Week 9, Thing 23 - Summarize your thoughts

That's it! I've explored everything! Well - at least 23 things of everything. I spent lots of time working with all the different technologies. Some were easier to use than others. Some didn't seem to work at all for me. Even though at times I was frustrated, there was always something that proved interesting. I don't believe that I will use my blog or bloglines account as my homepage . Therefore, all the feeds that I incorporated into my account won't be popping out at me unless I go to that account. I want to delve farther into some things to have them become useful to me. My favorite things were the Avatars, generator blogs and YouTube. I had fun working on this and would do something similar again. An unexpected outcome was that I was able to tell my daughters about some technologies that they didn't know about. Our situations were reversed.
While I didn't mind working on this at home (I thought of it as finding out fun things on the Internet), it would have been harder to find the time at work because the summer is so busy. At least for me it would have been difficult to allow the amount of time at work for the amount of time I actually worked on it.

I am glad I did the 23 Things because at least I have a surface knowledge of the kind of things that are out there. I'm sure librarians will be called upon more and more to help patrons with problems they have while working on those sites. The 23 Things project is important to librarians for that very reason. Technology is moving forward fast. We have to be ready and move with it. Libraries have always been a place for people to discover things - whether it is is found in print or non print or on the internet is irrelevant. And we, as librarians, have to be able to help them find what they need.

Week 9, Thing 22 - Learn about Audiobooks

I've taken the Overdrive guided tour and looked at Netlibrary. I've downloaded, upgraded, restarted and whatever else I needed to do. I chose a book to download onto my computer at home but I still need to upgrade. I just did that! So now I have simply removed the book from my bookbag and I will read it in print. I'm sure this is great for someone who wants to transfer it to a portable device and maybe sometime I'll try again.

Week 9, Thing 21 - Discover some useful tools for locating podcasts

My discovery process was not easy. I found some good podcasts but it was difficult finding the RSS feed. I tried to add the feed for young adult book revews and it looks like I will be getting all kinds of info. On the other hand, I did find a nice shortcut to adding any website that I am looking at to my bloglines account - providing it has an RSS feed. I need to look at this further.

Week 9, Thing 20 - YouTube

I loved exploring YouTube. There were lots of informative and fun videos. As soon as I realized I could view commercials, I typed in Coca Cola polar bears. They are my favorite commercials and I just wish I could see them more often. Now I can. I chose this video because it was heartwarming when the young penguin shared his coke with the young polar bear. Gives you the feeling there can be peace on earth. Also, it was set to a Beach Boy song which I also love.
I think using YouTube videos on our library website would be wonderful. We could showcase some of our programs and events.

Week 8, Thing 19 - Discover any site from the Web 2.0 awards list

I scrolled through the list, clicking here and there just to see what it all was. (I did pretty well in Guess the Google.) I've looked at farecast.com before after reading about it in the newspaper. But the site I chose to explore was Yahoo Answers. With a daughter's wedding planned for next year, I think I will use the site to gauge how things are done these days. I liked being able to search a specific aspect of the wedding (e.g. engagement party) and see what people would expect from that. The site was easy to use. It could be used in the library when people ask for advice - not necessarily information.

Week 8, Thing 18 - Online productivity tools

I'm writing this in Zoho writer and I hope to publish this to my blog as my blogpost for Thing 18. I've obviously created an account for myself in Zoho and I read all of the FAQ's. I can see where this might be useful if you don't have Microsoft Office. I looked at what was available in the Template Library but I could not preview anything - so that was disappointing. I also looked at Google Docs and the other online productivity tools.

I have tried to publish and export this to my blog without luck. I've read the directions to do both and it keeps saying " unable to connect to blog". And it takes several minutes to tell me that! Perhaps the connection to blogger is not working, but it is very frustrating when I don't know whether I'm doing it right or not. I've been trying it over and over. At this point - I give up. I'm going to copy and paste.

Week 7, Think 17 - Sandbox Wiki

This wasn't too complicated although the point and click didn't work for me. I've posted my blog to the list of Favorite Blogs.

Week 7, Thing 16 - wikis

After working with a wiki for the Leadership Academy, I felt like I was coming home with this one!



I liked the SJCPL page with Subject Guides. It was a good way of setting something up for people who just want to look at a topic in general, before they get down to more specifics. I was looking at the Family History page and then there were links to downloadable forms. I'm going to bookmark that page.



I also liked the library instruction wiki (Library 2.0 in 15 minutes a day). Here, I can find out exactly how to do some of these "things"!! I know, I know, working things out yourself helps you to remember, but really - sometimes you just can't figure it out!



I think wikis would be useful for a team - just post meeting agendas and minutes right there.

