Books for the Beast

I know I haven't posted in a while and then two in one day - well I actually have something to say. On Saturday, I went to the biannual Books for the Beast conference near Baltimore. It is a Young Adult Literature conference where participants read a group of books from two genres and then get together to discuss them. They even recruit teenagers to come free to event. I picked Real Life and Science Fiction/Fantasy. I found that it was very interesting to discuss these with professionals from Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and beyond. There was only one teen in my Real Life discussion but I enjoyed getting a better handle on some books for reader's advisory.

I wasn't able to get or read all 10 books, and found that like the teen lit I remember, they are pretty predictable but enjoyable.

Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci
Victoria, a.k.a. Egg, is living in a fantasy world of her own creation. Living in Hollywood with an actress mother and creature creator father, she idolizes her movie heroine and is a loner until she meets the new boy Max and realizes that there's more to life than being "boy proof."

Jason & Kyra by Dana Davidson
This was the steamiest of the books on the list and I think my teen audience may really like it despite the happy ending. Good looking, popular and sporty Jason happens to actually be smart and falls for Kyra. Kyra smart, happy and actually pretty (once you get past other characters prejudices) falls for Jason. Once the girlfriend is out of the picture, the relationship story centers on sex, trust and forgiveness.

Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar
This book had me laughing out loud. It's always hard to pick books for guys unless they are SF/Fantasy but I think this one may work. Scott Hudson and his friends are beginning high school and trying to stay friends, get a girlfriend and survive the year. This story hinges on the fact that life changes and that you can't control where it goes just find out how to enjoy the ride.

So Hard to Say by Alex Sanchez
Xio (C.O.) and Frederick are locked in that first relationship figuring things out struggle. Set in a Latino community, Frederick arrives from Minnesota and begins to worry if he is really gay. Not an easy book to recommend to someone who's in the same situation but a good read for anyone as it deals with stereotypes and uncertainties. The story gains by alternating chapters told by the two main characters. Much is unresolved but so much always is.

Tithe by Holly Black
An interesting modern faerie tale as the subtitle announces. Kay is going along semi-happily with her wannabe rock star mother until an odd attack leads them back to her grandmother's in a dying New Jersey town. She has always known faeries but gets drawn into their world and finds everything is not as it seemed as a battle ranges between faerie courts and subjects. The writing style is overdone at times and some scenes feel forced but some in our group said Black's other books in the series get much better.

The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber
This was a major fractured fairy tale. The beginning had me stumped as to where we were going but I enjoyed the ride. Lump, a very ugly baby, is found and raised by a witch. He is spoiled and ungrateful and spends the rest of the novel on his journey to redemption. The cast include Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, a little Midas and more.

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan
I read this book first as it was short stories and I thought it would be a nice starting place for my Books for the Beast journey. The stories were very odd though. Some I really liked (My Lord's Man and Wooden Bride) and wanted so much more and others (Red Nose Day) were just too strange. I also felt that the story unfolded too quickly while still leaving details out; it felt like when you catch a movie in the middle and not knowing how the story got there. Many in our group reread them several times to find the details. As a group we thought that it should be recommended for teens to read the ones that they liked but not necessarily the whole. The stories are so different that there is a little for everyone touching on prejudice, hatred, greed, betrayal, sacrifice and loss.

E-Austen

I get a little email every day called Library Link of the Day with link to a news story of interest to libraries. Yesterday I found this one in my mail and thought it was a great mashup of my favorite things: libraries, technology and Austen. Two comments even let readers know that they can get these things FREE from the public library - YEAH!!!

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/technology_internetcritic/2007/10/reading-jane-au.html
Reading Jane Austen on a BlackBerry -- Reader, I Liked It [Chicago Tribune]



To get your own Library Link of the Day http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/

A few good books

I know it's a bit after summer but here are a few of my good reads to take us into fall. Many of these are on my LibraryThing but I wanted to add my thoughts on these. I hope to add a few more posts like this soon.

Austenland by Shannon Hale
This is a book published this year which was a great fun read. I am a Jane Austen nut so the story was right up my alley. The main character, Jane Hays gets to live out her Jane Austen fantasy at a period strict resort. A little contrived but fun all the way through.

Pride and Prejudice And Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
OK, I can't write about my good reads without including my favorites.

