Sisters Weekend

Monterey Beach   July 2018

Conclusion

This course has been a lot of fun, and I have learned so much! I like the way it is set up -- work at our own pace and yet have a schedule to follow. I've been interested in checking out blogs, podcasts, Youtube, RSS and tags, but I'm not sure if I would have without the structure of the class. I am enjoying the podcasts the most! It has been a great way to hear some good information. I also like the fun stuff -- I've used a few of the generators for fun things for my kids! I would definitely be interested in more classes like this.

Wikis

There is a lot of information available in the wikis. I enjoyed looking at several library wikis. I like the idea of sharing program ideas in a give-and-take setting. We are thinking of starting a wiki for our children's department because we are a branch system and only get to meet 4 times a year. Through a wiki we can share resources and ideas easily. Also I think a Book Review wiki would be fun. Library staff could post some of their favorite books and then others could add their comments. I do use Wikipedia sometimes, but I don't trust the information totally because anyone can edit it! I see a place for a site like Wikipedia but my fear is that someone may take everything it offers as fact.

Tags

I think the tagging is much more useful than bookmarking and adding to favorites. I have a long list of both on my computer, but they are not organized in any useful way! I created a del.icio.us account for us to use at the Library to tag storytime sites that we use all the time. We are a branch system and we don't get to meet as a Children's Department very often, so I think we could use the tags to share information and the sites we are using for our story time programs. Also we are working on Early Literacy skills and I found a lot of good sites that we can share with each other. I like reading the comments about the sites!

YouTube

I had a lot of fun watching videos! The one I chose is my niece's band out of Los Angeles, Suicide Cowboy. She is the fiddle player and very good! I can see why people are enjoying YouTube. There is a wide variety of videos, some informational, some pretty silly! I know how to help people find what they're looking for on YouTube so that will help library customers. I could see making a video of a special library event or storytime song, finger play, etc... and posting that on our website at some point.

Podcasts

I enjoyed looking at and listening to the podcasts. I subscribed to a couple -- one political and one for book reviews. I think the book review one will be good to keep me up to date on some new books. I think our customers would also like the book review site because it is fun to hear what others think of books you've read. People could get ideas of what to read next also. One thing I noticed while looking at the podcasts is that some of them are quite dated. Maybe they are not updated as often as one might think! Also, some of them are very long. I had to stop several that are 45 minutes long or more! I'm probably not going to spend that much time on a podcast!