Week 6, Thing 15 - Read a few perspective on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 & the futre of libraries

Wow! Something that really made sense! and made sense of everything else, too! I kept thinking of Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the Places You'll Go" while I read the OCLC Next Space Newsletter. Up until now, I've always thought that bringing the library to the people was a way for us to be more available to people. Still thinking in terms of what is available for people to check out - but easier and more convenient for them in their busy lives. Now I'm thinking we need to really be available - and be a way to empower people to experience everything that is out there. What a thought! The possibilities are endless! And mashups? Maybe we need to mashup the departments and see what turns out (IT with Programming, for instance.)

Week 6, Thing 14 - Discover Technorati

I took the Technorati Tour. It didn't look exactly like what I saw on the Technorati site, but I did find how to search by posts, tags and blog directory. Of course the results were really different. Interesting if you like this sort of thing or want to look at "stuff".

Week 6, Thing 13 - Tagging and Discover Del.icio.us

Well, earlier in the week I could view the tutorial, but the picture was small. So when the speaker highlighted different areas, I didn't know what was being highlighted. I've asked some coworkers if they knew of a way to enlarge it and they didn't know of any. Now the link to the tutorial doesn't work. Oh, well, maybe next week. I did look at the PLCMCL2 account and clicked on some bookmarks. I was able to see others comments and their tags. I thought the ZOHO planner that I found under Yarra Plenty Online Learning was good and I think I'll research that one more later.

Week 5, Thing 12 - Roll your own search tool with Rollyo

I probably won't use Rollyo. I'll just bookmark my favorite links and tab through them. I'm having alot of difficulty adding the searchroll to my blog, but here's the link to my search roll - I think. http://www.rollyo.com/barba Here's my Rollyo:

Select...Barb's PlacelacrosseSearch The Web

Week 5, Thing 11 - Take a look at LibraryThing

Library Thing is neat! I made my catalog private but I can tell you I just put on a few Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb books. I liked looking at the reviews and the number of other people with the book listed. But it reminds me of the involvement it takes to work on your genealogy and I'd rather put my time there. A handwritten list of books suits me fine. Here is the link to my LibaryThing catalog.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/barba

Week 5, Thing 10 - Play around with an online image generator

I used Sketch Generator for this picture. This is me with my red hat - before I got my hair cut!



This is my Yahoo Avatar. I still love red! And the beach.

Week 4, Thing 9 - Explore MERLIN, etc.

I looked at the different Search tools and I guess I'll say that I like Feedster the best. Being able to search from several categories for the feeds is a timesaver. On the Technorati site, I typed in mdlearning2 and saw some of the blog entries that we have done. I think that subscribing to feeds can be addictive, though. It's too easy to subscribe to alot and be overwhelmed. Kind of like having too many credit cards. I did add the feed for MERLIN to my blogline.

Week 4, Thing 8 - Make Life Really Simple with RSS and a New Reader

I had seen RSS on some websites that I had visited, but had no idea what it was. The RSS in Plain English was a great video clip. It was super easy to understand and I even forwarded the web address to some others. I added at least 10 feeds to my bloglines account and then bookmarked that address. I'm looking forward to looking at my blogline frequently. Now I'm trying to provide my URL address to my public bloglines account so here goes...
http://www.bloglines.com/public/barb

Week 3, Thing 7 - Create a Blog Post About Anything Technology-Related

In the paper this week I read about a Spanish language tutorial podcast online. I thought that this might be a fun way to learn some Spanish. It's very good - gives you plenty of time to repeat the words and sentences. And repeats it several times so you can really get the pronunciation down. I'm going to keep at it if I can.

Week 3, Thing 6 - Flickr Mash-ups & Third Party Sites

When I started looking at all the mash-ups, it looked like it would be easier reading legal jargon! But making a movie poster turned out to be really fun.

Week 3, Thing 5 - Explore Flickr

ELC fitness area,
originally uploaded by barback.

We have a rebounder, weights and a PowerRider.

Week 2, Thing 4 - Register Your Blog and Track Your Progress

Blog is registered.

Week 2, Thing 3 - Set up your own Blog

Well, this is certainly a learning experience! I finally thought I had posted something and then I couldn't find it! I then found it as a draft - but couldn't figure out how to post it. I finally found the help questions (I intend to read most of them, too) and then was able to change my draft to a post.

And now I just figured out how to rearrange my posts.

Week 1, Thing 2 - Lifelong Learning 7 1/2 Habits

The easiest habit for me is #2 Accept responsibility for your own learning. I like to rely on myself.

The hardest habit is #6 Use technology to your advantage. Somehow I have a mindblock when it comes to technology.

Week 1, Thing 1 - About this Program

I kind of like listening to the podcast telling me what I will be doing.