Thing #23!!!!!

Yeah!!! I did it!!! Well, I must admit that getting through Things 1 - 10 was quite the challenge for me. I am not a natural blogger, so having to complete the task and then blog about it was a giant hurdle for me to overcome. Although I hate to admit it, I am getting quite good at this blogging thing! It is becoming more natural.
What did enjoy discovering most in Learning 2.0? I enjoyed learning about things like blogging and RSS feeds that I knew of but was unfamiliar with their usage. The image generators were fun, but not something that I have time to play around with too much. My kids, on the other hand, will have a blast with them. I overcame my dislike of social networking sites and signed on to FaceBook and have been having a blast reconnecting with friends from High School. Scary stuff!
Would I ever do this again? Yes, definitely. While I would never consider myself to be an expert, I at least have a familiarity with the elements that were presented and probably could assist someone at least in a rudimentary way if they were having difficulty.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to learn!

Thing #22

I am really impressed with how much is available through OverDrive. I put a hold on the audio book for Eragon and had a blast watching previews for the IMAX movies. That is so cool to be able to see those at home. I'm excited to get my MP3 player to be able to download more stuff. Is it going to have video capabilities as well??? That would be extra nice :-)) My only complaint is that I was disappointed with the music selection. Bit, i imagine there would be quite the conflict with iTunes, etc. Still, would be nice to have more current selections available with more popular artists.

Thing #21

So, I went to listen to some podcasts, but the computer wanted to run ActiveX and then it gave me a really hard time. Anyway, I saw that a fifth grade class has a Podcast and I thought that was terrific. Good for them! If a 5th grade class can do it, so can we!

http://bcpodclassroom.podbean.com

Thing #20

I have a love/hate relationship with YouTube. I love it because you can find old TV Shows, TV commercials, Film Trailers, anything! I hate it because you can also find some really inappropriate content (which my kids just seem to find over and over again!!) Also, I dislike the ease of putting videos on YouTube because it is difficult to stop underage usage and posting. In any case, for my silly sense of humor, I really enjoyed Potter Puppet Pals and this is why:

Thing #19

I looked at the list of Web 2.0 Award winners and was surprised at how many I had heard of or even used and (longer list) how many I hadn't heard of. Two that I liked were Yelp which has great local info on cities and Farecast which is another great way of comparing prices for flights. Everything was really interesting.

Thing #18

We all have pretty much used Google docs if we've spent any amount of time in the call center. When I tried it out for myself, I was really amazed to see that I could upload a file from my desktop and work on it in Google docs. Very cool! I think I will keep exploring this technology since it seems that it will have lots of uses for me in my work life.

Thing #17

Added my blog and my favorite movie to the PBWiki. Kind of fun to see what other people have been adding in.

Thing #16

I like Wikipedia and use it quite a bit. I know that there is debate about the validity of the content, but as a general starting point for reference, I think that it is great. My favorite part is that Scottsdale Public Library has it's own Wiki! Yeah! Wonderful tool to use to promote programs and to promote learning tools to our customers.

Thing #15

I found the article "Away from Icebergs" to be interesting. In particular, I thought the paragraph about librarians "educating" the public in how to access information was insightful. How true it is that the ratio of librarians to users is so high that there is no possible way for the librarian to teach everyone. We need to make it easy for users to access the information on their own without needing the librarian to walk them through it step by step. But, my question is: what will librarians be necessary for? I think that is the key area that will need to be refined as we go forward into this multi-media information-accessing age!

Thing #14

It is absolutely amazing just how many people have blogs and blog on a daily basis. I'll be honest and state that I'm not totally sold on blogging personally. I think that it stems from the fact that I'm a private person and don't care to share my daily experiences with others. That being said, I do see how it is a beneficial tool, the prime example being how we are using it with Learning 2.0.

Thing #13

I found the Otter Group tutorial extremely helpful in understanding the usefulness of del.icio.us. If I were researching a topic or needing information for a class or project, I can understand how this would be very beneficial.

Thing #12

Well, this was my most challenging assignment in the sense that I battle with my children over accessing social networking sites. My biggest complaint is that it is far too easy for kids to sign onto these sites without parental notification. I've snooped around some of my kids and their friends pages (yes, I'll admit it!) and haven't been too pleased with their content!! However, I did browse around on Facebook and made my own profile. It was kind of neat since I found my best friend from high school on it. We'll see if we actually connect. I'm still not convinced that I want my kids posting all sorts of things to MySpace and having a whole "secret" internet world that I'm not a part of, but I guess that is my own personal hang-up!

Thing #11

I loked around Library Thing and found it pretty interesting. Here is my link to my Library Thing catalog: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=RIPianoGal&shelf=list I think that if I had enough time, it would be itneresting to catalog all of the books that I own.

Thing #10

Here's one from the Random Fact Generator:

‘We’ve Only Just Begun’, a # 2 smash hit for The Carpenters in 1970, was written and composed by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols as a commercial for a bank.
and another:
It’s estimated that Elwood Edwards is heard some 64,000,000 times per day. He’s the voice behind America Online’s “Welcome” and “You’ve Got Mail.”
and yet another:
The 1984 film Red Dawn was the first to garner a PG-13 rating.

These are all pretty intersting, but honestly, I'm not sure just how often I would find time to use the sites.

Thing #9

Well, I checked out the different sites and found Topix and Technorati the most user-friendly. Syndic8 was much more challenging and I found it to be a little confusing and frustrating. I'll be honest insaying that I'll probably just subscribe to feeds as I see them on site that I currently browse. I noticed that my bank now has RSS feeds, so I'll be adding that one in right away!

Thing #8

I do like the idea of having RSS feeds as opposed to having to browse through a number of websites to find the information that I'm looking for. That being said, I still find it confusing to get it all activated. What is really nice is that libraries can really remain current in their users lives by having RSS feeds that key into the topics which are of interest to the patrons. Here is the link to my public Bloglines account: http://www.bloglines.com/public/mraymond