W3C Web Semantics & Internet2

I have linked the title of this blog to Ivan Herman's personal web site. Ivan is the Semantic Web Activity lead at the World Wide Web Consortium and This is fascinating work that is taking place on the web. In fact, I did not understand most of the terminology but understand now the concept. RDF (Resource Description Framework) is part of the language used in the W3C to create searches that are less work on part of the search and the machine thinking like that of the searcher. Let me clear that up. The RDF 'Triple' which means the search is going to look at the (S)ubject, and then it is predicated upon something (P)redicate, and then finally that returns a third piece of information, the (O)bject. Allow me to try and explain a little more. In Ivan's PPT presentation at the 2009 Semantic Technology Conference his topic was entitled: T1 Introduction to the Semantic Web. In his presentation he gives a simple example of someone wanting to go on vacation to Budapest, Hungary. Instead of having to look up airlines, hotels, pictures, write-ups etc. Why not have the web link all of those searches together. For instance, the Subject is a vacation to Budapest, and the Predicate is that there will be a need for airlines and hotels, and the resulting Object will be the sites to all of those predicates associated with the subject. I hope I got this kind of correct. This is the kind of information I want to learn more about and think about when re-entering the workforce.

On the subject of Internet2 I believe that this is a completely new set of internet networks for people in education and research. I looked at a couple of example handout pieces of literature on their website that explain more in depth as to what the Internet2 project can do. Here is the link to the Information Kits http://www.internet2.edu/info/#informationsheets Here you will see examples of students at a mid-western college wanting to take a screenwriting course, but do not have access to the agents, writers, producers that the California State University at Los Angeles do. Now Bradley College in Peoria, Illinois has access to the screenwriting classes at CSLA and is able to benefit from the industry lecturers through using the internet for virtual classroom time. This is all great stuff and the network is using top of the line equipment that should not need any upgrading for at least the next 3-5 years.

Survey Monkey

Click on the title of this blog: "Survey Monkey" to get connected to my Soda Survey. It is pretty dry. However this was a fun exercise. I am totally enjoying my classmates surveys. I found survey monkey to be fairly simple and it is a great tool to have if you need to poll a group of people. See you all in class on Thursday. Don't forget to feed the fish!

The Cushing Academy

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120097876

I think that this article is a great starting point for some really great conversation about the future of the library. I think that the biggest takeaway from this article is that people/students learn in different ways. To have a 100% digital library will take away a form of learning (by reading a bound book) that others thrive on. Please post any of your thoughts.

Made it! 23 Things Learned from Learning 2.0

This has been an exciting journey for the entire class. Many of us started off with such apprehension and anxiety over many of the topics. I remember at the onset of Learning 23 Things the most popular fear among the class was actually putting ourselves 'out-there' on-line and the things we thought were going to happen to our identities, pictures, etc. The last three exercises seemed simple in the end when looking in the rear view mirror of the project. YouTube downloads, Podcast downloads to blogline, and downloading a book from the public library NO PROBLEM...Compared to RSS feeds and Flickr a few months back we are now proficient in so many different areas. For me the fear of trying a new program or application is gone. And the most important part of the entire exercise was to have fun. I still can't believe that I transposed my head onto Rodney Dangerfield's body when he was doing the Triple Lindey in the movie "Back to School." I plan on re-visiting this website at least once every six months to keep my skills sharp. I am a fan of NPR's podcast. Ones that I browsed on from the topics section that were made by people I did not know, I found that I was having a hard time appreciating them because I was unsure of their validity. My latest hurdle to overcome. Any please feed my fish here on the blog whenever you feel like it. See you in class.

Spider-man Original Cartoon Theme Song

Using YouTub is this weeks Learning 2.0's 20th exercise. It is almost unfathomable to believe what the author mentioned on the Learning 2.0 video that the amount of time that all people using YouTube have spent watching videos would be over 9000 years long. I can't enough of YouTube, but 9000 years is insane. I know that I use it as much as I use Google. The greatest thing about YouTube is that you can get video and sound of concerts that you may have never been able to get. Think about getting all of the BETA, VHS, and 8mm analog tape that has filmed amazing concerts by a musicians you were totally in to over the last (4) decades and it is now being digitally archived and available to anyone! LIBRARIANS ARE EVERYWHERE!!!

Please run your mouse over the title of this post and click on - "Spider-Man Original Cartoon Theme Song," and you will watch and listen to the attached Spider-Man Original Cartoon Theme Song that Christopher likes to listen to about 30 times a week. There is a half hour added on to the 9000 years. :-) Christopher's favorite part is when Spider-Man waves at him. :-)

Website

The website building exercise, for me, was so exciting and challenging. I started off with so much anxiety and then found myself engulfed in trying to make the site look as good as I possibly could with the minimal experience that I have. Truthfully, I am really proud that I was able to do this. This is a hands on assignment. I could read Castro's book on coding XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language) two times through and still not be able to demonstrate any knowledge of how to build a website unless I actually did it. Even the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) work was impressive in that making sure that all of my files and paths were correct. I am hoping to learn more as we move forward in class and start working with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Again here is my link to my site:

http://eden.rutgers.edu/~jirwin/550/assn5/myresume.html

My Website Woo Hoo - with links and pics too!!

http://eden.rutgers.edu/~jirwin/550/assn5/myresume.html

Collaborative Writing and Word

I chose Collaborative Writing and Word as my top award winning subject due to my high level of satisfaction thus far with the use of Google Docs. Google Docs ranks #1 among its peers, and my vote is in favor for its use by everyone. And even though I have not tried the others in this group, and I should, but I am a firm believer in not trying to fix what is already working quite nicely.

