Final Thoughts

Yeah, this is the final exercise! I'm nearly finished. This has been an interesting journey. I enjoyed some exercises and others I just as soon never heard about. I most enjoyed flickr, podcasts and blogging. These are things I can see using in my personal life. It was ok learning about the others, but I have no use for them at this time - even professionally.

Did this help me on lifelong learning goals? I don't know. I know a bit more about podcasts and blogging now. If I can find the time, I would like to use flickr to share photos with friends and family as it would be easier than trying to email them. I didn't have any specific goals for this journey other than completing it and earning a mp3 player (I hope) - :).

The only suggestion for improvement would be to look at the potential work load of the exercises. A couple of weeks were harder to complete due to the number and complexity of the exercises combines with my usual workload. Would I participate in another discovery program? That would depend on my interest on the program.

I would like to thank the people organizing this journey. I'm sure it was a job getting everything set up and answering all our questions. Thank you for all your help.

Podcast

I had been thinking about subscribing to podcasts for a while, but hadn't acted on it. After reviewing each of the directories, I registered on Podcast Alley. I thought it was the easiest to use. It was interesting to see how many podcasts are available on the three topics I chose - Harry Potter, Disney and Battlestar Galactica. HP had more than Disney. That surprised me.

For my first subscription, I chose Pottercast by the people at The Leaky Cauldron. I haven't had a chance to actually listen to anything yet, but it is on my bloglines account now. I hope to add WDWToday as well. I'll have to download the application to listen to podcasts at home so maybe this weekend.

Overdrive

I think this is a great service - particularly for those who listen to a lot of audio books. I like that you can search by title, author and genre. I only found one title that I might be willing to download, but only if I had some time off as it can't be burned to a cd. Some authors had a large list of available titles, others only had the newest release. I had hoped to find Harry Potter books or titles by some of my favorite romance authors but I found only the one title. Oh well. Guess I have to keep checking out the ones I can find at the library.

YouTube

YouTube is an interesting place. If you have insomnia and want to stare at a computer for a while, this is the place to go. You can see just about anything you want and certainly things you don't want to see. I do like the comments and related videos sections. Before my trip to Australia, my group leader sent a few links to YouTube videos about Australia. After viewing one, I saw a humorous knock off in the related videos section.

If you are a Harry Potter fan, there are a couple of videos using puppets. One is about a mysterious ticking sound. All the characters pop up chanting their own names. It is really rather strange.

My favorite video is one my group leader sent. It is "come to Australia, you might accidently get killed" and is about the deadly animals down under. I hope you take a look at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_TB6onHVE&feature=related

Biblio.com

I chose a book site called biblio.com. It lists out of print books that are available at a participating used bookstore. I tried looking up a couple of books I know are hard to find. I was able to find two specific titles and two other authors. I may have to use the site to get one of the titles.

It was easy to use. I'd like a couple of extra search features though. Being on the award list makes me feel you can trust the site and possibly the sellers more than if I had just come across the site on my own. I can see offering the site to a customer when we no longer own a title.

Zoho

I can see using Zoho if you are away from your computer for an extended time and want to create something you can get to later. For day to day stuff, I'll stick with Word. I did like the spell check feature that highlights all errors at one time. That is something I'd like to see in Word. I did post my document to my blog "TAS, PMS and Inventory".

TMS, PMS and Inventory

TAS and PMS and inventory - Oh my!

 

TAS is driving me crazy. On the whole, it was easier to have someone do the payroll - particularly for part time. Now I have to make sure they get it done each week. Now we have to enter their leave hours in a truly bizarre fashion. What is with entering leave hours and the hours they would have worked? It looks as if they are getting double paid. TAS is also annoying when you are the person who approves timesheets and its your short week. UGH.

 

Its PMS time again. Have you kept up with your log? Are you ready to prove you shine - or not? Hope everyone gets what they deserve.

 

Inventory sounds like a great idea but there's one problem. I have several items I've been trying to find for weeks. Inventory this past Saturday shows they are in the building - BUT WHERE!!!!!! I still can't find them.

