23 Things - The End. . .

. . . is not the end. I realize that. Learning new technologies and discovering ways to use them to enhance my professional and personal life will not (and cannot) stop here. The best part of this experience has been to go through it with many, many co-workers. There was always someone there to help me through a difficult part, and I was able to help others through their difficult parts. The most difficult part of the learning experience was to maintain self-discipline. Some days I needed self-discipline to not give up on a difficult part, and other days I needed self-discipline to stay on task. (Especially on YouTube). It is easy to go from one blog or podcast or video to another and another and another and lost track of what your original intent was and of the time.
I still need to go and make a quilt, however - to do something hands-on. Life is balance.

eBooks

Maryland's Digital eLibrary Consortium is a boon for readers. Having library materials available in audio and e-book format is a convenience for many people. I like that you can also burn a CD of an audio book, thus expanding the use of the book for the individual. However, I'm still not ready to read an entire book online, much less on a PalmPilot!

Podcasts

Podcasts are quite useful for learning and for entertainment. My experience did involve huge amounts of frustration, as not every podcast worked, and not every podcast was available for adding to my blogline (even if it did say RSS). But I enjoyed messing around with podcasts, and enjoyed having a purely audio experience with the internet. The one I added to my blogline was "Rachel's Reviews" - Rachel seems to be a sweet young girl who really loves reading. This podcast would be helpful for teens who need direction in choosing books - the podcasts are brief, include music, and Rachel is perky. I certainly would hate to discover that Rachel is really a cranky old guy with a high voice.

Week 8

Zoho and Google Docs are great! I like Zoho for, among other things, the templates, which make it so easy to create a good-looking, professional document. I worked in Zoho with the intent of posting it to my blog. It was the easiest thing I've done in these (almost) 23 Things. In fact, I clicked in the appropriate place and thought to myself "This can't work - it's too easy." But it worked! And it was too easy - but I was thrilled. (See the previous blog, "Untitled")



Google Docs is great for being "portable" so to speak. It's nice to be able to access from anywhere and to share with teammates. But can you print your document? I've been trying to figure out how to do that and the best I have come up with is to mail it to myself as an attachment and then print it out.



I love things where someone else has done the hard work for you and you get to reap the benefits. Web 2.0 awards fits this category, and I'm glad that they have picked the best for me to explore and utilize.Currently I have travel on my mind (since my brother recently moved to Kauai). I looked at the top 3 travel sites to get some info on airfare. I see that this feature could be helpful for librarians - we can direct patrons to this site to help them narrow down a search for particular types of websites. I know I am frustrated by the enormous amount of choices I have when searching the web for info. Patrons are too.

Untitled

    "Why not to give markers to toddlers"

 

This is one of my favorite images from Google Images. Probably because I have a daughter who would have done this given the chance. We have our own family stories, the most famous one being "Mr. Alligator." If you ever run into Rachel, ask her to tell it to you.

Finally - Del.icio.us

I had to skip this one as I could never get into the tutorial (others had this problem, too). But the Wiki exercise led me to a way to learn about Del.icio.us and I must say that this site has some interesting uses. Definately the greatest advantage of this site, in my opinion, is that you can access your bookmarks from any computer. Secondarily, its use as a place to park all your online resources used in research is a great one. If you are collaborating on a project or paper, this site could be extremely helpful.

Fun in the "Sandbox" - Not So Much

My time spent in the sandbox was not fun at all. In fact, my self-esteem is lowered because of the extended time I spent trying to get my blog listed in Favorites. After much exploration and experimentation, I finally asked a friend, who had successfully completed this task, and was still unable to complete the task as instructed on the site. HOWEVER, I was able to complete the task. How? Got me. But since I got "the right answer" I'm not going to sweat it how I got it. But I will check tomorrow to see if my blog is still listed. WHEW - time to get out of the sandbox and go home.