Same Old Problem

I decided to do this course again because “April-Re-reading my diatribe about Technorati, I was thinking, I should take this whole course again, and focus on the parts I brushed off the first time around. I probably won’t get around to it, but it made me wonder. Will this stuff (23 Things) be around for a while? There’s more than one thing I want to find again for reference. And to learn about when I’m in a different frame of mind. I definitely have to do more exploration of wikis. I think it was a dud with board members about reviewing the by-laws. But I still want to try it with arranging a multi-faceted project.”

As I re-read my to-do list, I realized how much more I want to do. Still. I seem to need the structure of a course - we will all notice that I said I would like to keep this blog going — yet this is the first entry since the end of this course the last time. (And I always think of myself as a self-motivated person. Hah!)

Problem. Getting into my weblog. Forget username. Forget password. Email them that I need to change password. They email me my username. Jeez - I’ve been through this before. Now, what worries me is that I used the wrong username, and asked for a new password. They sent me the correct username. I then used the password. Makes me think about bank accounts and bills I pay online. I know I’m just playing around with this right now, but how secure is any of this online stuff?

The other same old problem - it is Tuesday night, 10:59 pm, July 1. Over on the right it says that it is July 2, 3 am (or 7:54 am if you read the fine print. Got to figure that one out.)

Got to tell you about Fritz VandeWater. Tomorrow.

I’m Done with Thing 21

No Lambs yet. They don’t look ready at all, the lambs haven’t dropped, so the moms are just fat looking. Soon, I hope, before the flies get nasty.

I like YouTube. You can find anything you want there. I can’t immediately think of how I can use it at GFL.
But, kids are going to start walking down to the library with me after school tomorrow. Maybe they can help me figure out a great little movie to make. I think I can do that sort of thing with my digital camera. We’ll experiment. That will be fun.

Flunking Thing 20

Oh dear, I’m not doing very well here at Thing 20. I’ve been searching through all the possibilities –and I must admit there are a lot–but not many of them seem interesting - or something I want to spend my time on. Doesn’t that sound elitist?

I keep coming back to the same old things : things that Mara introduced us to in Thing 19 (If I capitalize it, does that make it better?) Wanting to do collaborative writing and planning. Google.doc seems the better choice. How unimaginative.

Here’s what I want. An annual calendar. Does someone out there have that to offer?

I say that because I asked a question about another concern (not putting pictures of kids in our program out to EVERYONE) and someone from slideshare answered me back. Why would someone, besides one of us, be reading my blog?

I put our bylaws on google.doc and asked trustees to make changes. So far, the change suggestions have come by email-not changing the original document. No real experience in my major concern–that people would make changes and I wouldn’t even know what they were.

I think I’ll just keep working on the future I had mapped out for Thing 19, and not try to spread myself too thinly.

Oh, we had a great program today! River Exploration. OK, Stream. Everyone was looking under rocks and finding things. Gotta go now, so I can make a slide show about today. Tomorrow- Drawing From Nature.

Well, since I made my blog entry befo…

Well, since I made my blog entry before I read the next step - a pattern I’ve always followed- let’s see if I can post this mini to my major.

Kill Powerpoint

If I hear or see one more powerpoint by Vermont Yankee about how safe it is, I’m going to be a hysterical ranting spinster.

I’m not so sure about Wikis. I’m never even quite sure about when google comes up with a wikipedia entry. In one of them (where?) Middlebury has ruled that Wikipedia cannot be cited as a reference. I’m always a little shy when there are simple spelling errors.

But, I watched (somewhere in some wiki) Joyce Valenza’s Powerpoint of the Gettysburg Address, and her previous rants about Powerpoint, and I was suitably impressed. My husband always scolds me when I say I’m going to make a powerpoint for Town Meeting or something. He’s right, if you do the bullets and the rules, but I just do the “easy” part, and I don’t think many people have fallen asleep at my slide shows yet. But, after looking at Joyce’s stuff, I can find a better way to talk about circulation or variety. That was REALLY good. For a powerpoint.

So, what else about wikis? Somewhere I saw a list of genres and thought it would be comments about books, or reviews, or something. I was so disappointed by Nancy Pearl. Or at least, I can’t figure out how to read what others (and she) have written about some books. So, I think, what people who have something knowledgeable to say doesn’t count anymore. I have to read the misspelled rantings of Joe who wants a quikreed (I swear I read that somewhere). So, so far, that’s my rant about wikis.

On the other hand, I saw some neat possibilities. Lots of people can talk about books - or ideas- or things-and share. I am involved in an attempt to do fundraising that has needs of lots of people. By email it’s kind of funky, but I can see where a wiki would work. (the camping trip example). Maybe I can try that the next time the library trustees have something that’s involving and kinetic.

Now, if I can just find the links.

Can I be finished with Thing 17? The trouble is that it’s spring, and lambing season and gardening season and farmers’ market, and it’s so hard to stay inside and attached to a computer.

Read to the Dogs

I just love it. Program of the La Grange Park Library. But I have to look further. I can’t figure out the del.icio.us connection.

Blogs I got. Here’s a great sounding book from Lansing Public Library. Can’t you just see kids acting this one out during storytime. Speaking of Lansing’s blog, I’m very curious about that little photo montage in the left-hand corner. I want to do that. Bookmarked “how to ” in my del.icio.us what-ever-you-call-it.

