Horse with no name

Hi! For some reason this song is going round in my head today, so to help me work out why, here's a youtube video of it!



On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life There were plants and birds and rocks and things There was sand and hills and rings The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz And the sky with no clouds The heat was hot and the ground was dry But the air was full of sound I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La, la ... After two days in the desert sun My skin began to turn red After three days in the desert fun I was looking at a river bed And the story it told of a river that flowed Made me sad to think it was dead You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La, la ... After nine days I let the horse run free 'Cause the desert had turned to sea There were plants and birds and rocks and things there was sand and hills and rings The ocean is a desert with it's life underground And a perfect disguise above Under the cities lies a heart made of ground But the humans will give no love You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert you can remember your name 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain La, la ...

Well, now I've started this blog (and it's been a fascinating record of my journey into the Otherworld of Web 2.0) I would now like to continue it as a personal blog about the Celtic Otherworld. So my first post in that vein is a bit of blowing my own trumpet, because I've just had an article published on the web about Druidry, and particularly the ogham (a healing and divination system) in the Southern Hemisphere.

So the site is:

http://www.hibernianorderofdruids.com/

Click on "HOOD library"

Click on the picture of a Druid

Find my photo and blurb, and then click on the photo of a fern

Here you will find my article on "Being a Druid in a Foreign Land". Click on the acorns at the bottom of the page to scroll through the pages.

Click on the photos of the trees to the right for full size image and explanation of its place in the ogham.

This was the culmination of two years work, but being a Druid in a foreign land is an ongoing process of learning and discovery.

Blessings,
Willow

Task 23 Week 9-- my thoughts on ACL Learning 2.0

Wow! So here I am, at the end of the road, the top of the mountain, the finish line-- whatever you want to call it. But it's not really the end, it's really the beginning, because I know for a fact that the things I've learnt will stay with me and continue to be very useful to me. Bloglines has become part of my daily routine (for personal and work uses), Facebook has reunited me with my distant counsins in England, and many other of the tools I've been introduced to will become a part of my weekly routine, both at home and at work. I will also be doing what I can to enhance our patrons' knowledge of these tools, and offer training in their use in my computer training sessions. I'm also planning on suggesting a wiki or two to my manager.

What can I say? ACL Learning 2.0 has been an incredibly valuable programme! I've been very impressed with the programme throughout-- the way I was introduced to new technologies and led through my discoveries with them, the positive feedback, the environment of sharing, and most of all the fun, because when it's fun to learn, you really learn it!

I've just completed my online survey (from home) and (to avoid withdrawal symptoms :-) ) I'm planning on taking a look at some of the other 43 things-- so thanks for the link to that.

I was hoping the lessons will remain at the http://elgar-acllearn.blogspot.com/ website (and I think the idea of putting them on our library website is a great idea!)-- I can see myself going back to them in the future, for refreshers, and for the links they provide. Please let me know if this is not the case, and I will pull together a file of my own for future reference.

GREAT work guys, and again, THANK YOU!

Task 22 Week 9-- Net Library

I've set up a Net Library account and had a good look through the list of books there. I've actually added 12(!) books to my favourites list, and am particularly keen to read Awaken the Writer Within : A Sourcebook for Releasing Your Creativity and Finding Your True Writer's Voice and Everything You Need to Know About Writing Novels, Non-fiction, New Media, Scripts, and Short Stories.

Wow! What am amazing resource, and I'm flaberghasted I haven't been using it already. I have had a play around and started skimming through Awaken the Writer Within, which looks great. I must admit, though, that I really don't see this sort of resource replacing *actual* books for me. As I've said before, there's just something about holding and reading an actual book that you just can't replace.

Having said that, thought, this is definitely a resource I'll be promoting in the library now-- particularly the CliffsNotes for students.

