Well, I've clicked around the various recommended sites for free audio ebooks, and wasn't too impressed. It's not that I don't like audiobooks; my husband and I have dozens at home--on tape. He drives 40 miles one way to work each day. Often he has a student riding with him. But when he doesn't, he can only listen to so much Rush Limbaugh. Even ESPN radio isn't always satisfying. So, over the years, he's gotten used to listening to audio books, and we've taken audio books with us on vacation. A good audio book shortens those long drives across the prairie or through endless corn fields (orange groves, cane fields, tundra....whatever).
But our new cars have CD players, so all of our wonderful books on tape are packed away. And we just haven't purchased the portable equipment yet to download audio ebooks. When I walk, I want to talk to my husband, or listen to the birds. I have used audio books during the summer when I'm home alone washing walls and ironing drapes. Maybe I'll download an ebook to our laptop this summer, and listen to it while I work. Just for the experience. Maybe I'll get an ipod for Christmas.....who knows?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Ebooks
I am absolutely THRILLED with ebooks! I love netLibrary; what a blessing that we have it as part of Access PA POWER Library. Because of my delight with netLibrary, I've started purchasing ebooks for our school library's collection. I've been pleased with the ebooks from Follett and Salem Press, but I'm most impressed with the Gale Virtual Reference Library. Their federated search engine is awesome (and I rarely find the need to use that word). Furthermore, I've learned that when I purchase these ebooks for our high school library, they can be used throughout our school district--a sort of electronic interlibrary loan. Talk about spreading the wealth!
Just now I've explored some of the "Best Places to Get Free Books" sites. What a treat for a book lover! My niece showed me BookCrossing last year. Cool idea; kind of a hidden treasure search for curious book lovers. I shared WOWIO with my comic book-loving husband. WellToldTales appears to have some interesting stories; I need to go back there.
And then there's the British Library Online Gallery....oooo, rich! Every library has fragile but valuable books, pamphlets and other resources that should be shared with the world. But letting so many sweaty hands turn those crumbling pages over the years is dangerous to aging print. The BL has found a way to let the rest of us handle original print books safely. Once, long ago, I saw a facsimile of the original Alice's Adventures, and I promised myself I'd go back and read it some day. But before I could, the book was lost. (I suspect tossed out by someone who just wanted to clean out the space--I've never forgiven that person!) Today I saw the original of that book in the BL Online Gallery--oh, yes, I must go back and read it!
Just now I've explored some of the "Best Places to Get Free Books" sites. What a treat for a book lover! My niece showed me BookCrossing last year. Cool idea; kind of a hidden treasure search for curious book lovers. I shared WOWIO with my comic book-loving husband. WellToldTales appears to have some interesting stories; I need to go back there.
And then there's the British Library Online Gallery....oooo, rich! Every library has fragile but valuable books, pamphlets and other resources that should be shared with the world. But letting so many sweaty hands turn those crumbling pages over the years is dangerous to aging print. The BL has found a way to let the rest of us handle original print books safely. Once, long ago, I saw a facsimile of the original Alice's Adventures, and I promised myself I'd go back and read it some day. But before I could, the book was lost. (I suspect tossed out by someone who just wanted to clean out the space--I've never forgiven that person!) Today I saw the original of that book in the BL Online Gallery--oh, yes, I must go back and read it!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Podcasts
It's been a while since I added to this blog--Springtime is nuts! Way too much to do! Anyway, I finally got around to checking out podcasting. I actually took a little podcasting course through my school district, which was a nice introduction. But I still didn't get the point of podcasting. Today, however, I lightbulb flicked on. I read Forever Geek's Beginner's Guide to Podcasting and Creating Podcasts, also Jason Van Orden's How to Podcast. Finally, it made sense! Before today I didn't understand the difference between just listening to a file on YouTube and using RSS. Now I see that when I ask for an RSS feed, I expect to get regular or semi-regular broadcasts from the same person or group on a topic similiar to what first attracted me to the initial podcast I heard. This is a place I can return to regularly to get my fix of a favored kind of music, or an intriguing talk personality. So, if I enjoy listening to movie reviews, I can subscribe to a movie reviewing podcast. If I like hearing someone offer instruction on music improvisation, I subscribe to that podcast. Podcasts, then, are briefer, less elaborate versions of the pirate radio web broadcasts that I used to hear about back in the 90's, right? And mostly they're produced by far less radical people, like me.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
YouTube
I've played with YouTube and TeacherTube a number of times over the last 2 weeks. I'm just delighted that real people who know "stuff" can record and show others what they know. After I took my first 6 classes in how to play the mountain dulcimer, there was NOBODY within an hour's drive that could show me how to do a hammer-on or how to flat-pick. I was thrilled that I could request books and tapes on interlibrary loan on how to play the dulcimer, and I thought I went to heaven when I discovered a dulcimer listserv. But I still couldn't SEE how to do something.
