Miss Muffet is scared

Library 2.0 results from the extension of the Web 2.0 phenomenon into libraries. It is a response to the changes in the web environment, the nature of information and communication and the culture surrounding reading. According to Wikipedia, Library 2.0 entails “both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within libraries to make our spaces and services more user-centric and inviting”. So Library 2.0 is about using the best tools and ideas to provide the best possible service to users and about making the library space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs. For school libraries, it is also about the practical application of new and emerging technologies to meet curricular objectives and to build global learning network.

After exploring the discovery resources, I then learnt that podcast is actually different from embedded audio files in that podcasting is an audio-delivery technology which involves automatic downloading for users’ convenience. Handy hints on podcasting can be found on Linking and learning: podcasting and audio recording and Victorian Education Channel .
A good podcast directory for kids is Educational Podcast for Teaching and Learning of the RECAP Limited. I located the Boomerang! podcast : a weekly podcast from Boomerang! audiomagazine for kids and subscribed the feed to my iGoogle page.

Though I haven’t produced a podcast myself yet, I can see possible library use includes locating and retrieving educational podcasts like news and information for research to support curricular needs, helping students to author their own podcasts like student poetry podcasts and book reviews, promoting the library like library news, book talks and visitors showcase podcasts, and providing professional development like on-demand tutorials, copy-right discussions and overview of new services and policies.

I have spent quite a bit of time going through all the discovery resources and have got a better idea of its trend in education. I haven’t signed in to explore myself personally yet simply because I know its going to be ‘immersive’ and I can’t afford the time this period. I will definitely go for it this summer.

Kathy Dryburgh’s Guide of SL for Educators, Shrock’s presentation at the Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference on May 25, 2007 provides a good starting point of understanding the educational possibilities and implications of this powerful web 2.0 tool . The podcast ‘Virtual worlds as Web 2.0 Learning Spaces’ of Sarah Smith Robbins (Jan 30, 2008) gives an idea of the predictive role of SL in learning. The real potential of SL is in providing a learning environment which in real life could not.

Select…Students assignmentsSearch The Web

I explored Rollyo again today. The idea of a customised search engine is quite new to me and it takes me sometime to familiar myself with the tool and sees its potential. I have been reading more about search engines and now realize that there are many specialized search engines besides the major ones like Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Ask. There are a variety of specialised search engines including regional search, meta search, subject search, children’s search, specific formats search, customised search and social search engines. Rollyo is one of the customised search engines alongside Google Personalized Search and Yahoo Search Builder.

I have created my own Searchroll under the name Students Assignments and is amazed with the ease of it. I also went into the Explore page and type in Antarctica for a search and found 1 searchroll which I am interested in. I can see the social networking function of Rollyo if the creators so wish. I am in the midst to sorting out all the bookmarks I have collected this year and Rollyo may be the tool that I need to organise my treasures for application.

Copyright -A Fair(y) Use Tale
I have heard of YouTube and TeacherTube but didn’t realize that there are so many (62) video services sites out there. While creating my iGoogle page, I have also added in the YouTube tab. Yet I haven’t tried broadcasting myself. ‘Face the candidates’ is really a good idea for politicians to publicize globally and viewers just got to know more than just viewing the news.
In my daughter’s school, YouTube is banned in junior school, but in the second semester, Year 6 students are given the priviledge of viewing YouTube at school. And this Web 2.0 tool proves to be a very useful learning tool in the students’ study of the HSIE topic Antarctica.
As for podcasting, I have yet to got chance to learn all the technical things involved.

My first experience with Wiki was collaborating with my studying buddy on an assignment last year. I barely had any idea with this tool at that time but since we both could not work out to meet regularly because of our tight schedule, we decided to give Wiki a go upon my techno-savvy husband’s suggestion. It turned out to be the most pleasurable experience as we found ourselves creating and editing web content with ease and not to say we got a very good mark with that particular assignment.
Wikis is a good tool of doing collaborative projects and there can be many possibilities in school libraries like library staff wiki to document procedures, staff book club wiki, subject guide wiki, school community wiki, to name a few.

This week, I have been exploring the social bookmarking website Del.icio.us. I learnt that there are many other social bookmarking websites including SharingLinks, Diigo and Furl.

The concept and application of social bookmarking come just at the right time for me as I have been accumulating of more than 300 bookmarked sites on my desktop and I find it getting very hard to decide what goes where and how to retrieve the exact site I want. So I can see the potential of social bookmarking in assessibility and file management. I also begin exploring its research assistance potential through searching resources for my assignments in the Teacher Librarianship course. The concept is great so long if the contributors are genuine in their contribution and sharing.

So I have created my iGoogle home page. I enjoyed the flexibility of choosing the theme and adding tabs to personalize my home page. I also added My del.cio.us tag and started organize my favourite book marks. Have a look at the image header of my iGoogle page.

Today I create my gmail account and really explore the google website. I have found some video on google search tips which I found quite useful for researchers. I have also explored the topic-specific search engines including Google Book Search.
I then signed in to iGoogle to customize my home page. I enjoyed the flexibility it offers to add web feeds, various gadgets and tabs on one page.
Google Ideas for Educators include hips of tips for using Google in the classroom. The tips posters are quite useful in explaining how a search engines work, how to improve search results and how to make most of Google Book.