Week #9, thing #23--Finis!

In my library, I have a laminated page from an EGM magazine, which is a paid advertisement from a man who was sentenced for videogame piracy. (The ad is part of carrying out his sentence.) I show this to many of my students who hold the position that nothing is wrong unless you get caught: cheating, dodging copyright, anything, in short. And the cut & paste culture of students on the web is their practiced community of "I'm right as long as you don't catch me!" (And then they argue that it was the other kid who copied them...) We all face it.
I keep a manual of what constitutes fair use, and what does not. But I also believe that the work I do should be shared by whoever likes it well enough to want to use it. I suppose I'm a creative commons kind of girl. But, it's also not my paycheck.

My favorite parts of this were wikis and LibraryThing. I liked reading the other linked blogs on the course page, and reading the histories on the wiki pages. I think that I will like the other tools when I have a need for them, but without a defined purpose, it's hard to choose what they should do.

I'm glad I stuck it out, when I thought I had left it too long to come back and finish. I would have missed out on some good stuff.

Week #9, thing #22

World eBook Fair was a lot to poke through. I liked LibriVox better. Reading their explanation of copyright and public domain was amusing, too, in a sort of odd way. The examples they gave of how people might use their recordings, well... what do you say to that! I have in the past used short text from POWER Library's ebook collection when looking for things my teachers ask about-- giving them the exact wording or the context, and so forth. A good resource, but I don't think it will ever really replace bound books. I wonder, too, with the difference in how we read online and how we read in print, will thought patterns of our readers adjust?

Week #8, thing #21

I find myself to be a bit impatient with podcasts. But that's me. My son (20, and in school for CST and networking) loves the Leo Laporte podcasts. He listens to/ watches them quite constantly. While he's doing that, I find that I will tune in for some bits, and tune out the rest.
Leo's Tech Guy stuff is a lot like a radio talkshow, with the topic of the day, segments from other contributors and q&a time.

Part of the problem with the exercise, though, was a couple of the links not working. I did get through, and looked around for cool stuff.

Week #9, thing #20

Playing on YouTube is fun. My favorite animal is a hedgehog, even though I don't have any as pets. So I want to share the cute little beasties, with this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0A13d1UxfA&feature=related

It is a very different sort of fun, though, that playing on Library Thing. I'm not such a fan of the total "anything goes" mindset, liking things a bit more categorized myself. Various bits frequently come up on the site relating to the district I work in, and they range from the kudos to 'what a shame!'

Week #8, Thing #19

LOVE IT! I had so much fun on Library Thing, adding my books and seeing how my reading tases are really all over the map. With the small part of my collection (my personal one) I added, I shared titles with from over 15000 to 81 others. And I'm going looking for some of the reccommendations as soon as I can.

first try

   

Week #8, thing #18

 

 

So, trying my hand at Zoho Writer... I use spreadsheets in GoogleDocs with my teaching team at school, but another team member set that up.  This promises to have the same real-time and sharing capabilities.  Is it maybe just a matter of personal preference?!

When I get frustrated with myself in this course, I start looking at the other blogs linked on the course page. One of the ones I just read (while waiting to find out what the invite key is to complete thing #18) suggested requiring participants to follow others' blogs. I agree!