#23 Is this the end or just the beginning...

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
Getting to go to sites which normally would be a no-no, especially YouTube; finding out what's there.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
Found out about stuff wouldn't normally bother with.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
Zoho was better than expected. Mostly knew about the other stuff, but haven't had a need to use it.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
More time to complete it. Cheat sheets to show the steps involved - an optional help.

Overall it was good, just not my learning style and not my pace.

#22 Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight ")

Worldebook fair.

Looks ok.

Next!

#21

I couldn't find 21 on the learning page so went back to the PLMPC learning page...

http://podcasts.yahoo.com

Yahoo’s site was good in that you didn’t have to download software etc. I didn’t realise just how long some of these podcasts are, so it’s good to get a heads up on that.

Seems an ok site to navigate; although search functionality needs to be improved – I looked for podcasts and chose the abc and australia - only brought up the science show, pacific beat and english for tourists; whereas looking at the ABC site for podcasts, there was heaps more to choose from.

I reckon that I may as well use a search engine direct and put in podcasts and I'd find them just as easily.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/subscribe/amrss.xml I think this is the RSS feed? I dunno, and I give up!

#20 YouTube

As I'd already had a look for #19, I tried not to spend too much time on the site. Yeah, right. It's very easy to waste heaps of time on the site.

This one was pretty good:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DMLLuPKvhCU
Firie Dance Clip Firefighters SAMFS Adelaide Just plain funny. They obviously had fun making it.

The homepage seems to have too much information, but then it's hard to see what they could take off without losing all the functionality.

#19 Examples of Web 2.0 excellence

Google Maps

Tried out the Get Directions feature. Was suitably impressed to find that the suggested route from home to my parents is the exact route I take. The timing on 21 minutes is about right for the 11.8 km journey.

Nifty to have all the directions to print out and can have a map with some of the street names on it.

Satellite with the suburbs and major road names on it is also nifty for computer viewing. Get an overview of the area.

Finding businesses in a new area you’ve moved to (or an existing area) also looked good. I tried my current area to see what they picked up for pizza – yep, looks about right, even picked up the seafood place that I get my pizza from, although it does pick up businesses from quite a wide geographic area – more than 2 suburbs away on some of them, so mapping the hits is a good double-check.

YouTube
I had a detour to youtube, to find out what all the fuss is about, forgetting that Google had bought it and that’s what you get under videos. I found “G-Force” dubbed into English. Such an 80’s classic and an after school must-see. Pity the quality of the video wasn’t so hot, but at least it’s there – something for me to go back to one day…..

Cocktail Builder http://www.cocktailbuilder.com
I loved the functionality of being able to add what I’ve got “in my bar” and see what cocktails you can make with it – and what other ingredients you need. Nicely set out and extremely user friendly – it would probably need to be after a cocktail or two… now I just have to actually have something "in my bar"!

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

Zoho Writer - this is an application to get really excited about, as I can put it into to practical use right away.

I was expecting vanilla, but got the whole gauntlet of flavours to choose from instead.

Love it - especially as posting to the blog worked on first attempt. That's always a bonus - something so easy that it works the first time.

The FAQ feature was easy to follow.

The real test would be if using at home and then wanting to bring into work - change to a "proper" format eg Word. Would all the formatting come across? Anyways, I don't personally expect to have such a need, so it's a moot point for me for now.

However I gave this a whirl anyways. Tried exporting my doc into a Word document - it did lose a bit of the formatting - the special characters - which was only to be expected I guess. The rest looked ok.

Testing Zoho - Importing from Zoho

♥♥This could be really neat and not to mention cheap to have.

I haven't heard much about it though.

Anyways, I'll try posting it to my Blog.

#17 Wikis - sandpit

Done my bit in the sandpit.

Couldn't find anything to say where you actually add your entry on the page of the wiki - eg at the top, at the bottom or can you just add wherever and hope that it get's noticed? Didn't find this in the FAQ section either.

Assumed knowledge I guess....

Anyways I used Google and then used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog wikipedia and it seems you add to the top.

My first search for actual knowledge on a Wiki. Following a few links led me to this site: http://community.livejournal.com/snacksters/ looks scary but fun for the true snack devotee - and there seems to be a few of them out there!

#16 So what’s in a wiki?

Hi

Up to week 7 at long, long last. Wikis. You'd be suprised how many people "out there" still don't know what one is, what one does, and if they've come across the wikipedia that one shouldn't cite it as a reference tool.

