Really? The end?

I can’t believe I’m at the end of this learning journey already - I’m sure I have more to learn. To tell you the truth, if it hadn’t have been for the 25 Things, I know I would not have gone seeking information about web technologies at all. There are some things I want to aquire more knowledge about but some of this stuff, I figured, there wasn’t enough room in my brain for it.

Who knew my brain was so big! I found so many things that I’m using now - tabbed browsing and right clicking – that I wonder how I ever lived without them!  Google reader is brilliant. It is so cool to log in and have all the blogs I want to read right on the screen before me. Flickr was fun application I plan to keep exploring. I loved image generators just because it was fun. I think I can use it again. My favourite thing has been blogging though. How great is it to create a post and share my thoughts with you? My husband says that’s because I’m opinionated. Having “an” opinion does not make one opinionated I say, but then, I don’t live with me. But, I digress.

I’m using delicious  now. I’m not sure I would join but at the moment, it’s a great time saver. And librarything is just amazing. I’m keeping that going.

I’m not a big social networker so that stuff didn’t interest me. It was good to see what it was about though.

The common craft podcasts were so clear it helped to explain much of what we were learning.

Really, the 25 Things was just full of alot of information. If you did something like it in the future (and maybe if you gave us treats – cookies maybe?) I would be happy to do it again!

Seriously, thank you so much for putting this program together. I learned a lot but what sticks with me the most is that it’s not that hard to learn how to do new things on the web. I’d be willing to learn more.

Netlibrary

I have to say Netlibrary wasn’t one of my favourite things. It was easy to learn about but I’m just not a big fan of audiobooks. And since I haven’t won the ipod shuffle yet I don’t have a device to put books on!

Even though I’m not interested in audiobooks I know there are oodles of patrons who are so I think it was a good thing to learn how to set up an account (pretty easy) and to play around in it (also pretty easy to search).

Who knows perhaps when I win the ipod I may change my mind about audio.

Podcasts

I’m not really sure what I think about podcasts. I found the common craft tutorials really useful. They explained these things in a really clear manner. But I struggled to find anything I wanted to listen to on podcast alley. When I did find something it never seemed to work. Carol suggested I try another site she found www.canadapodcasts.ca. That was much easier to work through and had the bonus Canadian content. I subscribed to a mom podcast because there were some fun Christmas tips there (if you are interested http://www.momtalk.ca/). I don’t know where I subscribed to it though. It was just too easy to click and subscribe but they didn’t ask for an email or anything. So who knows who is going to get it (I think I might have missed something before…if I admit to that do I still get my usb stick????)

Podcasts might be another time waster but if I did stumble on something I liked, and I wanted to listen to it as well, it would almost be like listening to the radio but when I’m able to listen. I’ll let you know what I think if I actually succeeded in subscribing!!

YouTube

I can’t believe there are so many fun and funny library clips on YouTube! I guess it’s something I haven’t really thought about searching for before. I am already familiar with the application but it was alot of fun nonetheless to search for things I haven’t thought about before. I found some old 80′s music videos that were great fun to watch. And some funny, funny Star Trek clips. This is one of my favourites http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVjkTEIoJc.

My favourite libray clip was this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbDdgWiaS0&feature=related#watch-main-area.

The library could use YouTube for instructional videos, especially for young people. They are so technically savvy that something funny like the one Harper College used might attract users. I really liked the Calgary storytime clip too. It was clever and really good PR for libraries.

Playing Around

Playing in the sandbox was a great description for adding onto the PBWiki. Ok, I have to admit I still don’t know what PB means but it was fun looking at everyone’s favourites on the wiki. Some people are very clever with their pet photos!!! I would put the Rufusdog up but honestly, I don’t know how (picture me saying that in a little, whispering voice). I’ll work on it. I really should share the Rufus with you!

So that’s what a wiki is!

I have to admit that the extent of my knowledge about wikis began and ended with Wikipedia. I just thought it was a catchy name for an encyclopedia. Who knew wiki actually meant something?!

This thing was actually pretty informative. I wasn’t really excited about it (and honestly excited still isn’t a word I would use) but obviously I learned a great deal. I think a wiki is a really smart way to share information (its a little similar to google docs in how it is eliminating email and having a central place to share). It does seem a little information heavy though. Some of these sites had link after link to go through. I could see us using this for sharing information within the library or departmentally (like REF has done) but I would be a little worried about control if patrons were allowed to add to it.

I liked the Series Binder wiki from one of the library wikis. I think that would be great for CAF. There are soooooooo many mystery series, science fiction, children’s series etc. that it might be faster to call a wiki up rather than google searching author sites when someone is searching for something like book five in the Richard Jury mysteries.

Library 2.0

Sigh….I don’t know what to say. To be honest, the articles didn’t really hook me in to form any opinion either way. All I know is I have been enjoying this process. It’s a little time consuming but I think it’s important to know what is happening on the web. I’m not into social networking (man, I can’t even do that in real life — how could I do it in cyberspace??) but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be aware of them or about what they do. I have a feeling this doesn’t relate at all to any of the articles I read but just thought I should share.

And I think I need to find some more image generators — my blog is too boring (except for the writing!)

Technorati

I think I didn’t like this when I looked at it earlier during the 25 Things. I recall having problems. This time it wasn’t that bad. I found interesting sites and had fun looking for writing and knitting blogs. I find that blogs are good for finding free knitting patterns. And writers drop tips and advice in blogs rather than on their websites where they are often promoting their work. But that’s another story.

Technorati was good. I did have problems on the advanced search though. I couldn’t find it but will keep looking! I was intriqued by the blog off competion and thought maybe… But I think you have to have more than one person reading your blog to win anything!

Delicious

I have to admit, watching the videos about this application made me a little worried. It looked like it was going to be confusing to use it. But when I actually got in to the library’s delicious and started searching, it was quite easy. I searched for preschool storytime and found a number of sites. Some I already knew and had bookmarked but there was one I had never discovered (SurLaLune fairytales in case you are interested). I can totally see how useful this is for searching. I love that it narrows down all the other possible hits to, in this case, 111 sites. It saves time searching so you actually have time to explore sites.

I also searched for knitting sites and found something called Kiss Your Shadow that generates stripes so you can see what your scarf or sweater will look like with the colours you have selected. It’s cool for non-visual people like me! There were many different tags to find the sites – knitting, patterns, knit – simple search words that pick it up easy.

I initially didn’t think I wanted to set up an account but the ease of searching would help a great deal at home. It is one of the applications that I want to spend more time with.

Online Image Generators

Image generating was shockingly,  fun. I didn’t know there were so many sites where you can create these things (normally when I need an image I rely on someone else to create it for me (or I use clip art — man, what a dinosaur!!). But this was just way too cool. The hard part was figuring out what snappy message I wanted to create (alright, maybe this isn’t the snappiest but it was better than the other ones I had!) I had fun with images on addletter too. I did this on letterjames. I had a little struggle with uploading the image (even to this blog) so Teresa helped. It’s actually a lot easier than I thought though. I may want to play with this some more for non-work stuff.

Oh and I have to mention my engineering husband, who I go to for computer problems, asked me to help  him with RSS feeds! Life is sweet sometimes!