The End

This was truly an amazing journey and I would take the plunge again if another discovery program like this was offered. And I was surprised that my husband wanted to know all about what I was learning, even though he's a big techogeek and was probably just humoring me. To close, in the words of Ferris, "It's over... go home".

My Learning 2.0 Experience

Thing 29... such a relief! I have learned so much over the last several weeks... things I would never have known were out there, so I wish to thank those responsible for creating, offering, updating, and tracking this massive learning experience. I especially enjoyed learning about Flickr, and it was great fun to find a video of my son's band playing a club on YouTube, but neither of these were very useful to my work. The down side, to me, is that so much of this takes time... time I do not have. And while many things can be very useful in my work, such as Rollyo, others are just time-hogs and escapism, like MySpace. Another disappointment was that so many of the links and resources didn't work, either because they were blocked or no longer functional or no one was home at the VBPL IM site. This creates frustration: I take the time from my duties as a staff member to complete these voluntary exercises, I listen to the podcast, read the resources and set out to complete the exercises and BAM! I hit a brick wall. Would I do it again... Yes. But am I so glad it's coming to an end... YES!

Rollyo

Select Search Engine...librarybuzzbuzzbuzzVeganYummiesSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

So here's my Roll... a quick and easy way to search for vegan recipes on sites I know and visit often. Some of the Learning 2.0 exercises have made me think, "Who has time for this???" This one is useful, makes searching more efficient, and has applications in both my work and personal life. YAY!!!

LibraryThing

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

So here's my library from LibraryThing... a mix of recent titles that have been of particular interest to me. I enjoyed LibraryThing. There were SO MANY groups and lists and discussions. Seems like a great community of book lovers sharing useful information, similar tastes, and open discussion on all sorts of topics relating to those in the book world.

Generate This...

This was too much fun!!! I tried out lots of generators: name generators (all very silly!), poetry generators, poster generators, etc. I still don't understand who has the time for all this 'cuz I surely don't, but it's still tons of fun. Here's where I found the highway sign generator...
http://atom.smasher.org/highway

Podcasts and Video

Again, I was unsuccessful lots of times before hitting a few that worked... and worked well. I was intrigued by the Denver Public Library site, which seemed to offer children's stories on podcast. This is a GREAT idea, but I couldn't test it out; Websense said NO! How sad for me! I was in the mood for some cookies and a good story! Finally I visited John Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries. WOW! I really enjoyed the podcast hosted by Andi Bartlestein on Ask A Librarian. This conversation with a librarian from Eisenhower Library detailed for the listener how students, faculty and staff can work with the librarians to find desired information. The speakers detailed the Information Desk, the Librarian's office, the concept of different librarians for different departments, and how to get help from a librarian online and over the phone. This is a really beneficial use of library podcasts!

Locating Podcasts

How frustrating! I was unhappy with the idea of leaving my desk to go to a public computer to visit Podcast.net or Podcastalley.com... the Library 2.0 process is time-consuming enough without having to venture to a different space to do the work. Sssoooooo... I went to Yahoo Podcasts and after several starts and stops and long, winding trails that led nowhere, I found several podcasts on gardening. One of particular interest, and the one that I added the RSS feed to my GoogleReader account, was the BBC's Farming Today. This was fascinating! My daughter will ONLY view and listen to BBC News, NEVER does she partake of American newscasts, because she feels that the news from BBC is more complete, impartial, and, well, interesting. After sampling the podcasts of Farming Today, I agree with her! Podcasts are great for alot of reasons, but I am, as always, old-fashioned. I still read the paper, the real, made from pulp, inky and smelly paper. Many of my friends and co-workers get their news from the internet, through alerts, feeds and podcasts. It's great that we live in a time when each can choose his/her own method of delivery for information.

YouTube

My son, the rock star... he's playing lead guitar and supplying vocals, and his bride is on the drums. Thank you, YouTube.

Flickr Mashed Potatoes...

ok, so I know it's "mashups" but some mashed potatoes would be really great right now! Anyway, I had a great time exploring mashups and third party tools on Flickr. I got really sucked in using Mappr. I chose Iceland as a location to investigate (we were stationed there for 3 years) and spent an enormous amount of time viewing images from that gorgeous country... so many memories!!!

Flickr and Tagging

Tagging... essential to Flickr... yes. It is the way that images are sorted and grouped. It is the way that new communities of images/users are formed endlessly throughout each day. It creates an environment of transient meaningfulness. My thought is that tagging can help users find WAY more images with a particular tag than they can ever view, but it can also open up a world the user may not want to be exposed to. For instance, if you search "pain" on Flickr, you will be shown images ranging from IV medication delivery systems to French pastries to a raccoon-eyed woman with a gun laid upon her cheek. You may just want to see French pastries. While I don't find this dangerous or offensive, others might.

Flickr

Here she is... my furry friend, Chloe, who now resides on Flickr. This was SO quick and easy and it will be a great way to keep in touch with family, friends, and those I work with professionally and in volunteer efforts. LOVE FLICKR!!!

Web 2.0 Awards List Exploration

A person could get totally lost in this!!! I went to the list, limited my exploration by going to the "health" category, and decided to take in the scenery at MedstoryBETA. I had cancer as a child, so I dediced to search on the type of cancer I survived. WOW! I found all sorts of information: risk factors I'd never heard of, survival rates, genetic factors, yada, yada, yada. IF you had time, and IF you had curiosity, and IF you didn't have a life, you could get sucked into this vortex and never be heard from again.

Techno-whati?

Explored Technorati today and looked at popular blogs, searches and tags. I must be really old and living my life under a rock, but I really don't get this. I mean, I understand how it works, and it was interesting to look at, but would I spend my time exploring and getting updates from the opinions of others? Well, no. To me, a blog is just that: an opinion. Everybody's got one. So what if 3,871 people have chosen a particular blog as a favorite? I was surprised when I explored the popular blogs: one of them, "PharmacyBLOG", seemed to be nothing more than a warehouse for all those Viagra spams we keep receiving in our City e-mail inboxes... when I clicked on this blog to look at it, no blog was there, but I clicked on the thumbnail to the left and I was directed to ads for online pharmacy sales. Too weird... was this blog a front for online Viagra? Was it for viewing drug commercials? Was it prescription spam? Another interesting thing, as I explored another favorite blog: the "fans" section to the left under the blog's thumbnail should be for those who are fans of the blog, right? Well, the fans on this particular blog were, again, sales pitches... click on one and you get an ad for something you neither need or want. I was able to claim this blog as mine, however. And do this: Add to Technorati Favorites.

Simply del.icio.us

I had NO IDEA what social bookmarking was all about... folksonomy, tags, blah, blah, blah. After reading and viewing MANY of the resources, I have a much better understanding, and I can definitely see how this can be helpful in research. It's the answer to a nagging problem I have when blindly researching a topic: finding that golden needle in the massive, prickly haystack. With social bookmarking, I would have the ability to view what like-minded people and objects of my admiration have bookmarked instead of wading through hundreds of items brought up by a traditional search engine. My thought was that all these online resources could smother me and kill my real life, but here's a tool that can help me filter the information to get at what I really can use. YAY!