P&P is the classic romance tome with the wonderful language and wit of Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett as they struggle with and against pride, prejudice and love. I have read and watched (many versions) so many times my husband doesn't know what to do with me. Each perusal bring something new so I just can't resist and it's just such a nice relaxing read.

Mansfield Park is such a different book. Romance and marriage are a key themes but there is much more to explore. Fanny Price is the poor offspring of a family with too many children sent to live with wealthy relations. Class divisions are very evident in this book but it creates a wonderfully woven story speaking to class, love, lust, and finding one's true self. I love this book for the triumph of goodness and for making the reader think about consequences of one's actions.

Pride and Prescience: Or, A Truth Universally Acknowledged by Carrie Bebris

I am a purist and don't always like to go beyond the story, but this was very different. A mystery story beginning right after Elizabeth Bennett becomes Mrs. Darcy. The plot isn't a classic who-done it but contains magical themes and grabs the reader with the familiar characters with a little bit more development.

Post 2.0

Now that I've finished this project, I'm trying to keep more up to date. A colleague emailed the page below on concepts all librarians need to know. It was very interesting but still a little techie for me. Definitely good to be aware of what all those acronyms mean and where to go for more information.

http://otherlibrarian.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/under-the-hood-of-web-20-the-top-ten-programming-concepts-for-librarians-to-understand/

Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0 - 23 Things DONE!

Well, I've finally made it to the last Thing: my overall thoughts. I have found this program to be both taxing and rewarding. It took at lot of time to finish the discovery exercises for some of the Things although some took more time because they were too much fun. As with all technology (and really anything in life), discovery is only the beginning. If you don't apply your knowledge from time to time you forget - does anyone remember how to do quadrilateral equations? Thus the Things that will stay with me the most are those that I use frequently which I suppose is the greatest challenge out of this program.

Blogging has been lots of fun and I plan on trying to post something at least every month. Now I can expand on more topics and maybe write about the books that I added to LibraryThing. I also think that the downloadable books part will be helpful for assisting and suggesting to customers for home use.

As for where to go from here, I think that we need to continuously review and expand on the Things explored here. To remain relevant in the library world we need to understand the technologies out there and how our customers can use them both in and outside of the library (often very different experiences).

This was a very unique way to continue my learning at my own pace and would love to do something similar again. Having several colleagues participating was a great motivation to keep moving as was my system's incentive and support.

Books & the digital world

As I get close to finishing my 23 Things, today I looked at our offerings for downloadable audio books. When I had a long commute, audio books were a staple for me but now that I spend so little time in the car, I just don't get the time although I really like them and their digital counterparts. The Overdrive Digital Media Guided Tour was long but was very informative for a novice. Netlibrary is similar but the Overdrive tour was so good that it made me try it out. It was very easy to sign on, locate some interesting books and download them. I don't have my digital player yet to use these most effectively so I just have to locate a CD-RW and I think I'll be in business. A long car ride should be much more interesting next time for the whole family.

Project Gutenberg was another site to explore but these books were digital copies to read. I like the computer but can't bring myself to read too much on the screen. Spending all day in front of a screen probably contributes to this aversion.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a great idea if you know what you want. I found that the sites I checked out were really hard to use if you just wanted to check it out. Their subjects were too broad and not clearly defined; key words gave me too many hits and too many false hits. Also the main page for each series was only as good as it's description and tags. There was one for booktalks with over 350 casts. It looked good at first but with only title and author I found it daunting to identify YA titles.

Looking at the Merlin site was much easier because it directed me to websites that I was interested in with podcasts that I wanted to hear. I really liked Kankakee Public Library's site which had casts for YA topics so I added this into my Bloglines. Once I get my MP3 player, I'll try my hand at downloading!?!

Podcast.net
Podcastalley.com
Yahoo Podcasts
MERLIN podcasting learning link

http://www.bloglines.com/public/jonesjennifere

No Cookies in the Library - Classic Sesame Street

I really like this video and have added it to my YouTube favorites. I was directed there years ago but can't remember by whom (sorry no citation). YouTube is one of my favorite 2.0 websites even if I don't think I'll ever upload anything.

