Week Nine, Thing 23

YES!!! Thing 23! WOOHOO! So here's the part where I summarize my thoughts, I guess. So, on to those thought-provoking questions...

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey? Well, obviously I liked creating my Meez. Playing dress-up with an online animated skinny mini-me is obviously a good time. Not suprisingly, I loved playing with Barbie as a child. This is like an acceptable adult alternative. :) I also loved putting together a list of RSS feeds on my Bloglines page. I've read several articles that I would've have otherwise missed.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? Well, first of all, I think I'll keep blogging. Also, as mentioned above, I'm getting a ton more news than I did! As cliche as it sounds, it's brought the world in closer to me. I have been arguing for some time that the Internet isn't separating us, but bringing us closer. Things like the podcast I found and some of the news feeds I subscribe are truly doing that for me. I feel like a can keep in touch with things going on in parts of the world that I have visited or want to visit.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? YES! Frankly, I didn't think I'd be into this blogging thing at all. I'm really surprised at how much I'm enjoying it and I will probably continue to do so. I've had a terrific time checking out other blogs too. I also didn't expect to see so many other staff people talking about the 23 Things. It's really been much more fun than I expected, and I learned more than I expected.


What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept? As per one of my blog rants, it would be lovely if all links opened in a new window. Some links did, but at other times, I had found that I'd navigated away from the 23 Things window. It was very useful to have that window open as I worked so that I could refer back to the discovery exercise.


If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate? Definitely! Hopefully it will be as fun.


How would you describe your learning experience in a few words or a few sentences, so we can share our successes and promote this program? This was a true learning experience in which I was fully engaged. I wasn't just going through the motions. I really got into the spirit of the exercise and was completely absorbed in several of the assignments. You know a learning experience is a good one when you can't wait to run and tell people about your latest discovery or triumph!

Week Nine, Thing 22

I've been familiar with Overdrive since CCPL started subscribing to it some time ago. I even went to Digipalooza last summer, which was Overdrive's first annual conference. It was in Cleveland, home of Overdrive, and they had speakers that discussed content, the future of e- and audio books, how libraries used the content, and just what the company offered. Personally, I don't (yet!) have a device that will play Overdrive files (darn that iPod!). Naturally, I didn't bother checking out any audio books for myself. I did once try to download a documentary on the Ramones. It was going to take the better part of my life to download (even on a T1), so I quickly aborted that mission.

Since I had no earthly idea that Project Gutenburg had audio books, I decided to check that out. Neat! First, I had to check out the computer-generated books. I knew it would be hilarious, but it was WAY funnier than I expected. People are supposed to listen to that? Then I checked out the human-generated audio books, because that's more realistic. They sound just fine. I checked out E. Nesbit's Five Children and It. I had to read it in library school and I have a fondness for the story. So, the moral of the story is, kiddies, if you wait until the night before your assignment is due to read your classic, try an audio book from here!

Week Nine, Thing 21

When I first heard about podcasting, I said to myself, "Why would anyone want to download a podcast to their iPod? It's like listening to talk radio or something. People pay for brief audio clips and listen to them like a track?" Then I found out that podcasts were named after the iPod, but they're really just another audio file. So then it made more sense to think that people would want to be able to add audio clips to web pages and stuff. It wasn't until I had heard about travelcasts that I saw some really cool potential in podcasting. In fact, I only recently heard about this. My husband and I took a few days to check out Philadelphia. While searching for travel info, I ran across some podcasts that you could download to your portable media player. You could listen to a personal guided tour of the historic district. Cool, huh? So, I looked around Podcast Alley to find a podcast of interest. Since I think this travel idea is so cool, I went in that direction. First, I tried to subscribe to a collection of podcasts of Cape Town audio tours. It totally didn't work, but I can download them. So then I checked out the The ZA Show podcast, which is a radio show about things going on in South Africa and Cape Town. It's pronounced "zed-ay" show, BTW. It's a regular podcast from a South African couple. They do news, music, interviews, etc.

What potential do I see for this? I could see some Ghost Walk possibilities! We could do podcasts for do-it-yourself walking tours and for the driving tour of the county. That might be fun!

