Wednesday, August 1, 2007

#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"!