Ipoditis

OK, Now that we have completed 23 Things and are getting our Ipod Shuffle, will someone explain how to use it? Or is that the 24th Thing? I understand you can tune your Ipod into a radio station and play the tunes you have downloaded instead of the songs on the radio station? I don't think I explained that very well. Well, anyway will someone explain how to use it? Thanks for all of your help Jennifer, rock on!

The Finale!

#23 The End Of The Beginning

Yahoo! I am done! I thought this was a great learning experience. It was fun and interesting most of the time, and I plan on revisiting many of the websites that we had to learn about. I think I would feel confident answering some questions if I needed to in order to help a library patron. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about Learning 2.0 technologies, and feel that each task was just enough to learn about in each one. I would say that the benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks of the tasks. The drawbacks were: no way 15 minutes for each task was enough, I would say most took at least an hour, I didn't like signing up for all of the web sites, most that I will never use again, I don't like providing personal information on the web, and I have received some really weirdo e-mails, some containing viruses, since I started. Besides the things I just mentioned, I thought it was a great program. I think that the library system should offer this learning opportunity to the patrons in computer classes, although that would take a big time commitment, and I think the area media teachers in the schools should learn about it also. Thanks!

#22 Audiobooks

I had some success with Project Gutenberg. I didn't want to set up another account with a web site that I wouldn't use. As I said before when we were talking about audio books, I prefer to have a book in my hand to read, not stare at a computer screen or an electronic device. That said, I tried researching 3 different authors that I was interested in with no success. I looked at the top 100 books and found mostly classics and obscure non-fiction books. I don't think that is a bad thing. It may be a way for one of our patrons to read a book that we can't acquire for them ourselves. So I think it may be good customer service to have that knowledge on hand. I didn't see any information regarding the length of the books, timewise, and no descriptions about the books themselves. It could be that I just didn't look in the right place, but it made it difficult to choose a book. I did like the FAQs with the varied categories. I thought that was good customer service also.

#21 Podcasting

I tried a couple of the sites for podcasting and several didn't work without loading software that the computer wouldn't accept or we didn't have. However, I did have more success with Yahoo Podcast. Although there were several podcasts that wouldn't load from that site, I at least was able to get a sampling of some, including some more or less audio book chapters, and interviews with artists, as well as some wonderful music audio casts. I thought, just like YouTube, that I could spend a lot of time listening and exploring the site. I preferred YouTube because I could see what I was listening to. I'm glad I had to explore this technology, just to get somewhat familiar with it, and I will visit it at another time.

#20 YouTube

My other addiction other than Harry Potter has been a marathon Gilmore Girls with my daughter. I love the series and am sorry to see it go. I also loved YouTube, and I don't think 15 minutes is enough. That site could quickly develop into another addiction. Good thing my sound card is not working on my computer at home or I wouldn't show up for work. I had a toss up between Gilmore Girls, Ireland the Beautiful, the Manly Art of Knitting and Santana and Eric Clapton. And that was only in the first 15 minutes! I think use of YouTube for libraries could be a good thing. Not only could it be used in an instructional way, but also a creative way to show all of the wide range of things in the library. In addition it would be a creative way to show that librarians don't always say "Shh!" and have interesting personalities as well.

#19 Web 2.0 Award Winners

I thought this site was fascinating. There was something there for everyone, even some of the same sites we had visited before, like LibraryThing. I looked in the Music category at Pandora, where you can create your own radio station based on the music that you like, to the Visual Arts award winners, like Color Blend and Swivel, a tool for creating charts and graphs. Also, I visited Etsy, a web site where you can buy, see and sell handmade things. I could have spent a lot longer on this assignment, checking out all of the sites. It was a good opportunity!