Week Nine, Assignment #23

#23. This is the final discovery exercise on Copyright and Creative Commons. When I finish it, I will go to the PA Online Survey to complete an evaluation.

It's interesting to me when I go to the School Library Learning site to find out about assignment #23 that I'm seeing the video "A Fair(y) Use Tale." I'd seen this video bookmarked on Del.icio.us in a friend's networked bookmarks, and I'd considered using it as the YouTube item I was going to embed in my blog, until I started to watch it and saw Disney characters and the Disney logo. I realize now, after watching the whole thing, that I didn't watch far enough previously to realize what the creators were doing. They took such small portions of each movie clip that they were not infringing on copyright, and they were putting the clips together in such as way as not to infringe upon the original work or retell the original work. They demonstrated how to put together a new creative work that does not break copyright law, and they properly gave credit to the original productions and the owner of the original copyrights, Disney Productions. It's really a very clever work showing how "fair use" can work for someone.

Part of our assignment is to find something that indicates that this video was changed from its original. That indication is on the screen that says, "The following film is not associated with, authorized by, or should be confused with any product produced by" and then the "Walt Disney Pictures" logo appears.

I just visited the Creative Commons Web site and I was surprised to see an entry about Lawrence Lessig having appeared on "The Colbert Report" on TV's Comedy Central channel on January 8th. Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons and he was promoting his new book, Remix, when he appeared on Stephen Colbert's show. I'd seen that show, but I didn't know who Lessig was, and I didn't know I'd be visiting Creative Commons and finding out about the connection. It just seems like an odd coincidence that I'm doing that within three days of the show.

Another coincidence: Even as I am in the process of working on this assignment and I found another blog I wanted to add to my blog reader, I see that my blog reader has brought me Joyce Valenza's "NeverEnding Search" blog about "Remixing: Lessig vs. Colbert". Talk about timely matters!

Creative Commons is a site with tools that lets people license their work and share it legally. It allows the owner to reserve all rights or only some rights to their creative work, so others can take the work and use it in a "remixed" way.

I visited the Arts Project Web site of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain and found some interesting links there. I paged through a bit of the comic book about intellectual property, but I've never liked having to read comic books -- they take so much longer to absorb than just text. Nonetheless, some people like their instruction in graphic form, so it's nice to know that this comic book on intellectual property can be viewed online.

I enjoyed watching the short film called "Great Composers Steal", with Anthony Kelley giving examples of how the limitations of the Western musical scale can make many tunes sound as though they are borrowed from others but really are not. He played notes that sounded like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star when played at one rhythm and I'm In the Mood For Love when played at another rhythm, to give examples the audience would recognize as being very different works even though they use identical notes. When you have only 11 notes of a scale, and thousands (millions?) of tunes to write, some of them will have to have the same notes because there are no others from which to choose.

I've enjoyed this journey through the "23 Things" of Library 2.0 and am heading now to complete my evaluation on the PA Online Survey site.

Week Nine, Assignment #22

#22. eBooks and Audio eBooks

The World EBook Fair site was operational for one month, July 4, 2007-August 4, 2007. I found it on May 23, 2007 and explored it during the month of its availability. (I was blogging in another place at that time and remarked on it in that blog.) I had just discovered Playaway audiobooks and had written a grant proposal that had landed quite a large collection of audiobooks for my library, so I had little interest at that time in finding ebooks I'd have to read on my computer when I much preferred to go out walking while listening to my new audiobook collection. After all, it was midsummer and I wanted to be outside. Also, at that time, I had no interest in an e-book collection that I'd have to read on my computer, because as it is I spend not only most of my working day on a computer sut also most of my free time in the evening with a laptop computer on my lap while I type away at various Web sites I administer. I wish now that I'd shown more interest in downloading these books, because my library now has a Kindle and I'm wondering if I would have been able to read them on it. The Kindle is a wonderful way to read e-books because the weight of it doesn't put your legs to sleep (like my laptop computer does).

