientation sessions.

The students have responded favorably. At this phase their optimism is very high and they seem to like having a direct connection to the school. This illustrates the ubiquitous philosophy – that it doesn’t always have to be about the books, journals, and library services. There is a time for that and this is not that time. For me it is more about fitting into the community, finding genuine needs, and helping out when possible. Student success involves more than peer-reviewed journal articles and proper citation style.

This type of outreach enables us to position ourselves as an open, friendly, welcoming service environment. We’re Disneyland compared with the stress of financial aid, registration, and housing. (Free printing, café, fantastic air conditioning, comfortable couches, lots of computers, cool software, cool equipment.)

Before they even arrive on campus, we have a chance to make a positive impression—to stake out our claim that this isn’t a typical library. I’ve already had a few questions directed my way from seemingly random students, as well as a few friend requests. So for those of you who feel students don’t want to interact with us on FaceBook, maybe it’s your approach. There is something to be said for the subtle art of conversation. Listen first, then talk. (Not the other way around)"

What a challenging idea (to me at least). Getting out there and making contact with students who are still 'up' on going to college (and getting out from under mom & dad) -- and finding ways to make contact, even when they don't involve 'library services'. Would providing information for incoming new faculty also be an opportunity? Hummmmm.

MySpace

2007-06-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

Our first task this week (thing #7), it to read about social networking sites (MySpace in particular) and blog about our thoughts. A recent article by Stephen Abram (of SirsiDynix) resonated with me:
Specifically, MySpace is an organized space to personalize your interests and activities on the Web. . . It takes individual features and functions that resemble standalone applications like del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, Blogger, gMail, etc. and puts them into a useful space that just makes “sense.”

My hope for these types of sites, is that they will soon provide an environment where each user can, if they wish, create their own personalized virtual desktop. For students, useful items on their desktop might include, "office replacements, taking notes, managing bibliographies, mind mapping, studying, bookmarking, collaboration, calendars, calculators, and more". Combining a user's personal desktop, with social networking tools that support shared knowledge exploration and creation, would be a real help to students. And with the recent introduction of apps (widgets) within FaceBook, we're one step closer to reaching the era of personalized web desktops.

Findability

2007-06-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

davidleeking, blogging on ALA Annual, provides a great lead-off quote from Peter Morville (author of Ambient Findability):

Information that’s hard to find will remain information that’s hardly found.

Plus a snippet that I wished I could hear more about:

delicious library - tag your stuff?

Seadragon & Photosynth

2007-06-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

During our recent Learning 2.0 discussion group, I mentioned a TED talk video I had recently seen. This video is less than 8 minutes long and introduces two technologies that I think we will be seeing in the near future. Be prepared to be 'wowed' and have fun watching the future arrive:
The Photosynth Experience

Trading Card

2007-06-21T06:57:00.001-07:00

My creation
Originally uploaded by GranddadBob

Well, almost two years after the librarian trading card craze started, our Learning 2.0 Summer Fun program finally kicked me in the tush enough to get my own card made. Except for getting a photo from home, it was really easy.

Name the Bear

2007-06-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

The new issue of the ACRL Washington Newsletter has an interesting article about WSU's use of Web 2.0 social networking tools to increase campus awareness of the library. Want to know what a stuffed bear has to do with an academic library and Web 2.0 social networking tools - read the article (it's short).

Embedded Slideshow

2007-06-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

This morning, Lifehacker had a post on embedding a slideshow of flickr photos in a blog post using a service call 123Flickr. The service was very easy to use. You provide the site with your flickr user name, tell it how many photos you would like in your slideshow, and it give you some code to insert in your blog post. I'll insert their code below and see how it works. Let me know if it has trouble loading, and I'll delete the code and let you know (I asked it to use all 35 photos in my VA2WA journey set).

Update: I added the HTML code to the bottom of the post and nothing showed in preview mode. I moved it to the top and it showed up in preview. I'll post and see what happens.

Another update: Well, it's not what I'd call a slideshow, but it's still an interesting presentation. My main issue is that it shows the latest (i.e., last) photo at the top, and the first photo at the bottom. I wished I know how to make it do the reverse.

Exploring Flickr

2007-06-19T07:29:00.001-07:00

University of Virginia
Originally uploaded by GranddadBob

Yesterday, I created a flickr account and uploaded some pictures from my computer at home. These pictures were all from our journey from Virginia to Washington in November 2006. I modified the photo titles and created a set with the pictures in the correct order from oldest to newest (from the starting point of the journey to the end) -- this point will be important later.

