Organizing books and materials used to be in the domain of professionally trained catalogers and indexers. Now, through Web 2.0, it is in the hands of everyday "folk." What are the implications of this trend for librarians? Also, for additional food for thought, go to your Delicious site and examine your list of tags. In your opinion, are these tags more or less helpful than traditional subject headings?
I believe that the implications of every people organizing information will be felt more online than in actual libraries. In a library there is still a librarian and people who are responsible for cataloging and organizing books and materials. I don't see that changing any time soon. The real impact of this is felt online where anyone can access sites such as Wikipedia and edit information. Information as well as software that can be edited and changed by anyone online could make a librarians job more difficult but could also offer more resources as well. Librarians will have to be familiar with these online places that are thriving in Web 2.0. Librarians will have to decide if sites like Wikipedia can be trusted to supply information to patrons. On the flip side, Web 2.0 opens up possibilities of software and applications that may not have been available to everyone in the past. Although it will take some weeding through information and adapting I believe that librarians can use these everyday "folk" as an asset to their libraries and patrons.
I think the tags used on the delicious site are much more useful than a traditional subject heading. Traditional headings may only tell the one or two main ideas of something where multiple tags can easily and quickly tell you everything about what you are looking at. Tagging is basically subjects headings done in a more efficient manner.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Machine is Us/Using Us
The title of the video that you were asked to view this week is "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/Using Us." Referencing what you have learned about Web 2.0 through the readings in the Courtney text and through watching the video, why do you think that Professor Wesch gave this title to the video?
Web 2.0 is something I had never heard of until I began my master's courses. You would think being a technology teacher for three years while in school I would have heard the term in various trainings but it wasn't something that ever came up. Learning about it these past few weeks in both of my courses has shown me that it was something I knew about all along but just didn't know what the title was. Web 2.0 is really about people, the people who use the web. There really isn't an easier way to put it. Without the users on the web it would be nothing, there wouldn't be a purpose for it. Over the years and especially recently the web has begun to evolve in amazing ways. No longer it is just something to send an email over for communication. Virtually anything can be created on the web and it will continue to evolve more and more. I think Professor Wesch titled his video correctly. "The Machine is Us/Using Us" describes Web 2.0 perfectly. The Machine, or the web, was created and continues to be added to by users on a daily basis. Every single day huge amounts of information are added to the web by the people who created it and use it. The machine is also using us, the users, to learn and evolve itself. Like the video showed, every time we type something into a search engine or click on a link the web uses that information to learn and store information for future use. The users and the web combined are working together to create something amazing. The machine may be using us but we are using it as well.
Web 2.0 is something I had never heard of until I began my master's courses. You would think being a technology teacher for three years while in school I would have heard the term in various trainings but it wasn't something that ever came up. Learning about it these past few weeks in both of my courses has shown me that it was something I knew about all along but just didn't know what the title was. Web 2.0 is really about people, the people who use the web. There really isn't an easier way to put it. Without the users on the web it would be nothing, there wouldn't be a purpose for it. Over the years and especially recently the web has begun to evolve in amazing ways. No longer it is just something to send an email over for communication. Virtually anything can be created on the web and it will continue to evolve more and more. I think Professor Wesch titled his video correctly. "The Machine is Us/Using Us" describes Web 2.0 perfectly. The Machine, or the web, was created and continues to be added to by users on a daily basis. Every single day huge amounts of information are added to the web by the people who created it and use it. The machine is also using us, the users, to learn and evolve itself. Like the video showed, every time we type something into a search engine or click on a link the web uses that information to learn and store information for future use. The users and the web combined are working together to create something amazing. The machine may be using us but we are using it as well.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Handheld Devices
Your technology director has given you a budget of $10,000 for the purchase of handheld devices in your library. Using the prices in Chapter 5 of Courtney as a general guideline, what would you purchase and why?
With a budget of $10,000 I would invest in devices to be used by both the teachers and the students.
I would use a large part of the budget to buy an MP3 player for each classroom. There are about 20 classes in my school so used that number to go off of. Purchasing a mid-range MP3 player at $300 each would take $6,000 of the budget. I chose to spend so much on these MP3 players because they can be so versatile in the classroom. An MP3 player, such as the iPod Nano can be used to listen to music and other recordings, it can also be used to record and playback material. One MP3 player could easily be turned into an updated reading center. The teacher could record a reading of the books he or she chooses and the students could listen to the reading on the MP3 player while following along with the hard copy. The recording feature could also prove valuable when studying retelling by letting the students act out stories and watching them.
Next I would purchase a PDA for each grade level. 5 of these would cost about $2,500. The PDAs would be for the use of the teachers in the regular testing of the students. Things like letter and number recognition, rhyming, and reading levels can be tested and scored inside the PDAs. Putting the information and tests into the PDAs will save paper and time. Plus, the results of the testing can be transferred to a computer and turned into graphs so the data can be easily read.
Finally, I would use the remaining budget to purchase 5 Internet tablets at $1,500. I would use these in the library and also offer them to be checked out to teachers for use in the classroom. These would be used to teach students how to safely and effectively navigate the Internet. Since only 5 will be purchased I would consider this technology a trial and if the students and teachers feel it is successful we would purchase more at a later date.
I believe these 3 items would benefit both the teachers and the students in the school while bringing more opportunities for experiencing technology into the classroom and library.
With a budget of $10,000 I would invest in devices to be used by both the teachers and the students.
I would use a large part of the budget to buy an MP3 player for each classroom. There are about 20 classes in my school so used that number to go off of. Purchasing a mid-range MP3 player at $300 each would take $6,000 of the budget. I chose to spend so much on these MP3 players because they can be so versatile in the classroom. An MP3 player, such as the iPod Nano can be used to listen to music and other recordings, it can also be used to record and playback material. One MP3 player could easily be turned into an updated reading center. The teacher could record a reading of the books he or she chooses and the students could listen to the reading on the MP3 player while following along with the hard copy. The recording feature could also prove valuable when studying retelling by letting the students act out stories and watching them.
Next I would purchase a PDA for each grade level. 5 of these would cost about $2,500. The PDAs would be for the use of the teachers in the regular testing of the students. Things like letter and number recognition, rhyming, and reading levels can be tested and scored inside the PDAs. Putting the information and tests into the PDAs will save paper and time. Plus, the results of the testing can be transferred to a computer and turned into graphs so the data can be easily read.
Finally, I would use the remaining budget to purchase 5 Internet tablets at $1,500. I would use these in the library and also offer them to be checked out to teachers for use in the classroom. These would be used to teach students how to safely and effectively navigate the Internet. Since only 5 will be purchased I would consider this technology a trial and if the students and teachers feel it is successful we would purchase more at a later date.
I believe these 3 items would benefit both the teachers and the students in the school while bringing more opportunities for experiencing technology into the classroom and library.
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