My experience with this project couldn’t have been better. I’ve had fun doing the “things” while learning about them. It has made me want more, and so I’m going to look for new things on my own, posting the ones that I find more interesting.
Some of my favorite things are: wikis, RSS, librarything, tagging, and picture trail.
I don’t know about the others, but I was pretty excited about this whole 23 Things thing, so I took every chance I had to help my co-workers get their “things” done.
I can’t think of any way to improve it personally, although I’m pretty sure that some people would appreciate more time to do it.
Yes, if there is another program like this in the future, I’ll be there.
My learning experience in one word or in one sentence: mind-opening. (art by Nicole Mizoguchi).
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Thing 20
Are Games Hurting Libraries?
This article presented a good topic. Mr. Gibson stated that “libraries are helping to contribute to illiteracy in America”. Reading this and working in the library makes me think that maybe there is some truth behind his words. How many times have we seen children and adults come to the desk with a huge pile of DVDs and no books? In fact, this reminds of something interesting that occurred on the first floor during my shift yesterday: a woman approached the desk with a pile of DVDs that seemed about to fall off her arms any second. Almost immediately her two sons followed her while asking her to get some books. The mother turned towards them and her answer was an emphatic “no”. I understand that is easier to watch a movie than to read a book, but if your children want to read I don’t see why you can’t let them. Anyway, the beginning of this article reminded me of that and I wanted to share it with you.
I also read the answer to that article and I agree with the author in that times change, and so it is better for libraries to change with them. We live in an Information Age, with screens, computers, and electronics everywhere. This is the way children are growing up now, learning from a screen instead of books. Therefore it’s normal that they feel more comfortable participating on activities related to computers in any way, like the games that are the focus of this article.
For me, the difference between video games and table top games is that the second ones allow participants to interact with real people, face to face, and this helps build good interpersonal skills.
If we try to do it here I’m sure that we would get reactions from both sides, those in favor and those against it, but that would be just at first, until people got used to it.
It does make sense that in order to get teens to use the library, the library should have something that interests them. If games are the solution, why don’t we try it?
This article presented a good topic. Mr. Gibson stated that “libraries are helping to contribute to illiteracy in America”. Reading this and working in the library makes me think that maybe there is some truth behind his words. How many times have we seen children and adults come to the desk with a huge pile of DVDs and no books? In fact, this reminds of something interesting that occurred on the first floor during my shift yesterday: a woman approached the desk with a pile of DVDs that seemed about to fall off her arms any second. Almost immediately her two sons followed her while asking her to get some books. The mother turned towards them and her answer was an emphatic “no”. I understand that is easier to watch a movie than to read a book, but if your children want to read I don’t see why you can’t let them. Anyway, the beginning of this article reminded me of that and I wanted to share it with you.
I also read the answer to that article and I agree with the author in that times change, and so it is better for libraries to change with them. We live in an Information Age, with screens, computers, and electronics everywhere. This is the way children are growing up now, learning from a screen instead of books. Therefore it’s normal that they feel more comfortable participating on activities related to computers in any way, like the games that are the focus of this article.
For me, the difference between video games and table top games is that the second ones allow participants to interact with real people, face to face, and this helps build good interpersonal skills.
If we try to do it here I’m sure that we would get reactions from both sides, those in favor and those against it, but that would be just at first, until people got used to it.
It does make sense that in order to get teens to use the library, the library should have something that interests them. If games are the solution, why don’t we try it?
Thing 19
A Content Management System (CMS) sounds almost too perfect to be true, but if it’s a reality, then the library could totally benefit from it. It allows you to protect and add information to make whatever it is that you’re announcing more available to the public. For example, here in the library, we can use it for the web page; by updating what’s going on here faster, people would feel even more comfortable using the library because they’d know what, when, and where is happening by just a few clicks of the mouse.
The second article, the one about tips on how to choose your CMS, gives the reader some simple and easy steps to avoid finding yourself with a program that you don’t know how to work with. I especially like when they talk about “Mistake 5: Never, ever, ever allow an IT guy to choose your Content Management System. It is a rare breed that understands both code and a friendly user interface”.
After reading the article that talks about CMS applications for libraries I can see that my previous idea of using it for our web page is kind of ridiculous, if only because it looks like it can do so much more than that.
I found the articles very informative, explaining everything with easy-to-read English so the dumbest one of us can understand them. They were great.
I think that the new LInt is awesome, although after learning so many things I have it all mixed in my head. Now I have to take the time to separate all the layers and put them in their specific compartments. Hopefully I’ll be able to, and who knows? I might even try to create a website with it ;-)
The second article, the one about tips on how to choose your CMS, gives the reader some simple and easy steps to avoid finding yourself with a program that you don’t know how to work with. I especially like when they talk about “Mistake 5: Never, ever, ever allow an IT guy to choose your Content Management System. It is a rare breed that understands both code and a friendly user interface”.
After reading the article that talks about CMS applications for libraries I can see that my previous idea of using it for our web page is kind of ridiculous, if only because it looks like it can do so much more than that.
I found the articles very informative, explaining everything with easy-to-read English so the dumbest one of us can understand them. They were great.
I think that the new LInt is awesome, although after learning so many things I have it all mixed in my head. Now I have to take the time to separate all the layers and put them in their specific compartments. Hopefully I’ll be able to, and who knows? I might even try to create a website with it ;-)
Thing 21
I used Pageflakes because that was the one whose content and principal page caught my attention the most. Also because since I read that Friendfeed was one of the most popular ones I felt like I should give the other guys a chance. One thing I don’t like about pageflake, and this is after the first 15 minutes of using it, is that it is too slow. It takes a lot of time to do anything you want, like adding new stuff to your page, or just opening the applications you already have. That is too bad, because it turns an otherwise cool tool with lots of potential into another time-consuming network that I will probably discard in the future. Anyway, here’s the link to my page if you want to see it.
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