Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Woo-Hoo!! Last post!

My reflection of Plans 23 Things...

My favorite excercises were Flickr and LibraryThing. Of all the things we learned about during this program, those are the two I think I will continue to use the most in the future... Although I also liked de.lici.ous and find myself using that more than I thought I would.

I am not sure that it affected my lifelong learning goals at all. I do love to learn new things, and especially things that will be useful for me in the future, but really I think I things I learned about here will just enhance my personal life at thins point.

I was surprised that there were so many online programs that I was not familiar with, and so many that I can see myself using in the future.

As far as changing the program, I think it was great - very well organized.

If you offered another discovery program like this in the future, I would definitely participate.

Excercise 22 - Net Library

Net Library is a program I am already familiar with, as we have a subscription through our library. I think it is a great program, although I prefer to read books on paper rather than on a computer screen.

Podcasting - Excercise 21

I have an iPod, which I love, but I have never actually listened to a podcast on it. When I listen to podcasts, it is usually online through my computer. Most freqently, I search for podcasts through iTunes, becuase I am familiar with that program. The podcast I listen to most often (I am a little bit ashamed to admit this) is the one found on the Grey's Anatomy webpage. They normally review the last espiode, give an interview with one of the cast members, and give you a clue about what might happen next week. Other than that, I haven't really gotten into the podcasting craze... although I might look into it now.

Excercise 15

It was interesting to read about what people feel the future of libraries is going to be, and it will be interesting to see how that matches up with what happens in the future...

Excercise 19 - Web 2.0

Just the short list of the Web 2.0 Winners was overwhelming to me... I have heard of a few of these applications before, but most were new to me. One program on the list that I use regularly is Pandora. It's great! It's like an online radio station. You just type in the name of a singer or group that you like to listen to, and Pandora finds music that is similar to that style. As it goes along, you can tell the program whether you like the music it selects and it will customize your listening experience even more. And the best part: it's free!

There were also several other programs on the list that look very interesting to me and I plan to look into them in the future.

Technorati - Number 14

This was a really difficult excercise for me because I am not sure what exactly I should blog about. I can definitely see benefits of using technorati, especially if you are into reading other peoples blogs - it would be a great way to keep track of which blogs have new posts without having to visit every site. At this point, I do not visit enough blogs for this to have a practical purpose for me. I can not really see how this is useful for a library, so maybe that is where I am having trouble...

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

YouTube

Here I go, out of order again... This is excercise #20

I loved YouTube. We are getting ready to move to Japan, and I think this will be great for personal reasons - I will be able to upload pictures of my daughter to share with our family back in the states. I have already been experimenting (see video below).

The things I love about YouTube are 1)it is so easy (and quick)to use and 2) My family can view videos without creating their own account. I am sure there are negative aspects of YouTube also, but for now, I am very excited about the site and anticipate using it a lot in the future.