My first experience with Google Docs was my class project in 550 - Information Technologies for Libraries and Information Analysis. Amy Kearns, our Professor for this class, gave a demonstration to the class, we formed our groups, and we immediately were able to collaborate on our group project. Were there some issues? Yes. We had some formatting problems when converting to Microsoft Word (paragraphs and indents got a little weird) and some editing ground rules issues that we had not established in the beginning, but goes it when you are learning something new. With awesome input from our group we put together a great word document.

My second experience was in my Human Information Behavior class. We had to present a slide show presentation. Which by the way Google Docs calls "Presentation," and Microsoft Office calls "Power Point Presentation." It worked great. Aside from the slides people inserted to be funny at 2:00a.m., not one complaint. Even better the presentation downloaded to a Microsoft Power Point with no issues at all.

And lastly, my experience today with uploading a post to my blog was super simple. On the right hand side of the documents page there is a 'share' drop down button. Click on 'Publish as Web Page,' and it will have 2 options to publish your doc. One of which is to post right to your blog. Since it is a Google Doc and we set up our Blogs with Blogspot, the option is right there for you to log on and it is done in a matter of seconds.

This is John I. for Learning 2.0 Part 8: Online applications & tools #18&19.

Blog posting test

This is a test for me to try and download this Google doc to my Blog.

Wikis - Pros and Cons

I personally think that a Wiki is a great idea. It will allow for mutually respectful people to work on a website for the benefit of anyone. This is one of a Wikis many pros. However, if there are people who do not respect the rules of the Wiki, then this can be one of the cons of a Wiki. If anyone can go in and change the webiste - edit it - and put false, misleading, and inappropriate information on the Wiki this is wrong. There has to be a group of people who are monitoring the Wiki around the clock to make sure this does not happen. I look at it as a neighborhood watch program. If there enough people interested in a subject and following the Wiki than any attempts of that nonsense will be corrected quickly.

I use Wikipedia all the time. And, I usually believe what I read. Maybe I have too much faith that people are not that malicious.

Del.icio.us, Technorati, & The Future of Libraries

This section was helpful for me. I still need to learn more about tags and how I can use del.icio.us and technorati better. I did find on technorati a really cool section on adding a gadget. There were hundreds to choose from. The radio stations interested me the most. I figured if I were a real Blogger, that is a professional mercenary type, that I would be spending hours upon hours on my blog and wanting to listen to some streaming music. But the best part of this weeks Learning 2.0 was reading the write-ups by the professional librarians. I especially liked "To a Temporary Place in Time...." by Dr. Wendy Schultz from Infinite Futures. Learning 4.0 is, to me, very imaginable. Libraries need to create the same buzz as does some of our popular book stores with cafes and places for people to relax. The problem is the capital funding. Libraries under public budgets can't create that buzz anytime soon. And the thought of Google or Starbucks or B&N or Amazon buying the libraries or becoming investment partners would create such a stir among those who want to hang on to the free services of the library versus those who want to see advancement. The library is a community. It is a place to not only get great books and knowledge, but also a place to take a workshop on how to knit, bake, create a website, a resume, or properly create a nice aquarium and not just your run of the mill aqua prison. Or it can be a place to learn how to give back and volunteer. B&N used the library model and installed the cafes. I believe that libraries have to do something similar in nature to get people interested in coming through their doors. Some already have cafes, but is that enough. Should Apple donate MP3 files of music on a listen only basis? Should Play Station place station for gamers in the libraries? How do we get the funding to create a buzz about the library and educate the staff and update the resources they currently have to meet the needs of people in the new world of information knowledge? Learning 2.0 is an excellent starting point. Each week I have anxiety about what I will learn next. But at the end of the lesson it was more inspiring than not. If Google plans to digitize all books, should they feel obligated to run a not-for-profit division that takes a percentage of sales and donates the money on a weighted basis to all libraries across the country with initiatives to get all libraries more resources? An independent panel not affiliated to Google to decide on the resources needed would have to be created. Just trying to think outside the box. However, some might say it is inside the box.

Rollyo

Hi Team 550,
I signed up for Rollyo and put in an URL for CBS Sportsline. It created the radio button for CBS Sportsline, but when I clicked on the radio button and hit search, nothing happened but that it went through motions of trying to pick up the URL but went right back to highlighting the Web radio button and no results for CBS Sportsline. The web site is extremely slow. :-( Not a winner yet in my book. What is the difference between this and bookmarking your favorite pages?

