Sunday, November 30, 2008

Me as the Dewey Decimal System ?

It was just too fortuitous that I bumped into this little quiz which purports to show you as the Dewey Decimal System. Your name is converted to a class in the Dewey Decimal System; That's right... somewhere between 000 (Generalities) and 999 (Extraterrestrial worlds) you have a place, and through the magic of internet this quiz can find it through random arbitrary letter decoding. Plus this gives a chance to mention how wonderful libraries are... don't forget to go read something, yes?

So I just had to take the test and find out where I'd be classified on the shelf by Dewey. The beauty of this quiz is that it gives you three choices and you can take your pick of the one that you like best.

Where do I Dewey? Here's the first result the quiz gave me;




Linda Wadman's Dewey Decimal Section:

864 Spanish essays

Linda Wadman = 29441314314 = 294+413+143+14 = 864


Class:
800 Literature


Contains:
Literature, criticism, analysis of classic writing and mythology.



What it says about you:
You're a global, worldly person who wants to make a big impact with your actions. You have a lot to tell people and you're good at making unique observations about everyday experiences. You can notice and remember details that other people think aren't important.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com




Or I kind of liked this third selection:




Linda Wadman's Dewey Decimal Section:

638 Insect culture


Class:
600 Technology


Contains:
Health, agriculture, management, public relations, buildings.



What it says about you:
You are creative and inspired to make the world a better place. You can work hard on something when it catches your interest. Your friends have unique interests in common with you.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Fire in the Old Downtown Mountain Iron

My husband and I had just come back from grocery shopping and were putting the groceries away when we observed some smoke coming from the young neighbor couple's chimney. At first it looked like the wood fire was being stoked, but it quickly became apparent that it was more likely a chimney fire. After I called 911 to report it, I grabbed my Flip video camera to record the events.



Neighbor AnnMarie, with all too vivid flashbacks of the fire which burned her garage two years ago, was on hand with hugs and some warm gloves for Kate who got out of the house with pretty much only what she was wearing. I can only imagine the shock such devastation has brought to their lives.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

DJ as another puzzle


DJ as another puzzle
Originally uploaded by linda_wadman
I used that favorite picture to turn grandson DJ into another puzzle using Dumpr, an online photo effects application. You don't need to sign in to Dumpr to create your project.

What was really cool about Dumpr what that you could not only easily save your project to disk, you could just as easily save it to your Flickr account. After doing that you could use Flickr to post it to your blog. All this was pretty much seamless except for giving permissions to each application to access your accounts to do so which worked very smoothly. It looks like I will have to edit the blog post to insert the link for Dumpr, because I can't see any way to do it in Flickr's interface, but how cool is that anyway. Great the way these apps can work together.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Make It Special - Book Gifts for Kids

Having loved books myself ever since I can remember, it's often what I turn to when selecting gifts for others. When giving the gift of a book to a child (or anyone else for that matter), you can make it special by adding a personalized bookplate to it.

There's a lovely selection of bookplates of all types and sizes at My Home Library. The bookplates can be used any way you like (except for commercial purposes). There's a lovely and growing selection contributed by well known illustrators of children's books. You're sure to find something suitable to make your gift of a book unique for that special person from among the many sizes and styles, color or black and white.

I found this simple one by Joan Aiken that appealed to me.

Where Kids Can Learn to ' Be'

While I was reading blogs several days ago, I ran into a blog Carrie and Danielle: How to live an inspired life, be true to you, and make a difference in the world where this question was posed: What is your favorite cultural activity that doesn't cost money?

There were lots of answers to this post, but the one I liked best was from Frances who gave this reply:

"It's the Library for me! I can travel the world, explore new science, learn any craft or skill right from our little Town. Any one can jump on the web super highway with access to special data bases paid for by the Library.

The Library is a meeting place; a place of arts/crafts; of meeting authors and it's the first place our kids can learn how to 'be' in our community.

Libraries aren't the stuffy, hear-a-pin-drop kind of places any more. They are vibrant, engaged inclusive places.

They are communal places that are built by and for the community and reflect the community's history and taste."

I love that idea the first place our kids can learn how to 'be' in our community.

That perfectly describes my rural library and many more like it that I know. How does yours measure up?

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Best Practices in Fair Use

American University's School of Communications Center for Social Media has made available the full report of The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education as a PDF download. It is meant to help educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. This code of best practices was created by convening ten meetings with more than 150 members of leading educational associations, including signatories to this document, and other educators across the United States.

This video has some interesting commentary on copyright law and the rapidly changing technological landscape and what it potentially means to teaching media literacy.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Readability Test

blog readability test

TV Reviews


That blog readability test has cropped up again in many of the blogs I follow. Being as curious as the next person, I decided I would plug in my blog address and see how my blog fared as far as readability goes.


I'm not sure if the result is a compliment or an insult as far as my writing goes. If it's a compliment, all the credit goes to Jim Klein, the best high school writing and composition teacher ever. He's even excused for being totally a Green Bay Packers fan in Detroit Lion territory.

Hello Again


It's been several months since I've seen this logo come up on Twitter, their Fail Whale, meaning they are over capacity.

Things had been percolating along quite nicely with no problems for quite some time, but my reading has indicated that tweeting is the new "In" thing, replacing blogging for many. They say blogging has lost the unique, immediate and intimate feel it began with in the early days and that Twitter is being adopted as it seems to have that same unique quality.

I'll have to wait a bit to stop following one app as it is throwing out too many tweets that do nothing for me. Kind of an annoyance, but hopefully I can log on soon to slow down those tweets.

An Impulse Purchase



It gets dark so early these days that we'd been talking about getting some solar lights to light the walk in the yard. My husband was looking at utilitarian lights or lanterns. I saw these "Christmasy" ones at Sam's Club and liked the more decorative look, not to mention they are LED, change colors, and can charge even on cloudy days. Perfect for NE Minnesota where we need all the cheerful light we can get in winter months.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Mashable's 2nd Open Web Awards

I was so impressed with the Lifesnapz application, both idea and implementation, that I nominated them in the photosharing category of Mashable's 2nd Open Web Awards which runs from November 5- November 16, 2008.

Have you checked out their application? If you have and liked it, feel free to use this widget and submit a vote for them. I want them to be around for a long time.

See my post for my take on their wonderful photo, family,history, sharing application. The hardest part in nominating them was to decide which category to do it in.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Google's Take on Election Day

Those clever folk at Google have a way of recognizing special days by tinkering with their logo.

I love their Election Day version which popped up on me quite suddenly while doing some verification searches for interlibrary loan items.