CIL2007 Wednesday – Tech Freebies & Program Ideas
April 19th, 2007 Brian HerzogThe last session of the day was called "Tech Freebies & Program Ideas," given by people from different libraries covering successes they've had with technology-related programs in their libraries.
The Princeton (NJ) Public Library puts a tremendous amount of resources into their Technology Training (which is a better phrase than "computer classes"). Their classes include both staff and patrons, and cover a varied of topics: Photoshop/GIMP, Blogger/Wordpress, Bloglines/Google Reader, social bookmarking, creating & hosting podcasts, digital scrapbooking, and more.
They also listed a few ways to keep up with emerging technologies (PC Magazine's Top 101 websites, SEOmoz's Web 2.0 awards, Filehippo, and Time's 50 Coolest websites), and some of the more interesting online tools:
- Text editors: Google Docs, AjaxWrite
- Organizing: Ta-Da to-do Lists, Cozi Central, Google Calendar
- Productivity: LogMeIn (remote computer access), eCalendar
- Photo/Video: GIMP (free powerful photo editor), EveryStockPhoto (free photos and clipart), flickr (photo hosting), OneTrueMedia (video editing)
After them, a team from another library showed a mobile animation setup they used (a Mac laptop, camera, and portable greenscreen designed to let teens create and edit their own stop-animation videos. Which was neat and interesting (actually, quite amazing), but since this was geared towards Macs, and teens, and it was the last session of the day, I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been.
