About Me

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I'm a part-time teacher-librarian and mother of two wonderful children. My Libra tendencies compel me to constantly seek balance in my life. This isn't always easy but it's fun to try! For my mind, I have a challenging occupation, which demands a lot but is stimulating and always allows me to grow and learn. For my body, I love to skate-ski and I'm an avid "spinner". I jog and do other fitness activities because I have to. For my spirit, I enjoy reading great books, and sharing time with a beautiful, inspiring group of women. My greatest joy comes from time spent with my amazing husband and family.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Week 10- Response to readings: Wrapping my head around mashups SOA and web services

The readings in this lesson were a challenge for me. I must admit that reading Breeding's article, Web Services in the Library Environment, felt a little bit like trying to read Chinese. This is probably due to the fact that, to date, I have no experience working in a library and this is my first TL certification course. Needless to say, my prior knowledge is pretty skinny. For this reason, I have been working hard to wrap my head around the concepts of mashups and web services. As I understand it from The Horizon Report, a mashup is “a web application that combines data from more that one source via a single unified tool” (2008, p. 20). According to the article, mashups are “powerful tools for navigating and visualizing datasets; understanding connections between different dimensions such as time, distance and location; juxtaposing data from different sources to reveal new relationships; and other purposes (Horizon, 2008, p. 20). This started to make sense to me when I read Eric Schnell’ article, Mashups and Web Services, in Library 2.0 and Beyond. On page 64, he describes “Almost 600 Google Maps mashups…that overlay maps with anything from gas prices, to hurricane tracking, to cell phone coverage, to locations where scenes from a particular movie were filmed” (Schnell, 2007, p 64).

Just when I thought I was getting a sense of the whole mashup thing, Schnell had to add service-oriented architecture (SOA) and web services into the equation. Actually, he does a pretty good job of explaining the SOA model in layman’s terms by comparing it to the manufacturing of cars using interchangeable rather than specific tools. Schnell goes on to explain that “if a library were to build an online catalogue using the SOA model, the bibliographic data, the core application, and the user interface would be designed as individual software modules. This modular approach to system and source development facilitates the flexibility and responsiveness required in a changing environment” (Schnell, 2007, p. 65). Schnell then goes on to link the concept of web services as being directly tied to SOA. Web services, he explains, “are websites that are designed for other computers to use” (Schnell, 2007, p. 65). Using Schnell’s article as a reference, Breeding is starting to make a bit more sense to me now. I can certainly appreciate that using web services would hold some definite advantages over library specific interfaces such as Z39.50, MARC and others. Schnell offers the following example: “ a library customer could access a library website to request a document. The online interlibrary loan management system could use a web service to communicate with OCLC or commercial suppliers to identify other libraries that could fulfill the request…the request system could then communicate directly with any of the suppliers to locate the item needed. During this process the customer receives messages updating them as to the progress of the order. The resulting service is a seamless system of communicating and exchanging information using non-proprietary, nonlibrary specific standards” (Schnell, 2007, p. 66).

As I understand it, opening the door to web services in a library setting, could also open up the door to all kinds of interesting library oriented mashups. Schnell talks about a number of great ones like Delicious Library, Go-Go-Google-Gadget and LibraryThing.

Some of the challenges in such a change in practice would be obvious. Issues of intellectual property versus fair use and data security come to the forefront, as do possibilities for trademark and copyright infringement. According to Schnell, the jury is still out on the use of mashups in a library environment. He believes that “Before mashups can make the transition from cool toys to sophisticated applications, much work will have to go into distilling robust standards, protocols, models and toolkits” (Schnell, 2007, p. 72). This being said, I would have to agree with Schnell’s point at the end of his article: “ Libraries need to move common resources to the network level and concentrate on customizing and creating value for their local customers. Libraries need to use SOA, web services and the mashup to strengthen collaborative efforts if we are to remain significant in the increasingly competitive information marketplace" (Schnell, 2007, p. 72).

