Podthoughts

After finishing my podcast, I have all these thoughts, here are just a few, in no particular order.

1. After listening to the podcasts of my classmates, I really wished I got the music sites to play properly so I could incorporate that into my podcast. Those intros/outros really helped set the tone of a piece.

2. I thought I sounded so great when I was doing my bit, but then listening to the finished product, it was all right, but not as great as I wanted it to be. Maybe using a script would be a better option.

3. I could really do a weed-of-the-month podcast. The library world could really use a podcast like that...It could be called, "What Not to Keep" or "Weed Wise" or "Weed Away" or "Something Weeded This Way Goes."

4.Weeding advice for specific sections could be the main focus of podcasts but a few podcasts could be set aside for more general weeding issues. The first episode could answer the question "why weed." Another podcast could be about general criteria for weeding. Another podcast could give suggestions on where to go to find replacements. Another could share ideas on what to do with books/materials once they have been weeded from the collection. Another podcast could include ways to "sell weeding" to the school population since it can be something that has to be defended." Those nuggets could be really useful, and the program could be created by several librarians, not just me.

Could I make this work?...I don't know...Hmm...

p.s. I've postdated this entry because I want it to be near my published podcast, and these are thoughts I woke up with last Sunday morning, so I figure it was better to put them by that date.

Look Ma! a Podcast!

I know she'll be proud. I also know she knows a lot about my podcast topic since she helped me in my library for two days straight! Thanks for all the hard work, Momma!
In my podcast I talk about weeding a library collection, plus I got to make "weed" a tag, which could disgruntle some listeners in search of something else.

Hear the work of students in LIS 460, including me!

Weed Wise: Atlases





Enjoy! And this below is my Podcast criteria, based on listening to several and trying my own hand at it. What do you think? Kudos to all those those succeed at this on a regular basis!

Good Podcasts ...

• are well paced, with little to no dead air
  
• if the podcast is too slow, a listener will lose interest
• if too fast, the listener won't be able to keep up
  
• are well edited
  
• with few ums, ahs, audible breaths, and/or dead space
• sections can be moved, shifted, deleted to fit the main idea of the podcast
  
• follow a logical progression
  
• it's less important that podcasters tell me what they are going to do then that they lead me on a journey in which I become invested
• stay focused and on topic
• include voices that are clear and articulate
• have a conversational manner or other persona
  
• allow us all to become This American Life documentarians
• voices are animated, not monotone
  
• engage the listener in some manner
  
• podcasters are aware that someone else is listening
• elicit listener response
• can make people laugh out loud or shiver or think
• stay within the allotted time
  
• good podcasts edit information to meet the podcast length.
  
• Grammar Girl just does ONE lesson in a podcast, one soundbite of information, not several
  
• take advantage of the form itself
• follow the Boy Scout Motto "Be Prepared"
  
• even if it is just lose notes, prep and planning is needed before the record button is ever pushed
• make all aspects of the podcast relevant
  
• if music is included it should support the main ideas or goals or tenor of the podcast program
  

What I found

We were asked to search the term "school library" in YouTube. Did our teacher know that Gale had been doing a contest called "I Love my Library" so there was an abundance of Library love vids on YouTube? Perhaps so. Still, after watching several (more than I'd like to admit to, and many that made me cringe,) I DID find this one, called Thank You Note from Green Gables Elementary School, which made me smile.

the joy of passwords

Blogger is now linked in with gmail. Apparently, this is old news, but as I am revisiting the blog world, this is new to me. In the meantime, I have managed to forget my username and password for Blogger. Is it my gmail address and password? Is it an email address at all? What password did I use? Unlike some, I have a few, but cant always keep it straight which is which. Then I think I figure it all out and for a while I get to change my password but find NO blogs in my dashboard so I have to try to resolve that. 20 hours later (or what seems like that) I figure it all out and finally get back in.

Around the same time Google Reader, my RSS reader, went all wonky and suddenly Google Reader only showed ONE feed, after I'd just added 5 to the 7 I already had. Another frustrating moment with my technology. Oh 2.0, why do you hurt me so.

There was an interesting article I found on a blog about adults using myspace, and at one point I would have been able to link to it, but I realize that is what began the debacle.

On a positive note, I found a site called GoodReads where one can leave book reviews and add their friends to their network so you can see what your friends and family are reading as well. The only drawback? There's a writing element where people can add their own original writing. This could be considered a good thing, but I'm leary of open authorship like that.

Begin again

So begins my new blog for my course in using technology in the Library Classroom. This is my 3rd or 4th blog...but I never manage to get them very far off that ground. I was going to use one I created for book reviews, but it seemed almost wrong to return to that blog and do something else with it.

This is fine though, I'll give it another try. With less than a week left of the school I work at, this could prove a pleasant distraction during the summer. Of course, all my tech problems usually happen during the school year, what will it be like without all that? I'm not sure.

I spent a good amount to this afternoon trying to figure out Twitter, GoogleTalk, and finding feeds for Google Reader. In the end, I created a gmail account (yes, I am one of the few who didn't have one yet), and feel like I'll have to start the process all over again. Once I get my Skype account running though, I should be able to turn in the assignment all this is for on the course Wiki. Fun stuff.