Good Book Psychic

I checked out the

Crystal Blog

at Burlington Public Library this week and saw the Pick of the Week was The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. You can find out more about this book in the McMaster University library catalog. This book is available in the

Mills Library

.

The Good Book Psychic will help you choose books to read. You can download a

PDF form

and drop it off at the information desk at any branch or e-mail the attachment to bookpsychic@bpl.on.ca and within three weeks receive a listing of 10 books to read tailored specifically for you.

I think this is a fun and very web 2.0 way to offer this service to patrons. It grabbed my attention when I saw it on the Burlington Public Library

home page

With increasing time constraints I don't think patrons have time to spend perusing the shelves.

I think people often look at the top 10 fiction and non-fiction books at Chapters as they are unsure what to read and want to see what other people are reading. I think the "Good Book Psychic" is a good option for patrons. I am going to send in a request and find out which books are in my future for the summer!

Oakville Public Library Teen Wiki

OPL has replaced their teen web page with a

Teen Wiki

.

The wiki describes blogging, connects you to author sites and blogs like author Tamora Pierce. Other pages on the wiki include Book Club, Events, Enrichment, Volunteering, Online Databases and I’m sure a popular one “ Booksmagsmusic”.

There is a search box and you can log on to contribute to the wiki. They have a disclaimer on the site "OPL is not responsible for the content" as anyone can access the wiki.

There is a newly created

opl teen blog

with no comments yet.

I am excited to see the public library trying out this new 2.0 technology. There have been over 1300 visits to the site so far. I will follow this site to see its growth!

The End of Learning 2.0 @ Mac

I don't think of this as the "end" but the "beginning" for me. I welcome the opportunity to learn about and try new technologies. I think the drop in sessions were helpful and liked that I had a team leader I could contact when I needed help. I would definitely participate in another discovery programme in the future.

I did find it difficult personally to have a new activity each week. I was working on the activities at home and thought it would be easier if you had a week for discovery and then another week to blog about it. Thank goodness for the catch up weeks :)

I am surprised at how much we learned in such a short time. I can remember looking at some of the blogs at the beginning and when you compare them to now they are really amazing!

I think this experience has helped me dive in to new technologies faster than I would before and I am comfortable doing that now. I liked that you gave us options so you could choose the technology you were interested in exploring, for example, Online Applications and Tools I chose Library Thing.

The technologies we explored were useful and it is exciting to see them being used in the workplace. I can't wait to see what we're doing next ???!!!

Facebook

I opened an account on

Facebook

and found it easy to locate my "group" Learning 2.0 @ Mac.

I am familiar with MSN. I think students like to keep in touch with each other and use MSN to not only "chat" with their friends but to collaborate on projects and help each other with homework. They have it minimized and post icons like "away" when they are not available. They enjoy adding emoticons like smiles, nudges and winks to express themselves.

I found Facebook to be a fun, interactive experience. I invited co-workers to be friends, poked a few people, uploaded photos, wrote on walls and posted messages. Facebook allows you to upload unlimited photos whereas MySpace sets a limit on the number of photos you can upload.

Facebook like my blog appeal to the creative side of me. I like adding to it and making it a reflection of me. I need to look for other groups on Facebook and invite some of my friends to join. I have been using e-mail to communicate with neighbours that have moved away and like the idea of talking to them online rather than waiting for an e-mail.

I feel more connected with my group since joining Facebook. It has been fun reading the profiles and finding out more about each other!

Browser Tools

Firefox was loaded on to my computer and I only needed to upgrade it to the new version available. I quickly added Forecastfox. These add-ons are easy to install. It is the ability to customize Firefox that appeals to me allowing you to add on only what you want and as little or as much as you want.

The Morris Bookmarklets that I added to my Favorites were Subject, Subject Keyword(s) - ONLINE, Subject Keyword(s), Author or Title Keywords.

I visited the web page Canadian War Museum and found you needed to be very specific in selecting your search terms. When I highlighted "Map of Vimy Ridge" the bookmarklet provided the result "Sorry, could not find anything matching Map of Vimy Ridge" whereas when I searched only "Vimy Ridge" I had a better result giving me 10 Search Results for Vimy Ridge including cartographic material from the catalogue.

I think over time I will add all of the bookmarklets as I did find them useful. It saved time and clicking giving me the information I wanted.

Gaming

I dropped into the Gaming Demo held by Kelly in the Wong e-Classroom on Tuesday, April 17th. I was interested to find out what everyone was talking about. It was neat to see Instant IMVU Messenger, MUSHES, X-Men Retribution and World of Warcraft. The graphics were amazing!

I have Nintendo Gamecube at home and have played games like Luigi’s Mansion, Mario Superstar Baseball, Mario Power Tennis and danced to Karaoke Revolution Party. I have also tried some of the Pop Cap Games like Tiger Shark. These games are fun and I have 4 controllers hooked up to our Gamecube so a group can play together.

I find these games are challenging and unreadable. You never know what’s going to happen whereas when I am playing a board game it’s predictable. I find it’s interesting to look at the animation and the characters are fun to play as. The games are hard but not so hard that you have to play them over and over again.

There are different types of game genres to play depending on your personal preference. You not only follow the journey of the main character but you also get to experience what the main character does and to see what happens after you defeat the game. In Super Mario Sunshine, at the end, after you beat Bowser you finally get to go on vacation which is the whole point of the game. It shows a clip of Mario and Peach partying at the beach. Its fun to see what happens after you finally beat the game!

I think fighting games would be popular with the ability to level up, getting new powers and defeating bosses. You learn new combinations and strategies to weaken your opponent. The more experienced you get the more knowledgeable you become and find it easier to defeat opponents. I think I will have to give World of Warcraft a try!

I think that students are interested in gaming and libraries need to find ways to support this interest!!!!! It might be fun to have a Gaming Day(s) in the library, maybe a DDR tournament where you could participate one on one or as a team. What do you think?