Thing #23 - Wrapping Up

Before I wrap up, I want to give a big THANKS to the Ocean County Library Web Things Committee for making this challenge possible and spending what I know must have been many hours of preparation and hours and hours of reviewing our blogs.
KUDOS TO ALL OF YOU!!!

In my first blog I mentioned that lacking confidence in myself as an effective learner was going to be most challenging for me. Well, here I am - at the finish line. I did it!!!! I am proud of myself for what I have learned and accomplished. When I first started blogging, I was intimidated by other bloggers and thought that my writing skills where not as good as theirs. After a number of people told me that my blogs were just fine, I started believing in myself and yes, I have more confidence. I "got by with a little help from my friends". Thank you to those friends; you know who you are.

As far as what Web 2.0 Thing that I liked the best, that's a hard one. I enjoyed a number of them....YouTube, LibraryThing, Google Docs, Wikis and Finding and Listening to Podcasts to name a few. I did not particularly like NetLibrary. I shared Del.icio.us and Wikis with friends and family members. My daughter and son-in-law are teachers and I thought that those web applications would be useful to them in their careers. As it turned out, my son-in-law has already used wikis. I explained Google Docs to my husband and our friend because I thought that it may be useful to them in a business venture of theirs.

I think that our branches that hold computer classes should start thinking about teaching Web 2.0 technologies to our customers. I am sure that many of them have heard the terminologies but have no idea what they are - wikis and podcasts for example. After checking out the Birmingham Public Library's wiki, I noticed that they do a "Tech Tuesday". We should consider something along that line.

Welllllll, you asked that we make our last blog a good one. I hope that this entry has met that challenge. I have such mixed feelings at the moment. I am so excited to have completed the challenge but at the same time I am sad that this is my last official blog for the challenge. My congratulations to all of you that have finished. I bid you adieu.

The End
Actually, Just the Beginning of Life Long Learning

Thing #22 - ListenNJ

Did you hear it? I just made a deep sigh of relief. It feels like I have rounded third base and am just a step away from home plate - almost there!
I installed OverDrive Media Console on my laptop at home and performed the security update to Windows Media Player (with some help from my husband). Checking out a book on ListenNJ was pretty straight forward. I listened to a book that I checked out to make sure that everything was done correctly. Listening to audio books in my car is something that I enjoy and burning them to a CD is an option to consider.
On to Thing #23!!!

Thing #21 - Finding and Listening to Podcasts

I enjoyed finding and listening to podcasts. I was amazed that elementary school children were making their own podcasts in the classroom. Where have I been?
After browsing Podcast.com and Odeo.com, I chose a podcast from the Science section from Odeo.com and listened to a Nova podcast about "Finding Lost Memories". It was an interesting presentation from two researchers from MIT about new experiments that are exploring whether "lost" memories can be regained. Since this was such a technical podcast, I need to go back and listen to it a few more times to absorb the information that is being presented. Listen to the link below.

http://odeo.com/audio/18606393/view

Thing #20 - YouTube

My husband watches YouTube quite often and will call me over to the computer to "watch this". I never initiated a search. I was impressed with the history of YouTube and told a few of my coworkers to watch the video even if they never make it to Thing #20. The article was quite interesting. It's amazing how fast YouTube took off. I didn't realize how young this site is. I was impressed with the numbers. Google bought YouTube for billions!!
I look forward to going on vacation every year and therefore looked up travel videos. I came across a quick video of "Secret Seats on Airlines" by Peter Greenberg. I know that I will not remember the secret seats when I book my next vacation, but I will have this link posted to my blog and can always come back to this post and I'll have the link below. I think that I found a new pastime!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guvJHKZhUv8

Thing #19 - Web 2.0 Awards

This has been a fun week. I enjoyed using Pandora and had fun with the Color Blender. When I browsed the Web 2.0 Awards list, I was attracted to the Travel section and found farecast.com interesting. This is what they had to say about Farecast:

farecast.com
"Farecast predicts U.S. domestic price changes, lets users book airline tickets online and provides refunds if they get their predictions wrong! There’s absolutely nothing bad you can say about that!
Interview: “Farecast was created to answer the question "should you buy your airline ticket now or wait?" In the past few releases, we’ve expanded our offerings to answer questions like, "when is the best time to travel, and is this a good deal?"” Read our interview with David Shim, "

I love to travel and look forward to vacations each year. This will be a site, along with some others in the Travel section, that I will definitely spend some time visiting.

Thing #18 - Web Apps

I was impressed with Google Docs. What a great feature! I love the fact that you can access your documents from any computer that is hooked up to the Internet. I wish that I had this feature when I was in college (a long, long time ago - back in the typewriter era). Having the ability to collaborate with other people on a project and their being able to view and edit the document is awesome. I can see the programming committee using Google Docs.

Thing #17 - Play in the Sandbox

I was a few days late getting to play in the sandbox, so I had the opportunity to see what others had contributed to our wiki. It is turning out to be a pretty work of art. Is it possible to print out the final copy when we are finished with the challenge and have it displayed in all the libraries? I added my favorite food, favorite thing to do and favorite place. I was able to link my blog to the wiki. It is Monday, and I am ready to start Thing #18!