capstone progress for today
64 pages
10 appendices
and a powerpoint presentation
(I had to create that because Word Stinks)
and in 24 hours it will all be submitted and
out of my hands.

(sure wish I didn't have to
return
after
every
few
words
but the blogger fix
didn't fix
that well.)

Update: ok ok. Taking away the first fix and adding the second worked. Blogger back on the not-bad list.
- posted by Alicia @ 10:40 PM |

 
Yahoo will offer new email. I may hold out for the pony.
Sometimes I feel like an internet child of divorce.
My two parents, yahoo and google
keep offering me new things to buy my loyalty.
But I won't do it.
I just cannot choose one.

(link via Ken Leebow)
- posted by Alicia @ 7:57 PM |

 
Hallelujah!
The blogger problem has been worked around. Thanks blogger. You are not on the bad list anymore. (As opposed to 60% of my class today who would not sleep and instead giggled, talked, yelled, sang, squeeled, moved, whined, cried, and pretended to bite me!)
- posted by Alicia @ 7:51 PM |

 
capstone progress
my two essay-exams are submitted.

the project is at 55 pages long (and not yet double-spaced)

and the pizza is all gone.
- posted by Alicia @ 10:44 PM |

 
another new del.icio.us look
While looking at who tagged the Don't Yawn Game I discovered this:

When you click on a "and X other people" link you get the people and tags of all the people who tagged that URL. Well, now the dates for those are nicely listed on the left. I believe before they were listed in line with the rest of the information. I like the new look. Is anyone else noticing this stuff?


The typo remains on the About page. Can you spot it?


And in other news, I contacted blogger about how funky my blog looks. And they said there is some type of bug and they are working on it. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. Or else a wordpress blog is just around the corner.



Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, tags, tagging
- posted by Alicia @ 2:51 PM |

 
Prof_dev
In other news, subscribing to a non existent RSS feed worked! I was waiting for someone to tag something with prof_dev and it happened. So check this out!

http://del.icio.us/tag/prof_dev

Its not just me anymore. But it says that these were originally tagged in April. So either I missed something for months, the RSS feed is delayed and I am blind, or someone edited the tags used on these websites. I think it is the latter.

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, tags
- posted by Alicia @ 2:43 PM |

 
Testing


Everything was fine until when I added these pictures Wednesday night. The pictures went up fine, but everything else has been funky.
- posted by Alicia @ 2:39 PM |

 
stupid blogger
How many posts do I have to title this? If this post shows up in the right place, Blogger, I forgive you. But if not, well. I just don't know what to say. Except that I dont know why you are being funky and I dont have time to figure it out. And there are always other options when looking for a place to blog.
- posted by Alicia @ 2:33 PM |

 
Del.icio.us Pizza
I have 778 words written and two boxes of Papa Johns in the fridge. Thats enough to get me through 8 meals (16 peices / 2 peices per meal. Or more meals if I include breakfast in the pizza marathon. Because you only eat one piece for breakfast. Duh.) without even thinking about what my next meal is gonna be. With all four food groups, pizza is that magical food. But maybe I oughta add a multivitamin to the to-do list.

While tagging something today I noticed a pretty new page on del.icio.us. If you are not logged in and click on your post to del.icio.us bookmarklet, it is a new page, new design. Its pretty. And I emailed Joshua a typo that I found on the About page. I don't know if he cares though. In the whole scheme of things its pretty small.

Holy Cow! New things on the About Page. I know those weren't there before. Now my whole screencast is out of date. The "post to del.icio.us" bookmarklet has changed to "remember this". Don't know if I like that. (And I know you can change it.) But the instructions are awesome!


Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, screencast, capstone, library,
- posted by Alicia @ 10:14 PM |

 
Whew!
I have finished the three del.icio.us screencasts. I am still not pleased with them. But I made them with free software and then tied the video and sound together with virtual duck tape, so what can you expect.

I am now waiting to see the evaluations for my project. I am going to put the actual project on the back burner for a few days, because this is capstone test weekend. We have from 8 am on Thursday to 8am on Monday to complete two essay questions. If the questions are ok, I should be ok. But I have work on Thursday and Friday and class from 9 to 3 on Saturday. Class means a test on chapters that I have not read, homework I have not done, and a presentation on lesson plans that I have not written.

And there are also all those jobs out there that I have not applied for.

S.T.R.E.S.S.E.D.

But I am Alicia and I can do anything. Right?

