#23--a new beginning

Here we are, at last! I'm so excited to be on the 23rd discovery! It's been a grand adventure. I will say that I learned so much more than I thought I would. I have always considered myself somewhat savvy (and I say that in the loosest form possible) in the computer world, but so much of what Learning 2.0 offered was new to me! It was great to see what is out there to continue to educate myself and share with others. I would definitely be willing to take part in another discovery program, and this time I would be a bit more prepared by knowing how much work it actually takes!

When we took a look at the 7 1/2 habits, I had mentioned that confidence was probably my weakest one. I'm not sure that I've conquered that one (it could take a lifetime!) but I'm so much more confident at these few things, 23 to be exact. As I continue to learn information, my confidence grows.

I think one of the discoveries that I will continue to use is Flickr, which I truly enjoyed (once I got the hang of it). I can share pictures with friends and family just by sending them to the Flickr website. I can also organize them by putting tags on them. We're even thinking of opening an account in our dept (SOR's children's dept) to keep all of the pictures we take here. I will also continue to use YouTube, which is mainly just fun!

Thanks to everyone who gave us this opportunity to expand our minds!

#22-Audiobooks

Well! I think I've "discovered" a great new learning tool! Because I have a bit of a commute to and from work, I often listen to books on tape and books on CD. My personal goal for the next 3 years is to read all of the Newbery honor and award winners. Since I work in the children's dept. I thought this was a worthy goal. I've already listened to many of them in the past few months by checking them out from PLCMC. Now, I can download them onto my mp3 player! I'm so excited! I found the process of creating an account on NetLibrary and downloading the books very simple. This is one of the discovery exercises that I will continue to use long after Learning 2.0 is over. I think of all the Books on CD that I've listened to, my favorite is A Corner of the Universe by Ann M. Martin, read by Judith Ivey. I was a bit sad to see that it is not available in NetLibrary, so if you get a chance, you might want to check it out. Judith Ivey is amazing! I was able to find many other novels that I have been looking forward to reading, and some favorites that I would love to have at my fingertips! I'll be downloading them soon!

#21-Podcasts

OPAL Podcast

This seems like it would be a very useful podcast for libraries. I found different podcasts for children's books (since I work in the children's dept. this was helpful for me), teens, and adults. I even found one podcast with childrens' gift ideas on this site. It seems like a great website, so I added a link. Itunes is probably one of my favorite sites. I get mostly music from that site, but I've loaded a few of the podcasts as well! Podcasts are definitely here to stay. They are and can be a great learning tool!

#20-YouTube

I had discovered YouTube prior to this exercise, but I was able to do more searching than I had in the past. At the moment, I'm a little frustrated because the computer I'm using won't let me add my Blog to my list under my YouTube username. I think it's because I'm one of the precious and select few who have blogger in beta. I may have to wait to actually get this posted. But, back to YouTube. There are a lot of positive things to say about this site. Almost anything you wanted to see, you can search, and you'll most likely find it. Because of that, I think there's a lot of junk on this site. Helene did warn us of this, but there does seem to be a lot of stuff to sort through before finding anything worth watching. If you're looking for specific videos (such as the Lost Season 3 trailer) it's a great site! I will post that video on here as soon as I can get this to work...

#19-Web 2.0 Tools

For my discovery, I chose to look at last.fm which won first place for the music category. I love music, so I thought this would be a good one for me to explore. It has a lot of great features. It was extremely easy to navigate. There were many different categories to choose from and many different ways to actually look up music, by artist, song, word, label, etc. I found a couple of more obscure artists that I like aren't streamlined, so I wouldn't be able to actually listen to their music, but it seems that they're continually updating. It also has a feature where you can streamline music yourself when you become a member. You can buy songs or whole CDs if you like. You can also trade CDs with other members for as little as $1. You can create playlists that suit your tastes. You can even look up artists you like, they give you categories that you can choose from, and they'll add artists that are similar to the artists you already like! You should be able to log on to last.fm anywhere there is internet connection which is nice because then the music you like is right at your fingertips, literally. I really enjoyed this exploration and will continue to use it. I think this would be very useful in the library setting for people who want to find music. Whether you just like music, you're teaching music, or you want to learn more about it, this could be an exciting find. I know I could explore this site for hours (as it was, I had to limit my time to just one hour) and probably will end up doing that before long!

#18-Writely

Wow! This is such a great tool! I've chosen to look at the Google word processor, Writely. I checked out Zoho, but wasn't very impressed with it. Writely was a lot easier to navigate and gave me some instructions to start out with. I also just happen to love Google. I have an email account with them and do almost all of my searching through Google. Even my blog turned out to be the beta form in Google!

I haven't even been out of college for a long period of time, but this would've been such a great thing to have then! I could have gone over to a friend's house, home for the weekend or even just from the dorm to the library and worked on papers without taking a disk with me. This is an excellent find. I'll have to remember it for grad school! I love that it keeps track of anything you put on here and as long as you have internet access, you can look at the documents or work on them. I haven't tried sending it to my email, but that's a nice option, too. I'm also writing this in Writely now, but I can post it to my blog...how great! I think I may use this the most out of the 18 things I've looked at so far.

I tried it out, Linda, and I was able to post the image. Check with me and we'll work on yours.