Story

This story is about how my husband and I got our cat Cremesickle.




http://media.switchpod.com/users/kdscils598x08/story.mp3

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Google Analytics is a great way to keep track of blog stats! I continue to be a Google fan!

Ed- Exp. w/ Flickr

This is my second time at good ol' RU. I earned my undergraduate degree in Italian and now I'm in the digital libraries track at SCILS. I really enjoyed my time at RU- I met lots of great friends and had some really great teachers, one in particular (Lidia Radi) was wonderful. Fast forward a couple of years and I'm back at RU. This is my 3rd semester, it got off to a rocky start with HIB, but now I'm really enjoying it. I hope to finish by this time next year.

My scils598x08 Flickr pix

Scils598x08 Flickr pix for the class

B&D reading

On the job training & hands on learning- I firmly believe in this. From my own method of learning- I learn much more when I am allowed to practice what I am learning. This is one of the reasons that I chose online courses. I do much better when I am an active learner vs. traditional passive learning. When I was a teacher I tried to have the students do "real-life" tasks instead of just listening to me lecture. I think kids are learning to take a more active role in their education and learn more by doing actual experiments and applying what they have learned as opposed to just taking notes and studying for a test just to forget the information a day later.

I think this also goes hand-in-hand with staff training. Many people learn by watching others but also by trial and error as well. Sometimes holding training sessions can be boring, but if you watch someone else or want to learn something because you now understand its importance- you might have better results. There are many factors that go into learning a new skill- willingness, necessity, learning style, etc- it's hard to create a one-fits-all learning situation and solution.

Del.icio.us- virtual introduction

I like del.icio.us tags. It's a cute way for others to see and get to know your interests. I'm not sure where you would go beyond that, but as an intro. for the week it might work. Maybe you have Student A look at Student B's tags and try to describe that person just by their tags and do a little social experiment to see how well our tags describe us.

The Long Tail

So far I am enjoying Anderson's The Long Tail. I enjoy reading about the trends of business/selling throughout modern time. Before I started this post I was attempting to articulate my thoughts but I'm back to my original phrase" give the people what they want". Anderson mentions the Sears catalog, and the vast amount of cheap, accessible goods- people wanted the ability to purchase new things and the Sears catalog gave them that option. He also mentions B&N and how their superstore carries 10x more titles than small booksellers with a wide range of topics. B&N also also started letting people read in their store and offer Starbucks as well. People want more choices and better prices with less hassle. Libraries are already benefiting from the long tail. We offer a multitude of programs for all ages, Internet access, ILLs, research help, and the list goes on. We are giving the people what they want. We do our best to keep up with new trends, new books (bestsellers and local authors), knitting classes, art shows, you name it!

Shelfari

I'm currently signed up for LibraryThing - although I never use it. So I signed up for Shelfari for this class. It's a very cool site. I LOVE the MyShelf tab. Here you can do many things:

-Add books that you plan to read, have already read and books you are currently reading.
-Add your favorites with a star rating system
-Add it to your blog
-Add friends/groups
-See what's popular among fellow Shelfarians
-Create a wishlist like Amazon has been doing for years (there's also a little Amazon button conveniently located there so you can go right to where the books are)
*coolest feature- you can change the look of your bookshelf as you add more books

Shelfari also allows you to post community questions- which is great if you're not sure if you want to read the book or have a question about historical accuracy in a book, etc.

One problem that I found was when I was trying to add a book to my shelf, I misspelled the author's name and it took three times before I was able to locate the book I was looking for. Suggestions didn't appear like on B&N's site.

Overall- I would give it 4.5/5