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.

Wiki

A wiki can be a great resource. I like the use of wikis as a communication means for teams and groups. A wiki means instant communication, speeding up decisions and actions that need to be taken by team members. The team wikis used at CCPL facilitate teamwork greatly, and well as keeping information available for all to see. Wikis have been a way of life for me since coming to CCPL.

It goes without saying that the main flaw of a wiki is that the reader must always bear in mind the reliability of the wiki posts is dependent on the reliability of all of those who have access to the wiki.

YouTube - it's not just for messing around

Well, what do you know - YouTube can educate. I was familiar with this site because of friends who direct me to watch something funny (like "Idiot Grandma"). However, this assignment made me think of how YouTube could be used in library-related work and the first thing that comes to my mind is that it can teach. I attended an ASL workshop last fall, during which the instructor told us that she had asked her son to make a video of The Lord's Prayer in ASL. He posted it to YouTube, so I was able to view it and learn from it. From that video I was linked to other videos, some of which really were ASL-related. I can see that some of the videos here will be helpful in my pursuit of learning ASL.

Translate that to helping anyone learn anything - it's probably out there.

Lost in Cyberspace - thanks to Technorati

I now realize how disciplined one must be to travel successfully in cyberspace. Thanks to Technorati, which allowed me to follow blogs and posts and videos, etc. I tagged my interests and ended up spending way too much time going from one "click" to the next. After a while, I forgot what tag had gotten me started. Some of what I encountered was interesting to me, but most of it was annoying or even downright off-putting. And I'm not sure why I spent so much time reading the blog of a SAHM (an acronym I'd never heard of before) in Oregon. It was a bit like chatting with someone on a flight who you don't mind spending a couple of hours with, but it doesn't bother you that you will never see that person again.

Library 2.0 and Story Times

Library 2.0 is a good thing and I am glad that there are librarians who are passionate about it. There is no doubt that the information industry is changing and will continue to change faster and faster. Libraries must be in the forefront - we are responsible for managing information and connecting it to people.

What impassions this librarian is Story Times. Or, to be exact, introducing children to the power of language. I welcome the way the web enhances my ability to learn from others, to gather ideas and techniques, and to jump-start my own thoughts and imagination. But at the end of the day, it is the time that I spent connecting with those little faces that sit around me at a Story Time, that gives me the charge to keep going.

Response to Rollyo

I could use Rollyo and this is how. I just finished preparing a program on sewing purses. During the prep, my friend and I looked at a lot of relevant websites and, using Dark Ages technology, actually wrote down the web addresses with a pencil and paper. What were we thinking? If I had known then about Rollyo, I could have made my own search engine of favorite sites about sewing purses. Well, by golly, I have done just that! After the fact, I created this list http://www.rollyo.com/bproper/ .

For the next program, I can do this as I am creating the program.

LibraryThing - It's a Good Thing

If you want to see some books I love here is the linkhttp://www.librarything.com/catalog/bproper. Now this has some potential in my life. I remember the fabulous books I've read, but tend to not recall the merely "really good" ones. I'd like to recommend these to people, so having them cataloged at LibraryThing will be an asset. Score one for technology.

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

I just finished exploring generators and playing around with Meez.http://www.meez.com/main.dm To that end, I posted this avatar. Yes, it was fairly simple to accomplish. It reminded me alot of playing with paper dolls, which I loved to do as a kid. But, I don't want to play with paper dolls anymore. . .

MERLIN

The first thing I was drawn to as I explored MERLIN was the training schedule. It is cool to be able to see what training is available, where and when. I especially like that you can search for events based on keywords - that saves time.

RSS Feeds

So, RSS Feeds are really just "favorites" in disguise, which is very handy, actually. It was a bit tedious to set up, but that is to be expected, I suppose. I like that it is easy to add and delete, so revising the list will be easy. It occurs to me that unless one does edit and revise the list occasionally, the list will be too long to be a useful timesaver.

The best feature of Bloglines is that you can customise your "favorites" while using a shared computer.

Flickr Flashback

While exploring the Flickr site I was at first overwhelmed and then appalled. Overwhelmed at the vast number of photos that are available to be viewed, far more than one could view in a lifetime (if one had an actual "life" to give time to). Then, I watched a flickr slide show of Alaska, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoodwinks1/)which, I admit, did have beautiful photos, but went on and on and ended with photos of the Orioles playing baseball (????). That's when I became edgy. I started getting flashbacks of horrible vacation slide/photo-viewings in my past. I recalled looking at a friend's photos of her trip to Ireland. She had to tell me the names of every person in each photo and I really didn't care! I wanted to say, "Just show me the castles and the Blarney Stone and let's move on." And then there are my childhood memories of Dad getting out the slide projector, the pop-up screen and turning out the lights so we could look at slides of our family vacation. Now, those are good memories for me, but I would never want to look at another family's vacation slides. So until my dad goes on Flickr and posts his photos (like that would ever happen), I probably won't visit Flickr for recreational viewing purposes.

Week 1 - 7 1/2 Habits

Number 3, viewing problems as challenges, is the hardest for me. (Usually that makes me want to quit). The easiest habit is teaching others, because when I find something I love to do, I want to share it with everyone!