Is this really the end? Or just the beginning?

I'm treating this as I would treat a meme.

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
I was skeptical about learning about wikis, but now I think they are a good idea. I liked learning about all of the things that were discovered on the way, and I think the best part was being able to blog and read my friends' and colleagues' blogs and see how much fun they were having with the program as well. Also, it was cool to see the library embracing new technology such as myspace and youtube, and such. I hope that this trend continues. I know that I will always be excited about exploring things like this and applying it to my library life.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
Yes! I feel that I have learned a lot more about things that I was only vaguely aware of before, and I have learned how things that I use in my own daily life can be applied for use in the library.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I actually like wikis now. ^_~

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Please don't schedule it in the middle of summer next time. It made it very difficult to keep up with the schedule of things. But, other than that, keep up the good work on embracing new things!

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?
Definitely!

Going into Overdrive

I checked out Overdrive media, our downloadable digital audio book collection. I was sad that they weren't seperated into juvenile and adult, and sad that a good portion of my (heavily sci-fi and fantasy related) to-be-read list wasn't on there and also sad that I couldn't put the book onto my i-pod. Still, I found The Host by Stephenie Meyer on there, and that is a book that I've been meaning to read. I listened to the intro and put a hold on the book for when it becomes available. It will be fun to do this at home when I am just messing around on my computer. ^_^

Podcasts

The website that I found most useful was the Library of Congress's directory of Podcasts from the National Book fests. On there were interviews and speeches given by several of my favorite authors: Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi, MT Anderson, and Neil Gaiman.

I listened to MT Anderson speak at the 2007 National Book Festival. He read from his book G is for One Gzonk illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi. The book was hysterical and very off beat and Seussical and I loved it!



I immediately checked to see if we had it in the system. We don't, which begged the question why not? I checked Amazon.com. It was well reviewed by School Library Journal and came out in 2006. So, I have now forwarded the information on to people who can find out why and hopefully get this funny book into the system.

YouTubin'

Ok. Here it goes. I actually tried doing this for my second post but well, youtube removed the video I had posted, probably because it took forever to load. Here is the original video I had posted:



It's the teaser trailer for Twilight. I loved the book. I can't wait to see the movie. I am too excited. There are no words.

As far as library applications are concerned, the possibilities are endless. Advertisements for the summer reading program, programs in general, etc. could be posted to our site using YouTube. Then, there's always this:



This is one of the winning videos from the Teen Video Book awards done by Random House Children's Books every year. I think producing a video like this to enter would be a rocking cool program!

Web 2.0 Awards

Here is a list of some of the 2008 Web 2.0 Award winners. Here is a list of all of the Web 2.0 Award winners I have used or do use now.

- CareerBuilder
- Monster
- Pandora
- Facebook
- Myspace
- YouTube
- GoogleMaps

For the web 2.0 exploration exercise, I explored Upcoming.

CareerBuilder and Monster have never been useful to me. I have never found a job on there that matched my interests. Maybe it's because libraries don't necessarily post their openings on these sites, I don't know. I'm just saying that they have never been helpful to me.

I LOVE Pandora, Facebook, YouTube, and GoogleMaps. The great thing about Pandora is that it directs you to new music. If you type in a band that you love, it will give you songs by them and songs by others that are like them, and you can even further customize your listening experience by selecting whether or not you liked the selection that was picked. I listen to this all the time at home. It's like being the director of your own radio station.

Facebook is more user-friendly and fun than Myspace, in my humble opinion. Both let you connect and keep in touch with friends, but I think the only real thing that Myspace has going for it that Facebook does not is that your profile page is more customized.

YouTube is awesome. I think you can find pretty much any video on there. I found someone who had uploaded all of the Jem and the Holograms episodes. That was pretty cool. Also, you can subscribe to certain "channels" and they'll email you whenever that user uploads a video. I've done that with my favorite band. ^_^

And GoogleMaps is wonderful. It's one thing to be able to get directions. It's another to be able to edit those directions so that you are travelling on roads you are familiar with/would rather travel. For example, I'm not a big fan of highways. So, I can drag and drop my route onto a parallel surface street with no problems. That's what makes GoogleMaps so useful.

Last but not least, Upcoming. I created an account, added an event I was attending and searched the events. It was meh. I have a similar system with GoogleCalendar. Add an event, invite friends, comment on the event. This is more public, but it doesn't recommend other events that would be similar to what you've picked. It only recommends other events at the location you've picked. As far as a library application goes, it would be a good place to publicize our events. Especially if you are a teen looking to go to something other than the "Bare Buns contest at Club Copa". But yeah, I wasn't that impressed.

Oops!

Oh my goodness! I haven't posted about Teen programs since May! (Bad, Bad Mimi). We have had a host of the normal programs that all turned out well, but with summer we've stepped things up a notch. We had a HSM2 program. We showed HSM2, and teens were prompted to wave props in the air/shout things kind of like a Rocky Horror picture show showing but much more G-rated. It was a blast. I started crying at a particular part in the movie, and the teens thought that was pretty funny. I also showed them how to do the dance for All for One. It was a great program, but I liked it better when we did it with the first movie. The first movie was just more fun.

We also did a trivia game based on the Worst Case Scenario books. The teens loved this. It was so cool to see them all working together, and also accepting new people into their group.

Finally, we've had the BOB orientation and practices. They have been going really well, except for a few hang ups. For example, at the first practice, the kids hadn't read as much as I thought they had. I'm really excited for this though.

We're gearing up for programs in July now including a cosplay workshop!

Zoho Post

I have actually used something like this before in google docs. As a writer, I find google docs incredibly helpful to get criticisms from other writers and to offer my own critiques because of the function that allows you to have multiple drafts as well as the online component of it. I like that I can take my writing wherever I go and that other writers can offer changes or suggestions, whether I choose to use them or not is, of course, another story .

I was surprised that, as we already have google accounts, why we didn't just use google docs. (Although, I will admit to having problems with google docs, such as formatting changes when I actually try to save it on my hard drive.) However, after, messing around on the Zoho site for a bit. I can see that Zoho has a lot to offer besides word processing, and it might be worthwhile to look into some of those applications as well... now that I have the account. Zoho Notebook and Projects might be interesting applications. I will definitely have to look into them. I will let you know what I think of them when I have time.

Technorati Tags     8,week,23,things