Welcome to the Spring 2009 Learning 2.0 Class

Welcome to the third Learning 2.0 @ SEMLS class. I created this blog during our first Learning 2.0 class in the Winter of 2008 to share my experiences teaching an online class.  However, as I have told many of my previous class participants, I am a horrible blogger and my posting was infrequent, even as I was expecting all of the participants to post on a weekly basis.

For this class, I decided to try something new and discuss my personal experience with each of the technologies we are covering during the week. I’m hoping this will keep me blogging throughout the course of this class.

I have been writing the SEMLS Tech Watch blog for about four years now. I originally used Blogger for the Tech Watch blog, but I have since moved it over to Movable Type, which is the blogging software installed on our Web server.

I am a sporadic blogger. I can go two months without adding a single post, and then I can add five in one week. This is not an example anyone should follow. This week, we cover the technology behind setting up a blog, but the difficult part is making sure it remains relevant and up to date. And that’s what your blog is all about: content. You need to be committed to regularly posting to your blog.

How frequently should you post? It really depends on the nature of the blog. Some blogs require daily posting. Others can get by with monthly posting. But I think it’s important that your users know if it is something that’s only updated monthly.

Another blogger who is a much more frequent poster, Brian Herzog from the Swiss Army Librarian, once told me that when he started his blog, he just forced himself to set aside time every week so that he would be posting on a weekly basis. If you look at his blog now, you’ll see he usually posts more often than that, but I think it’s a good policy to start that way to get yourself in the habit of posting.

And, one day, I’ll try to do that with my Tech Watch blog!

I do hope you all enjoy the class over the next seven weeks. It’s one of my favorite classes to teach, and I look forward to seeing how everyone progresses through the Web 2.0 universe.

Creating My Screencasts

I’ve received a questions from a few people about how I created videos for some of my lessons, and I thought it would be useful to talk here about some of the tools I’ve experimented with in creating some of these videos. I still haven’t found the perfect solution.

To start, I will say that I know Camtasia and Adobe Captivate are commonly used to create tutorials. However, I’ve been in search for a free solution, not just to save SEMLS money, but also because I know many libraries would not be able to spend money on these products. I plan to try the free trials at some time to have a basis for comparison.

I created the tagging tutorial during my first Learning 2.0 class last spring. I used a simple screen capture program called HyperSnap to take static screen shots. Both Windows Vista and most Mac operating systems have built-in tools to take screen captures, but I’ve been using HyperSnap for my handouts for years. I then used Windows Movie Maker (free on every XP and Vista computer) to import the screen shots, record my voice, and create a movie. We have offered a couple of Windows Movie Maker classes with Barbara Andrews in the past, and I intend to bring her back to SEMLS again, either this winter or in the spring. What I like about using Movie Maker is if I do a perfect voice recording with just one second where I stumble upon my words, I can re-edit that one second piece very easily.

Hyperionics, the company that makes HyperSnap, also has a product called HyperCam. This product works much more like Camtasia and Captivate. It records everything you are doing on the screen and allows you to record your voice at the same time. I haven’t tried it yet, but I do intend to try it since it is much more affordable than Camtasia or Captivate. However, there are also some free options that I will discuss below, and HyperCam would have to do a better job than those alternatives to convince me to buy it.

For the week that we did Images and Recommending a Good Book, I had to create a new video for this session since they had been included in other lessons the last time around. I had discovered some freely available screencasting programs, and I wanted to give them a try. I explored using Screencast Recorder, Jing (thanks for the suggestion Inna!) and CamStudio. However, I couldn’t find a way in any of these applications to edit the audio after creating the initial screencast. I ended up using TipCam from uTIPu. This program allows you to re-record the entire audio track if you aren’t happy with the first attempt, but I find it very difficult to record an entire 10-minute audio without any trouble. There’s a reason I never went into radio!

I do intend to try HyperCam and to take a second look at CamStudio. Both applications will save the videos in AVI format, which is something I can import into Windows Movie Maker if I want to do more detailed editing of the video.

I also wanted to mention that we had a class last spring where Rita Gavelis from the Metrowest Regional Library System showed participants how to create tutorials using Windows Media Encoder. I don’t know much about it, but it is free with Windows. We can certainly bring her back for a training as well.

Let me know if you’ve found anything you like to use.

Social networking and teens

I thought today’s Unshelved strip could give us some perspective as we get ready to explore social networking sites next week.

Trying a Podcast through WordPress

Just trying a Podcast through WordPress using Feedburner’s podcasting service. I probably won’t use it because there are so many steps involved, but it does offer more storage than Switchpod, and I’m happy to share more information with class participants on how they can set up a podcast using a WordPress blog. My favorite podcasting service, Odeo, seems to be in transition. Although I can continue podcasting the SEMLS CE podcast through Odeo, it looks like they are not yet allowing new accounts to podcast under the new platform.

One of the frustrations of Web 2.0 is that good services are always changing or eliminating the part of their service that makes them so good. Web 2.0 in Libraries Virtual Roundtable

Welcome to My Fall Learning 2.0 Class

Hi all!

I created this blog during my first Learning 2.0 class to discuss my experience teaching an online class. However, as I’ve already mentioned in comments on some of your blogs, I am a horrible blogger and have a hard time posting on a regular basis. As you can see, I did not keep up with my weekly posts during the last class. I don’t want to become one of those “do as I say and not as I do” instructors, so I will try to do better for this class.

The Tools I’m Using

I just wanted to write a post about the tools I’m using for this class.

The original Learning 2.0 program used a Blogger blog to post assignments. For some time, before I had even heard of Learning 2.0, I had been thinking I would use a wiki once we started offering online courses. I went back and forth between using a blog and wiki as I was designing this class, and I ultimately decided on a wiki so that I could have greater control over how the content was organized. My colleague, Barbara Andrews of Andrews Consulting, suggested that I look into Zoho because it offers chat, which I also wanted to use at various points during the class. I liked the fact that Zoho had so many applications that I could utilize during the course of the class.

From the Flickr Library Signage Group

NO CELL PHONE USE IN THE LIBRARY!

Originally uploaded by Travelin’ Librarian

This Library Signage Group is a fairly popular group on Flickr. Library cell phone signs are a frequent target of the photographers who contribute to this group.

Greetings from Learning 2.0 @ SEMLS

Hello all! I hope you are enjoying your first week of Learning 2.0 @ SEMLS.

Many of you already know me from classes you’ve taken at SEMLS, but for those of you who haven’t had a chance to make it to our office yet, I wanted to include a brief introduction here. As the Assistant Administrator for Technology at SEMLS, I assist libraries in integrating technology in their services. I also provide assistance and consultation for their online services. I love thinking of new ways libraries can use the Internet to reach out to their users and provide a sense of community in a virtual environment. As libraries try to find their place in the 21st century, I firmly believe we need to offer online services that are as interesting and easy to use as the Web sites our patrons and students are accustomed to using.