Task 21 week 9-- Podcasts

Well, I've had a look at the podcast directories. I found Podcast Alley the most useful-- I was able to narrow down to my interest areas and find podcasts very quickly. I went a bit mad actually. I'd previously added American Writers.com creative writing podcast to my Bloglines, and before looking at the directories I found the National Geographic 'Walks of a Lifetime' podcast, which I added, and then looking through Podcast Alley I added another 3! I've got so many things in my Bloglines now, it's hard to keep up :-)

I recommend this podcast: National Geographic Walks of a Lifetime, link:

http://podcast.nationalgeographic.com/walks-of-a-lifetime

Pretty cool. A great way to be an armchair tourist!

As usual, I found all this a really easy and fascinating learning curve!

Task 19 week 8

After scanning through and taking a look at the huge list of sites in the Web 2.0 awards, I settled on Medstory http://www.medstory.com/

I was impressed with this site partly because it really did live up to it's claim of being an 'Intelligent Search for Health & Medicine', and partly because of its smart setup for refining your search.

One of the really smart features of this site is the use of the mini pop-up windows with helpful suggestions on how to refine or change your search. It uses a kind of mashtag that helps you quickly get to the specifics of exactly what you want to know, rather than having to trawl through endless irrelevant data.

I'm not sure if this is typical of most libraries, but I've fielded a number of questions from patrons about health matters, and after pointing them in the direction of appropriate books, and showing them our Digital Library, I have tentatively helped them with google searches-- with much trepidation as to the quality of the information they will find. I will now lead them to Medstory with far greater confidence. So, yes, it definitely has a useful application in a library setting.

It is also a great example of how to set up this kind of research tool.

So I'm back in order now-- onwards to task 21!

Stonehenge-- must see!

OK, so here's another You Tube video that you just have to watch.

This guy has worked out how one man!! could build Stonehenge...

Task 20, week 9

I'm getting ahead of myself, but I am already familiar with You Tube and have viewed many video clips on it (my partner keeps looking at video clips of people doing really crazy things on roller blades-- ouch! There's some mad people out there).

Anyway, the video I chose to view is much nicer, it's a video clip of Lisa Gerrard's song 'Sanvean'-- a beautiful song with surreal images. I love her music, so this had to be the one for me. The only thing I don't like about YouTube is that I often find the videos are too big for my PC to process and they skip and jump.

Application to library websites-- yeah, sure. We could have video clips of authors being interviewed about their works, or clips from movies and music as a 'teaser', or clips of award ceremonies, there's just heaps of possibilities, limited only by our imaginations!

This is the embedded video below:

Hello again! Task 18 addenda-- published from Zoho Writer

Well, hello Zoho Writer -- in theory a great tool. I particularly like the idea of having access to my documents wherever I am, though I have to wonder about reliability and security...

The look and feel of Zoho Writer is user friendly. I've found most of what I wanted to do very quickly.

Network issues today, have, however, made it a little flakey and I've had a number of difficulties in accessing Zoho itself and my documents. Once in, though, it's a great program. As they say, no problems with searching through menus-- all the functions are just a button away. I like the smileys-- pretty cool -- and I love the fact that it's smart enough to print to my own printer with no more difficulty than my usual wordprocessor.

However, having had so many problems with the network, I don't think I'll be throwing my normal wordprocessor out the window just yet. I'd probably just use Zoho Writer for those things I need to work on both at home and at work.

Task 18 week 8

The previous post, titled 'Hello' was written in Zoho and published to my blog from there. For some reason it cut off the end of the final sentence. Not sure what the problem was there, though the network issues we've been having today could well have had something to do with it.

So, as I said, I've created a free account and played around with Zoho: creating a couple of documents, having a play with its features, and even publishing a document to my blog! I'm impressed with the tool, but (as the rest of my sentence would have said) I'm not so impressed I'll be getting rid of my word processing program on my PC! At least with that, you don't have to worry about network connections!

I think that's it for task 18?

Hello

Well, hello Zoho Writer -- in theory a great tool. I particularly like the idea of having access to my documents wherever I am, though I have to wonder about reliability and security...

The look and feel of Zoho Writer is user friendly. I've found most of what I wanted to do very quickly.

