#23 Is this really the end, or just the beginning

It's definitely just a beginning for me. I feel like I have dipped my toes into a new river, I've hardly touched the surface, I"m quite overwhelmed by what's "out there", but I'm confident now that none of it is beyond my reach, I just have to be open to learning.
I have discovered that a lot of these technology tools are pretty simple to use, thanks to a lot of behind the scenes hard work and handy interfaces.
I think the most important thing I've learned is how quickly it can all get away from you, I really hope I keep my finger on the pulse from now on. I don't have to be a technophile, but its fun to be a part of the communities online and to be able to do all the fabulous things I now can do, like blog and add graphics, rss feeds, audio, video, widgets. Thanks for the push in the right direction!

#22 Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight ")

I'm listening to the "Rime of the ancient mariner" by Coleridge (with a female american accent!). I'm not sure that our older patron are going to come by downloading eBooks, so I don't think we should dig a mass grave for our talking books just yet. However for the more technically adept this is a fabulous tool. I'm going to get my teenagers onto and see if it sparks more interest in their English homework. AT 15, having a poem read to you is far more enticing that reading it yourself especially if it's on the net.

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I'm mighty impressed with myself. I had a look at http://podcastalley.com and found the 'Library Geeks' podcast. I clicked on "If you want to see the RSS or XML file, click here." When I clicked on the link I was given the option to embed a widget through http://www.springwidgets.com/. It was too easy.

# 20 You Tube

I have seen You tube before, its great for pieces of nostalgia, like theme songs and visuals to old TV shows. I love this mum singing all the cliches mums say to the William Tell Overture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W95Y8hNQiH8
But back to work, You tube has fabulous possibilities for accessing video of conferences, speeches, anything really, which can be used an information resources. It also acts as public information annoucement as seen in this Sesame St video ("Don't eat cookies in the library") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJlkplvYdgA

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

I looked up social networking, which seems very relevant to library use, in the sense of providing a community space. Facebook.com is called a social utility tool. I have been using it for a few weeks now and have been amazed by getting in touch and touching base (in a highly superficial way) with people I hardly ever see, even old school friends.

#16 Online Productivity apps

Mission completed!

Welcome

This is ZoHo writer. It looks pretty friendly. I like the look the the Notebook app too. Lets see if I can successfully publish to my Blog.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

I like Michael Stephens’ “Into a new world of librarianship” (although there’s some reading homework there for me). I think his point about the library is human is so valid. That’s a great drawcard in a world that is increasingly automated, and no, not all users want interaction at a face-to-face level but the 2.0 technologies allow us to meet users where they are, but still maintain that social interaction. Chip Nilges talks about collecting user intelligence, which has been done to great effect by some libraries, especially in regards to reader development, reader’s exchanging reviews, online book clubs/blogs etc.
Library 2.0 to me is about using the technologies to enhance library services and to draw users in to an active library community where the boundaries between "expert/user" are made irrelevant. It gets back to information/knowledge sharing.

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

This was totally overwhelming, again I’m going to have to go back and revisit this, can you tell I am frantically cramming to get through these activities! I did a directory search and got 759 blogs about Learning 2.0 and 510 results for "Learning 2.0 " exact match. I’m not sure why but the exact match search retrieved more library posts by relevance than the directory search. As I said I’m going to have to play around more to get a good sense of what is going on here, or maybe that’s way too ambitious for me!I’m looking at the Top 100 Blogs to get some inspiration for my own to see if I can jazz it up a bit.

13. Del.icio.us

I can see how this would be useful for bookmarking pages when browsing for a reason on a particular topic. My bookmarks get so excessive they become hard to find, whereas if they were tagged with subject headings, well, it would be a beautiful thing. I'm going to attempt to create one of my own.

12. Rollyo

I created a rollyo search of book sites (called Books about...), I think I need to have a better play around with it, what I really want is for it to run a search for books about books to help add to my collection and discover ones I haven’t read yet.

