Learning and Teaching Technologies

"Presentation software like Powerpoint can bring together both old and new media to create a professional presentation."

One of the educational roles of library is making learning and teaching easy and realistic for people in geographically distant locations to their instructors and institutions.  Distance Learning could be at any educational level for those who do not have the advantage of formal classroom education.  The purpose is to help students learn whenever and wherever they wish.  A typical example of distance learning is this course LIBR 105 00F which gives me the opportunity to post this blog online.

So far, I have enjoyed the opportunity of posting to my blogs information about Social Bookmarking, Facebook, Skype, and other forms of Web 2.0.

  

Library 2.0: Skype

Skype, just like some other forms of Web 2.0, is interactive and collaborative in nature.  Skype could be used in dialogues especially in virtual reference where users could get information from the OPAC by making calls to libraries.  This form of communication fosters screen-sharing and data-sharing between patrons and librarians.  Thus, Library 2.0 is socially rich and also user-centered, engaging, connecting, and communicating with the community of users that it serves.

As at the time of posting this blog, I have downloaded Skype on my laptop, waiting to speak to my group members.

Summary of Resources for Monitoring

Both Resourceshelf and Lisnews proved that libraries and librarians are integral part of a community, contributing to its health.  They demonstrated that the 21st century library's mission is to support reading and serve its community with useful information.  The Internet, however, plays a big role in disseminating information to seekers and also helps libraries to serve patrons in the best way possible through library technology skills.    

    

Web 2.0

                                                                               
Web 2.0 provides media for social interactions.  Already I have experienced some aspects of these in our Wiki Activities, Blog Posts, RSS Feeds, Facebook, and other Social Bookmarks.  More are coming as we proceed in this course.

                                                         Resources for Monitoring
Resourceshelf: A 21-member RLG Partners Social Metadata Working Group reviewed 76 sites relevant to libraries, and museums that supported such social media features as tagging, comments, reviews, images, videos, ratings, recommendations, lists, links to related articles, etc.  More information could be obtained from the full-article on the Website.   

Lisnews: Report from lisnews says that libraries and librarians are not a community 'bolt on' service.  They are an integral part of a community, they help represent a community and they contribute to the health of a community.  That's why cuts to libraries are so dangerous - not just because they deprive people of access to resources, or jobs, or information or pleasure, but because they say 'You don't matter.  You are not important.'  That's not a good thing.

                                                        Classmates' Blogs
Five of my classmates' blogs viewed are those of Sandra, Britta, Wes, Jessica, and Cristal.

Social Bookmarking

 

My experience with Social Bookmarking began with setting up an account with Delicious.  Later, my bookmarks were organized by Tags as they show how new bookmarks are added to Websites.  Moreover, I was able to use my classmates' bookmarks and others could also benefit from mine.  It was real fun going through my colleagues' bookmarks.  I got some nice pictures from Flickr Photos and use them for my blogs. 

Social network forms bonds among people.  Two examples of social networks are Facebook and Myspace.  I don't have much experience with the latter, but I quite enjoy bonds with my family and acquaintances on Facebook.  This screenshots of Facebook show part of my social life; above are pictures of my sons' graduation together with me and my husband, my son's wedding picture, a family friend's wedding picture, and faces of other people.     

Search Competencies

"I am competent; I can search and find anything."  IvyCat is for books, and EBSCO: ASP is for articles"

Self-Assessment of My Search Skills: Using the Search Competencies Document.

The weekly Wiki Assignments has really helped my competencies in searching for information in the  online catalog.  Thanks to my instructor who constantly guides me through her comments on where to search for articles, books, and other information.  For example, I have found out that books are better retrieved from WorldCat while articles are better found from EBSCO: Academic Search Premier.  Also, the lessons on the limitation on Google Search for books, even though it is a good search engine is well noted.  Moreover, key components/concepts in searching, evaluating documents, using search engines, and knowing the differences between structured databases and other Internet resources, all combine together to improve my search competencies. 

  

Sources for Monitoring

Resourceshelf brought news from Flickr blog among others that Flickr is proud to announce their 200 million public Creative Commons licensed photos (still counting more).  They are grateful to all for the celebration of this success.  This achievement makes Flickr the largest CC photo repository in the world!  Moreover, the Creative Commons on Flickr has sharing images which has added color to my blog posts so far.  Thanks to them! 

Lisnews, on the other hand, has some news from which I am writing this: Blake's report says" Start Your Own Little Free Libary."  He says that your little library can be free library for adults, children, or both.  The important thing is to offer a positive selection of good reading that is appropriate to the community.  collections can be about history, heroes, Art; even "how-to"books and classics.  

Added to my social Bookmarking are delicious beta status and delicious popular stacks.