There is so much neat stuff for entertainment but there's also so much more. It will be fascinating to see how upcoming elections are affected by use of this medium. I even got to see some BBC footage of flooding in Stratford-upon-Avon England from earlier this summer. How cool is it to be able to tap into sights and sounds around the world!

Award winning 2.0 sites

This Thing asked us to check out http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0 and explore some award winning 2.0 sites that are out there. I clicked on a few categories and found that most of the ones I was interested in, I had already heard of or used the award winners. I guess that means that I'm not so cutting edge, but that's not much of a surprise.

I also discovered that these sites are only as good as the users who contribute. Looking at City Guides & Reviews, http://www.yelp.com/, and Real Estate, http://www.housingmaps.com/, showed that the major cities have good coverage but it's hit or miss in other places, even in the suburbs outside of the big cities. This is a major drawback when looking for a different restaurant or choosing a house. As I've said before, many of these sites have potential but without proper execution and buy in, they end up just being time wasters instead.

Open Source Software

As you will see from the very long post below, I published a document made in Google Docs on my notes from ALA Conference in June. Overall, I think open source software will be the hot new thing that will overtake the proprietary market. I have to say that Google Docs was easy to use although I did miss the auto-edit/correction feature of Word (as annoying as it can be when it does what you don't want) and liked that I could even save it as a pdf.

Open source has so many advantages. I will definitely recommend it to customers with Macs who need to use library PC's. And more and more library systems are embracing the customization and flexibility of open source catalog databases. The software companies need to wake up and find a new niche because no one will want to pay exorbitant prices for software that continuously needs to be updated if they can get current and easy accessible free stuff online. I'd even be willing to say goodbye to auto-edit.

ALA Notes

YALSA Beginner's Guide to Teens in Libraries

Friday, 6/22/2007 , 8:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Amy Alesio, Teen Coordinator at the Schaumburg (IL) Township District Library

Nick Buron, Queens Borough Public Library

This was an excellent preconference. Amy and Nick are very passionate about YA service and I'm still digesting it all.

Have your definition of teen and know it – can vary system to system – what is our mission for these kids?

Demographics – how many teens; who are they; where they are

School – graduation rate; college entrance; military

Social Services – foster care; assistance

Hang out – where – talk to them to find out

Great @ door when schools out and then 15 minutes later=are you settling in – give them the 15 minute window to unwind and then crack down

Amy had a 20% increase in programs after using MySpace

Goodreads.com

Find a way to say yes – don’t always say no

Follow up with teen service (or any for that matter) – Here’s the information you asked for, now go get an A – Let me know what grade we got (from a HCPL LA)

Interact while walking side by side to the stacks – don’t just want in front – use the opportunity

Bad behavior – "Selected" themselves to be kicked out – teens will live up to your expectations though

TAG project - $100 (can be fictional) what would you buy – make them stick to the budget – better idea of how material selected and get a feel for budgeting – work with Materials to actually let them buy a certain amount of material

PLA -LD Who's In Charge? I Am?! How to Be the Person in Charge; How to Train Your Staff to Be in Charge

Saturday, 6/23/2007 , 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Brett Lear, Jefferson County (CO) Public Library

Ann Bever, Assistant Manager, Dallas Public Library

Mary Jo Giudice, Branch Manager, Dallas Public Library

Marcia Trent, Branch Administrator, Dallas Public Library

Not a lot of new thoughts here but a very worthwhile session.

lead by example - be there, 1st in last out

buy donuts

get to know staff - listen - base approach on personality - find the best way to communicate with each person (don't' schedule morning meetings with a night person)

be accessible

confide in a plant or pet

solve problems quickly when possible

put yourself on hold - detach - avoid hurt feelings - end with laughter

give feedback generously - no such thing as over communication - monthly staff meetings, use of white and bulletin boards, put signs in bathrooms, kitchen/lounge, taped to tables

lead means to let go of the reigns - make staff part of process

management - directing resources and people - art or science of achieving goals through people

coach and mentor - hire for attitude, train for aptitude

don't just make decisions for staff - what do you want to do

ALSC Libraries + Lobbying = Success

Saturday, 6/23/2007 , 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Kathleein Reif, Director, St. Mary's County Library, MD

