Week 11 Social networking

I have been meaning to establish an account on Facebook so this unit has been a motivator. Creating the account was easy. I invited some friends and family and looked at lists from college and high school. It was interesting to see additional suggestions for new "friends" pop up on the site as I added people that I know to my list.
Since I am new at using Facebook as a connection building tool, I am not sure how libraries would use this as compared to some of the other Web 2.0 applications we have learned about. Perhaps book clubs from different public libraries could easily share recommendations or establish cooperative meeting times. Certainly an important consideration in establishing social networking sites is the use of them to connect with teen and young adult users. So many students at my high school have accounts in MySpace, Facebook, and others.
I did a search for "libraries". Many of the libraries that I found use Facebook to promote programs, get feedback from attendees and gather suggestions for new activities. At this point I can see Facebook, MySpace, etc. being more useful to public libraries. Many schools, including my own have blocked social networking sites from computers. In addition to students tying up computers for too much time on personal networking to incidents of cyberbullying, we have not evolved to where these sites can be accessed within the building.
The decision to invest in maintenance time is major factor when deciding to go with these innovative Web 2.0 applications. Having someone on staff dedicated and comfortable with keeping the site current will make a library's social networking site successful.
So much to learn. Well, I am going to go check on my Facebook page. Maybe someone has "friended" me.

Week 10 Podcasts and Video

I explored several of the podcasts directories and was dazzled by the array of interests. Since we already have an ITunes account, I decided to use this service to select some podcasts. Again, so many topics areas to choose from. I found the Book Lover's section and subscribed to Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac". Then I found the podcast for the NPR book review site and also one for podcasts on young people's books featuring one of my favorite authors.
Without the list of podcasts directories, it would have been harder to find a catagorized list of podcasts. I am sure that on YouTube or Google, I would have found some, but it would have been very scattered without the organization and annotations that the directories supply.
I can see using podcasts in school libraries as book promotion tools. Individuals, clubs or classes could use podcasts for book reviews or to present projects based on books. As a media specialist, I can see using podcasts for instruction on research procedures, as well as for library operations. My natural instinct would be to use my student library aides, but I would have to check on the policies for using student faces online.
At the moment, we have a love/hate relationship with YouTube in the media center. A number of teachers use the clips for classroom projects and we have seen students add good video clips to powerpoint projects. We also see lots of students using YouTube to view videos with dubious content. Like any new technology, we have to work out the best ways to gain the most benefits from this new application- teachable moments.
As librarians and teachers, the more ways we can show students and the public effective and creative ways to use these new tools, the more discerning they will be in their use and evaluation of potential applications in their own lives.