phew.

i finished my last story telling assignment this evening. now the only thing standing in the way of finishing the semester is this darn html assignment. i'll get it done, i'm just grumbling at bit.

the power was out on our street for a few hours so no that i've got an internet connection again i can get back into it. i've made a new draft on google creator that i like much more than what i fashioned on amaya. unfortunately, i don't see the obvious way to save the code in google creator. i've got to keep working on it, i'm certain the solution will surface.

i'll be in germantown all morning at st. vincent's (summer reading outreach). then, off to see apartments in the pm. this weekend i'm challenging myself to finish the last bit of the html work and put my portfolio together.

i'm in a no cap mood.

good night!

Thoreau Link

http://moraudrey.googlepages.com/amorgan_thoreau_fragment1

I've still got a bunch to do but here is version 2.0 of my layout...

Pic-ish

Now that I've got everything uploaded, files shared and what not I'm not able to see the picture from Pitt's site...urg.

I'll see what I can do.

Solution

To fix my misalignment issues with the pic I decided to scrap the idea and mix a paint background I call "old book beige".

Amaya trouble

I've been trying to align background images of old book pages but the pages won't lock with the text. Subtle shifting keeps happening making it look awful!

The Darkest Knight

Chris and I joined a bunch of friends to see the latest installment of the cape crusader. Of course the visual effects were phenomenal and Heath Ledger, eerie as all get out. We figured we deserved a break from all the work we've been up to. I'm nearing completion of my final assignment. Given that it will be well into the 90's today I'm headed to the coffee shop to beat the heat infesting my apartment. Speaking of apartments, we looked at two apartments before the movie and are close to lining something up. I'll be so relieved to know where we'll be living. Wedding planning update - I received my shipment of doilies which means operation Martha Stewart paper lantern has begun. Armed with spray fixative I'm destined to greatness.

P.S. For all you comic/graphic novel lovers, the preview for Watchmen is amazing! Check it out!

Vietnamese anyone?

Spring rolls here I come!

Chris and I are in the midst of a frantic apartment search. Keeping up with school work hasn't been difficult, only life's many distractions keep me from really meditating on the issues at hand. (Can this confession be held against me?)

I crossed the 600 mark this week, my second week doing Summer Reading Outreach in Germantown, Mt. Airy, and East Falls. We're challenged to see 2000 kids over the course of the summer. While I'm pleased the progress I need to make MANY more contacts. Libraries are tyrannically ruled by statistics. I understand what they are supposed to measure but they fall far short of really being meaningful.

One principal at a local elementary shared a pretty cynical view of libraries as we talked Friday morning. I was excited to tell her about the new relevance and vision of libraries here in this digital age. The skepticism clouding her eyes lessened the more we talked. I had a similar conversation with an old friend this week. We hadn't spoken to one another in quite a while so he was just finding out about my interest in librarianship. He couldn't figure out how I could follow a path beginning in the art world and land in a library. :) After discussing the relevance of public libraries and the technological explosion around us he shared my epiphany and suddenly saw libraries in a totally different way. Not as they are in our memories or in the present transitional state but in the light of the future of libraries. In a society that has reordered the familiar, where the stuffy quite library of the elite has become the heart of a community. How? By working to equalize the growing digital divide, providing free information to ALL, supporting community development through hosting events and activities, feeding the hunger for literacy skills and more.

Summer reading chaos :)

School of Life

I Met The Walrus

Contents of my Koha virtual bookshelf

The storyteller's start-up book/ MacDonald, Margaret Read.
Three-minute tales/ MacDonald, Margaret Read.
Mythology/ Hamilton, Edith.
More ready-to-tell tales from around the world.
The jungle books/ Kipling, Rudyard.
Moby-Dick, or, The whale/ Melville, Herman.
The portable Kipling/ Kipling, Rudyard.
Language and gender in the fairy tale tradition/ Levorato, Alessandra.
Chinnubbie and the owl/ Posey, Alexander Lawrence.
The World's great folktales.
African folktales.
The wonderful treasure horse.
Fantastic theater/ Sierra, Judy.
Earth care.
Peace tales.
Tell the world.
The round book.
Five-minute tales/ MacDonald, Margaret Read.
The true story of the Three Little Pigs/ Sciezka, Jon.
Quests & spells.
Beastly rhymes to read after dark/ Sierra, Judy.
The flannel board storytelling book/ Sierra, Judy.
The sea of gold, and other tales from Japan/ Uchida, Yoshiko.
The encyclopedia of Celtic mythology and folklore/ Monaghan, Patricia.
South American wonder tales/ Carpenter, Frances.