Technorati Tags: library, capstone, del.icio.us, screencasts, screencast, screencasting
- posted by Alicia @ 6:25 PM |

 
Impulsiveness
I just did the craziest thing and bought a website. (But I did get a day of holiday pay for Memorial Day so that makes everything ok in the money department, right?) It is nothing fancy right now. Just a link to my first del.icio.us screencast. Seriously. It couldn't get more boring. (And even the screencast is a little jenky. To get it to work I have to press play and then stop and then play again. And there are still the audio issues. But I am still pretty proud of it.)

I should be working on my capstone project and capstone essay test super stressful weekend starts Thursday. (But the other two screencasts will probably be up tomorrow. I just need to redo the audio on the third one and then finagle it to get it working.)


Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, screencast, capstone, library
- posted by Alicia @ 10:05 PM |

 
Yaaaahoooo!
I made a screencast! I made a screencast!

Using Wink and Audacity I made my first screencast of del.icio.us basics.

And even though I sound about 12 years old (no wonder the 4-year olds don't listen to me), the audio and video is out of sync, and the audio ends mid-sentence, it is there. If I can get around a silly rule like only converting 75% of my wav file to an mp3, surely I can fix these other things.

A little tweaking and it might just work.
- posted by Alicia @ 8:05 PM |

 
(Minor) Setback
Tonight was going to be a productive one. Until as I was pulling up my project document and putting a movie in the VCR, my power went out. Not willing to wait it out in the 95 degree Texas heat, (why am I living here again?) I went shopping! I bought a new printer and a microphone so that tomorrow I may try out a screencast. Thankfully the power was only out for a little over an hour. So the fridge and freezer foods will survive.
- posted by Alicia @ 9:53 PM |

 
A del.icio.us screencast???
I really don't need to do a del.icio.us screencast. Thats not what I really need for my project. But something is telling me its what I want. My screenshots and short explanations in Word just aren't what I want. And some screencasts have been done before, but they are not exactly what I am looking for.

• Jon Udell's Del.icio.us Screencast gets into thinking about what tags are chosen and, as the title suggests, "Language Evolution on the net"

• This Del.icio.us Screencast by Charlie O'Donnell is great for what it is, but I don't need a description of how to use Firefox with del.icio.us

• And then this del.icio.us screencast is also great, but gets into how to integrate del.icio.us with a MT blog and I don't need that either.

I just had a hard time realizing that there wasn't one really close to what I was looking for-- just a basic overview of del.icio.us. Plus, I guess even if there was one, it would look a lot different for my users because the changes that happened a few weeks ago.

So I keep thinking that I need to make a screencast of my own. Not that I know quite how to do that. So I read up and investigated and I might take a stab at it tonight, if I feel like going out and buying a microphone. I am giving myself one day to work on it and then I need to return to the real meat of my capstone.

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, screencast, screencasting, capstoneproject
- posted by Alicia @ 1:35 PM |

 
Fayetteville Public Library wins award
I was so excited to hear that the Fayetteville Public Library has been named Library of the Year. FPL --- the library that still used punch cards and a card catalog when I moved to Fayetteville in seventh grade, in 1993. (A phone call was also a dime when the rest of the country charged a quarter). I remember my reading migration from the young adult section to the adult section. I remember how the sections of books were moved around through the years and how special it was when we got bar codes on our library cards. This was the library that I grew up on and there is a libarian there that I called when I considered getting my MLS.

My family moved away in 2003. I was not there to see the new building, although I did see it in progress last May. I would love to go back and look at it now.

Congratulations, Fayetteville Public Library.
- posted by Alicia @ 2:24 PM |

 
44 pages.
Thats it. Thats how long my project is at 9:27pm Tuesday June 14, 2005.

Enough said.

(But a lot more to write)
- posted by Alicia @ 9:26 PM |

 
My Capstone Progress
I am working fairly well.

• I have created my project del.icio.us account, which I had felt bad about creating and then abandoning but I had the realization that I would just pass it onto my audience. So if they don't use it, it's not my fault. I tried.
• I have evaluated rougly 2/3 of my websites. 9 having to do with young adult literature and free read book choices, 7 about mythology and the Iliad. I still have to do 6 on Anne Frank.
  
• I have tagged all the websites I have evaluated.
  
• I have written up most of my needs assessments. But I usually procrastinate on citations and bibliographies, so I have left that for later.
  
• I am now working on the basic del.icio.us instructions, using some screenshots. This is fun. I am enjoying thinking about it at the very beginner level. I need to go back and watch the screencasts related to this and make sure I am explaining everything correctly.
  
• I am going to start on some information on how to get more out of del.icio.us. How to subscribe to an RSS feed. How to find poeople who like the links you like. How to find the popular page. That sort of stuff.
  

I am now on page 28 and Appendix H. And I haven't started the evaluations or a few other major parts.

Onward.

