Week 9, Thing 23: All I have learned

Well, I am finally here - sometimes I didn't think I'd ever get here. I must say I enjoyed most of it, although some pieces simply did not work the way they were supposed to. I did find if you keep plugging away at it; like many applications there are at least a couple of ways to do just about anything. So when something didn't work I would try a few other things and eventually something worked; not that I was always able to tell what it was I did to make it work.
Not unlike my current job. I learned a long time ago that if it ends up fixed....good! Now leave it alone!

My favorites were:
Reading other people's blogs.
Booklover's wiki. I've already read a couple of books recommended there and I've found some new authors.
Flickr.
Craigslist.
Facebook.
Image generators.

One of my flicker photos of a couple of adorable Plott hound pups was picked as a favorite by someone called Menacing Buddha.

As far as lifelong learning goals; I think this is a very good example of finding out the many, many places out there on the World Wide Web. So many of these sites are the tip of the iceberg, you start in one place and then you just keep branching out and branching out until your eyes glaze over and your hands fall off.

I think a lot of staff members found this to be more time consuming than they thought it would be. Given BCPL's business level and bandwidth constraints I think that definitely needs to be considered.

I would do it again, but with upcoming commitments at work not until sometime next year.

All in all, I'd say it was a good learning experience. The best way for me to learn personally is by hands-on experience and this course certainly gave you lots of opportunities to do so!

Week 9, Thing 22: Overdrive and downloadable audiobooks

I chose to look at Project Gutenberg since I am somewhat familiar with Overdrive and we no longer have Netlibrary. From there I went to the top 100 e-books from yesterday, and again, wow. You can just keep going forever. I chose an Aesop's Fable's audiobook just to hear what it sounded like; and it sounded like a robot reading with no inflection whatsoever. I think it would put me to sleep, I would definitely not listen to that one in the car!

Week 9, Thing 21: Podcasts

I found several podcasts that were quite entertaining..

http://www.bangcartoon.com/bcrh.htm

http://s3.amazonaws.com/chinesepod/0595/mp3/chinesepod_B0595pb.mp3

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/1090/14270...

and my personal favorite:

http://www.DogCastMedia.com/audio/17_DogCast_Radio.mp3

I will have to go back and explore these when I have some time.

Week 9, Thing 20: Youtube

Youtube is something I became acquainted with a long time ago, there is some hilarious and downright scary stuff there. On my way home from work last night I was listening to the Don and Mike Show on 105.7 FM radio, and they were talking about a recent Youtube video and whether or not it was real. Callers had varying opinions. Since then it has been revealed to be a fake. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nFDnC8SSWQ

I first heard this song on the radio several weeks ago and envisioned the artist(s) completely different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU


Flight of the Conchords is a show on HBO that I would watch if I had HBO; but I have the first season reserved in my netflix account.

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

Wow. There are lots of sites here. I immediately went to fun stuff, because I like fun stuff, and found an interesting site called One Sentence: True Stories told in one sentence. I also went to Google maps and looked at my house. I signed up for a facebook account. I created a Say-So account. And of course, craigslist; which I am already familiar with.

Week 8, Thing 18: Online Applications and Tools

I looked at both Zoho writer and Google Docs. I really like that documents can be saved online, so I can access them anywhere and I don't have to carry a USB drive or a diskette around. I signed up for a Zoho notebook account. I think I will use this to take minutes the next time I have to for a meeting; staff are starting to do that more and more using a laptop. It's easier than writing down notes and then going back to your desk and typing them up. I found that if I don't start typing them up right away, I don't understand my own notes and/or can't read my own chicken scratch writing.

Week 7, Thing 17: Sandbox Wiki

I created a Maryland Libraries Sandbox account. I added my blog to favorite blogs and here's proof! http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/ although it wasn't quite as simple as the instructions said; I eventually figured out how to do it.
I did enjpy this part; especially reading about other peoples favorite things. I added an entry to the favorite dogs wiki. There are just so many places to go; I am finding this a lot with the whole 23 things program. Keeps you absorbed but can also keep you distracted.

Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

While reading this, this just kind of jumped out at me:

excerpted from the Public Library of Charlotte and Meckenburg County's (PLCMC) Core Compentency blog

Spellcheck anyone?

Once I got beyond that, I found the booklover's wiki; and I will be perusing that whenever I get a spare moment.