Curious - Think different

This is the last Project Play assignment of Semester 2. I'm kind of sad. Overall, I would say that I enjoyed Project Play. It has encouraged me to be more curious about the new tools available on the web. I'll miss the assigned exploration of Web2.0. Some assignments were fun and some not so fun. Now I'm on my own, so to speak, but I will try to continue to try to keep playing more, learning more, and fearing less. To do that I will try to stay current with the newsreader Bloglines and I'm going to try to carve out some time each day (or at least each week) to look at sites like eHub or Go2Web20. Google sites looks interesting and I wonder if the dept I work in could use it somehow. I'll have to think about it some more.


Maybe I'm not as curious as I should be, at least according to Seth Godin. See his video. He does have a point about how our society as a whole is not curious, that we watch too much television. Perhaps if more of us were willing to explore new ideas, to push the envelope so to speak, our world's problems would be fewer? What kind of world would we have if everyone was curious, where one was open to new ideas, where one could see new possibilities? Life in that world sure wouldn't be dull.


I used Sloganizer to find a title for this last post for Project Play. After watching Godin's video, I think the Sloganizer came up with an appropriate title. Being curious means thinking differently. One is not afraid to try new things or ideas. Project Play has started me on that path and hopefully I will continue to keep on playing more, learning more, and fearing less.

Mashups: [Project Play: Semester 2: week 10]

This week we got to learn about mashups.

The assignment was to add my library or some location to the Project Play sandbox map on mapbuilder.net. At first I couldn't figure out why my screen looked different than the example. It was hard to click on the correct buttons. However, after some help from owlsbeth I realized that I needed to change my resolution in order to see what I was doing on mapbuilder.net. Once I did that things became a whole lot easier.

Mashups are kind of fun and have an unlimited potentional. One example, that I was interested in was LibraryThing for Libraries, bringing together LibraryThing and library catalogs. People then have another tool to help them find something to read. I wonder if my library has considered doing something like those libraries have done (Libraries Using LibraryThing list).

I thought about doing a map of the locations of mysteries that I've read. It would be cool to see on a map the places that I've read about, but that would take a lot of time on my part. Plus most books don't have an exact address. Maybe I'll play with it at home?

I'm still trying to play more, learn more, and fear less!

YouTube: [Project Play: Semester 2: week 9]

This week we get to play with YouTube. There is a lot of variety on YouTube. I started out by watching some of the library videos. Arlington Heights PL did one on virtual reference, consentrating on IM. Next up was a travel writer giving tour of a library in Kansas. The last library video I watched was a commercial for the Grand Rapids PL. It was pretty easy to find videos on libraries. One could get carried away going from video to video.

I also took a look at some knitting videos. One was for binding off. I forgot how to do it and this short video showed me how. I like that you can find a video on how to do something. But I wonder if one could develop a YouTube addiction?

I probably spent too much time messing around with YouTube. Libraries can use this to promote services, give tours of the library, share a library program, the possiblilities are endless.

I tried to put a video that I found in the Film & Animation - Top Rated (Today) section. It was fun and made me think of summer. However, I couldn't make it work. So I'll try another one, which seemed to work. [Yeah!]

Screencasts: [Project Play: Semester 2: week 8]

This week we get to find out about screencasts. I don't have a whole lot to say about them. I do think that it's a good tool to use when trying to show someone how to do something, such as search the library's catalog or reserve a title. The ones at the University of Calgary: Library Connection looked and sounded pretty good. The few I looked at were short and to the point. It's another way to reach people.