On both YouTube and TeacherTube I found dulcimer champions, professionals, and just plain folk who demonstrated their own playing styles. By watching them, I saw flaws in my own playing style; I saw techniques I'd only read about; I learned skills faster.
Our students will also find visual/auditory ways to learn skills and concepts by using the Tubes. Many learners can visualize something as it's taught to us, but many learners can't. Many learners have the patience to reconstruct a process in their minds, but many don't. I see the Tubes as being a way of having a personal demonstrating instructor nearby throughout the learning process. And you can slow down the image if you need to catch all the nuances of some skill--slick!
TeacherTube teaches teachers, too. Professional development right at your computer. Not all of the entries are fantastic. But sometimes teachers need to see a bad demo to learn how to do it properly. What a wonderful time for teachers and learners alike!
On both YouTube and TeacherTube I found dulcimer champions, professionals, and just plain folk who demonstrated their own playing styles. By watching them, I saw flaws in my own playing style; I saw techniques I'd only read about; I learned skills faster.
Our students will also find visual/auditory ways to learn skills and concepts by using the Tubes. Many learners can visualize something as it's taught to us, but many learners can't. Many learners have the patience to reconstruct a process in their minds, but many don't. I see the Tubes as being a way of having a personal demonstrating instructor nearby throughout the learning process. And you can slow down the image if you need to catch all the nuances of some skill--slick!
TeacherTube teaches teachers, too. Professional development right at your computer. Not all of the entries are fantastic. But sometimes teachers need to see a bad demo to learn how to do it properly. What a wonderful time for teachers and learners alike!
Friday, March 13, 2009
17. Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection
I tried adding a comment to the Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection--twice! But I didn't have the key (username/password), so I emailed the administrator....twice. No response. I just emailed again; we'll see if I get the key. I noticed that no one has posted to the wiki in six months...could be a problem.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
LibraryThing
I love LibraryThing!!! LT is absolutely incredible! I discovered it sometime last year (probably someone mentioned it at one of my librarians' meetings), and I sat on it for a few months. Then last summer, as I was working with a college student majoring in Library Science, I decided to give it a try for our local historical society. We now have a working, fully-functional online catalog for the society. Sign up was so easy, set up was so easy, entering titles was so easy, editing our entries is so easy--it's simply a delight to use.
So I 've had so much fun with LT that I decided to share the wealth. At a librarians consortium meeting last Fall my friend and I did an hour-long program on LT, which was very well recieved. Recently I've offered to do a program for another group of librarians. And last month I did a demo at the English Department meeting in my school.
My friend and I started the Historical Society's card catalog years ago. We added 25-30 books to the catalog each year. But it was such a struggle locating programming to create the cards, maintaining a computer with the programming installed, then the old DOS programming would no longer work with our newer equipment. And after all the effort our historical society members still didn't know how to use the card catalog.
But LT is so intuitive. It's like God's gift to little libraries. Thank you, thank you!!
So I 've had so much fun with LT that I decided to share the wealth. At a librarians consortium meeting last Fall my friend and I did an hour-long program on LT, which was very well recieved. Recently I've offered to do a program for another group of librarians. And last month I did a demo at the English Department meeting in my school.
My friend and I started the Historical Society's card catalog years ago. We added 25-30 books to the catalog each year. But it was such a struggle locating programming to create the cards, maintaining a computer with the programming installed, then the old DOS programming would no longer work with our newer equipment. And after all the effort our historical society members still didn't know how to use the card catalog.
But LT is so intuitive. It's like God's gift to little libraries. Thank you, thank you!!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Zoho
Today I tried Zoho, and I'm not impressed. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it appears as though the producers of Zoho haven't kept up with it. The writing aspect of the site appears to be working fine. But when I switched to other applications, like spreadsheet, the page comes up incomplete. And Creater wants me to pay for the plan.
I've used Google Docs with other librarians to create common documents to share with our employers and staffs. That programming didn't take long at all to learn. Making changes together was pretty simple. I'm sure we'll use that service again.
My husband writes a newsletter for his church. The pastor types his articles, prints them out, then hands them to Tom to be re-typed for the newsletter. Maybe we can teach the pastor (a computer newbie) to use one of these online wordprocessors so that each article need only be typed once.
And I think I'll show this (or Google Docs) to my Aide. She types our memorial letters, prints them out, gives them to me to proofread, then goes back to the computer to make the changes. One of these online writer programs could streamline the process, and maybe save a small tree.
I've used Google Docs with other librarians to create common documents to share with our employers and staffs. That programming didn't take long at all to learn. Making changes together was pretty simple. I'm sure we'll use that service again.
My husband writes a newsletter for his church. The pastor types his articles, prints them out, then hands them to Tom to be re-typed for the newsletter. Maybe we can teach the pastor (a computer newbie) to use one of these online wordprocessors so that each article need only be typed once.
And I think I'll show this (or Google Docs) to my Aide. She types our memorial letters, prints them out, gives them to me to proofread, then goes back to the computer to make the changes. One of these online writer programs could streamline the process, and maybe save a small tree.
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