Eleventh Course: Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts

The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.

In 2005, "podcast" was named the "word of the year" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the last few years, it's easy to see why.

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Technology Tapas program) to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or Mac, or portable device) with headphones or a speaker.

iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple is the directory finding service most associated with podcasts, but if you don’t have iTunes installed there are still plenty of options.

For this discovery exercise participants are asked to take a look at some popular podcast directory tools. Do some exploring on your own and locate a podcast that is of interest to you. Once found, you can easily pull the RSS feed into your Bloglines account as well, so that when new casts become available you’ll be automatically notified of their existence.

Discovery Resources:

• To find out more about podcasts start with NPR's podcast help page.
  
• There are many, many podcast directories and finding tools out there. Here are just three of the more popular ones that, unlike iTunes, don't require a software download:
  
• Podcastalley.com
  
• Podcastdirectory.com
  
• What? You want to learn how to be a podcaster too?
  (Optional Resources for those who want to learn create podcasts)
  
  • Beginner's guide to Podcasts & Creating Podcasts
    
  • How to podcast tutorial

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look at the two podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. See if you can find some interesting library related podcasts here like book review podcasts or library news.
   
2. Add the RSS feed for a podcast to your Bloglines account
   
3. Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?

Tenth Course: Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos

Within the past year online video hosting sites have exploded allowing users to easily to upload and share videos on the web. Among all the web 2.0 players in this area, YouTube is currently top dog serving up well over 1 million video views a day and allowing users not only to upload their own video content easily, but also embed clips into their own sites easily.

Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. You'll find everything from 1970s TV commercials and 80s pop icons to library dominos and kids at the dentist. Of course, like any free site you’ll also find a lot stuff not worth watching too. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore and see for yourself what the site has too offer. :)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore YouTube & find a video worth adding as an entry in your blog.
   
2. Create a blog post about your experience. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Can you see any features or componets of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?
   
   OPTIONAL: Try placing the video inside your blog using the copy and paste code for the for "Embeddable Player.” Note: you'll need to use Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting this code.

Other popular video hosting sites:

• Yahoo Video
  
• Google Video
  

NOTE: Videos, like music downloads, are bandwidth hogs. It is recommended that you complete this exercise during light internet usage times.

Ninth Course: Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.

Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Within the past year, Flickr has become the fastest growing photo sharing site on the web and is known as one of the first websites to use keyword “tags” to create associations and connections between photos and users of the site.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags work, what groups are, and all the neat things that people and other libraries are using Flickr for.

Discovery Resources:

• Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps)
  
• Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials
  
• Flickr: Popular tags
  Interesting- Last 7 days
  
• Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups)
  
  

Discovery Exercise:

In this discovery exercise, you have two options…

1. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include either a link to the image or, if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool to add the image in your post.
   
   -- OR --
   
   
2. If you're up to an easy challenge ... create a Free account in Flickr and use your location's digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your branch. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “NJSLTT” and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post.
   

So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you're interested in looking at some photo hosting sites, then why not check out Jamie's recommendations & this Wired story. (Thanks Jamie for the link).

PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) is it advisable to get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.

Eighth Course: Playing around with PBWiki

"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a whole Technology Tapas sandbox wiki*that’s for nothing but play!

For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the NJ State Library Technology Tapas wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page.

Discovery Resources:

• PB Wiki Demos - Find out how this collaborative tool can be used in education or business
• PBWiki Support Center - Instructions and videos on how to get started
• PB Wiki Tips

Discovery Exercise:

1. Access the NJ State Library Technology Tapas wiki and create a login account for yourself (FYI, if you are already a member of PBWiki, say if you're updating the SCILS manual wiki, you don't have to create a new account. Just use your current log in information).

2. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow this simple syntax:
Example:

[ URL Title of blog]
[http://njsllearning.blogspot.com Technology Tapas ]

With brackets [ ] and just a little typing, you’ve added a link - yup, it’s as easy as that!

OPTIONAL: Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc). And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book review or short travel essay and link up to that.

3. Create a post in your blog about the experience.

*NOTE: The NJ State Library Technology Tapas wiki was created using the free version of PBWorks (formerly PBWiki), a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit.

Seventh Course: What's in a wiki?

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
• And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:

Use these resources to learn more aboout wikis:

• Wikis in Plain English – Short video about wikis from Common Craft
• Wiki, wiki, wiki - from Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County's Core compentency blog
• What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation
• Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.

Discovery Exercise:

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding. Here’s a few examples to get you started:

• SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system
• Library Success: A best practices wiki
• ALA 2009 Chicago wiki – an example of a wiki created to support a specific event
• The Bull Run Library wiki - a public library wiki
• Other library wiki examples

Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?