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, capstone, libraryscience
- posted by Alicia @ 8:50 PM |

 
beautiful

Is there anything prettier than some gerber daisies stolen from a wedding? I think not.
- posted by Alicia @ 9:28 PM |

 
interesting del.icio.us news
Through the del.icio.us discussion group today I learned:

1: private posts are definately on the way, once the time is right to put the site down again.

2: cool things are happening with specific file types. If a file is an mp3, it will get a special, automatic tag: "system:filetype:mp3". And so on with other file types.

RSS feeds that have one of those system tags added will automatically become a rss-with-enclosures file.

To my understanding, this means if a video, mp3, etc. is entered into del.icio.us, the RSS feed will have a button "enclosure" that when pressed leads you directly to the audio. Pretty cool. To test this out I subscribed to "http://del.icio.us/tag/system:media:audio" and also downloaded iPodder, something that I had heard about but hadn't really gotten into.

So while working on my capstone project I have gotten to listen to cool mp3s, podcasts, and other audio.

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, rss, podcast
- posted by Alicia @ 9:19 PM |

 
Sunlink Comment
I got a comment about a post on the Sunlink Announcment Blog I wrote in April.(Yes, the comment number stands at zero, at least for me. But there is a comment there.) Here is a snippet:

We are SO happy that you discovered SUNLINK Announcements! It is intended for Florida K-12 public school library media specialists, but we don't mind if anyone peeks in. I think Blogs and RSS are new to many shcool library media specialists, but there is growing interest and use. We have an article about SUNLINK's use of technology to keep people informed coming out in the next issue of Florida Media Quarterly, and it includes how to subscribe via Bloglines....we hope that will make the number grow.

Very interesting. Way to go Florida librarians! And where there were once 8 bloglines subscribers, there are now 10. And 11 feedburner readers (which could overlap...or maybe that is the only feed provided. Because apparently I have the feedburner one.)
- posted by Alicia @ 3:10 PM |

 
About a story that is infamous in my family: the one where Alicia just wouldn't sit down.
I am not a mom. The 4yr old kids in my class where I work ask me all the time, "Whose mommy are you?" and are always confused when I say no one's. So I haven't experienced repeating the words that I heard my mom and dad say to me to my children. But every once in a while I say something that seems like a blast from the past -- or to the future.

Yesterday it was, "if you don't sit in that chair, I'm going to take it away." And immediately my mind went back to that one night at the dinner table when I wouldn't sit down in my chair and my dad sat with me for hours (while I stood) listening to me cry and complain and reason and argue while he listened and talked. Luckily, the boy in my class sat down.

(And lucky too, that the kids are not able to repeat many of my "difficult child" offenses. I guess I will have to wait for my own kids for those.)
- posted by Alicia @ 7:54 AM |

 
Thoughts during an ice cream sandwich break...
I am working on the capstone project. I am working on the Needs Assessment section, in which I need to explain in simple terms and in less that one page what tagging is, what social bookmarking is, how it is related to but totally different than traditional library classification.

I think I am trying to avoid Wikipedia, because I am not sure that I know how to cite it, and I'm not sure that I want to open an can of worms. But finding sources other than Wikipedia and blogs is hard. There are a few articles, but not much. Scratch that. I hadn't even looked. Lazy me. There are three articles at first glance. I'm sure I can use them.

The hard thing is getting this short and sweet. This is not the focus of my project. I just need enough information to bring my audience up to speed. That hard to do because 1) I am having to remember to keep my vocabulary simple. I said that you can subscribe to certain tags. Which, I'm sure makes little sense if you don't have a basic understanding of what RSS is. And 2) I want to talk and talk and talk. How can I condense this into one page? A few paragraphs? Dissertations are being written/have been written/will be written about this stuff. And 3) I am NO expert and surely I will get something wrong.

And yet I continue...
- posted by Alicia @ 8:03 PM |

 
Del.icio.us Users please help!
Part of my capstone project requires me to get information from current educators using social bookmarking tools, particularly del.icio.us. I want to know:

• why teachers/educators are using del.icio.us
  
• what they are using it for
• if they share things they have found or their entire account with anyone (students, other teachers)
• If they have found any additional sites from browsing other people's links (you tag something and find out someone else has tagged it to. You look at all of their tags and find really cool things! Wow!)
  
• Any other things that are helpful, interesting, useful to know about their del.icio.us experience.
• Also, if you want to share your user name, so I could see what you are doing with del.icio.us that would be helpful too.
  

If you have anything to share, please comment here or email me at: acl0026 [at] unt [dot] edu.