I explored the Gutenberg Project to find what e-books are available there. I downloaded the English version of Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, primarily because my husband is currently reading both the English and the French versions of the book and I was curious whether he could have been just as happy with the free e-book as with the print version in his hands. The download is a "text version" and I have to say that I personally don't care for the bleakness of it, written in small font in unrelenting paragraph after paragraph to be scrolled through, ad infinitum.

By the way, if someone wants the French version of that book as a free download, both the text and the audiobook are available free here. Literatureaudio.com has more than 600 free audiobooks in French.

The Web site DailyLit also has some free and some really inexpensive books that may be of interest.

The British Library Online Gallery, Turning the Pages((TM) system has some free e-books. I attempted to view the original Alice by Lewis Carroll, but the Shockwave Player installation did not go through on my computer and rather than re-try (and possibly mess up something on my computer), I clicked to cancel it. Then I noticed on the site that there's a Turning the Pages (TM) version 2 for Vista and I went to it. It also works if you have SilverLight downloaded on your computer. There I found The Original Adventures of Alice Underground and clicked for it. It took about a minute for the download, and it's really impressive-looking when it finally comes on the screen. You can read Lewis Carroll's original handwriting or you can read the text in regular computer font (in a variety of sizes) in a window that opens. It took me a little time to find how to turn the pages. You click on the edge of the page and then drag your mouse in a "page flipping" direction. You'll see the page flip over to reveal the next page. You also can click "Listen" and have it read to you. Re-click "Listen" when you want it to stop. This is a beautiful resource, and I intend to go back and look at other books available there.

I also liked Best Places to Get Free Books - The Ultimate Guide. There are so many sites listed there that it will take some time to explore them. Note that they are not all e-books. (That doesn't make the sites any less interesting to explore!)

Week Nine, Assignment #21

#21. Podcasts (You don’t need an iPod!)

I found through The Education Podcast Network the Tech Teacher Podcasts that have some interesting episodes, such as this one about "Podcasting in the Classroom": http://www.garageband.com/mp3player?pe1WdjZPXLrvP2rZFO2YmFh.

I tried the California School Library "23 Things" link to http://www.podcast.net/, but it was a dead link, as was the link to Yahoo Podcasts.

I went to iTunes to use the Podcast directory to find library-related Podcasts. I found "Library Geeks" by Dan Chudnov. I'm listening to the November 14, 2008 Podcast about "Jangle", which is described as "a new specification for using the Atom Publishing Protocol with library resources." Frankly, I'm bored stiff. I guess I'm not as much of a "Library Geek" as I thought I was.

So, moving on, I tried "Teacher Librarians" by Julie (Lawrence) Darling. but found it to be just an uploaded file with the AASL 21st Century Standards -- not a Podcast at all. Then I tried "Got Books", a Podcast by middle school students about middle school books. You can use this link to get their blog page that has links to the Podcasts: http://got-books.blogspot.com/. This is not something I would subscribe to, but it does make me applaud the librarian who worked this out for her students to do!

Several years ago when I took a day-long Podcasting course for Act 48 credit, I was introduced to the Podcast Directory in iTunes and I spent time looking then for library-related Podcasts that might interest my middle school students or teachers, but I never did find any. From my hour-long exploration just now, I'd say that iTunes is not the best place for me to find Podcasts that would be of interest to school librarians.

Since I'm directed to add an RSS feed to this blogspot, I went back to where I began, the Education Podcast Network, and found what I thought was Podcast by Greg Schwartz: "Open Stacks - Home of Greg Schwartz: Promoting information access and literacy for all" and subscribed to it through the RSS feed. It turned out to be a blog rather than a Podcast, but within the blog I found the URL to get his Podcast "Uncontrolled Vocabulary", and finally [WHEW!] found, by trial & error, how to add it to this blog through an RSS feed. This last step has been the hardest challenge of this project. I have a lot of feed readers, and in the process of trying to get the Uncontrolled Vocabulary feed into this blog, I've added it to about 6 other places.

