Linda and I were looking for golf course pictures, so I could show her how to click and drag a photo onto her blogpost. This is a picture of Silverado Golf Course in Napa CA, where my parents lived for many years. We celebrated many events here. My father was one of the very first Club Presidents and worked many PGA tournaments here, usually on the reader board. I worked at one of them myself and took lessons here when I was quite young, but unfortunately, never did pick up the game. Isn't it beautiful?

Lesson 17 - Avatars & Second Life

This is my cutsie little avatar. No, I do not already live in Second Life and I haven't tried that part of this lesson yet. I'm pretty proud of myself for having posted my avatar by clicking and dragging, which is my new way of getting pictures on my blog, all else having failed - such as using URL's, etc. I am more interested in being real rather than virtual, as I intend to live a quality "real" life for a lot longer and want to take care of this "real" body and mind. All this other stuff is too distracting and time-consuming for me. Give me my yoga!

Lesson 18 - Maps and Geotagging

I downloaded Google Earth today and flew into my hometown of Napa CA. I oriented myself so that I could view my sister's home, my sister-in-law's home and my high school alma mater; also the beautiful food and wine museum - Copia - which has recently gone defunct. I also looked at Mukilteo and flew around town a little, from my house to the Lighthouse and back up the Spdwy towards the library. It was a dizzying experience, unlike holding a map in your hands, which I think I may prefer. I'm a little worried about overwhelming my old computer with downloads, so I think I will "de-install" this program now!

Lesson 16 - Online Applications & Tools

Today I spent approximately 3 hrs perusing Google Docs and Zoho Writer. I played with recipe formats and a membership certificate template and sent a couple items out to co-workers that I created thru both application providers. It was time-consuming, but fun. Google Docs seems a little more user-friendly and I liked all the template options it offers. I understand now that there's a lot more out there in cyberspace than Microsoft Office. I think I could go a little crazy using this, if I wanted to sit down long enough.

I will try to come back to this lesson and spend more time on it at a later date.

Lesson 19 - Gaming

This lesson is a real eye-opener to the temptations out there confronting young children. Parents beware! These "free" gaming sites are loaded with ads and pop-ups with click to purchase buttons. It is easy to click on something by mistake when trying to play a game. It makes me grateful for our Sno-Isle website to which I often refer parents of small children.

I did play a couple of games - Word Roundup and Sudoku. Even at the lowest level of difficulty, I was unable to successfully complete them, but it was kind of fun trying. I am not competitive by nature....

I hope families will continue to gather around the table and play boardgames with their young children, but I do realize that online gaming is particularly popular with the tweens and teens of both genders, more so with boys. Sometimes adult patrons complain about the young people using library computers for gaming purposes, but I think they should be encouraged to do so - perhaps during certain hours or in certain areas of the library. For many boys today, it is their primary means of socializing. Anytime that a group of young people are gathered in the library, I do think that a librarian should be nearby and focused on their behavior and language. The roving librarian is a concept that should be used much more often and staffing levels increased accordingly, if we want to accomplish our mission of being a community center.

Lesson 14 - Podcasting

I listened to a library podcast from Cornell University about their chimes, hoping to hear them play; however, the podcast was rather long, so I never did hear them. There seem to be several steps towards getting to an interesting podcast thru this lesson. I did listen to a teenager talk about wishing there were more days in the month of February, on a Boulder Colorado high school library website. That was kind of fun, but not very informative... Finally, through the Learn Out Loud link, I found the American Experience podcast and subscribed to that feed on my Google Reader website, as that is one of my favorite tv shows. I don't know that I will ever listen to it on the computer, but I may refer to it to find a show to order from the library on DVD.
I have no experience with creating podcasts; I have periodically listened to them on my computer at home thru the NPR website. I really do not like using earbuds, so if speakers are not available to me or appropriate for the site I am at, I will probably not pursue podcasts. Many of our patrons are now users of earbuds, so I can imagine that podcasts might have heavy usage at our libraries. Of course, the issue is always being able to provide them enough time on the computers.

I Left My Heart in San Francisco