Thing #23 Wrap-Up

The favorite thing I learned about is the whole challenge. I found that one by-product of this exercise is it builds confidence when tackling other tech. issues; you try more things out.

What I liked least was I would have liked more time to explore and get comfortable with whatever "thing" I happened to be working on; I felt a little rushed. (We're a little short-handed here at the moment.)

The Web 2.0 services I've shared with friends and family are Library Thing, Picasa, YouTube and podcasts, with more to come.

Thank you to the Committee for answering my questions along the way. I did have my share.

Thing #22 - ListenNJ

I tried doing this on a Ref. Desk computer but had trouble because of our security. I was advised by the WebThings Challenge Committee to try doing it on PCPlus and it worked. It's a good service to our customers, and the time allotment of 10 days should be sufficient.

Thing #21 - Podcasts

I found a National Public Radio podcast on "This I believe," which are philosophies or core beliefs by famous and not-so-famous people.

Thing # 20 - YouTube

I played around with a few areas of interest and have included a vegetable musical instrument for your listening enjoyment.

Thing #19 - Web 2.0 Awards

I like Pandora. I'd never heard about it before, and it's a good way to discover artists you wouldn't get to know on your own. I like the feedback tab too. I also looked at the travel winners: farecast and realtravel, and these look like they will be useful when I plan my next trip. I usually use Yahoo travel.

Thing #18 - Web Apps

This is a great tool. It saves all of the back and forth goings-on - the attachment to this one and that one as described in the mini video - and makes editing and contributing to a document efficient. I don't currently have a project at my branch that could make use of a Web application such as this, but OCL's program brochure may be able to be done this way. An aside: Firefox wouldn't let me into Google Docs. I had to use IE.

Thing #17 - Play in the sandbox

I had trouble with this one. The instructions that were emailed to me were incongruent to what I had to do to get my comment posted. I never got the screen that asked me for a password, and I had to delete my post twice because it displayed my email address instead of my "name." During the log-in process there were times when I got 2 boxes (name and email) and times when I got one. I tried the lengthy URL first, and then the tiny URL and both sets of instructions did not apply. Did anyone test these? Aside from this, I can see the usefulness of an application like this. It saves a million emails on the same subject and having to be married to Delete.

Thing #16 - Wikis

I visited the "Library Success" wiki and will revisit it soon. I found some of the links to be very useful like the "Online training resources for librarians, Readers' Advisory, and Reference Services and Information Literacy." It's a good way to share ideas and information; but some marketing and community posts made no sense - not enough information was given. It also appears to be a work in progress with some categories housing little or no information.
I went on the OCL's article on Wikipedia, and interestingly, it gave me an abbreviated view with no ability to expand when using IE as my browser, but when I asked Jill I. about this, she said it's probably because of IE and to try Firefox, which worked. I later tried this again using IE and it worked. Why? Anyway, with regard to Sparks and his/her being magenta and not pink - I read the article and found Sparks in Trivia, noted the magenta color is referenced by footnote #28 and scrolled down to that link and clicked on it, which brought up the Sparks Tree House site.

Thing #15 - Library 2.0 and Web 2.0

I hope Wendy Schultz's "To a temporary place and time" was not written tongue-in-cheek, because of all five viewpoints in this Thing #15 I think she gets it. She takes us full circle from being "management biobots" to Web 3.0's virtual reality information coach to Library 4.0's knowledge spa where with a little time on our side we realize that we like a comfy chair, good lighting, and the quiet to absorb what we came to learn or enjoy. But behind the scenes, we're working to keep the well full and sparkling; to incorporate some of John Riemer's suggestions on libraries beefing up bibliographic data and making more available in one's result list. If this is done "across institutions" who rounds these institutions up to make this work, and who pays for it? Right now to me, it's like pinning down fog. I'm partially in favor of his idea that "libraries should welcome the submission of reviews and other forms of user participation." I welcome reviews by those with expertise in the field but I cannot suffer nonsense reviews. They cheapen the product.

Thing #14 - Technorati

When I searched "Learning 2.0" I got 1,054 blogs. I read some and could see that the availability of information is just exploding. Everything is easily linked and there's no wait time. I got 28,099 blogs on education when I clicked on "Hey Jude's" 'Emerging technologies, the development of Web 2.0, and what this all means for schools and school libraries.' I also checked out "When in Doubt Ask a Librarian - Leaders of the Digital Age," and "2 cents worth's" web 2.0 newsletter. I like his "Content as raw material" which gives insight on how younger generations view text, photos, music, etc. Such a different way of looking at things.

Thing #13 - del.icio.us

I've had a del.icio.us account for about a year and the best thing about it is that it "travels" with you; you don't have to be on a specific computer to access your Favorites. I often use it for research, and use familiar subject headings for my tags. I've looked into other peoples' sites who have tagged the same link to see what else they may have tagged, which can be interesting. I also learned about Furl and Live Bookmarks in Us.ef.ul's site.

Thing #7

I scanned an image of Frida Kahlo and Kristen replied that she had received it. I'm only adding this here because I'm not sure the WebThings team needs a record of it.

Thing #12 - NetLibrary and WorldCat

I've had a NetLibrary account for years and help others create one. I find it especially comes in handy when students can't find a physical copy of a book they need for an assignment but can access the title here.
I've explored Project Gutenberg and am thinking of joining their proofreading team. One page per day is manageable. I browsed their Top 100 Ebooks recently to see what the demand is.
I've used WorldCat before, but I'm aware of its limits in that not all libraries participate. To answer the WebThings question, it has all of the elements that are needed to complete our ILL form. I also like the "My lists," and "Related subjects" features.

Thing #11 - Library Thing

Library Thing is great! It beats all of those little bits of paper I keep my favorites or books I want to read on. It's easy to navigate and add to my blog. I found that my titles are all over the place popularity-wise. The "I See Dead People's Books" is intriguing and I'd like to explore that part more. I read some of the discussions on my books but I'm more interested in the titles that show up when you click on Library Thing Recommendations and Member Tags.

Thing #10

I've just read Stephen Abram's 20 things. Wow. Is it me or is this written on a level designed to cement technophobes even further into their little dark corners that have no electrical outlets? Come on Steve, rub elbows with us. Don't make this harder than it is.
Also Thing #10
I accessed the Pets Category under Technology Blogs and was pleased to learn about Itchmo.com - a site devoted to essential news for cats and dogs. There is an article about help for low-income pets who can get help in paying their vet bills; and for owners who would like to lay to rest the mystery of what their cats (especially) do all day, a Cat Cam is available for the modest price of $30.00. Not bad for pet owner peace of mind. The Cat Cam takes a picture every minute for 48 hours and weighs about 2.5 ounces including batteries. My own comment to all of this is - information is just exploding all over the place.

Things #8 and 9

The easist ways for me to add feeds to my Bloglines are right clicking and "Copy shortcut" and the subscribe button or RSS feed icon. The hardest part was after the process is completed, the window I was in (to subscribe), now turns into a window for my account and I don't know where I am for a moment. I also like to organize my links into folders. I see how Bloglines is useful in the time-saving aspect.

Thing 6

This is the church across the street.

Thing 5 also

Thing 5

I found this picture on Flickr.

Easiest and Hardest habits

Of the 7 1/2 habits of lifelong learning, by far my easiest is accepting responsibility for my own learning. I'm a very high True Colors Green. I like to learn and have a lot of fun doing it.

The hardest of these habits for me is using technology to my advantage because technology changes so fast. On the other hand, I do get a lot of satisfaction from learning a new tech thing.