Today, pushed the photo above from flickr to my blog on blogger. This went pretty well -- I just followed the instructions (with a few missteps, of course). I then tried to use the 'add image' tool within blogger to add a flickr image in this post. No luck -- nothing showed up in the post, even though some HTML was added pointing toward the flickr image. Add a comment if you were able to add an image in a post using the blogger add image tool.

I was also interested in the flickr slideshow. A friend of mine blogger her way around the world, and I really enjoyed her slideshows of each port visit. If you go to my set of journey pictures, there is a button on the upper right that says 'View as slideshow'. Clicking that button does give you a slideshow presentation of the set. I was finally able to get the slideshow to start at the beginning and end at the end (originally, it was starting with the final picture and ending with the first picture). However, I was a bit disappointed that the captions are displayed in the slideshow presentation.

If you go the the set and click on 'map' (in the upper left) you will see the map I created of the journey photos.

I did one more thing with flickr, but I create a separate post for that, as I'm a bit apprehensive of how quickly it might load.

Eureka!

2007-06-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

This is an example of how RSS works well in my life to keep me informed. This morning, Christine Schwartz on her blog Cataloging Futures, wrote about Roy Tennet's new article, Three Hard Things, in Library Journal. I really enjoyed reading this article, and I recommend it to all. The point though, is that the only way I knew about the article, was through someone blogging about it, and that information being pulled into my Bloglines feed reader.

In case your interested, Roy Tennet challenges all library staff to:

Take time to learn
Try something new
Stop doing something

On Trying Something New, he says:

For example, I recently tried out Tribe.net and Orkut.com, both social networking sites. After using them for several months, I decided they weren't that useful to me and stopped going to them. But now I know what they're all about and can see why others may find them worthwhile. I've also dabbled in Second Life, and although I haven't visited it in months, at least I can talk about it from some experience. At the moment, I'm trying out Twitter. Time will tell whether I keep using it.

The point is not to be afraid of trying something out to see if it works for you. You can always drop it later if it doesn't, and then at least you'll know what your colleagues and library users are talking about.

THAT is Learning 2.0 Summer Fun in a nutshell. Play around with something, think about it, decide if you want to make it part of your life, move on to something else.

The hardest part for me, though, is his third challenge. I'm going to have to think more about how I can do more, er less.

Finding Blogs

2007-06-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

Our task #4 for Learning 2.0 Summer Fun was to try out different tools for finding blogs of interest. My first thought, of course, was that I already have too many feeds I'm reading. But then, being the good team player I am, I groaned and decided to give them a try. Although I like Bloglines a lot, results using their blog search contained way too much noise.

I think I liked Technorati best (based on only a few simple searches). I quickly found that the director of the Bellingham Public Library is using a blog (From The Library Director) to communicate with library patrons. Who knew! Oh, and I really don't like white on black presentation for blogs. To each his/her own.

Subscribing to RSS Feeds

2007-06-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

I was working with someone yesterday on how to subscribe to RSS feeds. I tend to use the one-click method. Any time you go to a website, your browser checks to see if the site offers an RSS feed. If it does, the (now) standard RSS feed icon appears in the URL address bar of the browser - it's the small orange square in the example above.

In their browser, however, it automatically added a bookmark in Live Bookmarks instead of creating a subscription in the Bloglines account. If you hoover over the RSS icon, it will tell you what it's going to do. If you want to change what it does - here's how.

In Firefox, go to Tools -> Options and click on the Feeds tab. Click on the radio button next to 'Subscribe to the feed using', highlight 'Bloglines', and click the OK button. Now when you hover over the RSS icon, it should say 'Subscribe to this page'. Click on the orange RSS icon, and your new subscription should be automatically added to your Bloglines account. If the site offers more than one type of feed (e.g., RSS, RSS2, and Atom), you can choose which one you want. It doesn't really matter which one you select (most of the time). I usually choose RSS2 if it's offered, or RSS.

If Bloglines isn't listed as an option in the Feeds tab, there are instructions in this Firefox 2.0 tutorial on how to add it.

Note: I don't use Internet Explorer regularly, but I think you may have to load a plug-in in order to have one click subscribing available. The Bloglines browser plug-in for Internet Explorer is available for free download in many places, including the Windows Marketplace.

Don't Make Me Think!

2007-06-11T12:36:00.001-07:00

Our library recently received the updated edition of Steve Krug's book, Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. This has become a classic work for anyone involved in web design or usability testing. The author has added a few new chapters to the book, and my original intention was to read just those. Every time I picked up the book, though, I was thrilled by the insights in passages I had read years before. And how can you not like a writer who puts material like this in the preface (when writing about the fact that people seem to like his book):

"One reader said that I made her laugh so hard that milk came out of her nose. How can something like that help but make you feel that your time has been well spent?"