And thank you! I forgot to say thank you for taking the time to share. It helps me and my project out a lot.
- posted by Alicia @ 6:17 PM |

 

I have mapped out my project. I feel better now. Now I have to just get to it one step at a time.  
- posted by Alicia @ 6:10 PM |

 
My name, Alicia
I love my name.

Though the Freakonomics blog, I found this baby name wizard site. My name was most popular in the 1980's when I was born. But still it wasn't that popular. (I am quite happy having a not-too-common name.) My name ranked 45th in the 1980s. I was named after my mother who was named when the name ranked 240th. My mother was named after an aunt, when the name probably ranked 383th. (Although the aunt was born in Mexico, so it was probably a more popular name there.)
- posted by Alicia @ 9:42 AM |

 
I have deplorable reading habits and I don't like surprises.
Putting those two together is not a good combination. If I don't read a book in one sitting (that's how I prefer to read. In one sitting. Sit down. Read. Finish. Get up.) then I have to skim ahead a few chapters so that I ruin the next few chapters so that I can tell myself that it is ok to get up. I don't like being left in suspense about what is going to happen.

I was just reading a book and needed to get up and make a smoothie. So I read ahead a few chapters. But then that just wasn't enough. I had to go over to the friendly Amazon and read the synopses of the next two books of the series and ruin those entire books.

I think this has something to do with the fact that I don't like surprises. Before I would ever see the movie Signs, my dad told me everything that would happen. I knew when to cringe in advance or close my eyes.

Issues. I have issues.
- posted by Alicia @ 8:57 PM |

 
Capstone Project Approved!
My capstone project has been officially approved.

Let the journey begin.
- posted by Alicia @ 5:11 PM |

 
More funkiness
I found another curious poster. This one must have imported bookmarks from his computer and then fogot to use del.icio.us again. There are a bunch of links, all really cool and mostly education related. (Holy Cow! On my quest to find del.icio.us education professional development resources I have found someone with 6 posts, using the tag: Prof._Dvlpt._Resources. Yep. Never would have guessed that one.)

Anyway, this user has posted many sites (504) but most of them are tagged with only one thing and this thing is usually words put together with underscores. (concept_mapping, graphic_organizers, social_software.) And they were all posted on the same day. And they are imported with the tags in alphabetical order. So I don't know how the importation thing works, but that whatever this guy did was probably that.

And then the user quit (last post on Feb 6th, 2005). Why? Dude, you were on a role! I like your links! Come back!

Technorati Tags: del.icio.us, delicious, tags, tagging,
- posted by Alicia @ 4:57 PM |

 
tagging with del.icio.us in funky ways
With my capstone project in process (yet not quite approved), I am looked at how people are using del.icio.us. I have found an odd thing. And I really wish I could contact them and ask them why the heck they are tagging things this way. Because something this strange has to have a reason.

This account is tagging things with an asterisk and then the first three letters of the website address. Google would be tagged with "*goo" and not "search", "engine", "web", etc. . (Yep, not only would it be tagged like that, it IS tagged like that. There are 19 things tagged *goo, although not all of them are google.) This is so odd and fascinating. (3192 things are tagged from March 18, 2004 to August 15, 2004.) It goes against everything that most people are using del.icio.us for. So I wonder why this person was tagging things in this manner. Maybe it was some computer program that made it automatic. But I guess I will never know.

Technorati Tags: tagging, tags, socialbookmarking, del.icio.us, delicious
- posted by Alicia @ 8:27 PM |

 
A del.icio.us day
I am this close to having my capstone idea for a del.icio.us related project approved. One of my roommates from college, now a middle school english teacher is going to help me with it and be one of the guinea pigs. I have a lot to do in the next month.

One of the first steps is doing a needs assessment. I need to do a literature review on using the web in the classroom. I need to reserach social bookmarking and tagging in general. It might be most difficult to look at these things without relying on wikipedia and blogs. Awesome! I found an article that was published in the Toronto Star!

Another thing I need to look at is asking current educators using del.icio.us how they are benefiting from using it. The tough thing is finding them. I am having minimal success starting with the del.icio.us users and finding who they really are. If they haven't filled in the "show name and url on my bookmarks page" checkbox, then it is impossible to find them. But I have found a few that way. The other way I am looking for people is to go to blogs, search and see if they talk about del.icio.us or see if they have a link to their del.icio.us account. It is a tedious process, but I have had some success. And I have found some real gems, talking about how educators can use del.icio.us. This is a great post that mentions the many ways that educators can use websites. Awesome. That's what my project will be all about.

Man, will I be tired of typing del.icio.us. It was also suggested that I put it in italics when I use it so it is more readable. I will get tired of that too.

One month. I have one month.
- posted by Alicia @ 7:57 PM |