PBWiki

It was really easy to enter my blog as well as a favorite vacation spot - almost too easy. I can see how you have to be careful about the information you find on wikis. I wouldn't mind being able to play around with wikis when I am not at work.

Wiki part 2

More thoughts on wikis.
I think that we should change our existing "recommended websites" pages to a wiki. As noted in one of the articles, it is time consuming for us to keep on top of all the links to ensure they are still working. Even more so to discover new links and get them posted. A wiki would allow our users to assist in keeping the links updated and to suggest new links. Someone could still be over the pages to keep pranksters from including unwanted links.
Another use would be for children and teen librarians to exchange program ideas and information. I saw such a use during this exercise but feel that system's set up to be too cumbersome for easy use.

Wiki part 1

I've used wikipedia in the past understanding that by its nature the information could be suspect. I've also seen wikis listed for some television shows but have not used them. The thing I did not like when I reviews some of the wikis for the project was that I had to go through page after page before I found the information. I'd rather get the information after the first or second link clicked. Four pages is too much. Also, the pages just looked boring. Some of the information found was hard to catch due to the sameness all down the pages.

On Library 2.0

The OCLC Next Space newsletter was interesting. I liked the analogy of the library as a boat. The article by the OCLC person seemed more like a commercial for OCLC than a discussion of Library 2.0. I thought the idea of including a quick link to an online bookstore for certain items to be worth considering. This might be helpful on items that are on reading lists (for those that procrastinate) or high demand items. I do have a slight issue with the notion that our customers need to be meet where they are - on the internet. We still have many customers who either can not afford computers or are computer illiterate. Perhaps in 15 years the statement will reflect on 90+% of our customers, but now at this time. The wikipedia article was a concise explanation of 2.0.

To me, Library 2.0 is just a term that is being used to showcase changes in libraries. While libraries do cling to the past, we do change and adapt to customer needs. Did we not start offering specific types of programs due to customer needs? Did we not start offering video, music and books on cd due to customer needs? Did we not bring in computers and internet access? We didn't have a label for those changes. We just knew that it had to happen to assist and meet the needs of our customers.

Technorati

This site reminded me of another site we looked at during week 4. I just don't remember which one without going back to those sites. I compared what I found searching for Learning 2.0 in blogs and tags. The results were about 50% the same. I'm not sure I figured out the blog directory enough to respond to that portion of the question. Anything to do with blog resulted in the same results. I did not see any use for Technorati for me.
The "tags from what's rising" on the front page did not surprise me considering its an election year and the public's desire for celebrity news.

Del.icio.us

Interesting site but not one I see myself using at least not much. I think having an online bookmarking site would be useful for those who visit a lot of web sites. I can see the usefulness in a library system or individual branch using this site instead of having a bunch of links from the system's own web page. It would help clean up the system's site. I did like how it had related tags posted to the side. That could prove useful in finding other search terms.

JaxCat Search Gadget

I now have the search gadget on my blog and igoogle page. What could be the purpose or usefulness of this? If I had a blog about what I am reading or what books I recommend, then a local reader of my blog could use the gadget to see if JPL had the book available. A reader who does not live near enough to use JPL could use the gadget to get further information about a book so that he could go to his local library or book store.

librarything

It's an interesting site. I started my "library" with a couple of books I know I own. If I had more time I can see that this would be a useful site. I could see talking with others about our similiar reading choices.

Here is my library
http://www.librarything.com/home/kdsbooks

Generators

I found most of the generators to be silly and time wasters. I did like wordle though. I make something from comic strip generator (http://www.txt2pic.com/toons/). I saved the image to my blog.

FInding Feeds

Which Search tool was the easiest for you?
I thought Technorati was the easiest to use of the ones listed to use. I was able to find a couple of blogs that I think I had not found before.

Which was more confusing?
Syndic8 was the most confusing. Being that I am new to RSS and searching for ones to include, I wasn't familiar with Syndic8's format. I wasn't sure was "awaiting approval" meant. I also tried Topix - not as easy as it should be. Topix pulled up weird stuff from a search for "hurrican bertha". Bloglines seemed to pull up more news feeds and blogs.

