Exercise 23

Now at the end of the journey as I reflect back I remember that when we started the Web 2.0 programme I like many others was not sure of my ability to complete the necessary exercises. This programme has certainly expanded my knowledge of terminology and the accompanying technology although it was a challenge to find the time to sit and complete the exercises. Some late nights were definitely involved.

It has been an interesting learning experience and I acknowledge that without participating I probably never would have taken the time to explore the many different applications and opportunities that are available like Flicker, or establishing a Bloglines account or learning about RSS feds. No I am not going to list all the activities but will say that I probably won’t go on to use Rollyo or Zohowriter.

With exercise 17, I received a comment in Spanish, inviting me to visit a blog by secondary students in Argentina
https://nodiscrimine.blogspot.com
on discrimination but the actual message is for there to be no discrimination. The website has a translator so you can read it in English but I had to find a translator programme to understand the comment on my blog. This was a different learning exercise outside of the programme.

The only exercise that I really needed assistance on was the podcast and it was (the suppose to be easy step of) pulling the RSS feed into my Bloglines account that stumped me originally. I acknowledge the help I had from the NSL web team on this.

There are things that I will continue to use especially YouTube and Facebook but then I had already explored these prior to our programme.

Many thanks for the opportunity to participate.

Exercise 22

Well I am still undecided on whether it would work for North Shore Libraries to create a presence on a social networking site. I acknowledge that there has been tremendous growth in this area and from a personal point of view I am a regular Facebook user. However libraries would need business and strategic plans in order to gain the necessary financial backing for such a venture. The idea that we would be able to reach a wider section of the library community certainly tips the scales in favour of this idea.If we decide to pursue this then it needs to be done well.

I can see that it would require the right team to create and develop a dynamic Social Networking Site which would appeal to users. Perhaps it would be possible to employ undergraduate university students or other younger people who are already active users of Social Notwork Sites to drive the building and maintenance of a library social networking site. It would be a continuous process with the regular addition of material, updates, comments and feedback otherwise the danger would be that it became static and dated.

Information does need to be gathered so that we at NSL do choose the methods that patrons prefer. However I anticipate that with young people especially being keen users of social networking this has the potential of providing in the near future an excellent way to reach them.

Exercise 21

Just experimenting with Myspace and as was suggested tried adding a video of one of my favourites bands. I found that I had to set up a login and I am going to try embedding an video of one of my favourite bands 'The Corrs' Everybody hurts by Richard

The Corrs Everybody Hurts


Facebook is something that I am already using. I set up a log in to this last year when my daughter went overseas and have continued to use it since. Recently experimented with and succeeded in loading photos to that as well. I have found it a really useful tool to keep in touch with folks overseas and around NZ. We use Skpe phone and have set up Webcam to keep in contact as well. All these opportunities help to keep in touch.

Exercise 20

I have checked out the information on e-books which are simply an electronic book, and what this means is that an e-book is available to read on screen.
For this exercise I used LibriVox because it is a website that provides audiobooks form the public domain and searched for William Shakespeare. This search gave me 69 returns covering a range of things including plays, sonnets and monologues. It was a simple matter to scroll the list and select different items to view the content.
I found 'King Lear' and the LibriVox recording marking the 400th anniversary of the first performance of the play, on December 26th 1606, with a total running time: 3:23:02. Information given incuded a summary of the play, the cast list, who did stage directions as well as links to Gutenberg e-text 1532 ,Wikipedia - William Shakespeare ,Wikipedia - King Lear
LibriVox’s King Lear Internet Archive page ,Zip file of the entire book - 97.5MB
RSS feed · Subscribe in iTunes · Chapter-a-day and most importantly the mp3 and ogg files to enable downloading.

