TechBits

Fun Friday Quiz: Fact or Opinion?

In preparation for my post next week on fake news, here's a fun little 10-question quiz from the Pew Research Center - how well can you tell factual from opinion news statements?

Digital Literacy Confidence

Do you remember Project Play? It's still one of my favorite projects that I've worked on here at SCLS. While the Project Play website and information no longer exists, the concept of 23 Things is still very much alive. Let me explain.

I recently read an interview in Library Hotline called "Champion of Confidence" between Michael Stephens and Sally Pewhairangi, a librarian from New Zealand. In the interview, Sally talks about confidence being a big part of Digital Literacy. If you think about it, this makes sense. There's a great deal of self-doubt and fear about trying new things - especially for library staff or patrons who didn't grow up in the digital era.

This interview led me to Sally's website called The Library Boss*. I explored around, read some of the blog posts, and took the quiz to find out my Digital Super-Power. According to Sally, there are six Digital Super-Powers: adaptability, critical thinking, curiosity, empathy, patience, and problem solving. Guess which one I am?** Which one are you?

And, being the CE Consultant, I wondered if Sally would be a good speaker and if there were any archived webinars that she's presented. And, there is! I watched it and found the accompanying Padlet site which includes questions and answers by attendees of the webinar and others in the Australia and New Zealand library community. One of the comments referenced a project called 11 1/2 Things for Digital Literacy (a play on the 23 Things project). It turns out there have been a number of 23 Things projects focusing on Digital Literacy recently. Here are a few that I found:

• Bond University Library's 11 1/2 Things for Digital Literacies
• Charles Sturt University's 23 Things for Digital Knowledge
• The University of Edinburgh's 23 Things

In addition to topics like blogging, RSS feeds, and photos that were in the original 23 Things projects, the Digital Literacy 23 Things topics include digital security, accessibility, diversity, fake news and filter bubbles, gamification, augmented and virtual reality, digital curation, altmetrics, mindmapping, infographics, and more. All of these sites are open for anyone to participate. Check out some of the topics that interest you and play - it's the best way to learn!

*It also led me to figure out the time difference between Madison and New Zealand. Hmmm..what time to schedule a webinar...

**Not surprisingly, my Digital Super-Power is empathy!

Instagram Stories are now being archived

I am fairly new to Instagram and have just started playing around with the Story feature.  This feature seems to be very popular with my teenage daughter and her friends.  Stories are a way to share things with your followers on a temporary basis (the story will disappear after 24 hours). I can see the appeal, but being in the library world, I tend to want to save any and all information.

Thankfully, Instagram now automatically saves all your stories for you in Archive. It also added a place to show them off in your profile called Highlight.  Go to your profile and click on Edit Profile.  Then select the Archive tab. You can then select a Story to view it or share it again. You'll also see an option that says Highlight; select it to have that Story appear in an area just under your profile.

Exploring Chrome Extensions Volume 6: Wikiwand

    Are you someone that enjoys reading Wikipedia articles but are put off by the lackluster, sterile presentation? I just found this Chrome extension that adds a bit more flair to Wikipedia. It’s called Wikiwand.

Wikiwand changes the formatting for Wiki pages for enhanced readability and function. The part that I like most about this extension is that it makes the article’s table of contents fixed to the left side of the browser window. This way you can easily access contents no matter where you are in the article. I also enjoy the color scheme and enriched display of the article's pictures.

Check out Wikiwand here

Smartphone Firsts: including a holographic display

Move over Star Trek! Who knew that a smartphone with a glasses-free holographic display is slated to be released this fall?  The Red Hydrogen One is one such a phone: it will offer modular attachments for shooting videos, stills and holographic content. 

Each new trailblazing technology can make what we already have seem so mundane. In that vein, here’s a little smartphone history quiz.

Smartphone firsts:
a. What year was the 1st smartphone released? (Clue: It was called the IBM Simon Personal Communicator.)
b. What year was the 1st smartphone released that had a camera? (Clue: Both Nokia and Sanyo released them in the same year.)
c. What year was the 1st Apple iPhone released?
d. What year was the 1st 4V holographic phone released? (Clue: The Red Hydrogen One.)

 

 

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Answers: a. 1994, b. 2002, c. 2007 and d. 2018

WORK DESTINATION - Where do your residents commute for work?

For grant applications, I was looking for data that showed where residents in our community commute for work. I live in Green County, but there are a lot more grant opportunities in Dane County so I set off to find data to answer this question:

How many New Glarus (Green County) residents work in Dane County?

It turns out that the Census Bureau provides this information via their OnTheMap tool: https://onthemap.ces.census.gov/. Here are 10 steps I used to find the answer:

1. Enter Geographic Area (e.g. New Glarus).
2. Select Type of Area (e.g. County Subdivision = New Glarus village (Green, WI)). For definitions of geographic areas, see the United States Census Bureau Geographic Areas Reference Manual: https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/garm.html. 
3. Select Perform Analysis on Selection Area.
4. Select Home/Work Area = “Home”.
5. Select Analysis Type = “Destination” and select Destination Type = “County Subdivision". Be sure to check out the “Inflow/Outflow” analysis type too!
6. Select Year (e.g. 2015).
7. Select Job Type (e.g. Primary Jobs).
8. Select GO!
9. Select Number of Results = “All”.
10. Select Detailed Report and export to your desired format.

I then repeated this search for the Town of New Glarus. Give it a try, and then check out some of the other Data Tools and Apps provided by the US Census Bureau: https://www.census.gov/data/data-tools.html.

(Solved) SCLS Help Desk Portal - Your connection is not secure when using Firefox

Here at SCLS we are working to make all of our sites secure by implementing SSL certificates.  This includes our beloved SCLS Help Desk Portal.  We secured the portal with a self-signed certificate.  This type of certificate is very common and all SCLS supported browsers can handle it except for Firefox.  The good news is that we have a fix for you.  Please see below!

Here is the portal in Google Chrome

 

Here's what you get when you go to the portal in Firefox:

Here is the fix!

1. Click Advanced
2. Click Add Exception...
3. Click Confirm Security Exception
   
   
4. Now you're back at the portal!
   

Google My Business

How do people find information about your library? I bet you think a lot about what you put on your website, but have you thought about the accuracy of information when people try to look up your library from a mobile device and Google steps in with results?

I find that I often rely on the Google listing for a business, rather than navigating to the business' website and trying to find information there (especially for hours, address, directions, phone number, and reviews).

Google My Business is a free listing service created by Google in 2014, and your library most likely already has a GMB page. It's an excellent idea to 1) claim it if you haven't already, and 2) verify/update the information on it. Information that administrators can add/edit includes library hours, description of your library, map pin/location, URL, phone number, organization type, and photographs. The built-in analytics can give you a good idea of how patrons found the listing, and what actions they took (did they call you? did they click over to your website?).

This Computers In Libraries article, "How to Create a Google My Business Page" covers why and how to take control of your Google My Business page and is definitely worth a read! 

Classic Shell Ends Development

The Classic Shell Windows Start Menu is an invaluable tool for those who prefer newer releases of Windows to appear like Windows 7.  The developer, Ivo Beltchev, has discontinued development of Classic Shell due to Microsoft's aggressive Windows 10 update schedule.  When Microsoft releases major Spring/Fall updates for Windows 10, the Classic Shell software usually requires changes to its code to continue working.  The developer has made his source code available at SourceForge, but there is no guarantee the open source community will keep it functional.  This will affect SCLS-supported Windows 10 computers.  More information will appear on the SCLS Technology News blog soon.