What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels?
I like to read blogs about Disney as you can get all sorts of opinions, advice and advance news through fan based sites. I wouldn't say anything I found was more useful than a site I've used for over a year though.

I'm not sure how I feel about this exercise. I am now aware of what RSS is, but I don't know how much I'll really use it in the future.

RSS feeds

I have created my blogline account and subscribed to the requiste 10 feeds. I think about four of them are other JPL 2.0 participant blogs.

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
Too early to say what I like about RSS. Right now I feel it creates more work than it helps with. I only frequent a couple of sites on a consistent basis. Some are news sites like: cnn, first coast news and channel 4 news. These I don't really need to know about updates as I am generally cruising the site to see if there is something I need to know or might be interested in. Another site I visit daily does have blogs, but I like so much about the site that I enjoy going directly to the site. Other sites are message boards that you have to log in to view.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
I don't really see a use or need in my personal life at this time due to the reasons described above. It is too early in learning about RSS to see what use it may be in my personal life.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
Once again, it is too early for me to tell as I don't have much experience with RSS.

Things to do with flickr

I played with the "spell with flickr". I found it interesting but not sure how to get it to appear elsewhere. I liked how you could change an individual letter if you didn't like its appearance. I didn't use the mappr but think it looks interesting.
I did create a badge on Big Huge Labs as well. I used a picture of a lamb I took in New Zealand.

Technology

I found two of the posts on Library Bytes to be interesting. Here is the link for one of them - http://www.librarybytes.com/2008/06/web-date-1934.html
The other concerned wordle - which really looks neat and I can use it on a scrapbook page.

Technology is great in many ways. Some of it is quite beneficial while others are simply useful. My fear about technology is that society is becoming obsessed with the latest and greatest. They are not concerned if it is actually beneficial so much as "look what I have". For example, I scrapbook as a hobby. I own the original Cricut that will cut out letters and shapes up to 5.5 inches in height. There is now a larger Cricut out that can cut up to nearly 24 inches. While a really neat shapes cartridge comes only with the larger Cricut, I do not need something that can cut shapes that large. So I will stick with my "small" machine for now. Others I know had to have the larger one even though they too have the "small" one. Why? Because it was new and big and they "had to have it".
I can also point to some of the new "and improved" toilets in Japan. Do we really need a toilet seat warmer? Is it really necessary to have a instant odor remover when a plug in does fairly well. Ok, I will concede that some people may need this - :). I can't remember some of the other "features" but that is part of my point. Why get the "latest and greatest" when the original does the intended purpose just fine.

Flickr picture - Roturua mud pool

Here is the picture link from Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fwillemburg/1870386766/

I wish I could have taken as good a photo when I visited the Maori village. It was so interesting to hear about another culture. They have a mud pool near their Anglican Church. They have to lower buckets to collect the mud which is boiling hot (and a bit smelly). Once it cools, they can use it for all sorts of skin aliments as it is absorbed into the skin rather than sit on top of it.

Our guide warned us that no one should climb over the fence as you do not want to fall into the pool. One, they will have to rescue you. Two, you will get very serious burns. Three, the mud will cling to you and is so hot that you will begin to cook from the inside. That really didn't sound pleasant at all.

All over the village are mud or water pools of various sizes. Many you can not enter. The mud and the water have "healing" minerals in them. The people of the village bathe regularly in cooled communal bathing pools. The smell of sulfur hangs everywhere.

New to blogging

This is my first blog. I've written journals when I travel but I've never really "published" them for others to read. True, I include them in my scrapbooks but that is still more private than a blog.

I joined the JPL 2.0 late as I was on vacation from June 9 - 29. I left on the 9th for Australia. We didn't arrive until the 11th though the flight was about 13 hours long. How strange is that? After a little more than a week, we went to New Zealand on June 20th. We have renamed Roturua to Rotor Rooter because of the sulfer smell.

7 1/2 habits

As with many, I find habit # 7 1/2 to be the easiest. Why? Because it is about playing. I suppose that is why I enjoy scrapbooking as I am playing while I am creating.

I find habit #7 to be difficult. It was because of the teaching aspect of being a media specialist that I left education and entered the public library.