A few books to peruse from my Library Thing

Week 8, Thing #19 Library Thing

Lovely new tool, and why am I the last person to hear about it? Library Thing offers easy to personalize tools, connectivity to others, a chance to dialogue online about books. I've seen the Library Thing links on library web sites, but didn't know how they did it (handy "widget," of course!) This would allow me to highlight new books in my library with one easy link, find ideas for my own reading, and, someday (the same day all of my photos are neatly organized in beautiful scrapbooks), someday catalog all of my own library books at home, even the ones overflowing into the garage and stacked next to my bed. We can all dream! I'm going to try using the "widget" to post a few books from my library.

Week 8, Thing #18

Way back in Week One we were advised to create a toolkit,and now I see the wisdom of this but of advice! I now have more passwords than a CIA operative has passports, for the many different applications I am trying. The easiest method for me has been to bookmark the web sites in folders on my home computer (too many of them are blocked at work), and email myself passwords and keep those in a folder in my home email. I also printed out lots of "how to" info and the passwords and keep those in a manila folder on my desk. Anyhow, on to online word processing and spreadsheet applications! Very nice, organized list posted on the 2.0 blog, and that was an easy way to explore. Our LMT group in our District is currently working on a Selection policy and we have been emailing long documents back and forth, so my first project will be to post our rough draft on Zoho so we can all collaborate online and have a pretty good idea of where we are going with it once we actually meet in three weeks. Lots of great ideas from other libraries, including links to resources. I am going to try to post my latest "Top 10" web sites I do for students and staff, using my new Zoho account. Stay tuned . . .

Presidential Elections

10 Top Web Sites on Presidential Elections

Cable News Network Election Center 2008

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/

“Road to the White House”, blogs “from the Left” and “from the Right”; follow the primaries, the caucuses, the money, the delegates and more. Cable News Network Politics at

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/ features polls, top 10 stories daily, blogs, and Road to the White House tracker of delegates – scroll down the entire page to see all of the features.

 

FindLaw Legal News and Commentary

http://news.findlaw.com/

Scroll down the page for links to the latest legal rulings and news categorized by Supreme Court, Politics, Civil Rights, and more.

 

Public Broadcasting System News & Views

http://www.pbs.org/news/

Link to Politics and Government, top news stories, recent political speeches and more. Keep an eye on this site – typically they will put up an entire election web site once the primaries are over.

 

National Archives and Records Administration

www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/

This Web site is maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration. It offers extensive information about the Electoral College, its constitutional mandate, and presidential elections in the United States, including a new link to Election 2008.

 

American National Election Studies

http://www.electionstudies.org/

Sponsored by the University of Michigan, this site features data about voting, public opinion, and political participation for educational institutions.

 

America Votes: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from DukeUniversity

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/americavotes/

Search by candidate and election for memorabilia from DukeUniversity’s Special Collections Library, including letters, campaign flyers and buttons, and more. Great source for primary documents.

 

Presidential Museums

http://www.presidentialmuseums.com/

Portal to web sites of Presidential museums, brief biographies of Presidents, and even presidential pets, organized chronologically by eras. Easier reading level.

 

Federal Election Commission

http://www.fec.gov/

Campaign finance laws and information for Presidential, House, and Senate elections.

 

Presidential Libraries

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/liblinks.html

Part of the official White House web site, this has links to each of the Presidential libraries administered by the National Archives Records and Administration. See also links on the left side of the page for quick facts about Presidents and First Ladies – choose short facts, official portraits, or full biographies.

 

Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/index.html

A wealth of information on presidents, elections, and specific presidents in the American Memory collection and other special exhibits. A great resource for teachers is Elections: the

American Way

, online at http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/election/home.html, with quality resources linked to primary source documents from the American Memory Project.

postscript to post

I have not been successfully able to hyperlink in the past two posts, not sure why. Will try to figure that out so there aren't those annoying URLS cluttering up the posts.

Week 7, Thing #17 Playing in the "sandbox"

Hey, that's my idea, #13, under Image Generators, in the sandbox! A few detours along the way -- hit edit before hitting the link, then had to log out and hit the link first, THEN hit edit. Oops - almost typed in the wrong place, beginning of the page instead of at the end. I think the best way for me to start using wikis, as suggested by blogger Laura Cohn (see my last entry, Thing #16), is with other teachers at my school in committee groups, etc., before trying it with students. One very practical reason for this is that we'll have to convince our IMS people this is a safe technology that won't violate AUPs on campus, so getting the bugs out with adult users only at first is a good first step. I took the PB Wiki tour, read the suggested articles and looked at the comparison charts of wiki-hosts, and still have lots of questions. Next step: fill out yet another "request to unblock" form -- so far all requests have been denied, but I'm optimistic that talking face to face will fix that.

Week 7, Thing #16

I took an online "tour" of wikis at educational institutions. There are some interesting and innovative uses of Wikis in educational institutions. The well known language institute at Penn State, CALPER (http://calper.la.psu.edu/technology.php), Center for Advanced Language Proficiency, Education, and Research, features blogs, wikis, and chat rooms on its Computer Mediated Activity Library online. Students can learn about these innovative technologies, or simply use the technologies to enhance their language development. Working papers posted online by Steven L. Thorne, Rebecca W. Black and J. Scott Payne describe the use of wikis and blogs in foreign language instruction. I found wikis at public schools, private schools, universities, and of course wiki software is a part of Blackboard, a popular forum for offering online courses. On Tufts University’s AT web page (http://uit.tufts.edu/at/?pid=24), there are links to a digital library, blogs, podcasts, online forums, and wikis, where students can post ideas and research for others to comment upon. Bryn Mawr uses wikis in its writing courses, where students post rough drafts for comments. The University of Minnesota has taken an interesting approach to web 2.0 with its UThink page, with over 6,000 blogs and 89,000 entries, lists of recent entries, and, if you scroll down the page, “suggested reading” links of local and national newspapers, radio stations, and some of the more well known blogs. The blog page is supported by a “technical wiki,” where people can suggest ways to better tweak the blog page. This seems more like the “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality than an innovative use of technology, but, hey, there are 89,000 entries to choose from, so start blogging and give your good suggestions via the wiki! Librarian Laura Cohn is just signing off this month on her Library 2.0 wiki (http://liblogs.albany.edu/library20/). She’s retiring from Albany, and her blog posts will stay up for a year, well worth reading. Laura Cohn sees wikis as a way of preserving the “collective intelligence” of a “cultural institution,” such as a library, by allowing patrons to improve web pages, add suggested bibliographic links and build subject lists, give tips to newcomers on navigating the facility, and collaborate on research and projects. The wikis she recommends following online are The Unofficial EZProxy Support Wiki http://www2.potsdam.edu/ezproxy/wiki/index.php/Main_Page which offers free and useful software code, and Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki (mentioned earlier in this course, online at http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page). Her last few postings talk about the balance between control and collaboration, with the “fading out of the webmaster, and the focusing in on the group.” Her very practical suggestion is for librarians to practice this kind of collaboration by creating wikis for their librarian committees and groups.