Thing 23 - Reflection and completion at last!!!

What a relief to finish this in time - my impending vacation added a little pressure to finish early - but who am I to complain? I'll be playing in the snow or ice or puddles as the case may be. As my staff will tell, I am a big supporter of Learning 2.0 I think this has been a great opportunity to learn, play and understand what is available out there. I am very glad that administration has supported this endeavor.

There has been lots of frustration - but that is technology for you. Frustrating - but then you get some really cool stuff, too. I have learned all sorts of interesting programs that will help me both professionally and personally. Out of this program I have now created my own hiking blog, which has been a lot of fun.

I am an archivist, journal writer and tracker of details by nature. I've learned several online tools that can keep track of a lot of these things for me. I will be exploring Wikkis and Library Thing, I am using Delicious regularly and my RSS feeds are keeping me up to date on what's going on. It is all about connection and community and Learning 2.0 showed me the possibilities and expansion available through the internet.

I have not had a computer at home, because I spend my workdays on the computer, but I am now inspired to buy a laptop. There is just too much to explore that I need to do on my own time.

One of the things that I have enjoyed most about the program is reading the blogs of the staff in my department. It's given me a new appreciation for them. I laughed, I cried, I closed my eyes. I learned many interesting things I wouldn't have known otherwise. Ashour has taught me about middle eastern geography and history; I saw great pictures of the Azores from Danny and learned about Francis' family background. I enjoyed seeing Tamara's wedding photos and knowing she is the proud owner of leopard geckos. I liked Randy's wry, humorous observations, Femi's concise summaries and enjoyed watching Judy bloom through the program - struggling, but persevering and finally finding some fun at the end. Neil's blog was entertaining and creative throughout and it was fun to follow the twists and turns of his mind.

I appreciated how the staff came together and helped each other. Neil helping Femi and Randy; Ashour helping me. I think our discussions during staff meetings were helpful as well.

Technologically, I feel I am always running behind and with Learning 2.0 I feel I actually got ahead of the curve - or at least caught up to the ball - for a moment. I know I've just scratched the surface but I'm excited about starting to do more digging and 2.0 gave me some good tools.

The one downside of the program was it's shortness in length. Rather than a 9 week program, it should really be a 9 month program with time to really explore the tools in depth. Having group discussions about how it is relevant to us personally, as a unit, department and library is also very helpful. Keeping track of all the signons was a constant problem for me.

I will be coming back to Learning 2.0 and exploring the exercises in more depth. I am going to explore creating a Wikki. I would definitely encourage you to offer programs like this all the time. I appreciate the efforts of the Virtual Services Team in reading the blogs and answering questions. Great job.

I have more to say - but I am out of time and out the door - so for now. I'm done!!!!!

Questions on audio book collection.

I went back to try and find something in our ebook collection on the sjlibrary website. I find this very confusing. I keep putting in titles and nothing comes up. How is it possible to browse the collection to see what is there? It needs a much friendly interface or some more directions. It would be good to have a class for library staff on understanding how this site works.

Are audio books available as podcasts available through this collection? That would be really cool. One of the women in one of my book club has to listen to books - it would be nice if she could do it over the internet. How do you access the audio book titles to see what we have? I am interested in fiction titles. I look forward to hearing from the Virtual Services Team. You are doing a great job of answer questions and monitoring the blogs.

Week 9, Thing 22 - World Ebook Fair site.

Didn't have much time to explore this site. It looked like a commercial site to me. One time fees, suscription fees. When I searched for some specific titles they weren't listed. I went to the free download pages - but th downloading of the ebooks looked complicated and since we can't download or add plugins on staff computers, I didn't even attempt it. That's all the time I have for this site. And that I finish week 9.

Week 9, #22 - e-books, audio books

First I went to our website to search for ebooks. It was not clear how to get to the audio books. I like to listen to audio books - so it would be cool to find out how to do that.

With e-books there are many disadvantages to paper copies. I sure wouldn't want to read a novel online. So I tried to think of factual books that might lend themselves to ebook format. First I looked up California hiking. Three books came up - one which was for northern california. I opened it up - but each page was slow to load, it was hard to fine any interesting hikes and I didn't see pictures.

Next I tried cookbooks - thinking that would be a great topic for ebooks. None found.

I tried to find books on Rwanda - found an interesting one - a SJSU ebook. It wouldn't let me open it without an additional plugin that I couldn't download.

Finally - decided to look at the most popular ebook - Ireland Adventures. I love Ireland. The book was somewhat easy to use - but it's a toss up of buying a paper copy and copying the relevant pages as compared to slowly trying to go through the ebook to find pages to print.

Okay - I just saw a link to the audio books. It took me to an alphabetical list. I found something interesting - though it wasn't clear if it was an ebook or an audiobook. When I opened it I got an error message.

That's enough exploring of our library's ebook website. No wonder our patrons are frustrated!

Week 9, Thing 21 - Podcast.

I am racing to the finish line here - only one more thing and one day to finish it in!

I liked the podcasts. I searched and listened to some NPR podcasts. I then went to the Library Channel and found several interesting podcasts. I started listening to one on Copyright in an Academic Environment - a topic always of interest. Of course, I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing, but knew I wanted to come back. I bookmarked it on delicious and then added it to my google reader account. It wouldn't work at first until I clicked the RSS button and copied that whole thing into my Google Reader.

This was a quick painless lessons and I will definitely be exploring more fully when I have time.

Week 9 - Thing 20. You Tube- 3s a charm.

I wasn't able to edit and text to my last You Tube video. It was from the SF Peace March on Sunday. I was marching and dancing in front of that Samba band. Now I am going to try and paste in this clip about library work outs. very 80s. Thanks to Ashour for his assistance. It was not clear at all how to post the video from youtube into my blog. Well let's see if it works:

Week 9 - Thing 20. You Tube- revisited.