Tasks 1 & 2: "30 Positive Uses of Social Networking" & blogs!

Hello and Welcome to "Can you Tech it?", the Nelson County Public Library's technology 2.0 challenge! Over the next two months, we will be exploring some of the new technologies available to us, and discovering how we can use them, both personally and as librarians! Tasks will be posted one or two at a time, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with a catch up week at the end of December and one again at the end of the program. So without further ado, what you've all been waiting for....challenge one!

Task 1: "30 Positive Uses of Social Networking"

I hate to scare you all of with the first challenge, but I think that if you're going to read -anything- in this program it should be this first assignment. (Don't worry, this will be your only reading assignment, so just bear with me.) In October of 2006, YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association-- part of the ALA) blogged every day about the positive ways that social networking sites can be used. This was done in response to DOPA, a proposed bill that would require libraries that receive a certain type of federal funding to block all social networking sites from their public computers. It is important that we remember that while we only hear on the news about the ways that these sites are being abused, the positive ways that these sites can be used outweigh the negative.

Now I know what you're thinking. Why should we cater to just the kids? Isn't this something that the YA librarians should be dealing with? That's where you would be wrong. According to studies, over half of Myspace.com's users are over 35. This information is relevant to all of our patrons, young and old. So read the compilation here, and start thinking about social networking sites differently. (You may need to download Adobe Acrobat reader, if you don't already have it.)

Task 2: Blogs!

Blog is short for "weblog", an online journal which makes it easy to publish on the web. Blogs are usually set up so that the newest posts are at the top, pushing the older posts down and eventually into some sort of archive. Blogs can be used for announcements, for someone's thoughts and opinions, or telling the great big world wide web what you had for lunch today. There are no right or wrong topics to blog about, though I doubt unless you're Brad Pitt or Paris Hilton anyone is really going to care about what you had for lunch. For this task, we will be setting up our own blogs to chronicle our journey through all 23 tasks. These will be where you will record your thoughts on whichever task you are working on, from whether you like it or not, to what ideas you might have for its use at the library. But first, we must set up our blogs.

There are many different blogging programs, some of which are hosted on your own webspace, and others like Blogger, which can be hosted on their server. The service is free, and each service has it's own perks. (A personal example, Livejournal.com is a blogging site that allows you to upload user icons, little 100x100 pixel images which accompany your posts. These icons are so addictive, the company sells additional icon space to users who absolutely must have more than seven. Crazy but true.) You may set up a blog anywhere you feel comfortable, but I would recommend Blogger for this program, as this is the service I am providing instructions for.

Creating a blog using Blogger takes just three steps:

1. Create an account (view screenshot)
2. Name your blog (view screenshot)
3. Select your template. (view screenshot)

Make sure you write down your username and password, as you'll need to login in order to edit or post to your blog.

Activites:

1. Start a blog. Leave the link in a comment to this post. (Click on "comments" at the bottom of this post, and leave your comment in the box on the right. (Make sure to hit "publish"!)

2. Start blogging! (When you are logged in, click on "new post". When you are done, click on "publish!"
Introduce yourself (blogging anonymously is also allowed, though in order to win a prize you will be required to tell -me- which blog is yours), and respond to the "30 Positive Uses of Social Networking" we just read. Do you agree? Disagree? Remember, you don't have to like everything we do. In fact, you don't even have to like -anything- we do. The point of this program is to allow you to become more familiar with what is available, and how to use it.

3. Come back and browse through some of the other participant blogs. Leave a comment!

Bonus:
(The bonus task is not required to win the challenge, but just an extra step for those who feel comfortable enough to play a little more. Do not feel obligated to do this!)

See that map with the red dots on it? The one on the right that says visitor locations? That is a clustr map. A clustr map is a Mashup, a popular web service which takes the cool functions from at least two seperate web services and adds them together to make something different. In this case, a clustr map takes a traffic counter and mashes it up with google maps. Suddenly, you've got a traffic counter which not only tells you how many people have visited your site, but also shows you -where- your visitors are coming from. Pretty cool, huh? Try adding your own clustr map to your blog.

Hint: You'll need to edit your layout for this. When you're logged in, click on manage layout, add a new element, and then select HTML/Javascript from the list of available choices. Copy the clustr map code that they give you, and paste it into the content box. After you click save, you will be able to click and drag your clustr map to wherever you want it to be on the page. Click preview to make sure everything looks alright, and then click save to save your changes. If you don't like it, don't panic! You can always click edit and remove the map if you want to.

If you've made it this far, congratulations! Only 21 more to go!