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!

Week Seven, Thing 17

I went to the Sandbox and added my blog. It took me a sec because I didn't really read the directions. Directions are boring, but apparently sometimes useful. Anyway, I added my blog (by title, not address) and linked to it. I also added the book I'm currently reading to the book blog. I feel all special because I linked to the book in Amazon.

Week Seven, Thing 16

We've been wiki-ing for some time now at CCPL. What shocks me about wikis is how often I use Wikipedia. I realize that complete dullards and charlatans can create entries, but still, most I find are on the up-and-up and pretty useful. I really enjoyed the book-oriented wikis that Thing 16 linked to. It could be a really fun way to do a staff picks newsletter. I guess the thing that makes a wiki cool is also the thing that makes a wiki not so cool - the ability to post. I suppose things can be locked down to a certain point, but then do you defeat the point of the wiki as a format? If any schlub can post, you have to watch the wiki all the time to make sure that the aforementioned dullards and charlatans haven't been at work.

Week Six, Thing 15

First off, I should probably say that I think Web 2.0 is a buzzword. I think the same of Library 2.0. Why? Well, it's because (IMO) these aren't clear steps of change or upgrades to the world; it's a more progressive shift. To me, to have a 2.0 means that there has to be a 1.0. Ya know, clear steps of change - a timeline. Anyway, it's natural to expect that as the world gets more used to technology and the Web, we will expect more from it and abandon some of our old ways. The same can be said of libraries. It's not that I don't believe in these shifts in behavior and expectations. It's obvious that the world, the Web, and libraries are changing to accomodate these shifts. It's just the buzzword thing that gets me.

Sooooo, I like the article Away From Icebergs. The idea of ditching our "just in case" collection was fascinating. Somehow I don't think we're quite ready to pitch all the books into the Dumpster, but it's interesting to see a smidge of this already happening. Reference collection? Puh-leez! How much do we even use those books anymore? We certainly don't buy nearly as many as we used to. It will be really interesting to see what happens with printing-on-demand and electronic books. It will be a little while before technology catches up and then users catch on to the technology. I also liked the idea of seeking out our customers. We did used to be the only game in town. Now so many people have Internet access and therefore access to information. Let's face it - I can Google and so can everyone else. Sure, you could say that my library experience makes me a better Googler. How long will that be true? I guess we'll be personal Googlers for those that don't care to or can't do it themselves. :)

In the article To Better Bibliographic Services, there was a really cool mention of making catalogs more like Amazon. It would rock to have users add their own online reviews of materials. I really take those comments into consideration when purchasing a product. The downside is that you'd have to have full-time moderators to be sure that the comments were suitable for prime time.

So there you have it. The world isn't doing anything different from any other time. Concepts evolve, people evolve. It's just happening really fast, so it's harder to keep up, let alone stay one step ahead.

Week Six, Thing 14b

It worked! I have officially claimed my blog and I found it through a search on mdlearn2 on Technorati. I did play around with some other searches too. One thing that surprised me was the number of non-personal sites that were favorites. Some were really business tools, I guess. I thought I might find more fun and funky blogs that I loved. I did find a blog for a restauranteur in Cape Town. Somehow he had the Learning 2.0 tag in there somewhere. Anyway, the top searches seemed about par for the course. Paris Hilton was way up there! So were the Sopranos, which makes perfect sense since the finale was last night. There was some crossover between favorited blogs and top blogs - not surprising. It will be fun to check back as more people doing this project get to Week Six.

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 9

Wow! I really have to stop looking around for junk to add to my bloglines page: http://www.bloglines.com/public/ChristinaK. There's no way to keep up with the amount of information I've now inundated myself with. They all looked so interesting though. I had the most fun with Technorati. First of all, the sight was the most eye-catching. Lame, but true. I found a really cool blog for The Lost Girls. A bunch of chicks from NYC quit their jobs to travel the world. I stumbled upon that one when I did a search for South Africa. I tried a few different searches in each of the featured tools. Syndic8 didn't lead me to anything interesting at all. Topix led me to a local news gatherer, so we'll see how that works out. Of course, that means that there has to be actual local news. ;-) If I had a more specific purpose, I might have more insightful things to say. I was really just poking around and looking for fun topics. The Merlin site was easy to add. Bloglines does make it pretty simple. Well, I have about a million feeds to read, so I'd better get to it.

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!

Week One, Thing Two

So, I listened to Charlotte-Mecklinburg's 7 1/2 Habits online tutorial. Obviously, Play! is the easist rule for me to follow. It is the most fun, isn't it? Also, I do generally tend to begin with the end in mind. For instance, right now I'm trying to learn some basic Zulu. My goal, from the beginning, was to be able to successfully make some clicks and exchange basic pleasantries with people. Whenever I learn something new, I may change my end goal depending on my interest level in the activity. If I find that I'm great at Zulu and want to learn more, I may change my goal (fat chance, since right now I can only say, "Good day!"). The hardest habit for me to work with is creating my own learning toolbox. I probably do this naturally. Really, the part that makes that habit difficult is thinking about the toolbox. I just gather what I need, but don't really think in terms of building a collection of tools to help me achieve my goal. Guess I should, though!

Week One, Thing One

What's there to say about this? On to Thing Two...