Week Nine, Assignment #20

Week 9: Podcasts, Video & Downloadable Audio
#20. Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos.
Ahh, YouTube -- now we're on familiar territory. I like many things about the site. The only thing I don't like is that some of the videos require inordinate buffering time, even with a high speed connection.

Here is a YouTube video tutorial of how to use Sketch Up:







I also discovered, just yesterday, http://www.veoh.com/, where one can watch not only videos but also TV shows on one's computer. I've just signed up, and this morning I installed the viewer required. I looked over the list of TV shows available, but didn't see anything I was interested in watching yet. (I'm not a big fan of TV.) It allows uploads of videos, too, but I don't have any that I'm interested in uploading.

Week Eight, Assignment #19

#19. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.

I created an account at LibraryThing. I added 6 books that I own that I have either read recently or I plan to read shortly. I found LibraryThing easy to use. I'm considering using it to list all the secondhand books I've bought that I've set aside and forgotten. I have a box of them upstairs, and a selection of them on the downstairs bookshelf. I forget about them -- you know, too many books, too little time. LibraryThing should help me remember what I'm planning to read. Here's the link to my account: http://www.librarything.com/home/joanneLMT2

The mystery novels had a lot of people sharing the titles. The tango books were another story. Two other people shared my interest in one title, and no one else but me was listing the other one.

I found that LibraryThing has a widget I can embed on my blog. Here it is:



On Del.icio.us, I discovered this article about LibraryThing and its making available a million bookcover images to users: http://www.librarything.com/blog/2008/08/million-free-covers-from-librarything.php. Since we usually encounter copyright restrictions on using book cover images, I thought there might be some professional interest in this open source distribution.

Week Eight, Assignment #18

Week 8: Online Applications & Tools
#18. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.

I've set up a Zoho Writer account with the username joanneLMT2. I've imported a few documents that I might want to access from other computers.

Here are my discoveries. Zoho's Sheets are equivalent to Excel Spreadsheets. (I had no idea what "sheets" would be. I'm not used to this open source stuff.) Zoho Show lets you do prsentations (equivalent to PowerPoint, I expect). I sampled Zoho Mail. When I get to school, I know I will find this access point is blocked, as per school district policy. I'm embedding my Zoho Chat box here:

I'm finding this chat box very interesting. I've logged in and out to test whether any viewer can see the messages being sent. It appears they can't, that I have to be logged in to review what was said.

I've used Google docs in the past. We learned about this more than a year ago, from our library supervisor.

Week Seven, Assignment #17

#17. Add an entry to the Pennsylvania Curriculum Connection wiki.

I went to the PA Curriculum Connection wiki but I couldn't immediately play in the sandbox or edit a page because I didn't have the invite key. I emailed the administrator to ask for the invite key and she sent it to me. I then had to look around a lot before finding a place I could make an entry. There's supposed to be a sandbox, and I expected to find one with lots of other people's comments, but there's only a sandbox homepage with a welcoming message and a link to PA Curriculum Connections. It didn't look like a place for me to make a comment or to "play" with friends. I finally found a page under "Online Learning" where I felt I could make an entry and not mess up the main design of the site. I added the PA Online Web 2.0 link on this page: http://pacurriculum.pbwiki.com/ONLINE.

In May when someone e-mailed me for permission to add to this page, I looked around and saw that the page itself was redundant. Someone else had set up the page, but their postings were listed on other pages, so I deleted the "Online" page. Other people who wanted to post there would be better advised to post on one of the other available pages.

I'm wondering where other people who are following this "23 Things" online tutorial plan for PSLA are making their entries on the PA Curriculum Connection site.

Week Seven, Assignment #16A

#16A. Take a look at California's Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki.

