Thursday, September 6, 2007

Luciano Pavarotti, 1935-2007

Luciano Pavarotti has lost his battle with cancer. He will be remembered as "the tenor" of his generation, not only because of his voice, but because of his wonderful personality. He introduced opera to many who would otherwise not have given the art form a single thought. He often performed with many pop stars and performed many benefit concerts. Here is a clip from a 1988 recital at the Met. Pavarotti is singing the Act 3, Scene 1 aria "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's opera Turandot. Maestro James Levine is at the piano.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The End is Here. Hallelujah, Amen! (Week 10 #23)

Well, it's finally over. I found the program to be informative. It helps to know what's out there whether it be useful or crap. I found that I liked using Flickr and YouTube the most enjoyable modules. I also think that Wikis were the most confusing. I also found that there is a lot of useful stuff out there and there is a lot of stuff that looks useful but is really crap. All that being said, I found the program to be important mostly to demonstrate that there is so much "out there" , be it useful or just garbage. It's always important to make people aware of all possibilities.

One problem that I found with this program was that we were told it would not take much of our time to complete each task. This was entirely untrue. Some of the tasks took a great deal of time. Maybe you were asking us to do too much each week. I think by asking us to do less each week many people would have felt that its was not as time consuming. One other problem (it's just personal bugaboo) is the fact that you should have posted assignments at least a week in advance so if we were out of the office we could at least work ahead. Nobody likes to play catch up after they have been away, especially since they are also playing catch up with their regular work duties.

If a similar program were offered again, I'm not sure I would participate unless the incentives were worth the trouble or it would take less time to complete each task.

So long, Farewell, Learning 2.0 players and keep checking my blog. It's not going away.

Social Networking, It's not for Everyone (Especially Me!!) Week 10 #22


RANT ALERT!! RANT ALERT!!


Oh, come on! Perhaps it's a generational thing, call me an old fart! Once again here's another something to keep people's fat asses in their chairs staring at a computer screen. OK, I'm a private person so you will never see me participating in Facebook, MySpace or any online social network. Online social networks are like six degrees of separation on steroids. I think that most of the people using them share too much information about themselves and use them for frivolous recreational purposes or an easy way to look for a "hook up". As you can tell, I don't hold them in high regards. I'm sure that many people do use them to connect with family and friends, but for the most part I see them as being silly, yet another way of non-personal communication. Unfortunately, since they are so popular maybe libraries should become involved with them. If my post has offended you or pissed you off, too damn bad, get over yourself!!

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Disney's Tower of Terror!

OK, it's time to take a look at another Disney thrill ride. The Tower of Terror is a ride that resembles a 1920s type hotel. One night long ago 5 people mysteriously came up missing. It is now your turn to check-in. Alas, since the folks went missing in the elevator you will now need to take the service elevator to your room. This ride features an elevator that works like no other elevator you have ever been on before.

Take a ride on the Tower of Terror.

Podcast, Podblast and Some Crapcast Week 9 #21

Well there certainly is a lot of silliness and crap out there. I found some interesting Disney podcasts. I've added a couple of them to my RSS feed. My favorite has to be DIS Unplugged. It's a round table discussion of anything Disney. There were a lot of podcasts listed for book reviews. I listened to some. Some were biased and silly, some were intelligent. I noticed that a lot of libraries used podcasts for promo (especially public libraries). Here at OU we have several library tour podcasts offered in several different languages. Of the three directories that you gave us to use I found that Podcastalley.com and Podcast.net were my favorites to use. I didn't care much for the Yahoo product and I really don't know why. Perhaps it's because I'm tired of seeing their use of that nauseating blue color.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Youbie Tubie Wubie Week 9 #20 Pt..B

OK, I've used YouTube several places in my blog before. I find adding videos to my blog is fairly easy. YouTube can be used for a variety of things in the library. The library can use them for instructional videos as well as videos promoting any library services and broadcasting any important library programs.

Beverly Sills (Week 9 #20 Pt. A)

Earlier this year the great American soprano Beverly Sills passed away. Here is a clip of her 1980 farewell performance celebrating the retirement of her singing career.