Exercise 19

For this exercise we looked at Podcast -- something that I have touched on briefly in exercise 17. This time though I used the podcast directory tool Podcastalley.com and explored on my own looking for book reviews. It was a this point that I had difficulty figuring out what was supposed to be the easy step of pulling the RSS feed into my Bloglines account. Lucky for me today I had the opportunity to ask a member of the Admin team for help and after a frustrating time trying to access Bloglines the mystery was solved. It seems that some podcasts are just not user friendly and you end up going around and around not going anywhere.

I did pull the RSS feed into my Bloglines account for Booklog Book Review Podcasts, YA Bookcasts, and The Great Radio Show. I have reservations regarding the first 2 podcast as they do not have any new casts for 2008. The Great Radio Show podcast was different and had a July 2008 cast on 'The Darkest Evening of the Year' by Dean Koontz.

While I think this has the potential to be another useful tool, the book review sites will only be valuable for libraries and individuals if they have regular new casts and include new publications and not just material on older titles. Also it is wise to remember that these casts are just individuals opinions and often when others read the same title they may view it differently. This is true no matter the media.

Exercise 18

You tube is just straight out entertainment and fun. I am a fan of Johnny Depp so I have searched and seen several videos of him on You Tube. There were more than 8 pages to choose from so I am going to try to place one inside here using copy and paste. Well here goes ....

Exercise 17

Well I had fun with this after I went to the Web 2.0 Awards nominees and I selected the category Food an interest that is near and dear to my heart not to mention my stomarch.

From that list I choose the site iFoods.tv to explore.

http://ifoods.tv/web/about-us.jsp



The site has a blog where I discovered a recent craze in America is Pizza vending machines! What next? I am going to follow this blog for a week or two just for fun.



There was also a Recipe Podcast: Potatoes with chili, garlic and spinach which I watched and may even have a go at cooking sometime. Great cooking tutorials available which may mean the demise of cook books.



So iFoods is a way of interacting with other food lovers worldwide. It is possible to upload your own recipe videos, develop your profile and prove your culinary genius to everyone or you have the option of learning from the professionally produced video cooking tutorials.

Web-based tool

Exercise 16

Web-based word processing tool

 

I can see that this web-based word processing tool does have major benefits as they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC.  I have found though that it does take a lot longer to load than just going to Microsoft Office Word that is installed on my computer.

 

It is quite functional though and allows the addition of images but again this took quite a long time to upload.  I have attached a photo I took out of the window of my work area.  Note all the reflections of the lights and can anyone spot the fans reflection.!!!! Another of many grey days this year.

 

Exercise 15

I have a very quick play with Rollyo and successfully created an account, then I created a search role selecting for my topic travel in Oregon, USA because my daughter has recently moved there to study. The link to my search role is http://rollyo.com/editroll.html?sid=456860.

Personally at this stage I can not really see an advantage to take the time to set up these because I continue to find interesting and useful websites so would be cautious about limiting my options to a specific group of websites.

However as with all the exercises in this Web 2.0 program it is always useful to know what is available.

Exercise 14

Well I was impressed with Library thing and didn't find it too much of a challenge to decide on 5 books to add. I liked the idea of being able to keep a list of books I have read but don't think that I will be back dating it. Wouldn't have any time to keep reading!!!

Here is the link to my Library thing catalogue

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Goldie1.

I can see how this could be considered the world's largest book club, and it is great to be able to access reviews.

Exercise 13

I decided to try adding a photo I recently took of The Tor at Waiake and using 'The Generator Blog' selected the Flying Flag to add my image to.

By agreeing to add my image to as an example I was able to download immediately without the water mark that advertised the site.

This was not as difficult as I thought it might be!

Learning 2.0 Sandbox wiki

I successfully added my blog to this NSL Learning Wetpaint wiki. Then I managed to explore and play with wikis for exercise 12 and finally tackled the challenged of taking my own photos on the digital camera and uploading it to my favourite holiday spot
http://nsllearning.wetpaint.com/page/Favourite+holiday+spot.
As I am still in catch up mode I haven't added anything else to the wiki, although I did check out favourite books.