Exercise 23 - THE END!

Can't believe I made it! Has been an up and down time, but really one of the best training tools I've ever used in ACL. Congratulations to you Jayne for getting it up and running. Not too sure how much has stayed in my brain, but now when people talk about 'blogs', 'technorati', 'podcasting', etc., I know that this is not a foreign language. Of course the MP3 player is a great carrot to get us to the end, but there are so many things to be gained by this programme. Now we can help our customers, we can understand our kids' conversation and if we're feeling lonely, we can always go on Facebook and find some friends!

Exercise 22 - E books

Well, I've probably said it before, but this is something I definitely know I wouldn't use! Will I prove myself wrong?? Sorry, reading a book on-line is not my thing. I'm the person who puts on the CD, pours the glass of wine and curls up in the couch with that lovely invention - THE BOOK! But this was a great exercise, as had never looked at Netlibrary and really wouldn't have had a clue how to help customers wanting to do so. So I've at least learnt that much. The only thing I would possibly use are the journals or perhaps material I required for a study purpose, when I couldn't get a hard copy.

Exercise 21 - Podcasts

This seemed to be quite frustrating for us all in the workroom. I tried looking at Podcast.net but really didn't have much success. Kept coming up with this ActiveXcontrol thing. So read the exercise re Bloglines and RSS feeders and thought, how on earth do I do that? Had completely forgotten that exercise. But low and behold, when I went in to my Bloglines account, I remembered it all. Yes, knowledge that is only stored in the brain and never used, is not of much use! On going in to Bloglines, found the 'Using Bloglines To Track Podcasts' article and that simplified the whole exercise. From there I could add an RSS feed for a news podcast to my Bloglines account. I think I'm getting to the point of information overload!

Exercise 20 - Part 2 of my success

Well I had to write another post to say how great I felt actually posting the video. Seemed to be impossible and a lot of fussing around, but success at last!

Exercise 20

Well I started looking at this and thought what a lot of rubbish is out there! It was only when I asked a colleague who uses it regularly, that I struck gold. He explained the benefits of it for music, etc. I did a search on one of my favourite bands, Runrig, who were performing at Loch Lomond in August, soon after our visit to Scotland. And yes, it was great, I could watch the concert or parts of it. So that was exciting. Now I'll have a go at placing the video on my blog. Here I go!!

Exercise 19

Since my passion is travel, I decided to look at the Web 2 awards under the travel area. I looked at Farecast first and found that was just really an American site. Not much point if you're not in the States. This was actually awarded the first place. The airfare predictions were all from US cities, nowhere else. So then had a look at the 3rd placegetter, Real Travel. This looked more interesting from the word go, but then when I tried doing a search on Samoa and accommodation, I could only get the hotel option. So it really seemed like it was geared to travellers doing the more expensive route. Don't think I'd ever use either of these tools. They do include travel planners, but then other sites do that too anyway. Interesting to see Facebook was in first place for the social networking. I think that's a great network to use, but then again, after my initial additions to the site and 'finding' friends, I haven't done much, so feel now I'm a bit anti-social!!

Exercise 18 - Week 8

Well I really liked this. Thought they were great tools. Google Docs is really appealing, so straightforward and easy. I love it when things you need to do are in your face, instead of you having to search and read long complicated instructions. And there is the e-mail link right in front of me. Great! I wrote a document on Zoho Writer and found it easy to 'save' and find again, which is always the key!!

Exercise 17 - Sandbox

This was fun after the initial hassle of the password. Really easy to use and great to see some other favourite restaurants, holiday places. Some of these are a bit thin on the ground, as a lot of people aren't up to this yet, so will definitely have a look later on as well. Yes, definitely an area of the web just to play around in, I guess like the old sandbox of our youth!

Week 7, Exercise 16

Well, it was good to have a short concise sentence on Web2 explaining what a Wiki is! Was interesting looking at the library wiki's and I was wondering how on earth there is any control of what goes on, is edited, etc., when I read at the beginning of the 'Library Success:A Best Practices Wiki', that they now required email addresses because of vandalism problems! I think wiki's could work well (sorry, keep putting the apostrophe, as plural version looks funny otherwise!) within library groups. For example, children's librarians could set up one and post resources, information, etc. I think there needs to be some sort of limit, but then does that mean I'm changing the format and idea anyway and creating something else?

Exercise 15 - Library 2 and Web 2

Well this was all very interesting reading. I think it showed the difference from where I've come and where I'm hoping to go, in that I printed off some of the articles to read rather than reading them on-line. Just so much easier to sit in the comfy chair at lunchtime and look at the written word! Really enjoyed Rick Anderson's words - 'Away from the "icebergs" '. Those 3 icebergs - they do belong to a bygone era, but how hard it is to let them go! Yes, our patrons will expect access to it all, but many of them will also want a friendly chat at their local library, a person to listen to some of their woes (nothing to do with books or the internet). The constant question of customer service - how can we be everything to everyone?
What does it mean to me? All this makes me think, move out of my comfort zone and step into the 'brave new world!' In practical terms, upskill just like I'm doing now!

Week 6 - Exercise 14

Did the keyword searching for "Learning 2.0" in blog post, tags and blog directory. Very different results with 2,517 hits via the directory, 561 on the blog posts and 700 via the tags option. Thought the advanced search option was straightforward and easy to use.

http://search.technorati.com/"learning%202.0"?authority=a4&language=en

Found it interesting to look at the most popular blogs and thought the one below at number 2 could be interesting. But then when I went in to it, discovered I had no idea what people were talking about. Even when I read a number of the blogs, I still didn't understand what it was all about. Obviously making a lot of progress with Web2, but not that much!

http://www.technorati.com/blogs/gizmodo.com

Exercise 13 Week 6

Del.icio.us - well can't really see the point of this. Did read on one of the resources that it's useful if you use various computers and therefore have favourites listed on different ones. I can see the point of that. But a lot of trouble for little effect, so can't really see it as a valuable research tool. Looked at all the resources, but not convinced! Haven't set up an account, as sort of getting too many accounts and didn't think it would be something I'd use.