Maria Salvadore, Salvadore Consulting, DC

Emily Sheketoff, Associate Executive Director, Washington Office ALA

I hadn't anticipated attending this session, but another I tried to get into was so packed, I couldn't get in the door so this was my second choice and very interesting. Much of this was a review but sometimes hearing it in another way helps bring it home.

what do we want to achieve - am I asking the right questions - who is the right person to do the asking

keep message fresh - use stories shared w/passion

build local partnerships - get informed, get active

3 R's - Relationships, Resources, Results

relationships make the world go round - be in the community listening

how does my library help solve a problem - are we doing what we say we are doing - why does what I do matter

talk about your services in their language - not in library language

resources - never enough staff or money so get over it and do what you do

All staff need to know the marketing speech - 5 minute, 30 second and 90 second - why are we important - educate staff and customers

We are a trusted profession but if we don't make ourselves heard $ will be cut

results - significant programs & statistics - passionate stories of success

form relationships w/ local legislators - face-to-face best method for getting what matters to you across - keep it brief - connect it to the constituents

be specific, informative, courteous and follow up (shows you can and pay attention even if you don't get the desired result)

non-traditional allies - chamber of commerce, medical groups, children's literacy groups, authors, community leaders

use the media - we are the feel good story

Mario Ascencio’s REFORMA party

Mario has been a librarian in the DC area and passionately involved with REFORMA for years. His parties are always an interesting mix but this had a more library flair, celebrating his inauguration as president of REFORMA.

YALSA Trend Setters in Teen Literature

Sunday, 6/24/2007 , 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

This was a packed session and I had to find a spot on the floor. One of the panelists was Perry Moore who was the producer and force behind the recent Chronicles of Narnia movie. I really enjoyed his passion and look forward to reading his new novel, Hero. There was a lot to absorb and few notes but here are the highlights.

6 Trends

1. Books for older teens

2. Adult authors writing for teens

3. "Feminization" of literature - feature of women characters in fiction and NF, ethnically diverse role models

4. International authorship

5. New/Noteworthy forms - GN, series, continuations, diaries/letter forms, scripts, epic pagination, American ethnic experiences, companion novels, combined forms, contemporary realism

6. Content trends - genre fiction, fantasy, humor, biography

YA Taboo - falseness

AFL -FOLUSA Street Lit

Sunday, 6/24/2007 , 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM

After how packed my first session was, I went into this early and boy was I glad I did. This room was tiny and by the time we started, every space on the floor and out the door was occupied. With Terri Woods, T.N. Baker and Darren Coleman speaking and signing books, I'm surprise it wasn't worse.

I don't have many notes from this session as they talked about their lives and how and why they write. It was fascinating and hard to write while they were talking. Terri Woods sequel to True to the Game is due out in November - fans will be so happy! She was the most passionate speaker of the panel and I was drawn to her story about how she turned to writing - She looked around one day and saw that everyone she knew was dead or locked up and that no drug dealer was coming to save her so she had to help herself.

They all acknowledged that Street Lit is a controversial genre but that they write about what the kids are exposed to so no wonder they are drawn to these books. Some of the librarians in the audience said that they pair the books with classics from Maya Angelou, Claude Brown, Richard Wright. It may not be instantaneous but over time, they have found it has worked.

YALSA Video Games as a Service: Hosting Tournaments @ your library

Sunday, 6/24/2007 , 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Eli Neiburger, Anne Arbor District Library

This final session of my weekend wasn't as hands on as I had hoped. The purpose of this session was more why you should do it and the successes that the presenters have had. Eli is putting out a book with AL Editions and that will contain the details as to how to put on tournaments.

Let's play in the sandbox

I've always loved playing in sandboxes. There's something so relaxing about the movement of sand but this is so different. So much of 2.0 is about playing that I'm not sure how you can define this step as The Sandbox plus it's not really relaxing.

That said, I do like PBWiki. We have started a branch wiki using this site and going through this Thing has helped me understand how we can better manipulate it. However, knowing how to technically use something and discovering how to use something to improve what you do really is the difference. I think that wiki's can have real potential but it's not playtime in the sandbox. As we discovered with our branch project, we need to find the REAL useful application of this to get everyone on board and actually make it useful.

