Grand Finale

I've finished! I have enjoyed this so much. For someone who really didn't rate themselves with these technologies, I have made quantifiable progress. I particularly enjoyed the tasks around finding images and entertainment - which I guess might tell you something about me!
My main impressions are that there are so many free things available to the world on the Internet. Time was you had to purchase all these things from the computer shop. No longer! Just as importantly, you do get a real sense of mastery as you are going along with this and each thing you tick off is an achievment.

My kids have been quite impressed with me doing this and have made admiring noises when I have talked about some technology they hadn't heard of. It feels good to know something they don't!
Anyway thanks for the opportunity to do this. Eleven thumbs up from me!

Net Library

Have made an account and accessed a book or two. Found that The Tale of Two Cities provided me with endless notes and support material but not the actual book! Note to self- read the title carefully and completely!! Finally found a book that I could read and the experience was only OK. mmmm.... not my style at all but there you go! If you had been brought up in this way you might think it's a great idea. But personally I like to read in bed on my side with comfort being my ruler! Not hunched over a PC. Anyway it's good to know how this works so I can help yoof with their needs for last minute work on Shakespeare and the rest.

Podcasts

Hmmmmm. Podcasts seem to be a great thing till you come to have to download them on to either your PC ( the only gadget I have ) or your MP3. I can see that with things that really interest me such as author talks and book reviews etc, I probably would make the effort to access, download, listen and then delete it all. I'm not sure I could really be bothered to do this in the normal course of events though. I'm a then-and-there individual rather than planning-my-recreation sort of person.

Eureka ! We have lift off!

Bingo! I found this really easy once I joined up with You tube! That's the secret ! It's soooooo easy. Wow!! I feel really pleased with my self! Take a look at this video- it's very funny . My daughter has made everyone watch this and it is worth the effort.

Zoho

I've had a look at Zoho writer and gone into templates and made this ID card. Looks wonderful and makes me realise that people don't need to but all the software that they used to. It's all here on Zoho! Golly it used tobe such a big deal buying Publisher and all those bits and bobs! Now you can just go into thing and probably many things like this and away you go! I had some problems uplifting the evidence of my work but ( as always) learn a lot about the functions of print screen and cropping.

Thing 17 finished

Have followed the instructions and have added my blog to the favourite blogs there. While I was there I had a good look at some of the other blogs there. Some people really have brilliant blogs done in so much detail. This is the beauty of this 2.0 programme- I guess that people are finding what really interests them and going into it and using it straight away.

I have added a contibution to the Favourite move site and played in the sandbox. What a great name for this tool!

Online Applications and Tools

Have gone into Medstory and was impressed. My husband suffers badly from sinus problems and I thought that the range of resources and hits that this brought up was good. Most of the articles displayed were up to date and relevant. Along with scholarly articles on the causes, diagnosis and treatment of this tricky condition, I was impressed that the various medecines themselves brought up further links with attached articles. Often disease presents with non-specific symptoms and I can see that you could get a lot of very relevant information and prompts to look also at this side issue and that one. I thought that the only limitation of this was its American-ness with most information coming from that country.

Playing with PBWiki

https://my.pbwiki.com/

[http://grippingnews.blogspot.com/]

[http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com Learning 2.0]

Am having some difficulty getting this link to work. I've set up a PBWiki account., but nothing much is linking just yet.

Wiki

Now this is interesting! I had had the mistaken impression that the only wiki around was the Wikipedia which is a source I sometimes use in finding information for people. The thing that is interesting for me is that all wikis are collaborative websites where people edit and add information. Of course it would be open to malicious input, but I am impressed that steps have been made to watch for this.

I see that wikis provide a very positive avenue for sharing information between members of the community and within the workplace. Perhaps ACL needs to look into this for upgrading exchange of information on various projects that people are working on together? The enthusiasm that people feel when they share useful things would keep it fluent and up to date.

One of the authors makes the very good point that people ( including me!), have the mistaken impression that only technological whizzes can create a website. Now with this wiki tool anyone can contribute to the site.

As far as libraries go I can see that the now pretty defunct "fitch" thing that we had could work the wiki way on our website and intranet.

Newsletter

Have read 3 of the 5 suggested contributions in the eOCLC Next Space Newsletter and found them interesting. I am intrigued by the concept of " collective intelligence " which one suggests we have as a result of the internet. I can only partly agree with this rather grand anthropolical type descriptor. It may be collectively used but certainly the internet does little to advance the intelligence of anyone. In my opinion, the access we all have to the information spinning about the world, is all that we collectively share. Understanding anything that we read there is a completely different ball game.

Another points to the seamless intersection of the various capacities of the internet to gather, spread and store information without the help of the physical realities of the bricks and mortar of a library. This is a tired old chestnut ! The point of libraries has always been more than the provision of a storehouse of information. Libraries have been safe places, seperate places and meeting places for people since the dawn of time. Of course Johnny aged 18 can use the internet in far more sophisticated ways than anyone of an older age. But Johnny is usually missing the whole muscle of other sorts of learning action. Johnny can usually not read much, source much premium type information that has been peer assessed by the academic community who teach it to a specialised level. Johnny cannot be bothered ! So librarians who can, have even more work than in the past to do.