Network issues today, have, however, made it a little flakey and

Task 17 Week 7

OK! Thanks for putting the password up! I’ve managed to log in, and have added:

My blog: Please note, however, that When I clicked on the ‘favourite blogs’ link on the home page, it took to me to someone’s blog—fairyland—just that, not to a list of links with the ability to edit the page to add mine. However, when I clicked on the 'favourite blogs' link on your lesson notes, I did get to a page with a list of blogs which I could edit. Hence I finally and gleefully added mine!

I also added:
My favourite books:
Tideland - by Mitch Cullin
The Lovely Bones - by Alice Sebold
The Bone People - by Keri Hulme

My favourite movie:
http://www.tidelandthemovie.com/ Tideland-- disturbing, surreal, haunting

So yay! After much frustration and banging of head on table (metaphorically speaking) I believe I have now completed Task 17!!! Thank you to Rosenpage and Geek Library Guy :-)

I think much of my frustration has been due to network issues today. Wikis are really easy to use, and I can see myself working with them more in the future.

Task 16 week 7 Addenda

I thought I’d done task 16, but in case it wasn’t clear, I believe wikis have a number of useful applications in libraries. Firstly, I believe the community notice board idea is great—so long as the library owns it and encourages groups to contribute to it regularly. Secondly, I believe the sharing of knowledge wikis are a fantastic tool for libraries—sharing library best practices, story time, readers’ advisory and display ideas across the world is very exciting and empowering. And finally, I believe that we can help patrons find great resources on wikis worldwide.

Task 17 week 7

No-- sorry, it's still clear as mud! :-) You say I need to create a log in-- but I can't see where or how to do that, and everything I've read/ watched implies that you need to have put my details in as someone you are sharing your site with, and then give me a password-- are we just completely at cross purposes here? Help!

Task 17 week 7

When I push the edit button, it asks me for a password-- what is it?

Thanks,

Willow

Task 16 Week 7

Well, I've done a lot of looking around at wikis, and here are my conclusions:

SJCPL Subject Guides: I thought this was a good idea, but wondered if it really worked as a wiki. I suppose it gave members of the local community an opportunity to put up notices, but really it is only going to work if lots of people contribute regularly. Book Lovers Wiki: I was a little disappointed by this one. I thought it was going to be a huge database, but it was actually quite limited. Library Thing is by far a better readers’ advisory site. This one just goes to show that a wiki only grows when there are lots of contributors. Library Success: A best practices wiki: I thought this one was fantastic, and what a brilliant idea! Heaps of resources in here that I’m sure we’ll all find very useful.

I particularly liked the Librarians’ book review ‘google’: http://ricklibrarian.googlepages.com/bookrevoogle
Though, again, NZ books were under-represented (perhaps we should do something about that!!).

So, I believe that a community notice board wiki could work well, so long as it was sufficiently promoted and used—perhaps libraries could be active in setting these up-- and that the sharing of ideas wikis are an excellent tool for libraries! I’m going in search of a children’s story time wiki, and am always on the look out for good readers’ advisory sites.

--- and I found: Readers’ advisory wikis:
http://iread.pbwiki.com/
http://www.tnrdlib.bc.ca/rr.html
http://www.allreaders.com/
http://www.inlandlib.org/Reference/readers.htm

Children’s storytime wikis:
http://www.scrldwiki.org/index.php/Booklist:Pre-School_Storytime_Favorites
http://www.dawcl.com/introduction.html for award winning children’s literature

All great, with heaps of potential!

In conclusion, the real power of the wiki is the ability to share and grow knowledge across the world. I don’t agree with coments on wikis not being very reliable (posted after the wiki, wiki, wiki blog—that they can’t be trusted and shouldn’t be used by research students) -- after all, an encyclopedia is only ever as good as its author, and they always have some kind of bias—just try reading an American encyclopedia and comparing it with a Russian encyclopedia, and you’ll soon get a sense of that. So long as you read with that in mind, wiki information is just as good as any, and what an empowering tool for bringing people with similar interests together to share knowledge!

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!