11. Library Thing

This is fun, I decided to choose books about books or bookshops or libraries for my collection. This looks like a fun site to explore at greater length.

#16 and 17 Wikis

Yay! Finally something I know about. I did a research paper on Wikipedia as part of my Masters and I was really impressed by the level of accuracy and more importantly currency of the pages. Of course there's always problems with the more controversial pages getting locked out because people cannot agree, and more obscure areas may escape the mass editing that the more popular pages enjoy. However I was really impressed with how quickly spam and obscenities got removed, which meant the system of mass editing was working. Its not britannica, but its much more fun!

#10 Image generators

I used Flickr FD Toys http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ and chose the Motivator link which makes posters http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php
This is great. I have wanted to create a thank you card for our wedding attendees, so I apologise but I am mixing work with pleasure and here it is. It was so easy to use, I had the photo on my hard drive, I just uploaded it, added the text and chose the font and border. Too easy!
Here’s the finished result:
http://flickr.com/photos/14692561@N02/1583554150/

#7 Blog about technology…

It does occur to me when I help a patron who has no idea how to use a PC, how ingrained this stuff has become for me. When say I “left-click the mouse”, it’s a completely alien concept to someone who thinks of a mouse as a little rodent with a tail. It helps me to remember this when I feel like giving up on my technological learning. It once seemed alien and now I can’t imagine life without it, maybe one day I will feel this way about blogs, and RSS feeds and image generators? Hope so. I hate feeling out of the loop with technology and I am enjoying the challenge that Learning 2.0 has presented to explore the vast range of technology toys out there.

#6 More Flickr fun

I know my posts are all out of order, but I was reading back over the weeks I missed again and in my haste to catch up I missed some stuff…
Here is my attempt at a trading card, these are a bit of pointless fun.

http://flickr.com/photos/14692561@N02/1582497835/

#9 Bloglines

Yay! It worked, my bloglines list is at the bottom of the screen. At least this way I can kept changing my feeds and it will automatically update to my Blog, also Bloglines is great for searching for feeds.

#8 RSS feeds

I have created a Bloglines account, but I can't seem to work out the sharing bit to link it through my Blogger Blog. I have tried it several times to no avail. However I did have success just exporting URLs for my feeds from Bloglines and I have managed to add several feeds that way. I can really see the benefit. I am always bookmarking sites and then forgetting to look at them, this way I will be enticed by the headlines, it's a great way to keep up to date with new books, films, and other areas of interest. My problem will be limiting myself to just a few...
Next I want to check out putting friends blogs on as well...

#5 Flickr

I'm back from leave, time to catch up on three weeks worth of Learning 2.o...
I have been playing around with groups and photo uploading and tagging on a site called ‘Facebook’ which a number of friends introduced me too. It’s been great because I have recently got married and I can share my photos with selected people across the world. One friend calls it the ‘lazy person’s way to stay in touch’. It is great because you can communicate with many friends at once.
Flickr seems to operate in a similar way, you can limit to friends seeing your posts/photos or making them public. I’ve made my photos public because they’re unidentifiable, but normally I wouldn’t publicly post photos of myself and my family. The tagging process is really simple, although I haven’t tagged them to the nth degree.
I’ve posted a couple of pictures from my honeymoon in Trinity Beach, Nth Qld. I’m back in Melbourne, but not back at work yet, trying to figure out a way to move the family up North, they had some nice libraries up there!
I love the Picture Australia website - I often refer patrons to it, for those special enquiries like “I need pictures of outhouses circa 1900”!

Here are the links to my photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14692561@N02/1509657899/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14692561@N02/1510511880/

Begin with the end in mind

"Begin with the end in mind" is my motto, what do I hope to achieve? So often I find myself immersed in a new project with boundless enthusiasm and a lack of direction.
I am hoping to learn the use of ICT tools that will encourage the "feedback and participation" (Wikipedia) of users in their library service. And I'm hoping to catch up with my friends and children who seem very comfortable in the blogging world!