Learning 2.0

I can't believe it's over! It's been fun looking at some of these sites, especially LibraryThing, OverDrive, and Del.icio.us, and learning about what's floating out there in cyber space. I was surprised about how little I knew of how the Internet and the technology in it has changed. I thought I was pretty up to date, but I guess I was wrong. I'm really glad I signed up for this program, it showed me that I need to be more aware of the world around me and check to see what has changed.

I liked the format, the way it was self paced and how interactive it was. I would definitely sign up for something like this again.

If I needed to sum up the experience in a few words I guess it would be these:

eye-opening and awesome

Overdrive

Overdrive is a great service! I wish I had gone to it before. The tour really helps explain all the different aspects of the site and gives throrough instructions on use.

Overdrive is a good way to get audio and video with out having to wait for your hold to come in or carry around a case with cassettes or cd's to listen to an audio book. I did find a bunch of downloads I might try, Dave Barry and George Carlin, and I hope that they expand their video collection as that would be a wonderful resource as popular as the online movie download sites are getting.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a good resource for those who may not have time to sit and read everything they want in the day. They can get reviews on products, learn how to do something, and just play around with podcasts.

I found that not all podcasts allow you to add them to a RSS feed (or maybe there is something wrong with the NY Times Book Review one). If you can't add one to a RSS feed and just have it attached to iTunes or the site, knowing when updates of the show come out would be tedious. You would have to check everyday, if you remember.

Also, I found PodcastAlley.com a good resource to find podcasts that are more up to date. I tried Podcast.net and found that there were a number of shows that hadn't been updated in quite a while.

YouTube

Thing 19

I chose SpringWidgets.com for my exploration.

The site has a lot of cool widgets or computer desktop gadgets to offer. It has everything from news feed displayers to things that will show random Yo Mama jokes. The widgets the site offers work on your computer or you can link them on your blog, MySpace page, website, or other services they list when you go customize the widget.

I can see the library possibly using some of the widgets in conjunction with our webpages, either for educational content or for fun content.

Zoho Writer does have a lot of potential. I do like the fact that you can roll back to a previous version of a document, you can access a file from anywhere, and you don't have to worry about file type. The problems I see with it though are the limited type faces, font sizes, and internet connection. As long as you don't care about those, this is ideal for basic documents. It has everything Word has, so why not use this free program online when you can instead of shelling out the money for almost the same thing?

Thing 17

I like the wiki they've set up. It gives staff a place to socialize with others from around the state. I also like the fact that it is easy to edit everything on it. I really think our system needs to use wikis more...