Sway : the irresistible pull of irrational behavior by Ori & Rom Brafman

Still reading Dan Ariely's book but in the meantime I read 'Sway : the irresistible pull of irrational behavior' by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman. Both of these books are about irrational behavior - and they provide examples of how even supremely rational, professional, and knowledgeable people can be "swayed" - often to embarrassing, and even disastrous consequences.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Listening to Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. He is saying that the assumption that we are rational is not always true. From Publishers Weekly as posted on Amazon.com: "Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, but as MIT professor Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics, people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion."

Podcast Tutorial

Although the yahoo podcast tutorial is no longer available, there are several others, including http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/what-is-a-podcast.htm.

From http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/2006/09/21-podcasts-smodcasts.html:
"There are many, many podcast directories and finding tools out there. Here are just three of the more popular ones that, unlike iTunes, don't require a software download:

* Podcast.net [no longer available]
* Podcastalley.com
* Yahoo Podcasts "

Other podcast collections discovered: podcast.com,

Have downloaded "Juice", a podcast receiver that works on multiple platforms, including Mac OS X: http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Week 9: Podcasts

Quote from 23 things (http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com/2006/09/21-podcasts-smodcasts.html): "Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Learning 2.0 program) to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker."

Week 9: YouTube

Although there is a podcast with this lesson it is not broadcasting. There are many video hosting sites, YouTube being the most recognizable one.

There is a list of 62 such sites at http://web2.econsultant.com/videos-hosting-sharing-searching-services.html. Most categorize themselves as "social video sharing".

Decided to look at www.bliptv.com. So far the videos here promote other, commercial, websites. Hmmm.

Decided to try www.dailymotion.com/us. Categories here include 'funny', 'news & politics', 'tech & science', etc. A search for "public library" returned a JCPL 20 sec plug: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/public%2Blibrary/video/x3vwfw_jefferson-county-public-library-20s_family.

YouTube does not have a JCPL (Colorado) video though.

Other popular video hosting sites:

* Yahoo Videos
* Google videos

Reader's Advisory Blogging

A blogger at http://www.readersadvisoronline.com/blog/ is a blog about the Reader's Advisory: "This blog is brought to you by the Reader’s Advisor Online, the subscription database based on Libraries Unlimited’s Genreflecting Advisory series." There is an option on the blog to sign up for a free trial of the subscription database. The latest posting was by Cindy Orr on "RA Run Down". She has also posted on "New, Noteworthy, and No-Brainer", "Most Wanted", "Under the Radar" and "Tips and Fun Stuff", which all seem to be subcategories of the primary www.readersadvisoronline.com.

Library 2.0

Searching the web for library 2.0 ideas I came across a blogspot posting by "Up to the Waves" entitled "Are You a Networked Librarian?" This blogger links to a 5 minute YouTube info spot on how teachers and students can use web 2.0 to communicate, learn, share, etc. and then provides many links to such things as social networking (e.g. Facebook), social bookmarking (e.g. Delicious), Blogging, etc. (e.g. Twitter), Photo sharing (e.g. flickr), RSS feeds (e.g. goolge reader), online collaboration (e.g. google docs), and then includes "information sharing using all the online tools mentioned above." Good info and links: go to http://uptothecurve.blogspot.com/2008/12/are-you-networked-librarian.html