The library wikis I looked at for this blog post are:

SJCPL Subject Guides

This one was a good one to start off with. A specific purpose which was stuck to.

Under Crafts I found these catchy titles:

The happy hooker : stitch 'n bitch crochet / by Debbie Stoller.

Sweaterbabe.coms fabulous and flirty crochet : gorgeous sweater and accessory patterns from Los Angeles top crochet designer / Katherine Lee.

Reminds me a bit of the whole information profession vs librarian debate – anything to create interest/relevancy amongst the young folk!

But back to the task at hand….

Mostly it’s got some good ideas, but does tend to be a bit too much information on the home page – overkill – too much blue (too many links).


Book Lovers Wiki
Is it very new? Doesn’t seem to be a lot there. It’s very nicely presented though. The reviews that are included do actually seem to be quite good. It seems that it’s only the summer reading club members who add to the site. This does seem to explain the size and the limitations on it.


Library Success: A best practices wiki
Without looking, I thought “yikes”. Sounds like it has the potential to be quite unwieldy and overwhelming and messy.
Having had a look at it, I’m surprised to find that it’s quite well laid out with the TOC and all. However it is a bit misleading in that some headings just don’t have any content under them.
I don’t think it’s really taken off yet.


ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki
A great site; lots of really useful information.
It had a lot of “buy in” – yep, I’ve been to a marketing seminar.


The Bull Run Library wiki
I think the About this Wiki section is great – it’s really setting the scene for the whole thing.

There was more to look at, but then there's heaps of work to get done too.

So all up, the idea of a wiki is great, but the idea of a wiki is yukky too. Too much information for the structure. Layout could be a nightmare. Is anyone going to contribute? Is anyone going to use it after you've put hours of work into it? Subject guides / book reviews are a good use. Internal projects with a select audience are good too.

TTFN

#15 Web 2.0 and the future of libraries

Hi

Re: OCLC Next Space Newsletter – Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries?

I thought that the views on the site were interesting, but mostly a bit "out there" for the forseeable future, but good goals for a public/uni environment - to make use of technology as a value add.

Points I'd like to highlight are:

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm "technolust"

I like the term "technolust" - I can apply it to any number of youngish men of my acquaintance (who shall remain forever cash poor, but keeping the IT/entertainment world going). Just because it's out there, doesn't mean that we need to create a need for it. The need comes first. However, there is the imperitive to find out what technology is out there and keep it in mind in case a need comes up. That's the main benefit of doing Learning 2.0 I guess.

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/5.htm I liked John J. Riemer's illustration of having geographic names embedded in the middle of subject headings that are mapped to latitude and longitude coordinates so that there's a graphical means of searching by place, new ways of easily asking for materials about nearby places, and hierarchical browsing by place - it was a nice, tangible example that I can immediately see would be useful, terrific even, to have - a value add, rather than a gimmick, that would have long term use beyond immediate novelty value. That's the problem I think a lot of 2.0 technology has in a library/information environment - genuine and feasible value add instead of novelty value.

I went a bit further and had a look at this page too:

http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/advocacy.htm
Great story of a rural school library
I especially liked the idea of their starting out with a big ILL commitment – I think that's a good way to go - boosting that service and not buying into the collection so much. Make a way for clients to check the catalogues of nearby Unis or LADD and then request ILL from the library when not held in collection – users get direct use of (and knowledge of) a much bigger collection and could be useful to gather the info for collection development. This is probably a happening thing all over already! But, I liked it too! I guess I'm identifying with the bit on this page http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm re building just in case collections - so much only gets borrowed a couple of times, but then I don't think there's as much electronic or other access as was implied. There will always be a need for big collections.

Here endeth the blog and Week 6.

Cheers

Stormy's mum

(Stormy is probably fast asleep, lucky thing)

#14 Technorati

It's Friday once again, and nicely quiet (in patches) - gotta love school holidays!!!! :-)

After a week, I'm finally up to part 2 of week 6. Technorati.

Well, as per the rest of the Internet, it's certainly shows (via the popular tab) how many people want to get rich quick and how many people like to know about the rich and/or shameless. I didn't get anything out of viewing the popular list, except I was suprised that there were so many "get rich quick" or "make money" blogs in this list.

As Technorati is a search tool, it does have its uses.

I was stumped for something to look for at first but decided on the ABC's showing of the Great Global Warming Swindle and there was quite a bit of "noise" about it.

I especially liked this post amongst more serious posts:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/07/13/the-mad-bad-and-unhinged/

The mad, bad and unhinged
Post the ABC broadcast on the Great Global Warming Swindle there was an “experts” discussion and then the floor was thrown open to the great unwashed. And unwashed they were with a fabulous....