Wikitriguing

Wikis are one of the more intriguing and potentially useful Things of this program so far. I feel that the best description of them is that they are a web page which can be easily manipulated by anyone who can type. This lends to many useful applications. I really liked St. Joseph County Public Library's one for subject guides. Their librarians are able to take what most library's do on paper and make them organic and linkable. I checked out the HP page and ended up right at their catalog when looking for more information on a read-a-like. How useful is that - to be interested in a title and be led right to where you can actually locate a copy?

http://www.libraryforlife.org/subjectguides/index.php/Main_Page

Examples such as this are showing how this technology is being implemented as a tool to improve what we do. Our branch has a brand new wiki and we are exploring what we can do with it. So far we've used it to coordinate a branch brunch so everyone knows who's bringing what or changing their mind. We've limited ours by password so it could potentially be used to track problems or discuss issues we are encountering. Most often we use email but this process can loose the train of thought so I think the wiki might be of use if we can get everyone on board. This is another drawback of technology though - it's only helpful if it's actually used and doesn't create more work.

del.icio.us?!?

Del.icio.us was a term that I didn't fully understand until I did this Thing. The term is bandied about so much but I did at least know that it was one of the new "social networking" sites out there. I definitely see the appeal of bookmarking your items where they are easily accessible but I've been doing that with Yahoo! Bookmarks for a while. I can see my stuff anywhere but can't share the whole list.

I see potential value for implementing this on the reference desk; all those sites that you need to use, some so infrequently that you never can find them when you need them. Personally though, I think that Del.icio.us looks like a confusing site. The search engine didn't seem so great and I'm still not convinced that tags are better than folders. I think I'm better off sticking with what my good old standby of Yahoo!

Library 2.0 Thoughts

After reading the articles on the OCLC website it reminded me why I have a bit of a problem with "Library 2.0." I thoroughly embrace technology and try to take advantage of it to make my life/work easier but it's not the solution to every question.

Let's remember the 5 laws of S. R. Ranganathan:

Books are for use.
Every reader his or her book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
The library is a growing organism.

See the last one - "a growing organism". Why do we as a profession feel that we must change our thought process when Ranganathan had it all along? Libraries, and for that matter librarians, are ever changing things. If we are not, then we have failed in our professional duties. We may need to change our terminology (book to information regardless of format) and use new ways of getting to the necessary information but the process and the reason for what we do remains the same. We don't have to climb on the 2.0 or 3.0 etc bandwagon to fulfill our mission.

The other problem I have is that it is easy to get caught up in the terminology and being "on the cutting edge" that it can hold us back from fully doing our jobs as librarians. The idea becomes the whole thing and the implementation and purpose gets lost. All these authors sound so enthused but if you don't have the follow through, you end up with frustrated librarians who are giving sub par service through no fault of their own.

I think we need to stop trying to label things and just do what Ranganathan and others defined in the first place - help our users find what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. By remembering this simple theory, the heart librarianship, it's much easier not to be intimidated and afraid of growth or change and to use technology as another tool in our arsenal not the only one.

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/1.htm

Technorati

Technorati is a very interesting blog search engine. Back on Thing 8, I found a Jane Austen blog whose author has commented here, assisting me in my learning. If you're looking for blogs, this can be a very useful tool but I have so much on my plate that adding anymore info to it might make me melt. I don't like that the search brings you to posts tab first which can be overwhelming and have a lot of false hits.

The popular page is pretty predictable with a mix of celebrity, politics and pundits - Good to gage what's in right now.

Like many of these technology Things, I can see how I could spend my entire life wrapped up in this and forget to breath - So for now, I know how to use the tool and will remember it's out there when I need it.

Not technology but library philosophy

I was just reading the June 15th, 2007 Library Journal editorial (Fialkoff, page 8) on the great library debate of Blockbuster/Borders/Barnes & Noble vs. the library. There was a great quote by John Cotton Dana which supports my long held belief: get them in the door by any means and they'll find what else we have.

"See that your library is interesting to the people of the community, the people who own it... Deny your people nothing which the bookshop grants them... Open your eyes to the cheapest of books..." 1896

Dana was director of Newark PL, NJ 1902-1929

What's your view?

Rollyo - Ooooh!

