American Community Survey

As if I didn't have enough to do...our household was "scientifically" chosen to participate in the American Community Survey from the Census Bureau, which is required by law to fill out. The survey should only take 38 minutes. The government should be able to facilitate this survery online; it would be much easier that way. Maybe this significant data will enable my community leaders to see the need to fund libraries, the bedrock of communities.

Web 2.0 and the Classroom

Here is an interesting article for those of us who have or will have obtained our MLIS online and how we will continue to use Web 2.0 in our classrooms in the future.
http://chronicle।com/wiredcampus/article/3097/the-battle-between-web-20-and-the-classroom
My family had a blast at Hersheypark yesterday. Waiting out the thunderstorm near the mouse ride for over an hour was entertaining. Thankfully the announcement (after careening around the corner you want to have a memory to take home...) about purchasing your mouse photo was turned off after someone mentioned the possibility. A young couple became very amorous in a secluded corner. I preferred watching the kids run around in the rain with joyful abandon, once the thunder and lightning were finished. They even found a soppying wet necktie to play with briefly, until we stopped that. The payoff was the rain cleared most people out of the park and we still had fours of fun left to go! www.hersheypark.com

Take 6...I can't Take it anymore

Here is my attempt at the Jing video. This was harder than I thought. I felt like an actress trying to memorize lines; or more likely acting like I knew what I was doing. There was a little snafu at the end but that's ok. The process is what is important right? not the final product.
http://screencast.com/t/Z4XuHfUaw

biking

We rode on two long bikes rides over the weekend. It is great to be able to get out and enjoy this weather without sitting at the computer all day. I even managed to read some books this summer: A Twist of Faith, Amish Grace, and The Shack.

Check out http://www.bookhuddle.com/

eprints

I finished the e prints assignment! Yesterday we did a road trip to the Philly Zoo. The weather is so beautiful I think I'll be going outside now.

Glut

Now that I have numerous RSS feeds coming into my Google Reader I am experiencing information glut! There are so many good resources. I have to stop myself from trying to keep track of everything. I started to work on the eprints assignment. I took my son to a summer library program today, a magician who was showing the kids how to "catch the reading bug." I can't wait till this schoolwork is behind me and I can actually be in a library connecting people with the information they seek and fostering a love of learning.

google

An interesting article I came across today at the library when my daughter was volunteering: Is google making us stupid? http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

A thousand steps

Once again I have enjoyed taking a break from the computer. It sure is hard to stay motivated with the hot/humid weather. We visited some friends in State College and hiked Mt. Nittany. Our reward was to stop at the new creamery. We also took the challenge of hiking the "Thousand Steps" near Huntingdon, Pa. Men used to walk up and down these steps everyday to work in the quarry, unbelievable! No one would have been out of shape. I wasn't sure I was going to make it but I did! In some ways this library degree has been like taking those thousand steps!

We also toured the new Gettysburg visitor's center and the battlefield.

Scopus

I am full swing into the next assignment. It sures goes easier when I ask for some help instead of struggling over and over. I am getting more comfortable with experimenting but it never fails that there is a question I have. Hopefully this will all pay off someday when I can actually help someone else. I sure appreciate all the help that fellow students are willing to give each other. That's the way librarians are, we can't help it.

My husband's work is incorporating some web 2.0 features now. They have intranet and will be able to customize their employee homepage.

Monday

We survived graduation day and had a wonderful celebration. My middle daughter made a power point presentation of family photos over the years to give her sister as a present. My son who is 8 has also become a whiz at power point, experimenting with this technology. It truly amazes me.

Today was also the first day of summer vacation so I got the kids signed up for three different summer reading programs at our local public libraries. My middle daughter will be doing some library volunteering as well.

We also have a heat wave going on...95 degrees!

Graduation

I did the World Cat assignment. It went fairly easy but I am not sure if I have done it right. This week has been hard to concentrate as our oldest daughter is graduating on Saturday from high school! We are so proud of her. I will be joining her as my graduation is this summer! Then of course I am hoping to find a library job so that I can help pay for her college!

completion not perfection

Completion not perfection has been the mantra of this entire program and I hope it continues for my final semester. I posted my first Info Tech assignment. It is overwhelming to be exposed to so many different things at once but hopefully things will come back to us in the future even if the learning process is sometimes painful!

Anniversary

Today is my 24th anniversary! That's all I am going to say except that I will publicly thank my hubby here for all of his technical help to me for the past two years since I have started this program.

Here is an interesting article I saw recently about corporate use of social networking tools.

http://www.pennlive.com/patriotnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/business/1210985716259330.xml&coll=1