I feel like I'm graduating. Maybe there should be parties and confetti when we each finish the whole 23 things! I'm sort of sorry to be at the end, but now maybe I'll have time to go back and re-discover some of the little treasures I found along the way.
So here are my responses to the final excercise:
1. My favorite exercises were creating the avatar, of course, YouTube and flickr.
I also love del.icio.us!!
2. I am probably more likely to expand my searches to blogs and other social networking sites for information that I'm looking for. I'm working on a masters program in Communications and will be putting a lot of the information from the Maryland 23s to good use.
3. An unexpected outcome is that I will continue to read blogs that are interesting to me and will be more likely to listen to podcasts.
4. Suggestions - some of the links were not valid, and some of the videos didn't work, for example the del.icio.us one. Making sure those kind of things work, or fixing them when they don's, would be beneficial. I also found some of the exercises more time consuming than I would want.
5. Yes, I would choose to participate in another discovery program.
My learning experience was very positive. I felt that the collaboration among co-workers was a big benefit. I so enjoyed reading other blogs and seeing how other people used the tools and how they responded to the exercises. I actually feel a little sorry for those who chose not to join in. They missed out on so much fun and education.
One last thing. I discovered (on my very own) the coolest Thesaurus site ever! It's called Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus, and it works sort of like a "cloud" to display lots of words related to the one you're looking for. There is a trial on their website, and then it costs to get a full subscription. I love it and will be subscribing soon. This is one application that I think would be more helpful to librarians than how to create an avatar, as much fun as that was.
Game, Set, Match!
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
#22 Thing - Audio Books
My thoughts on Audio Books from Overdrive - as Martha Stewart says, it's a good thing. I know lots of people who enjoy listening to audio books in their car, but my commute is so quick now that I don't have enough time to start a book. Several years ago my husband and I would listen to books on tape on road trips, but I realized that we were missing a chance to actually talk. OK, maybe you could call it "forced communication", but at least we were sitting in the same place at the same time and maybe would talk. But that's a bit off topic. So, I don't do much with audio books, but Overdrive does have an easy to use site with more and more titles available.
What I did find of interest was the videos. I downloaded "The Bicycle Thief" by Vittorio De Sica to my Bookshelf and will finish the download at home. Normally I wouldn't watch a video on my computer, but how cool it would be to take it with me on a plane or train. (Back to trips again).
I also like the Project Gutenberg site. I like that it isn't as slick and professional looking as other sites are. I would love to have time to volunteer with them. I may have to tuck that away for the future.
What I did find of interest was the videos. I downloaded "The Bicycle Thief" by Vittorio De Sica to my Bookshelf and will finish the download at home. Normally I wouldn't watch a video on my computer, but how cool it would be to take it with me on a plane or train. (Back to trips again).
I also like the Project Gutenberg site. I like that it isn't as slick and professional looking as other sites are. I would love to have time to volunteer with them. I may have to tuck that away for the future.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
#21 Podcasts
So, now on to podcasts. There are so many to choose from. Hard to do tennis in a podcast, so I went with learning Italian. My husband and I have been taking Italian classes at St. Leo's Adult Learning in Little Italy. I have to admit that part of the fun is that he and I meet and have dinner at Amicci's restaurant before class. We both enjoy learning the language and are so not good at it yet. Buona sera. Come sta?
I want to add the podcast to the blog, but so far that hasn't gone well. I might continue to try...
I found that subscribing through Bloglines was more confusing than just clicking the RSS feed and adding it to my Google reader. But really, either one was easier to use than I thought. Recently I was helping another BCPL 23 Things participant and we had a very hard time adding her podcast. Maybe it was a networking problem, but I'm glad to see that it went easier this time.
I'd really like to create some technology training podcasts as we continue to develop our training programs for BCPL. The good news is that Media Support Services is eager to do it as well. Nice group of people to partner with. Stay tuned and learn how to use podcasts!
I want to add the podcast to the blog, but so far that hasn't gone well. I might continue to try...
I found that subscribing through Bloglines was more confusing than just clicking the RSS feed and adding it to my Google reader. But really, either one was easier to use than I thought. Recently I was helping another BCPL 23 Things participant and we had a very hard time adding her podcast. Maybe it was a networking problem, but I'm glad to see that it went easier this time.
I'd really like to create some technology training podcasts as we continue to develop our training programs for BCPL. The good news is that Media Support Services is eager to do it as well. Nice group of people to partner with. Stay tuned and learn how to use podcasts!
Additional YouTube Thoughts
I didn't know that when I embeded my Eiffel Tower video that they would add some others at the bottom. That's kind of cool.
So what can BCPL do with YouTube or other video sites besides block them until our bandwidth problem is cleared up? It's a cool way to show a special program so branches can see if they want to host the same program. Also, for the branches interested in working with middle-schoolers, having them create and post videos could be a fun idea, if they have access to a video camera. It's also a good way to post a video of a speaker that we might want to share systemwide; it's not as professional as the Media Support staff can produce, but it might be an quick option. You can delete a video very easily, so it wouldn't have to stay online forever.
BTW - tennis is heating up again. It's Sunday and I got to watch Andy Roddick and John Isner play and now the women are playing their final. I wish I could play 1/2 as beautifully as they do.
So what can BCPL do with YouTube or other video sites besides block them until our bandwidth problem is cleared up? It's a cool way to show a special program so branches can see if they want to host the same program. Also, for the branches interested in working with middle-schoolers, having them create and post videos could be a fun idea, if they have access to a video camera. It's also a good way to post a video of a speaker that we might want to share systemwide; it's not as professional as the Media Support staff can produce, but it might be an quick option. You can delete a video very easily, so it wouldn't have to stay online forever.
BTW - tennis is heating up again. It's Sunday and I got to watch Andy Roddick and John Isner play and now the women are playing their final. I wish I could play 1/2 as beautifully as they do.
Thing #20 YouTube
It's been awhile since my last 'thing', and I've missed it. I was so looking forward to this one, YouTube. If you look back thru my blog, I put a Roger Federer video in a posting a while ago, but for this one I wanted to add one of my own. It's way far from professional looking, and you can hear me at the end. I took it with my digital camera - first time, can you tell? I'd like to buy a digital video camera, but haven't really started looking yet. If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to have your reccommendation, so feel free to leave a comment.
Back to YouTube, it wasn't hard to upload the video, except that it takes awhile for the video to be processed, so I'm writing this while waiting for the processing. The other trouble I've had was my own doing. As you can see, I turned the camera so I could take the video in Portrait view. So that's how it was saved. My camera downloads photos into a program called PicturePerfect and I've had to learn that so I could change the orientation. I finally found how to rotate the picture to change the orientation and then made a "muvee" and added a title and a pseudonym at the end. Cute, huh?
On a BCPL note, I am doing this at home so that I'm not compromising the network bandwidth. It's such a short video that I'm not too worried that it will cause problems.
Back to YouTube, it wasn't hard to upload the video, except that it takes awhile for the video to be processed, so I'm writing this while waiting for the processing. The other trouble I've had was my own doing. As you can see, I turned the camera so I could take the video in Portrait view. So that's how it was saved. My camera downloads photos into a program called PicturePerfect and I've had to learn that so I could change the orientation. I finally found how to rotate the picture to change the orientation and then made a "muvee" and added a title and a pseudonym at the end. Cute, huh?
On a BCPL note, I am doing this at home so that I'm not compromising the network bandwidth. It's such a short video that I'm not too worried that it will cause problems.
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