I tried Rollyo today and it has potential! My "Books & film" search combines Amazon, IMDB & World Cat, my three favorite search places beyond my library's catalog (couldn't make that search work). This might help narrow the search when looking for items in a reference interview - I can't wait to try.

http://rollyo.com/jonesjennifere/books_film/

LibraryThing

I've looked at this site before but have never added books until now. I added a few books, most of which are on my blog, and it was fun to see how many people have already added these to their own library. I think that I could get lost exploring here, especially for titles that I love, so I'll try to restrain myself. In addition, one problem with having this be more wiki like with less authority control is the multiple versions of entries. Searching on Great Tales of English History lends many records most of which don't have complete enough data to see which is which (there are 3 volumes on different time periods) so I'm not sure I ended up with the right one that I wanted.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jonesjennifere

I did try a few cool features that can be added to my blog and ended up liking the random links from my library. The search box ended up searching someone else's collection and I have no idea what happened so I decided I liked the covers with the random links better.

Online Image Generators

I played around with some image generators today. These are very similar to mashups, allowing you to customize images/icons. My favorite is Yahoo! Avatars but I don't think I can do anything with it except in Yahoo! I had previously checked out the M&M site which is fun but didn't save anything there.



Thanks to janefan's comment I've amended this post with my Avatar 7-6-07

Returned from ALA

I've just come back and have so much to digest. All my programs were great and the exhibits were incredible. Once I get my feet back on the ground, I'll post some highlights.

RSS & Bloglines

Today I created a Bloglines account (see link below) and entered some feeds. I have had experience using RSS through my Yahoo!Mail account so am looking to see if Bloglines will add to my experience or be another place to look since I already use the mail account heavily. So far it looks like I will have the same functionality so right now it doesn't look like it will help me out any other than by sharing my interesting feeds with my readers.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/jonesjennifere

I did figure out the one thing I was really curious about - that this blog has an RSS feed. Blogger already had this feature easily accessible so you can add me to your Bloglines or other account and keep up with my current posts.

http://mdpubliclibrarian.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

After adding feeds from sites I already knew, I went on to #9 and added in MERLIN. This site will definitely take some exploring but hopefully the RSS feed will help. I also searched Technorati and found my own blog (pretty neat) and then searched on Pride and Prejudice to see what was out there. Wow, there were 50 blogs! I found one that I added as it had some recent posts and some funny video montages. I also found a great Mashup of Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice. It's worth it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sge5pUSJIRY

Mashups

Trading Card
Originally uploaded by jonesjennifere@yahoo.com

Check out my trading card - I needed to find a better photo but this was pretty cool way to manipulate digital pics.

Blogging fun

Well, I've been having fun exploring ways to add pictures and using features of the blog to customize the look - I figured out how to add links and will be adding more. This post helps me to complete Thing 7 of the 2.0 project. Now I just have to get into mashups and then we'll be ready for RSS.

Nancy Shushing the Washington Monument

Here is a second attempt at posting photos on my blog. This one was entered from the blog while the other was done through Flickr. So far this is fun! Now if I could only figure out how to add links to cool links.

Both of these were taken by my sister last year.

Nancy shushing the metro Elephant

DC 028
Originally uploaded by eej7librarian

Check out this pic taken outside a DC library

Tech Fair

I went to the Tech Fair this morning and got some great exposure to all these new technologies - kudos! to all those who helped out. Now the task of making sense of it all and putting it into action.

Update on my goals - I still am thinking about using this blog regularly as my manageable goal for Library 2.0 but Wiki's are really intriguing me. How would a wiki work to coordinate a meeting agenda and minutes? Is there a way to use these to facilitate discussions/decision making when you can meet face-to-face? There's definitely more to explore, so here's the new goal:

EXPLORE AND THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES

7 1/2 Habits

After listening to this presentation from PLCMC, I thought hard about which habit is the hardest for me. I've come to realize that it is actually the 1st: Goals. I have many things that I want to accomplish but often find it hard to put them into language that can be achieved. I am striving to take my "big, audacious goal" and break it into the more manageable goal steps which will lead to successful completion.

For the Maryland 2.0 project, my goal is to discover new technologies and then to find a way to employ one of them into my weekly if not daily activities.

My next post will pinpoint steps for this goal.

http://www.plcmc.org/public/learning/player.html