Accessing a great deal of rubbish in cyberspace is not an advantage to anyone. Spending 16 hours a day playing around with the computer leads to a superficial grasp only of anything interesting. Life an all its complex demands and expectations still requires people to interact with each other, learn from the mistaken information they have picked up and move on and away from computer nerdhood and into life.

Technorati Time

Have taken the technorati tour and have learnt a bit about this search tool. I can see that if you are living and breathing blogs and blogging this would be a godsend! Using it and the keyword searches etc you can locate and tag the sorts of blogs that you want to read. The thing is, that you would have to be really interested in this style of communication and I am not really. The blogging concept is great for keeping a personal log of what you are doing and thinking about but I can't say that I am specially interested in reading anyone else's. And quite frankly, I don't need to know what anyone else thinks about global warming! I feel a bit sorry for people who are this cut off from actual people for conversation and lively debate that they have to resort to blogging about worls events.

But good to know it exists.

October 26 Everything is Del.icio.us now!

Have gone into the del.icio.us site and installed the system into my tool bar. Am getting up to scratch with the tagging and bookmarking concept. The penny is yet to drop here, as it seems a bit over my head. Need to practise both of the above. Maybe right now! So .....I have gone into a few preschool colouring-in sites and tagged them and made them into a bundle. Now have to see what happens when I need to find them. So far so good!

October 25 Rollyo - No-EEE-O !!

I've spent some time on the Rollyo tool which I can't say impresses me. It seems pretty pointless for those of us who have a favourites button on our internet access. Why would anyone bother with this? I'm glad I've seen that such a thing exists but I don't think I would ever bother with this.This connection to the internet is very slow and I think I would find this frustrating. Perhaps a journalist or someone could find it just the thing?

October 20 LibraryThing

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=footiefan&shelf=list

Have gone into LibraryThing and have had fun setting up a catalogue of the books I am either reading or wanting to read. This has to be one of the easiest systems to use! The step by step guide shows you exactly how to add your favourites. It is great to see your own preferences lined up with covers and somehow the whole look of the thing seems to give a certain style to your catalogue. I noticed that it is better to opt for the Library of Congress catalogue than just Amazon and got more hits that way.

Also, as someone who runs a couple of bookclubs, it's another way to read reviews of the books that I might be thinking about talking about using. Comments on a single item range greatly. For instance, the book Water For Elephants seemed to be widely appreciated but there was a comment about its sexual content, so I can see that for some this would not appeal. Just another useful tool.

I really like this LibraryThing and will definitely go back to this one!

Thanks for reminding me to blog about my favourite technology. This year alone, sees me taking a few leaps forward with tsunami that is technological progress! I talk to my brother in Manila once a month on Skype which he has installed at his work place there. Although the reception is quite uneven at times, it costs him nearly nothing to talk to all his relatives her in NZ. He makes a point of ringing our Dad every weekend to see how his week has gone and can talk for as long as Dad wants without feeling he is losing a small fortune to Telecom. I have also bough a flat screen TV at home and am so happy with it! Coupled with surround sound music DVDs and general TV seem so much more real and entertaining. I am also looking very forward to getting an MP3 player at the end of this which I can listen to while I am on my bike at home. My husband is also looking foward to me getting this and has great plans for what he will use it for! Typical!!

October 16

Read your comments and realised that I hadn't included the news that I now have a gmail account and subscribe to BBC RSS feed. It is a good way for busy people like me to be given the news - although if the world only read the headlines (like me) you wouldn't have a very in depth knowledge of the world. But for me it's great and I am able to at least nod when people talk about what's going on! Also the concept of being notified about certain sorts of news events is superb!

I am having a look at Image Generators and it looks great. Who creates all this stuff? I am making an image of Dumbledore and going to put it on this blog. I am hoping to do something every day to bring this part of the ACL earning task to life because it looks really good!

Week Four

I have connected with Bloglines and shown which ones I would like to be connected with. This has been validated but I now see that it is essential to have a g-mail account. It all takes time and I am lacking that at the moment! Still....it looks good and I am definitely be interested in this one. I can see that if you subscribe to news site that you get up to the minute news. Fantastic!! I am going to find time to open a g-mail account.

week three -flickring all around

Have gone into Flickr and taken the tour. I'm amazed at the possibilities of placing images on this site. It is all so bright and sooooo public!! Who would want this? Probably anyone under the age of 20 ! I love the idea of making stamps and adding to a scrapbook with the maps and things. It would be a pity to lose all your images though in about 2 years when this is superceded by something else. But hey what the heck!

Week 2

Last week I was all for taking over the world by boring everyone to death. In only one week I can see that the Universe has already sorted this out by enforcing a rule of everything taking a week to work! Ha! It's a lot harder than you think to get any sense out of Bebo and the other 2. I have created a Bebo account which is full of rubbish that I have invented. Have tried to be a friend to ACL , but (sob) don't think I am. So much for world domination!

The World Is My Oyster!

Now that I am "totally up!!!" with the whole blogging thing my world has shifted on its own axis. I was once a retiring, introverted nobody but thanks to the latest in technology I'm the man!! I have the universe at my fingertips and what is even better- the Universe is mine!! Yes mine!!My plan to assume total control is to bore everyone to a catatonic state with my insights, my thoughts and my views on EVERYTHING!!!