Item #23, at last...

Emerald City at last! It's been a long, hard, journey but I've crossed the finished line and it feels great. Now, to reflect. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Was it difficult? At times, yes. Was it worth it? Most definitely.

My favorite discoveries along the way were LibraryThing, Generator and Widget. I had no clue such things existed, had never even heard the terms in my limited circle. I found each application easy to use and fun to work with. However, I was as equally impressed with some of the other applications, such as Zoho, for their practicality and usefulness for productivity purposes. I now know what RSS feeds are; that Flickr is a software and not a rude gesture, that Wikis are the collaborative efforts of the novice and experts alike---something I could conceivably contribute to.

But overall, my greatest discovery was the discovery of self. The fact that I was able to complete each assignment, though not as efficiently as others but sufficiently enough to get the gist of the application, was personally rewarding.

In response to the question of what improvements I would suggest, I have two. First, I felt there was an overload of information in a number of the exercises. Especially, considering that Web 2.0 was new to most participants. Sometimes less is more. There were times I felt I was wading through swamp grass to get to the main idea. My second observation, one I heard voiced often, was at times the convoluted directions---not always the easiest to follow at first glance.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I embarked on this journey--bumps, bruises, potholes and all! I could see myself participating in another similar odyssey---but first I just need a year to recover from 23Things:)

Overdrive

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires, and he enjoys his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames. He never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid and a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.

Podcasts

After viewing and reviewing the recommended podcast sites I decided to add a feed from the Library of Congress onto my Bloglines account. The information provided covers a wide range of subjects, those pertinent to libraries and beyond. Furthermore, navigation through this site very simple. There were two podcasts I found particularly interesting given by women addressing the status of women and education in Saudi Arabia and Uganda:)

YouTube

Exploring YouTube, Yahoo and Google video was interesting and fun. It's good that one can select a specific topic to explore which narrows down the listing somewhat, otherwise the possibilities are endless, as they say. I did manage to upload a video from YouTube that takes me back to my childhood---Mr. Magoo:). Its fascinating to see how simple this all is to do; a click here, a click there and you're finished. Clearly the YouTube site has much more to offer, hence its popularity.

I could see the potential for this kind of technology on the Library's webpage to showcase new programs or services. Still life pictures are nice enough, but certain programs, particularly special children's programs, would make a better presentation in video.

Mr. Magoo

Awards List Widget

As you can see I created a weather widget using said category from the Awards list. No, it wasn't rocket science but I love my little widget (it's pink!) and, most importantly, I had fun creating it.

Awards List Widget