I have to say, I don't really understand what Koha is... Sure, I have a collection of cataloging information there but the actual book is not available. I'm still trying to understand the relevance.

In other news Chris and I gobbled up a lovely brunch at the Stone Barn (We'll also be having our wedding reception there). This was a much needed break from the chaos that has been my life in the past two weeks. I went from working round the clock at Teacher's Summer Institute to diving head first into more wedding planning, classwork, and physically exhausting summer reading outreach. I should really have a car for all the stuff I'm lugging around.

I'm off to learn "Puchika Churika", a traditional Siberian tale, for my story telling performance this week. Wish me luck. :)

Last night I converted yet another soul to Del.icio.us and talked at length through the Google Apps Hacks text. My best friend is in the midst of a start up busines, Google's SaaS is empowering, not to mention Google Scholars simplification of her blogging addiction.

Noise Control

Shhhh. If only my block knew how to keep their volume down. I think I know everyone's business on the block just from having my window open a little bit. Got any technology for that?

It sure isn't helping me get this assignment done...GRR!

3 thousand words - a taste of my life

History of the Fist Bump

The second coming?

Jesus spotted in ultrasound image?

heaven help us!

TSI Wrap Up

By the end of the Teacher's Summer Institute at Moore I'd begun sending these teachers Jing tutorials. A few weeks ago I would have laughed off the practicality of the software in my everyday. Ironic. :) It was fun to set up Del.icio.us accounts with them and explain the relevance of Google Reader. The result, 15 additional teachers making order of online chaos and a lot of savvy Google app users. Awesome!

Update from TSI

I'm in the midst of working with the Teachers Summer Institute here at Moore College of Art and Design. We've gathered to explore the "Transformative Power of Art". Our guests include educators from Philadelphia as well as Colombia, South America. Our time with Matty Hart and Ted Enoch of Spiral Q was phenomenal, truly inspiring stuff! Today we also had the great pleasure of spending time in historic Eastern State Penitentiary. (Which by the way was just being used to film part of Transformers 2.) The cite specific works there at Eastern State are really captivating installations. I'm reawakened by the refreshing variety of media, concept, format, and tone.

So, how does this relate to Intro to Information Tech? Well, a few things come to mind. When listening to Matty Hart make his key note speech I could rejoice within knowing how he embedded the videos in his power point. In addition, I was able to recommend Del.icio.us to some art teachers in great need of centralized bookmarking tools available online. Ok, so they may not mean much but they are proof I'm learning and assimilating something. :)

Social Media in Plain English by Common Craft

Sharing this wealth of knowledge = empowerment

It's been exciting to share my growing awareness of these programs with others. :) My fiance is loving Anywhere.FM and I'm on a crusade to convert the masses to Gmail/Google Documents use. My father is working on a Masters in Divinity (a much more intense degree program)and really benefiting from the research tools we're exploring. This empowerment is the aspect of librarianship that most appeals to me. In order to be most effective and helpful I need to commit to keeping myself in the "know".

"How To" project using Jing

Firefox extension for Delicious

This embedded link will connect you to my tutorial. I'm going to see if I can tweak the size of the recording to make it fit in my blog. At the moment the video is much larger than my page design. :) Ah, the joys of new technology.

Brief JING Tutorial

Google Docs

I'm knocking these assignments out like this "wack a mole" :)

Completion

I found WorldCat to be a really useful tool. I did have some trouble transferring my WorldCat content into Google Docs. This hang up seemed to have been caused by incompatibility with any existing programs on my computer. Without an existing Excel format I could not save the content in a way that would accurately transfer cells of information into GoogleDocs. Urg. After fumbling around with this issue at home I was able to successfully complete the transfer at the library.

Speaking of Derivative Works :) - The TRUE Origin of the Dark Knight

P.S. Because I don't have Microsoft Excel on my laptop I'm having a tricky time getting my WorldCat files into GoogleDocs. I'm going to try it at work tomorrow.

Sex ePistles - "Pretty Vacant"

http://www.sarumblue.com/vacant/windex.html

Library Punk :)

120,119,118,117,116,115,114,113,112,111...1...0!

Now I'm attempting to figure out RefWorks. Urg! This assignment is taking much longer than I'd expected. I find I waste a lot of time trying to figure each program out. I was really grateful to discover Zotero had an instructional tutorial/introduction on the first page of their website. I'll be scouring YouTube for others when not provided by the site...

