Community College Librarian

I sat on a panel discussion today about groups that support teaching and learning in SL. I was on the panel with so many incredible people. 140 avatars showed up for the discussion and it was, to put it mildly, a zoo! It was really fun. I had some issues with my chat not being heard by some of the attendees, but that was true for everyone at some points during the event. I’m going to post the text of my little talk below. And here’s a picture of the panel.

Pipsqueak Fiddlesticks (SL) Denise Cote, CCSL, Pathfinder Linden (SL) John Lester (RL), LL, Claudia Linden (SL), LL, George Linden (SL), LL, Carl Metropolitan (SL) Carl Henderson (RL), NCI, Beth Sachtjen (RL) Stella Costello (SL), NMC, Saxet Uralia (SL), Mentor groups in SL, Maggy Marat (SL), ISTE

My chat transcript Read the rest of this entry »

sometimes I have no idea what the hell people are babbling about on Twitter and I really hate to see a perfectly good language get massacred for the sake of conserving time or allotted characters. For instance:

ZnaTrainerRT @Sophie_Lhoste: @Zna How wnderfl! U actually did wht every1dreams of doing. Thot it lst yr.Undecided. Does it evr gt 2o feel2 small?<~YES

Most of the tweets I’m reading feel like I have been given access to other people’s private IM’s.

I find it a little scary and depressing that we need a whole sub-genre of Happy in the area of personal growth. Have people forgotten how?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about change. The concept of it. The doing of it. How change happens.  How to cope when Change comes,  does its thing to your life and takes off again.

Change has occurred in copious amounts at my place of work during the last few weeks, some of it not so great.   My personal life had changed considerably. Of course I didn’t realize it until I woke up one day to a huge dose of Different.   Now, I could rail against these changes and be all upset and anxious.  I could be angry that my workplace is confused and depressing and that my life is a little more complicated than usual at the moment.  But, really, what good would that do? So, I’m thinking that since a change flurry is swirling all around me  I should totally capitalize on it and make a bunch of other changes too.  One of those changes is making something better/different out of  this yawn of a blog.  I never write in it anymore. Why? Because I was totally bored with not saying what was really on my mind  because people at work read it.   Not that I want to be all opinionated or tell secrets or bitch about work.   I just think I pigeon-holed myself with dedicating the blog to my profession.  When this blog comes back, the word librarian will not be in the title, but I might post about libraries because I really like them.

First step:  picking a pretty new theme.  Trying to browse wordpress’s themes selection is sort of like browsing Zappo’s so this is going to take awhile.

See you soon, my three readers and my mother.  Thank you for sticking around.

Oh..

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
~W.H. Auden

I haven’t posted in a long time but I listened to Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO today and was compelled to share with the 6 people who follow my blog. Trumka is a powerful public speaker and could probably get people charged up about cottage cheese but his message in this speech made cry big fat tears of joy and hope, and total anxiety that we’ll have four more years of the Republicans. I also love labor unions. I know, that can be a touchy topic for many people but I grew up in a union home. If it wasn’t for the union that made sure my parents made a fair wage and protected their jobs in economic hard times…well, there it is. To those people that say labor unions promote laziness, greed and corruption, I say look at our current government.

Because I never have time to post anything more than a video or a picture of something cute. Here’s an awesome student machinima. Excellent editing.

Get a Voki now!

So, there are widgets and there are Widgets. http://www.widgetbox.com

British Library: Turning the Pages, originally uploaded by notmarian.

I cannot stop looking at these books! I’m sucked in. You will be too. The narrations are fabulous! So genius. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

Teaching on the MUVE Workshop, originally uploaded by notmarian.

Here I am with my class on the first day. Its so exciting to have so many of my COD peeps here with me. In this group, we have 4 computer scientists, a student services professional, a journalism professor, an architect, a literature professor, a business professor and, of course, a librarian! The experience was a total riot. Everyone dived right in and learned a bunch of basics. My favorite part was when I gave everyone “walk overrides” so they wouldn’t walk like ducks. It was so cute when all the women in the group simultaneously said “oooooh” when they saw their avatars move with the Sexy Walk override. Hilarious. The guys are diving right in too. One guy is looking pretty beefy and another is fashioning himself into an angel. Ha! Next week we’re going to discuss the life of an avatar and the virtual representation of self. Check out the workshop wiki–click on the pretty wiki tab at the top of this page!