So, each one of these

Libraries that del.icio.us (d=that library’s del.icio.us page)

La Grange Park Public Library (d)
Lansing Public Library (d)
Maui Community College Library (d)
McMaster University Library (d)
Menasha Public Library (d)
San Mateo Public Library (d)
Seldovia Public Library (d)
Thomas Ford Memorial Library (d)

is a delicious page. How do I tell by the URL? How do I tell by what they do? How do I link to a specific line on a page?

Great idea from Thomas Ford Library (and Guilford School). Put the newsletter on the website. That I should be able to do tomorrow.

And, I’ve finished Thing 14. On the downhill leg.

Now, I have to remember to post the new books to the bookblog. All these new things I’m adding, they’re great, but there are so many and they are so compartmentalized. I need to make an organization chart. And then remember the user name and passwords.

FANTASTIC

As expected, but with some trepidation, this was a great ending day to our three-day program of STORY-PUPPET-PLAY. The kids were SO focused, as long as we had many snack and lunch breaks.

Someone has asked to see a copy of the slideshow, and I will send it out as soon as I figure out how to narrowcast it.

Each year for the past several I have prepared a slide show for Town Meeting about the library. Getting to be expected. This is my town meeting plan for this year: They will take notice- and I have inadvertantly turned this into italics.

The story-the puppets-the play (use the flyer)

Slide show running- straight through, one second intervals

Background with photos of puppets attached. It’s a really cool background, and in my car right now. Hope it survives the cold.

Interspersed with story? How?

The thespians – with photos. I asked them to all pose - and they were SO serious. It was so much fun, when we called the kids “thespians. ” We dictionariazed (is that a word, can I spell it?} the word, but they were still not quite sure. We may need a little teacher-intervention here.

The helpers – with photos.

I just need to get someone to take a picture of me since I was the photographer. Here’s one of my favorite photos. Whoops, I always forget how to do this. Wait a second. here. Well, it’s not placed where want it, but it’s at least the image I was hoping for.

You guys must think I’m nuts. I’m not, I’m just tired.

This Course Is Driving Me Nuts

So, here it is, quarter to eleven,
I’m so tired I can hardly see, I have to go turn up the heat at 7 tomorrow, and I’m playing around with this stuff-my blog, my MySpace page, my profile,…..grrrrrr.

We’re doing a school vacation week program-STORY-PUPPET-PLAY. It’s a three-day workshop, starting with the story WHY DO MOSQUITOES BUZZ IN PEOPLES EARS. Jody has pulled this whole thing together, in the last two weeks, after all the professionals we tried to hire fell through. It is SO good. Yesterday this collection of kids showed up on time, after one of those snowstorms. Needless to say, Jody and I just barely got there before they did. We both had grand plans.

They are so intent, so focused. I’m Jody’s GOFUR but I fall down on the job a lot, because I’m taking pictures. Pictures of everything, making puppets from scratch, starting the scenery with blank cardboard and a white sheet, backstage at the puppet theatre, the incredible jungle scene, the tickets they create to hand out tomorrow, these beautiful puppets…..

So, besides making a little slideshow for the kids to watch tomorrow, I realize that I need to make a presentation on that MySpace page and give the address to all the parents tomorrow.

I grew up the daughter of a photofinisher and started taking pictures very early-I never had to pay to have them developed. But digital cameras will be my downfall. I took 124 pictures yesterday, and about 180 today.
And I can’t throw many away, because there’s always a great little vignette lurking there. Then, of course, I have to edit them. How did that go about pixels and loading time?????? So, I’ve found about 10 that I’d like to share through MySpace. Coming soon.
Computer about to run out of juice. Must get sleep. To be continued……….

What’s Going On?

I don’t get it. I was reading through everyone’s blogs until I got to Marcia’s Blog.

There were the photos I uploaded to Flickr on February 7th and never found again. I had limited their view to the president of our trustees. She never got the message. How did it show up on Marcia’s blog? What button did I push??

Oh, technology. Thy name is confusion.

Marcia, I apologize for putting my photos on your blog. But, I don’t know how I did it.

Getting Some Feeds

• This afternoon was time to start on Thing Number 9–find some useful library blogs. I’ve only begun, but I went through the first suggestion, library weblogs. I found that a lot are unfound or OLD posts, but I ended up subscribing to 7 more feeds, for a grand total of 15. This is ridiculous. I could spend my life reading other peoples’ lives…I’ve got better things to do. Like
• Spend time with the sheep.
• Just finished reading Robert Frost’s biography A Restless Spirit, the Vermont Humanities pick for Vermont Reads this year. I was in tears by the end, and couldn’t speak properly for a while. I remember him speaking at Kennedy’s Inauguration, and I didn’t know what a treasure that was. But I do remember.
• (I would like to know how I got into THIS way of writing things.)
• We’re probably not going to apply for a grant, although I was thinking we should have the book. Only to discover that it’s out of print. Maybe we will apply. But I can’t think of what we’d do. I’m out of ideas. Or overwhelmed. Or both.

I can hardly be overwhelmed. I’m going back to work tomorrow after a three-month leave of absence. My goal during this period of convalescence was to read the entire works of Alexandre Dumas. I got through 7 or 8, and I’m just about to finish La Dame de Monsoreau–have been for a week now. (Now I seem to be back to THIS way of writing things.) I enjoyed them in te past, but I just wasn’t in an inspired place this time.

Makes me think about my old lady plan. When I can’t walk any more, my plan is to write children’s historical fiction. Then, when I can’t even do that, my plan is to reread all my favorite authors. Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, dare I say Thomas Hardy. There’re so many more, Wilkie Collins is one I’ve always wanted to persue. Well, after this experience, I may be too busy. So, when do I get to reread?

I think that the roast may soon be ready.