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Week 10-Demonstration of new knowledge: My first podcast

As my demonstration of new knowledge for Lesson 10, I thought it would be a good idea to create a podcast and incorporate it into my blog post. Before beginning this somewhat scary endeavor , I read Will Richardson's chapter on Podcasting (Richardson, 2009, pp. 109-122) in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. He has a great step-by-step on creating and editing podcasts. His information, in addition to the tutorial provided by Audacity, helped me muddle my way through the creation process. Although I need to spend more time practicing with the editing features, I found the general creation of the podcast to be relatively easy. Where I ran into difficulty was with the publishing. Will Richardson suggested using OurMedia.org to store the MP3 I created. He stated that the trick was to get a "unique URL that is assigned to the file to create a direct link to it in your blog" (Richardson, 2009, p. 118). Easier said than done Will! I spent well over an hour and could not get OurMedia to do what I needed it to do! I then went to Switchpod but it has apparently gone off-line. I was really getting frustrated when it occurred to me (after a desperate e-mail to Joanne) that I should use the "Help" function on Blogger and see what they had to say. Well, that did the trick! Blogger suggested a number of free hosting services and I chose Box.net. It was extremely simple to use. Within a couple of minutes I had signed up and been given an embed code for my MP3 file, which I have now incorporated into this post. So here it is, my first little attempt at audio publishing.

Week 9- Demonstration of new knowledge: YouTube here we come!

Dipping my toes into YouTube was generally an enjoyable and easy experience. Luckily, we had all the necessary gadgetry in our house. We also had the perfect occasion for creating a video. My daughter and her two friends were performing in their first singing festival together and were practicing up a storm.

As with several other of my interactions with technology, the creation of the product was very simple. It was in the publishing realm that I encountered a couple of little challenges. The first came from the girls themselves. They weren't crazy about the performance (they did sound much better on competition day!) and were hesitant to put themselves "out there" so publicly. Ultimately, they agreed on the condition that I not add any tags and that the video be removed at the end of this course. It makes me wonder how many videos have been published without the consent of their subjects.

Once recorded, I saved my video on Pinnacle Studio and retrieved it once signed in to YouTube. The upload process started fine but was taking forever. I had neglected to save the video in a format that worked well with YouTube. It was easy to get the information I needed to correct this problem from YouTube's "Video Toolbox". Once I reformated my product to an MPEG4, the video uploaded without a hitch.

I can certainly see why people get hooked on creating videos for YouTube. It's so immediate, simple and a wonderful way to share with friends and the greater public. So here are my little beauties singing "I Know It's Today" from Shrek the Musical. My daughter Kira is in the middle. Enjoy!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Week 9- Response to readings: There's Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education

In his article, There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education, Gardner Campbell reflects upon the many educational virtues of the podcast. When Gardner wrote his article in 2005, podcasting was still a relatively up-and-coming phenomenon. Five years later, less from the point of view of creation but certainly from that of consumption, podcasts have become quite commonplace. I myself enjoy listening to a variety of programming via podcasts on my i-pod while I run. As with most of my interactions with technology, however, my personal use of multi-media tools has not often translated into my professional life. Gardner’s article is giving me a great opportunity to reflect upon how I might use podcasts should I find myself in a library setting, but more immediately, how I might use podcasts in my current practice.

I think the first time I really considered the power of the podcast was when Joanne used one to introduce herself at the beginning of our course. This being my first on-line educational experience, I was nervous about feeling cut off and depersonalized. Gardener speaks of the voice as being able to “connect with the listener on a profound level” (2005). What I experienced on hearing Joanne’s words was instant relief that I was in fact dealing with a real person, who was going to be open and responsive to my needs as a student. It’s amazing what a difference that little bit of voice contact made to my comfort level.

Gardner uses post-secondary examples of podcasting but many of the stated benefits could be applied to my Grade 1 French Immersion scenario. He speaks of “the explaining voice” (2005) as a conveyor of “microcues of hesitation, pacing and inflection” (2005). These are very important aspects of second language instruction. Gardner also states, “When we hear someone read with understanding, we participate in that understanding, almost as if the voice is enacting our own comprehension” (2005). Parents of students in French Immersion often struggle when providing at-home support to their children. They often cannot read the books that their children bring home and, if so, are not equipped to model appropriate pronunciation, pacing and inflection. I could imagine using a classroom blog to provide a “library” of teacher created podcasts to accompany books that are going home. Not only would this support students and parents, it would also provide an additional point of connection by bringing the teacher’s voice home. I know it would be quite the project to create such a library but what a wonderful resource you’d have in the end! Podcasts could incorporate such activities as weekly “dictée” words”, the sound of the week, listen and repeat, real tempo listening and comprehension and many more. French Immersion teachers often deal with a paucity of resources and are quite used to creating their own. With podcasts, these would no longer have to be restricted to the written word.


