Storytelling Workshop

Today I went to a storytelling workshop at NEFLIN HQ. One of the exercises was to listen to a person tell about a certain subject. You couldn't comment or interject, only listen! Then you gave an "appreciation" to the talker on something they had said, no negatives, no you could make it better if..., only positive. You also had to give yourself an appreciation when it was your turn to talk - that was a little more difficult. My goal is to start truly listening to people, without turning the conversation about myself or my experiences. I hope people will do that for me sometimes too. We could all be more positive! It was a very good workshop.

Facebook

Stephanie created a Facebook page for the Youth Services Department several weeks ago. We are using it to let people know about upcoming programs and to post pictures of our babies! We used to be able to put pictures from Baby and Me on the Community Bulletin Board (TV) but the software got so old and couldn't handle all the data so we had to stop. Hurray for Facebook! We put new pictures of the babies on today and will start doing more with our other programs.

Thing 23 The Survey!

I completed the survey a few days ago and forgot to blog about it. I'm done, YEAH!!!
23 things was a lot of fun, and I learned a ton of stuff. I have every intention of keeping up with what I've learned and hopefully learn new technology as it comes available. Thanks NEFLIN!

Stretchin' Out!

A quiet street in Monterubbiano Italy

Thing 22 "Keep Up the Good Work"

Thing 22 - Almost Done! In Thing 22 we are encouraged to keep using what we have learned. I certainly have fallen in love with some of the Things and some were just not My Thing. I have learned a ton of stuff and have discussed them with coworkers and my family. I know more about what is available online and how to cut through some of the junk that comes up when I am searching. Most of my old favorite sites are still my favorites, but now I have some new favorites too. Thanks for the experience NEFLIN!

Thing 21: Student 2.0 Tools

Ok, so I thought maybe I was being a little skeptical but I showed this to my son-in-law, a college student and he confirmed my assessment: people wait til their assignments are about to be due and then they do them. A calculator on how to break up the time sounds fantastic! (but in reality, most people don't work that way.) If these tools work for you or anybody you know, that's great. I don't think they'd work for me. ***Loved the Friday Fun cartoon!

Thing 20: Books 2.0

I checked out most of the sites on Thing 20. There are more book related sites than I could have imagined. I thought the one on Facebook was pretty neat, and if I was a person who needs to discuss my books, I would probably join Visual Bookshelf. I checked out the children's book sites and many of them weren't working. I think it's cool to be able to read things online and save money, but snuggling with a book is the way I prefer to read with children. We have already invested a fortune on books for our 12 week old grandaughter and are enjoying storytime daily.

I don't think books are going to get replaced with online, but I do see newspapers and magazines becoming more of an online thing. I was at a Gates workshop last week and the instructor mentioned that People magazine is free on their site - the articles, not the pictures! Anyone who reads People wants to see the pictures so I don't think they will stop printing their magazine, but magazines with more informational articles may be going to online formats.

BookSwim is interesting, but I'm too cheap and I am not a voracious enough reader to pay to read the next best seller. I can wait and check out my books at the library. We looked at it for my son-in-law who is a student and the prices were not enough of a break to make it worthwhile.

Thing 19 Other Social Networks

There are many "other" social networks out there and I enjoyed looking at the suggested sites. Gather was kind of interesting and then I went to Library Ning. Everyone really should read the article on the new cutting edge technology in the library. Here's the link: http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/04/new-rrils-can-send-search-results-directly-to-brain.html Really, really a must read! I liked the craft site but it was super slow to load on my library computer. Fuzzster was really cute but really, have you seen my Gracie? --She's way cuter than the kitties on fuzzster. See!

Thing 18 Facebook and MySpace

I've purposefully stayed off these sights feeling I was respecting my kids space by not reading about them or their friends. I guess it's not just for college kids anymore. The library is on facebook, a dozen or more of my high school friends are on there along with lots of people I know here in Lake City. Stephanie started a Facebook page for the library youth services and we are able to communicate to our friends when we have programs etc. Since our website is very limited, the facebook page will allow us to post pictures and more attractive notices. Pretty cool!! I was able to send a personal invitation to our egg hunt to a family that friended us! I made my own personal page and posted pictures of our family. Ofcourse I've done that on flickr and on this blog and several other places, all part of 23 Things. I will say that some of my fears about social networking are founded. When you sign in, facebook comes up with a list of people you might know, I clicked on a few and some of the things posted were things I would just as soon not know about.

Thing 17 Podcasts

This Thing was a little frustrating due to the computer here at work. I knew CNN had lots of podcasts but I couldn't get them to work for me. Stephanie showed me her favorite Ricky Gervais (we just googled it!) and that was pretty funny. Everyone in our household has an ipod except for me. One of these days I may get one too and take advantage of podcasts. I guess I'm pretty happy just sitting at my computer and watching news streams and reading the articles that interest me. One good thing about having the 23 Things assignment is that I'm discovering a lot more that I didn't even know was available. I knew what podcasts were, but hadn't used them more than a time or two until now. I went to google reader as part of the Thing 17 assignment and found that all the 23 Things blogs I follow were there for me to look at, so I read some more of everyone elses comments.