I took a look at it. I can't say I want to play in the sandbox, but I did it anyway.
You can see my sentence with a link to this blog here: http://calcurriculum.pbwiki.com/SandBox

Week Seven, Assignment #16

Week 7: Wikis
#16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.

I went to pbwiki.com and found the note, "You don't have permission to comment on this page." I thought pbwiki was something I had access to. When I went to Joyce Valenza's session at last year's PSLA Conference, I found out about her pbwiki and I was able to access information on it.

I set up an account with pbwiki, so now apparently I can create a wiki, but since my school district bans access to any and all wikis, there's not much point in my trying to find a way I can use this in my school library.

I just went looking at Joyce Valenza's TeacherLibrarian Ning site, to see what I could find about pbwiki. I used the "search" feature, but only came up with the suggestion that librarians use the pbwiki for their libraries. I hate when I have to spend time searching for stuff like this. There's definitely an overload of librarian possibilities in my brain. On the positive side, along the way I saw some things I might want to go back to look at again.

Week Six, Assignment #15

#15: Read some perspectives on Web 2.0. Future of Libraries.

I'm reading the "Away from the 'icebergs' " perspective and I agree with Rick Anderson's views on the "just in case" collection. When I do collection building and I see the areas in which my middle school library is deemed lacking, I have the sneaking feeling that no one will ever check out the books that the "collection development experts" want me to buy. I don't need a "just in case" collection when all the information my students want is on the Internet. Collection development made sense when all materials had to be print materials, but that's not how students want to obtain their information these days.

Library 2.0, for me, means using the resources available on the Web to make information accessible to my library patrons. For school libraries, there are limitations imposed by our tech department, based on receiving government funding. It is against our school district rules to be able to access email other than school district email, blogs, instant messaging, wikis -- any means by which students can send or receive personal messages from non-approved personel. As I understand it, this restriction is related to our district receiving government funding. We didn't use to have this restriction -- it's all come about in the last couple of years.

My school library is able to use Web 2.0 blogs that are made within the School Center Web platform, for which our district pays an annual fee. It supposedly helps to keep students from accessing blog topics that would not be age-appropriate. (It doesn't block YouTube, though, and students access all kinds of materials on that, so blocking teacher access to many of the Web 2.0 materials -- like blogger -- really does not make a lot of sense.)

Continuation of Week Six, Assignment #14

#14 Continued

I just finished checking Technorati for popular posts, and I don't care for what I'm seeing. Boing Boing was listed as the most popular blog at the time I looked, and it had a posting about Cephaloerotica (erotica combined with the octopus). Is this supposed to interest me? I have better things to do with my time than to read this type of posting.

These are the 100 most popular tags today:
Apple Art Art and Photography BISNIS Blog Blogging Blogroll Blogs books Business Celebrities Christmas Culture Current Affairs Design Diary dreams and the supernatural Education Entertainment Environment events Family fashion Film Food Football Friends Fun Funny Games goals, plans, hopes Google hobbies Home Humor Internet iPhone Iraq jobs, work, careers Life Links Linux Love Marketing Media Microsoft Mobile MobLog Movie Movies movies, tv, celebrities mp3 Music Myspace News News and politics parties and nightlife PC People Personal photo Photography Photos Pictures Podcast Poetry Politics Quiz random Religion Religion and Philosophy Reviews Romance and Relationships School school, college, greek Science Shopping software Sport Sports Survey Tech technology Television thoughts TOPICS Travel travel and places TV Video Videos Web web 2.0 Weblog Windows wordpress Work Writing Writing and poetry youtube

I can't say that there's a single topic there that I'd care to spend time reading about. The only time I ever read a blog, it's school librarian related or tango related. (Ah, now you know my secret passion!)

I claimed my blog in Technorati. Here's my button:

Here's the button so you can add this blog to your Technorati favorites:

At the end of the process of claiming my blog, I see the note, "You have no authority yet." It's really not something I care enough about to pursue.