One down many more to go

Del.icio.us has me side tracked. I've collect my quota and now flouncing through other collections. My father is my recent Del.ico.us convert. Del.ico.us addictions have begun to run rampant among my friends; i'd compare it to the zombie application on Facebook, but there are no un-dead involved.

I've been poking around the other sites but haven't completed the quotas as of yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVnfyradCPY
Zombies in Plain English :)

Blossom - Now that was a good show. Sometimes I get out my Blossom hat and just cry.

I'm in the midst of reading Call of the Wild which got me thinking about parallels between the Gold Rush and the Dotcom boom. The same compelling spirit of possibility continues to spark frantic leaps into new technologies. 

Chris stole my glasses. Thanks to some fancy thumb wrestling on my part I've recovered them. 

Side note, despite all of our technological advances in the new millennium I'm terrified that a group of people put their heads together and decided that what we really need is more 90210. Ugh. How uninspiring.

P.S. Weezer's new video rocks my socks!

While I love being able to secure train tickets online, technology seems inhibiting my communication skills. I'm constantly clarifying statements shared via gmail messaging or via texts. In fact my fiance sat me down this evening and declared he will not communicate through these channels anymore.

Aarg! Even the kids at the library have been complaining about the "cyber bullies" in their life.

In other news, I'm taking photos but of all the "wrong" stuff. I promised technology inspired photographic works, instead I've been entranced by the fragrant blossoms all around.

Tomorrow is officially assignment kick-butt day. I'm on a mission to check something off of our list. Del.icio.us was previously annihilated, Connotea, watch out!

Oh, wanted to mention that the Free Library will be launching their summer reading program online this year. Pretty cool, right? Now you can use a resource, post a review, and fill out raffle tickets all from your comfy couch. The site will be up in two weeks. I'll be sure to add the link and offer some feedback. I'm wondering how user friendly it will really be. I also found out that one woman is in charge screening ALL user reviews. She also happens to be doing a lot of other things. This makes me wonder if reviews will really be posted. Not sure how this will unfold.

Catch of the Day: WEEZER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI
How many YouTube celebs can you spot?

Thumbs way up for Google Docs

Google Docs has been one of my favorite Google account perks for some time. I was first introduced to the resource last semester while collaborating with a student in the Virgin Islands on an assignment. I now use it all the time. The document application has even simplified my wedding planning. My fiance and I can collaboratively edit our guest list without sending a thousand emails. Awesome.

Oh Glorious Dawning

Photography is one of my great loves. As an extension of course content integration, I will be collecting images to shape a visual digital diary.

This is my godson, Finn. He super cute, right? (Oh, and don't worry, his fingers aren't abnormally large. It's called foreshortening :) He may be more computer savvy than I am. He's just three years old and easily navigates the Internet perusing for his favorite educational websites and games, it's astounding! For adults with little computer experience the growing technology requirements of the workplace can be seemingly insurmountable hurdles keeping them from employment. Even the local grocery stores only accept applications online.

Common Craft videos know how to break it down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc

Love this guys stuff!

Down by One

This blogging requirement is proving to be tough for me. I didn't start the week with a plan of attack which means here we are on Saturday and I'm behind by one in the bottom of the eighth. I'll conquer this; watch out week three!

Ok. Time for some brief reflections.

After recovering from the size and sheer poundage of Discovering Computers, I've found the text a practical guide. The 'Ethics & Issues' blurbs are particularly thought provoking. Social networking sites are hot right now, really hot. Kids, teens and adults at the branch I work at are all obsessed with making their pages extensions of themselves. Some are truly awesome! I love to see the collaboration, to see the huge amounts of creativity they pour into making their pages great sensory experiences. Even their typing skills improve from all the messages they work on. Yet half the MySpace users at our branch are kids under the age of 14 which means they've lied about their age to set up a page. As a staff member I feel some responsibility to protect these children. I've done some presentations to share ways to protect themselves online but few choose to be careful. Some even post very provocative pics. Not to mention the increasing amount of Internet bullying.

More on these issues later.

Graffiti by Marcofolio

I love the idea of Del.icio.us; millions of people working together to bring order to the chaos of the internet. While these "folksonomies" represent tremendous collaborative accomplishment, generally techie trends capture little of my attention. 

This class seems like it will be the kick in the pants I've needed to get into these excellent technological resources.