The Last Thing

YAHOO! I can't believe I finished it. I'm glad that I went through this journey. I was exposed to so many technologies that I was in the dark about. It was truly a journey of delightful discoveries. I feel that as a result of this whole experience I am a more technologically informed individual and librarian. I'm excited about sharing these new technologies with others as well.

Things at a Glance:
Fun - Blogging, Flickr, Image Generators, Technorati, LibraryThing, YouTube, podcasts
Useful - Bloglines, RSS feeds [I check my Bloglines account daily. It's a great resource; a one-stop webpage where I have access to many of my Internet needs.], Rollyo - creating your own search engine, Delicious - tagging & bookmarking, wiki, web-based apps, NetLibrary

As far as extensions...it would be awesome if we created a LCPL wiki that becomes a tremendous community resource. I look forward to sharing these techonologies with patrons through workshops and one-on-one interactions. Yes, I would be willing to participate in another learning series like Learning 2.0!

NetLibrary

I am familiar with this service, but this "thing" afforded me a good opportunity to explore it further. The eBooks are mostly adult books and they tend to be reference materials. Nice that they have books in a variety of languages.

The eAudiobooks, on the other hand, have a greater selection to choose from. It was nice browsing by subject in the eAudiobooks. However, I found it inconvenient that there was not a sypnopsis or much info about the book aside from the basics. You can preview a clip, however. I found a few books by Gary Paulsen that were just added that I would be interested in listening to.

This thing reminded me of Overdrive eBooks accessible through the LCPL catalog directly. A great selection here as well.

Podcasts

Podcasts are almost like the audio counterpart of YouTube, although some have video components. There is an amazing variety of items with something for everyone. I subscribed to several different podcasts including stories, info, entertainment, and book news in my Bloglines account which, by the way, I check on a daily basis. I went a little overboard. It might be fun to have podcast advertisements for library programs including things such as snippets from the performer, music, etc...

I visited all 3 sites and liked Yahoo! Podcasts the best. The website's homepage is well-organized. You can see "What We Like This Week" (New and Noteworthy and Staff Picks), "What Other People Like" -- most popular and highly rated, "Explore on your Own" where you see main catagories as well as popular tags. Having had little experience with them, it was good to be given a nice overview from the start.

You Tube: Video Playground

Now, this is one resource I've known about but haven't explored a great deal. What an amazing variety of videos! The search tools are simple yet effective. You simply type in your search terms into the search box. There are many ways to sort or limit your results by time, most _____, category, language, category, type. Hours and hours of enjoyment! :)

The Library

"At the library knowledge is free. Just bring your own container." This hilarious vid sends a great message.

Web 2.0 Awards

Wow! I looked at a bunch of the award-winning sites and am impressed. I find the categories chosen to be very comprehensive. In fact, they're eye-opening. I have just learned about new kinds of sites that I had no idea existed such as Personal Organization and Start Pages. What great ideas! Also, the ratings are very relevant: usability, usefulness, social aspects, interface & design, content quality.

I don't think I would have been exposed to these great resources had we not done this whole Learning 2.0. I do remember coming across these awards in school but I had forgotten about them. And I think the categories have grown since I saw it last. It's nice to know what sites you can trust for quality. Another website that I trust is the Librarian's Internet Index(www.lii.org). This whole experience makes me think that we need to educate our patrons on these wonderful web tools after this is all over. I think they would respond with the same wonder and amazement that I have. As a result, they would become smarter web surfers.

Zoho Writer

I had some fun creating fictitious documents using this web-based app. It had features similar to Microsoft Word that I'm used to and had additional ones as well. It was nice that you could export your doc into different formats including pdf and word. Another nice feature is that once I've published something to a blog and made edits to it I could easily update my post with the changes.

A useful tool that I didn't know about until now...nice!