RSS Feeds

2007-06-11T07:00:00.001-07:00

I've had a Bloglines account for quite awhile. The ability to have professional news come to me, rather than having to go out to find the updates I need, has made a real difference in my life.

Lately, though, I've come to the realization that I've subscribed to too many blogs. Therefore, I put all my subscriptions into a single folder called "No Contributions". Whenever a post from a blog proves actually useful, i.e., I have taken some action in my life based on that post, I move the blog over to the "Contributed" folder. In a couple of months, I'll just mass delete all the blogs that have never moved out of the "No Contributions" folder. We'll see how it works.

I really hope that III (our ILS vendor) will soon offer the ability for our faculty and students to search for materials in our library catalog that are important to them, and then be able to create an RSS feed for that search. They would then be able to subscribe to the feed in their favorite newsreader, or place the search results in their custom web page (even in Facebook!). That way, whenever we receive a new item that met their search criteria, they would know it without having to remember to go to the catalog regularly to check out what's new -- or try to scan through a new materials list that is composed almost entirely of materials they are not interested in. However, this type of service needs to be self service (i.e., it doesn't require a library staff member to create the RSS feed) and very robust (i.e., it can be as complex as the most complex search in the system -- including searching by partial LC call numbers). We'll see if III can come through before we figure out a way to do it without them.

Anyway, here's my Bloglines list of subscriptions:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/GrandadBob

Organizational Transparency

2007-06-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, Michael Casey & Michael Stephens began writing a short monthly column, "Living Out Loud," in Library Journal. This month, they wrote a thought-provoking piece on organizational transparency. Here's an excerpt:

How do libraries embrace this idea of transparency? Part of the Library 2.0 mission is to involve the community in creating and evaluating library services. It's simply not possible to include a community in this sort of service evaluation without providing honest numbers and evaluations. Transparency in service review is critical to its success.

and

It's easy for staffers to give lip service to an idea they don't believe in and then step back and watch it fail because they had no input or information or, in some cases, not even an inkling that a new service or technology was coming.
Corporate blogs and wikis—and any other tools that create transparency in the organization—foster the concept of vertical teams, where front-line staff have the ability to communicate and cooperate with top-level administrators. This internal openness is as important as external transparency. Building morale within the organization—and sharing the big-picture ideas with everyone who will listen—creates a stronger and more motivated work force, one willing to participate and share new ideas. Such internal openness will translate into external transparency, which is vital to the library's future.

Read the full article here.

Did You Know II

2007-06-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

I looked at Sally and Joanna's blogs yesterday (I didn't look at all the Summer Fun blogs -- I'll work on that later today). How humbling -- and exciting. They have created blogs which are communicating on a personal and emotional level that really works for me. Andrea pointed out one of the key benefits from a staff adopting social networking tools like blogging -- we get to know sides of one another that most of us never get to see within the narrow social constructs we normally exist within at work.

Right after that, Jeff told me he had inserted a YouTube video into one of his blog posts. So, I had a challenge before me -- learn how to insert images and videos in blog posts. Today, I picked videos because I was re-introduced to a video that I think is important for everyone in education to view. Here are just a few quotes from the video (with my notes in brackets):

We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . . Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.

[But I, as a librarian, emotionally still want print media to be a key component in learning -- when in many fields print just isn't responsive enough to the rapid change in knowledge accumulation]

It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

[Yet, most of the processes used in education were developed in the 17th and 18th centuries]

It’s estimated that 1.5 exabytes of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

[Yet, we aren't helping most students acquire skills needed to deal with truly massive amounts of information]

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years. That means for a student starting a four-year technical or college degree . . . Half of what they learn in the first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

[That's just plain scary]

Watch the video -- it's seven minutes -- but well worth the time.

I learned how to include a video in a blog post at How to embed a YouTube video on your blog

Great tag line:
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” -- Albert Einstein

About This Blog

2007-05-31T09:18:00.000-07:00

This blog was created as part of the Western Washington University Libraries' Learning 2.0 Summer Fun program. In this twelve-week program, we're going to play with some of the core Web 2.0 tools that are popular today - blogs, wikis, podcasts, sharing images and videos using the web, etc. Although I've used many of the tools, I haven't taken the time to play with most, and I haven't dedicated enough time to thinking about how they are likely to change information seeking and discovery, learning, and teaching. So, that's me real goal for the summer - a combination of exploration and contemplation.