Library Thing

Library Thing is really simple to sign up and add the books I am reading to it. I added the feed to my blogline. I think the discussion groups and chat rooms are great for people to have a forum to speak about books and authors they like with people around the world. The chances that someone in your book club in a town with a population of 5000 people and 5 book club members likes the same exact books as you do are pretty slim. Overall good experience so far. Need to do more investigating and navigating the site.

Movie Moment - Back To School

I tried both the Intel commercial and Movie Maker. I thought that this was a lot of fun. Always worried that I am going to be charged for something or someone is going to hack my pc, but that is off the point. The point is that this is COOL! A lot of time for the first run, but check me out in one of the classic college movies: Back to School

http://mymoviemoment.com/?mId=31696158.3&doorId=408&clientId=170

Got it to Work with RSS feed, but no luck with URL

Oddly enough, I got to add my blog to blogline by adding the subscription to feeds gadget to my blog and then clicking on posts, using blogline as the reader page, entered blogline site, clicked on subscribe and it posted as one of my feeds. So, I don't know why the URL's did not work for me, but it is what it is. See everyone in class.

Subscribe to feeders.

Ah Ha! I got it. You have to subscribe to feeders. I now have an RSS feed on my blog. WooHoo. Now I will try to add it to blogline. This is addicting. I can't wait to build the website. Talk about talking about myself too much. :-)

URL did not work but RSS feed on Altered Plates did.

I managed to add Altered Plates to my blogline via the RSS feed on the website. But adding the URL into the ADD tab on blogline did not work. Odd. I was unable to add an RSS feed on my blog. I went to gadgets and it said to add RSS or Atom click here, but no RSS symbol. If I click on Atom at the bottom of my blog it shows me what I have recently added. If blogline is like managing your bloglist then why am I not seeing a RSS feed on my blog? Any comments? All welcome.

Christopher on Stratocaster

chris on strat
Originally uploaded by johni6906

Now we're Rockin-n-Rollin!

Big day. First time fishing!

Big day. First time fishing!
Originally uploaded by johni6906

This is another attempt on flickr to transfer a picture to my blog.

Blogline

Nope. That didn't do anything. Anyone on Thursday night who has twitter and blogline down please let me know.

Blogline

I just went to Blogline.com and started an account. That was really simple. I added the URL to my blog, altered plates blog, and yahoo finance. I saw yahoo finance under feeds but not my blog or altered plates blog. I wonder if a new entry on the blog is what triggers the feed. Here we go with a test. I will let you know in a few minutes the answer.

Christopher having Fun!

Here are pictures I am proud to share. My son Christopher at his first attempts at fishing and hitting the baseball around. I want to thank everyone in class and Amy for taking the plunge with learning 2.0. My next goal is to try and do a slide show like Whit and add a you tube video like Tommy.

Links

Does anyone in class know how to make a URL become a highlighted link on the blog?

Flickr

This is really exciting. The most exhilarating thing is that I am getting "Out There." I agree with Mara, Lisa and Emily on their experiences with Flickr that they posted on their blogs. I would have never done this without Amy and Course 550. Check out the URL link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pics6906/

I only uploaded one pic so far to Flickr, but more to come. I look forward to seeing everyone in class.

Learning 2.0 Website and 7 1/2 Life Long Learning Steps Take 2 -> Action!

I would like to pat myself on the back for not being afraid to learn new things. 23 of them is going to be a lot, but I am confident and charged up that I can do it. I am very excited about the Information Literacy Toolbox. I don't even know where to begin to Podcast, but I wrote down that I a may need a microphone and an MP3 player!

I love to learn, but sometimes I get frozen. Especially when it comes to technology. I was doing everything possible to procrastinate before starting this weeks assignments. I love to cook and bake so I started baking banana bread before I started in on the readings and assignments. :-) Never throw out those ripe bananas!

Obstacles can always be turned around into positives if I allow myself. Going back to school at 40 years old is a challenge for me. But as it stated in the 7 1/2 Habits of Life Long Learners all I need to do to get the confidence each day and to think of the end results of earning my MLIS degree. The opportunities for my career will open up and I will be doing something that is awesome and hopefully helping others. Then, I can put into action everything I am learning on 2.0 and teach and mentor others so that I keep refreshing my skills.

Step two was very informative. I like the idea of putting down goals in writing. I am a list maker. I love to check or cross things off the list. Check-in every so often to make sure that I am on track is a must for me. And lastly, sign the contract! Make it official. This is a great idea to realize that no matter what the obstacle/opportunity I need to own it and be able to accept responsibility for my own learning.

Look forward to seeing everyone in class.

Learning 2.0 Website and 7 1/2 Life Long Learning Steps

I made it to step 3 and am pretty psyched to go further. It seems like it is gong to be a lot of fun. Hopefully we can all help each other out. Looking forward to finding out the next steps in class tonight.

Learning to Blog, but I ain't got Wings!

I am finding this to be really exciting. For the advanced techno librarians this may seem like a no brainer, but for me it is all new and really cool. I am really impressed with the work that a lot of the class members have put into their Blogs. Whit and Toast have got this Blogging down pat.

This is my first post just for testing.