For this discovery exercise, I didn't do the optional part about making my own podcast. I just didn't have anything to say. If I did, I would. :)

Week Nine, Thing 20

For this Thing, I checked out You Tube. I've looked at stuff on it before, but it's mostly been related to the Numa Numa song. It's interesting that there are even commercials for products available now. I've also looked at library videos. I saw someone's purse being snatched and some kid asleep in a study carrel. I can see some intesting applications for libraries here. We could embed video tours or storytimes on web pages. The Westminster branch could do video updates about the renovation. Of course, we'd have to figure out the video editing part first. You Tube is pretty much the last step in the video promotion process.

For this task, I decided to check out some interests that I haven't thought about it awhile: Stainboy and Lenore. I decided to post Lenore. Please be aware: Lenore is neither cute nor dead (exactly). She's a semi-violent zombie creature. If you don't find humor in these things, don't watch!

A Special Blog Bulletin

After an earlier rant on this very blog, I wondered how I could make my own links in Stuff to See open up in new windows. After reading a post by Stephen Borg on the Blogger Help Group, I started playing around with the HTML. I tried several times without success, but I finally got it to work!!!! HOORAY!

Week Six, Thing 13

First off, I must say that I have Groove is in the Heart stuck in my head now. There's a line that uses the word delicious and that's rolling around in my head. I'm grooving to this imaginary song like Ally McBeal. Anyway, I enjoyed playing around with del.icio.us. I checked out the bookmarks on the PLCMCL2 page. They were just fascinatinzzzzzzzzz. I searched around for some other library-related sites and found a few that were more fun. At first I didn't notice any user comments. Frankly, I was too busy adding bookmarks to my page (check link on the right). When I slowed down, I did click and notice. I didn't see any really useful comments. That makes me realize that I should go back and add some useful comments in my own bookmarks. What was cool was checking out the tags and finding new sites. I'd start by bookmarking a known site and then I'd check out popular sites with the same tags. I found some cool sites about Egypt, South Africa, and tea.

Week Five, Thing 12

Hmmm, I haven't quite figured out how I can use Rollyo in my life. I hate to limit myself to a few select sites when I can search everthing. I guess there may be times when I really want to limit my search to a few sites. If I knew that I'd be performing the same type of search again and again, it might be worth it to set up my own rollyo search. In order to justify the time spent setting up the rollyo in the first place, I'd have to really feel like I'd perform that search often. It's good to keep it in mind though. Maybe as I perform Google searches, I'll start to see times when a custom rollyo would've been great to have. My rollyo search is off to the side, but if you want to check it out straight from this post, go to http://rollyo.com/christina_k/shoes_glorious_shoes/.

Week Five, Thing 11

I thought Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Christina_K) was pretty interesting. Frankly, I just can't see me ever being organized enough to actually catalog books that I own and/or have read. What was interesting (and a little freaky) was seeing the lists of other people who shared some of my books. I could definitely find some reader's advisory suggestions here! As OCD as I am though, I'm just not a cataloger at heart. I almost completely avoided it in library school.

Week Five, Thing 10

I will full-on admit that I enjoyed this WAY too much. I checked out a few of the other sites listed on the 23 Things, but I ended up having the most fun at http://meez.com. This image in the post is an uploaded image that I saved on my computer. The image in my profile was linked to through meez. It took me a little longer to work out how to do that. So what is the coolest thing about meez? You can actually buy some of the clothes. I was tooling along, trying on outfits, all the while thinking about how cute some things would be in real life. BAM! Check out the more info link under the pix! Thanks 23 Things for giving me yet another opportunity to shop!

Week Four, Thing 8

I knew of RSS, but I really hadn't paid it a lot of attention. I got news online, but I've never brought the sources altogether through a single access point. So now I have my bloglines account all set up at http://www.bloglines.com/public/ChristinaK. I have all my feeds in a convenient list now, which is pretty alright. Of course, I subscribed to the requisite number of library-related feeds. The Library Bytes blog was pretty cool. It mentioned the Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0 project. Of course, equally as interesting are all of the other feeds to which one can subscribe. OK, maybe not equally. Please - shoes/libraries? shoes/libraries? HELLO? OK, libraries pay for the shoes, so maybe libraries should come out ahead there. ;-) It was lots of fun to find some international news feeds. Also, NASCAR has a Nextel Cup feed, so now I'll know who Jr. signs with. The news is rumored to be coming down the pike pretty soon. Let's hope he signs with Gibbs!

Week Two, Thing Four

Blog registered, tracking sheet downloaded. All done!

Week Two, Thing Three

There's not much to say about this. Look Ma, I'm blogging!