Thoughts About Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0

My favorite discoveries on this adventure were all visual: I loved Flickr, YouTube, and making my own avatar. Unexpectedly, I have enjoyed blogging, and I found it exciting what podcasts were available for listening and for subscription. Given more time, I feel like I could have learned a lot more and would have liked to become more comfortable with some of the concepts that did not come easily to me, like tagging and Technorati. Has this program affected my lifelong learning goals? You bet. I went out yesterday and bought a laptop and a digital camera to continue my learning of technology, elementary though it may be. Would I participate in another discovery program? Yes, but I would hope that it might be offered at a time other than summer when we are soooo busy in the branches. This Learning 2.0 was certainly challenging, fun, and gave me a special feeling of accomplishment as I learned to do each new thing. Another unexpected benefit was that our library system acted as a team throughout the learning - there was always someone to ask if I ran into a problem, and always lots of encouragement to keep going.

No More Audiobooks on CD's

I am a talking book junkie. I listen to them while I weed, while I wash dishes, while I mow grass, and when I can't sleep. One major reason I tried doing the 23 Things was to "win" the MP3 player to be able to do away with the need to change discs during the course of each book. I looked at the selection of downloadable books on NetLibrary and, although the selection is not stupendous, there are things there that I would be happy listening to. I have been registered for a long time but have not had the technology to use the service. It's exciting to be this close!

Podcast of Car Talk

One of my favorite NPR programs is Car Talk, which is broadcast at times when I am at work. Now I know that I can listen to Car Talk broadcasts by finding it on Yahoo Podcasts. I'm not sure that I want to subscribe because I'm not necessarily married to my computer, but who knows? Maybe when work doesn't get in the way....

YouTube is Great Fun

My first experience with YouTube was a little over a year ago, when I had again missed seeing Kimmie Meissner skate one of her tremendous long programs because it was televised late at night. Someone suggested YouTube, and I was able to see what I had missed. Today, I revisited the clip of Kimmie at the 2006 World Skating Championship and was blown away again by her performance.

So Many Great Sites, So Little Time

After perusing the Web 2.0 Award-winning sites, I settled on Zillow.com as one of the sites that captured my interest. With Zillow, an address or city or state can be entered and a listing of homes for sale or recently sold will be displayed with a map or aerial display. Descriptions of the properties are available, asking prices, and Zillow's estimates of value. Homes in the area not necessarily for sale are also sometimes valued. This site could be of value to a librarian helping a customer get an idea of housing costs in a particular area, without having to know the names of all the local realty companies in the area. Very easy to navigate.

Zoho Works Well

I tried a sample document with Zoho and was mostly successful in doing everything that I can do with Microsoft Word. When I tried to insert a picture from one of my files, I had a problem with the size (it was enormous), but didn't have time to play with it to shrink it down. It's nice to know that alternatives are out there!

We Can Wiki!

At a recent Branch Managers meeting, the suggestion was made that we update the Branch Managers Handbook by using a wiki. At the time, I had only a very general idea of what a wiki was. After looking over the information about wikis, I see that we really could rewrite the handbook using this tool. Bring it on!