Exercise 12 Rollyo

Had a look at Rollyo and have set myself up with account as below and started adding travel sites to my search roll for my next big trip in 2009. This could be useful to keep everything within reach.

http://www.rollyo.com/ciao55/

Not sure of the potential use of all these searchrolls, but found the one below great and could possibly use it when trying to think of one of those quotations you never remember at the right time.

http://rollyo.com/search.html?q=Search+for...&sid=60176&x=31&y=22

Added my searchroll to my blog, but like in Willow's comment, was a bit perplexed re the missing step. I should have read that comment before doing it and saved myself the time! This would have been one of the most useful comments yet. Really delighted to see it appear on my blog, as even though one can follow through on all the instructions, there's always that slight apprehension that things will actually work!

Week 5 Library Thing

Well this is true to a librarian's heart! But as I spend a lot of my day talking about books, I'm probably not keen to do so on-line as well. Set up the account and added the books, but had a bit of trouble with the widget thing, because couldn't put the HTML on my blog - came up with a 'funny' message. Found another person who had the same books on her catalogue as myself. Must have either been a child or a person like me who has always loved 'Anne of Green Gables'.


http://www.librarything.com/catalog/wallism

Yes, yes, yes!!!

Well, I couldn't stand the fact that I was unable to save my animated glow logo, so had to try again and here it is! Not particularly inspiring, but I got there!!

http://12.158.190.222/rendered/cooltext68618367.gif

Week 5 - Exercise 10

Well, having a go adding this image and playing around with the different image generators. There are images for everything under the sun. Oops, first one didn't open, next try meant I ended up with over 100 images - not sure what happened there! So here goes again. Well after numerous tries on cooltxt.com, I decided that maybe it was the problem that I had an animated logo. I tried saving to memory stick, floppy, hard drive, but no luck. Finally just did the whole change password deal on the site and it looks like it has worked. It was only then that I got the hyperlink which enabled me to copy and paste it. A lot of time spent on this, but very rewarding in the end!

http://67.166.78.61/rendered/cooltext68617826.jpg

Week 4 - Exercise 9 - Newsfeeds

Had a look at the search tools, feedster, etc. Found topix.net easiest to use because of the ability to do a city search for news. Not that I don't like to know what is going on in the world, it can just simplify what I need to know at a particular point in time! In all honesty, I find some of the search tools just too overwhelming with information. I can't imagine ever having the time to spend on these things, so probably just take what I can out of it and that's it. But great knowing what I never knew existed! Technorati seems to have a strong US bias, but does have sub-headings that jump out at you and make the searching easy. Favourite search link below.

http://www.topix.net/

Week 4 - Bloglines

Well this seemed to take a lot of time and cause a lot of frustration! Don't think I'd use it that much, although very handy to have my weekly astrological overview! Maybe need to keep subscribed just to get that - let's me know what's around the corner! Enjoyed adding colleague's feeds and yes, that bit was easy. Just so much information out there, all a bit overpowering. Added 13 feeds, mainly around books and travel. Here's the link to my public blogline account.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/ciao55

Week 3 - Exercise 7

Week 3 - Exercise 7


Had a look at the Skype link and have heard a lot about it from friends. Was good to see how it actually works and how easy it is. Don't have a use for it at the moment, but will definitely be a goer when my kids do their O.E.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma9r9docGE8

Flickr Fun!!

Quick learning session on flickrmashups with a colleague's assistance and a couple of photos added. Need more time though to have a good practice and sort of photos floating around on discs at home! Have a look at our work clown!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14811274@N06/?saved=1

Week 3 - Exercise 6

Discovered a Third Party Flickr application that I think I would actually use! It's the Trip Planner. Would have been great on my big trip this year, but then again I sort of did the same thing - just with a pen and paper! All of which means I'll need to save away and plan another trip, so that I can use this great tool. Here's the link:

http://travel.yahoo.com/trip

Week 3

Well it's up and down - grabbing time to make some slight progress! One big success which is not part of this training, was managing to advertise something on Trademe - Yes, I know the rest of the world can do that, but a first for me! Had a good look at Flickr, but don't think I'd use it that much as don't do a lot with photos, but fun to look anyway. Well and truly onto Facebook now and just using Bebo and Myspace for purposes of training. Don't want to be doing too much social networking - not enough time for anything else!

Sending the link to a great shot of New York - it represents the fantastic madness which is that city!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/freddys/74849327

Week 2!

Well I'm now attempting to be friends with more people than I probably have in reality! Already set myself up on Facebook awhile back - much to my kids' horror, especially when their friends invited me to be friends! Not really my fault - I just don't know so many people in my own age group networking in the 'unreal' world! Have also joined Myspace and Bebo, but stuck on how to link these pages to my blog??
Ciao55

Yes, I'm here!

After many interruptions and attempts at finding my way, I have reached at least one point on the road to update my technical skills - long overdue! Was one of my goals for this year and low and behold, ACL starts this great programme. Because I tend to be 'slightly' impatient, if I don't get things right away, I can be quick to give up! Also joined up with Facebook recently, so obviously I'm getting younger every moment!