Smile!

The one place my digital skills shine through is with the digital camera. I love to shoot pictures, and back in the day of 35mm I'd routinely shoot a roll of film in one sitting, hoping for the two or so 'keeper' pictures on the roll. I gave myself permission to just click away. Enter the digital camera - what freedom! Suddenly I could take a hundred or so pictures in a row, view them instantly, and get rid of the ones I didn't want to keep. Better still, I could modify the keepers... crop them, enhance the image, take out the red-eye... so much fun!

This past year I've learned to use them in conjunction with PowerPoint, making slide shows for fund-raising and other forms of public library marketing. In the library we use a digital camera often to photograph children caught sitting on the floor reading, storytime scenes, or photos for the website. We keep an alphebetized book of signed photo releases and are very careful when it comes to posting pictures of minors, but so far it's gone quite smoothly.

Lately we've put the camera into the hands of the children more often. Seeing the world through their eyes (inspired by Born Into Brothels) is opening up another view of the library.

Reflections on distance learning

Here I sit, 110 miles from the institution of higher education from which I'll - hopefully, eventually - earn my Master's degree. I'm following in the footsteps of my mother who, at 40, returned to school. She drove over an hour each way daily after dropping me at a babysitter's and got her second bachelor's degree despite the constraints of 4 children and traffic.

Of the 4 classes I've taken so far, 3 have been web-based. What a change, almost 40 years after my mother's experience. A friend's husband is earning a doctorate from a university in New Mexico - he'll visit twice during his program of study. Gone, I think, are the days when 'distance education' meant second rate, buy-your-degree programs. Now we have this nearly instantaneous mode of communication that allows relationships between instructor/student and between student groups.

So why not do it all online? There are such programs, and they offer several advantages: flexibility of time and savings in gas being two of the biggest. I've noticed, though - and this may just be my preference - that I miss the face to face relationships. While I appreciate the flexibility at this stage of my life - I don't know how else I could work full time, parent 3 teens, have any sort of life, and take classes - I miss sitting at the proverbial feet of instructors. Sometimes the gems are found when we're not looking for them... in those lingering conversations in the hall, over a cup of coffee between classes, walking to the parking deck. Online learning is certainly more efficient, but I'm glad the entire program isn't done this way.

Disclaimer: I may have a different opinion next semester, when I travel a day a week and have to work every other Saturday to compensate for the time!

Wiki world

I'm still not clear about wikis - I think wikipedia has clouded my viewpoint - but an article in the current issue of School Library Journal caught my eye. Called 'Never Ending Story', it describes the efforts of a group of 8 writers (including a teen) who are team-writing a children's book on a wiki.

Team writing is not a new concept, but by doing so with a wiki everyone can contribute on equal footing: there's no 'leader', no one in charge. Anyone can change anyone else's contribution (sounds tenuous!).

This would be - could be - an excellent project to try within my library NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) group. As long as ground rules are laid out clearly at the front of the project, it seems like it could work with teen writers. AND something I can handle!

www.amillionpenguins.com
www.witchesandwiki.com/pmwiki

Adventure

Yesterday I conquered the world of podcasting. OK, conquered might be a bit of an overstatement, but I succeeded in a first attempt. Thanks to many articles, all of which said the same thing, I felt secure sitting down at the computer and recording my script on Audacity. The adventure, the quickening heartbeat, the moment of sheer excitement came when the computer said that the file couldn't be converted to MP3 mode.

I was sitting at my boss' computer, after hours. My instinct was to find someone - anyone - to help me. At home it would be my husband or son, at work one of the younger librarians or teens. No one was available, and I was limited with time. Deep breath, you can do this.

Long story short, I did - I found, loaded, unzipped "lame" (who comes up with these file names?) and got the Audacity file exported through MP3. I *think* I even managed to send it to the course documents folder on Blackboard. Finally, I figured out how to load the podcast to my loaner ipod.

A digital native will have no appreciation of the sense of conquest I feel this morning. I can do this - I can learn this stuff. The computer didn't blow up, the world did not end. It's steps like these that make me confident that eventually my 'accent' will fade and I'll be blogging and Wiki-ing and Podcasting with the best of them!

Sites I found helpful:
www.uncc.edu (Thanks, Daniel!) Link to Podcast, then Create A Podcast
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/beginners-guide-to-podcast-creation/
(Beginner's Guide To Podcasting)

A Foot In Each World

My father's immigrant family lived and died in their Polish Connecticut neighborhood. With a foot in both worlds, they navigated familiar shops and streets, rarely venturing beyond to the unknown. While on one hand they were able to make the huge transition from the old country to the new, they also missed out on so much that the new world had to offer.

In the same way I find myself fighting a current of transition. I've learned to navigate a few newer technologies: in college, computer use meant typing in lines of code to unlock word processing capabilities. Successfully downloading images from the digital camera made me feel like a technology guru (until I then had to figure out how to erase the images!). My latest conquest has been powerpoint, though I haven't attempted to add music yet.

Like my immigrant ancestors I'll have to make myself learn more. It would be easy to get stuck in this comfort zone, but blogs, wikis, and podcasts beckon. One step at a time, I'll eventually put both feet in that world.

Confessions of a digital immigrant

Let's get this out of the way: I am no digital native. Marc Prensky's 2001 article "Digital Immigrant, Digital Native" resonated deeply with me: I discovered what a heavy accent I have. Suddenly I understood why my three teens laugh when I print a Word document for editing or call someone to come look at my computer screen rather than link the site to their computer.

To be fair, the fact that I'm even willing to explore the world of technology should win me a few points: I bake bread, milk goats, wear no make-up. I'm still afraid to own a microwave and our family gets what television will reach our mountain valley antenna (usually two channels, sometimes three in the winter). Naturally wired I am not.

In this blog I will explore how I am learning to use - nay, to embrace - technology. To use it for the greater good of the services I can offer as a youth services librarian and to help transition our library into an era of 'wired-ness'. My hope is to inspire, support, or commiserate with others who, like myself, don't find this transition particularly natural or easy.