I did see the tags to go link to more posts, but decided time was slipping away. [In the popular bit, I don't know that the tags would be all that informative, but then I didn't spend much time there].

So, technorati could be useful to navigate the minefield of blogs and find some sites if you're looking for uptodate info on a particular topic or latest opinions etc. And there are certainly no filters, so all sides of any issue get a voice.

Bye.

#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us

Hi


I can see the use, in other organisations, of tagging and social bookmarking when needing to move from one computer to another - especially if you're the kind of person who'd spend hours on the computer at home (I believe some people actually take work home [gasp!]) or of course if you're just messing about (playing/CPD stuff) then, yes, could find interesting stuff to take note of.


However we don't own the computers (rent) and therefore we're not to download extra software to the computers (which is why I haven't bothered opening a del.icio.us account - it wanted to add some things to the tool bar) it's beyond our reach.


Change the supplier/contract or buy the computers, then we can make use of it.

#12 Roll your own search engine

Nearing the end of week 5, yeah!!

Anyways, have created a quick rollyo thingy:

http://rollyo.com/ed2g/intl_authorities/

On sites like ILO, UN, WTO etc which are hopeless to search within - always using an external search engine on these sites.

I think it's a bit like a federated search in that you'd not be wanting to make the search too complex as you're looking at more than one site at a time.

Not sure what is behind it - eg Google or what other search engine; so don't know what search features are there. Will have to explore further at some stage.

That's all folks for today.

#11 A thing about LibraryThing

Library Thing - very useful to update what you have on that next bookshop visit, assuming I've charged up the batteries...

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Dukie This is all I could be bothered adding for now; and I can't see myself adding much more.

I've often got a list of what I next need (well, it's all relative isn't it!) to add to a series etc, reminders of authors for bookshop visits. Especially handy when you've not bought into that series for awhile and have a summer holiday reading binge planned.

Eg I can't remember offhand what letter I'm up to in the Sue Grafton series; and I'll have to look at the books closely to see what one I read up to also....

#10 Play around with Image Generators

Hi


Have found lots of fun sites via the Generator Blog which would be useful if wanting to add something extra to jazz up your blog.

I liked the font site at http://yourgen.com/ which would be good to use on a webpage too...




My chocolate bar, with the label "calories" didn't translate across, but now I've lost interest in it anyways, so it will just have to live it the reader's imagination....

This was a fun site too - I'm sure that there are some quite cool names out there on a myriad of blogs around the world (eg kissyourbuttgoodbye - didn't fit though):

... if only!!! Sigh!




Didn't like the slogans site - not tasteful at all.




But now it is time for lunch and then I'll do some more Learning:

Your sincerely,
The Bloodthirsty Stinking Scared-of-the-Dark Night Monkey
:-)

courtesy of http://www.chimpage.com/monster.html

#7

Hi.

I can certainly see that there's a lot of add-on guff for Flickr (and like sites) for those who have lots of time on their hands OR actually have a real NEED to be filled - stuff that they could certainly make use of.

From a purely wasting time, but looking at pretty pictures point of view, this site looked nice:

An interesting 2005
Home Page — Kelvin Luck http://kelvinluck.com/assets/flickr_api/0.5/interesting4.php
A web application showing the most interesting photos on flickr from 2005 in a slick flash interface.

I'm sure if I ever have the need, there will be an application etc etc out there to fill it.

#Thing5

Hi

My 2nd post to a blog.

It took me awhile to realise that when uploading a photo (saved to the computer from Flickr) that if you choose none as layout, then you get to put the darn photos where you want them to go.

Flickr is all well and good, but needs a heap more tags to find 'that' photo... mind you, I now know that there are tortoiseshell butterflies and they're pretty.


A couple of photos I liked were the butterfly above - a nice, crisp image - and not a pin in sight! :-)

And as I'd like to visit Ireland - I went on a hunt and found a couple of nice shots of County Kerry countryside - one of which is here:

#3: Learining habits

Hi

I find the hardest learning habit is to accept responsibility for my own learning, in that I have a learning need, but then have to find something (course, book, article etc) to meet that need and make the time to undertake the activity to meet the need.

I find the easiest learning habit is to view problems as challenges. If I have a problem imposed upon me, I'll view it as a challenge. If however, the problem is a "wouldn't it be nice to know about that" then it remains a problem as per para above.

Cheers
Stormy - 1st post on this blog.