Thursday, March 11, 2010

Week 8- Demonstration of new knowledge: Fooling Around with Flikr


I spent a little time this evening fooling around with Flikr. I chose to install Flikr software on my computer in order to facilitate the uploading of photos. The installation went off without a hitch (always a relief considering my already overburdened computer) and uploading photos was relatively quick and easy. Although I have not yet explored the full range of options, the site offers some interesting choices for organizing, describing and tagging photos. They have also partnered up with Snapfish so that, for a cost, you can create calendars, photobooks, cards and all kinds of other fun stuff. By making my photos "public", I was able to embed a short slideshow of them in my blog. These photos were taken during our little town's summer Ladysmith Days Parade...enjoy!

Week 8-Response to readings: The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems

I have made several entries on the topic of the social bookmarking system, Delicious, from the point of view of its usefulness as an organizational tool. As previously stated, I have found it to be immensely helpful in facilitating my "sensemaking” (Golder and Huberman, 2008, p. 3) of the plethora of information to be dealt with in the context of our coursework. For this reason it was interesting to explore a bit of the theory behind this very practical collaborative tagging system. It was particularly fascinating to compare how the evolution of my own tagging behaviours meshed with many of the issues addressed in the Golder and Huberman article.
Once I learned what Delicious was, my rationale for using it was very simple. It allowed me quick access to articles, research papers, videos and many other resources from any computer anywhere. It wasn’t until I began amassing a rather large inventory of resources that I started to appreciate the use of tagging as a means of filtering through my own “library”. For this reason I began to develop and fine tune a system of tagging that would best serve my needs. For these reasons, I fall very solidly into the broadest category of Delicious users described my Golder and Huberman: those who use Delicious for their own interest. Here is where the theory, as explained by Golder and Huberman, adds another layer to my understanding of Delicious and other social bookmarking tools. The authors explain that most users of Delicious bookmark for their own interest and not expressly for the “collective good”. Despite this fact, because of the public nature of Delicious, “useful public good” (Golder and Huberman, 2008, p. 3) may result anyway. It is the public aspect of Delicious that I had not fully explored before reading the Golder and Huberman article, so I will focus somewhat on this element now.
What makes Delicious “public” is the fact that, not only can you see your own bookmarks, you can access all bookmarks created by others. Delicious also allows access to other users’ personal pages and allows a filtering of these pages by tag. These features can provide an additional way of researching. If, for example, I was interested in articles on gaming addiction, I could browse others’ Delicious pages using the tags “gaming” and “addiction”, or maybe “gaming_addiction”, in order to find out what likeminded people were reading about these topics.
Golder and Huberman put some emphasis on the potential pitfalls of collaborative tagging in their article. Because there is no set taxonomy and everyone can tag as they see fit, certain challenges present themselves. This being the case, it is somewhat surprising that the tagging system is actually quite “stable” (Golder and Huberman, 2008, p. 7). This stability is apparently due to the fact that, “after a relatively small number of bookmarks, a nascent consensus seems to form, one that is not affected by the addition of further tags” (Golder and Huberman, 2008, p. 7). They believe that this stability has “important implications for the collective usefulness of individual tagging behaviour” (Golder and Huberman, 2008, p. 7). The authors attribute tagging stability to two factors, “imitation and “shared knowledge” (Golder and Huberman, 2008, p. 7). This makes sense to me in the context of my own behaviour on Delicious. When I first started tagging, I created my own tags without paying much attention to the interface showing “public tags”. As my library grew, the tags I began with were no longer useful because they were too general. I realized that my tags needed to be more specific and it became helpful to look to the public tags for “advice”. The idea of “shared knowledge” makes sense as well. It would be interesting to take a peek at some of the tags my colleagues are using to filter their course resources, but my guess is that they would be fairly similar to my own.
I will definitely continue to use Delicious and, thanks to Golder and Huberman, I can now more fully appreciate the ways in which social bookmarking benefits the greater collaborative community.