WEEK 3 -- WIKIS

This is the wiki week.  No problem there.  I watched the commoncraft video about wikis and I use the Auraria Library Intranet wiki to add digital learning objects, take minutes for various meetings, etc.  So Week 3 is handily handled!

WEEK 2 -- FLICKR

OK, it's November now and you can't imagine the stress level and this feels like "playing," while I absolutely NEED to be working.  Like "play," except no joy.  Go figure.

I looked at Flickr today.  Actually, I'm a moderately 2.0-leaning librarian.  I have had Twitter and Facebook accounts for several years now and over 1,400 bookmarks in delicious.

Printed out Flickr screens, will have to take home to read and figure out what I'm doing.  I think I'm a very visual learner in that I always want to get a kind of visual taste of any new software before I try it out.  I hear the youngsters (and Lorrie!) just prefer to start pressing buttons and clicking icons.  Not me; want to read about it, get a sense of it, AND THEN proceed.

So this is going to be a slow process.  I wish it weren't required/assigned.  I think this is a good program (23 Things), but I hate it being required when we all already have so much to do.  This just means that some faculty member on campus will have to wait a bit longer for his/her DVD or book to get here because I will lose several hours when I could be catching up on my acquisitions orders and learning our new procedures, etc.

OK, I'm veering off into some censored thoughts, so will sign off.

Love, Linda (aka Chuckles)

ADDENDUM:  Created a Flickr account and added a picture of myself (same one as I use for Facebook); also added a picture of our greyhound, Sassy.  So did the whole Flickr thang too.

WEEK 1 -- Getting Started, Stumbling Immediately (OR: Yahoo Avatar & Why I Hate it!)

D-I-S-A-S-T-A-H!!!  This is not making me happy.  A Tuesday evening in early October.  Thinking, I'll go and do me some "23 Thangs." Been just grating on my anxieties; need to get started.  Need to get engaged with this assignment.  OK, so I managed to create a blog and get it registered.  Next, to really get things off to a spectacular start, I lost almost a month, due to an extremely bad experience with 23 Things.

FIRST:  I tried to make an Avatar, as instructed for the first week, when a GREAT SUCCESS might be helpful & a nice incentive to tempt me to get involved and to start enjoying (yeah, right!) this unsolicited extra set of 23 More Things to add to my already, um, imposing To Do List, currently clocking in at an impressive 7 pages (yes, seven!) in Word.

SECOND:  CUE THE DISASTER:  I dutifully accessed the Yahoo Avatar site and followed the first few instructions.  Everything was in slow-mo and took f..o..r..e..v..e..r and didn't work.  And then...it FROZE my PC, and gave me the blue screen of death.

THIRD:  CAVEAT EMPTOR:   Use the freeware Yahoo Avatar site at your peril!!

FOURTH:  My PC froze using Yahoo Avatar, a very clunky site.  The next morning when I logged in I couldn't get to any of my email, nor was my Web Browser, Firefox, working for me.  This, despite a week's worth of Bugzillas, phone calls and visits from Trijoon, Sohrab, Michael, Dougie, Niraj, and other IT folks.  Yes, my PC froze late Tuesday afternoon and was out of commission the rest of the week.  Finally, the next Monday, things began to stabilize, thanks to the dedication and expertise of our IT folks.  But Thursday and Friday were days from you-know-where.  By Friday morning, my malfunctioning Outlook was crashing several times an hour and my Firefox was going down with every new search.

FIFTH:  GRRRRRR.....so just imagine a nice bear or woodchuck or some bucolic scene, cuz there will be NO Yahoo avatar on my site.  Use your imagination, please.

Thank you kindly.