2.0 experience summary

As I come to the end of my 2.0 learning experience I am trying to come up with an accurate summary of what I have learned in this process.
I think it was important that all the staff participate in the exercises because everyone needs the same level of education. It isn't just public services staff who will be using new tools. If we are to stay current, expand our patron base and not be left behind in technology access library employees have to learn and use the latest and greatest resources.
I enjoyed learning how to find and manipulate different images the most just because it was all so new to me. I will probably use my blog in a different way now that the assignments are over. There are friends and family who I will touch base with and see if they want to see what I have done and comment on it. Up to now I have approached it as mainly a place for assignments.
It has been interesting to visit with other staff about what they think over the last few weeks. The responses give me insight into whether people are excited or upset or worried about learning new technologies.
If we were to do something similiar to this in the future I would probably make it different levels and give people a choice on where they felt comfortable learning. The first level could be really basic, the second advanced and the third for geniuses (haha) probably not called that. The point being that everyone learns in different ways and different paces and there was some stress over the timelines of this adventure. It was difficult to spend very much time on each assignment and that is mainly because of the constant interuption at the public service desks. The major time we could spend on it was on the Sunday morning of the weekends we worked. The podcasts were also tough because you couldn't sit at a public service desk and listen to them.
Overall, I think it was a worthwhile endeavor. I learned a great deal and with the basics under my belt I can expand my knowledge by using some of the tools in my daily work.

netlibrary

The public services staff has been helping people learn about netlibrary for quite a while and patrons are really excited about it. We are still letting new people know all the time that it is available for them. Today I had a dad and daughter who signed up for it and as they were walking away he put his arm around her shoulder and said, "we have just opened up a whole new world for ourselves." That is what it is all about - helping people discover all those whole new worlds out there,whether it is netlibrary or some other new resource it is fun and educational to share the knowledge with people.
I think it can be a little confusing when people are trying to figure out the difference between the electronic books and the e-books and learn what equipment works and what doesn't. I think the help section at netlibrary does a nice job of answering the questions that most people have concerning the resource.

libvibe

Here is another podcast about libraries that looks like fun
http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibVibe - includes news about libraries around the country. The neat thing about this site is you don't need an i-pod or any other external device - it will play right on your computer.

more hip than hippy

I posted a podcast called "More Hip than Hippy" on my bloglines account. It is an eco-friendly pod cast with hints and ideas about making our households and lives less harmful to the environment.
http://www.morehipthanhippie.com/rss - here is the link to it if anyone else is interested in looking at it. The women who do it seem like they are having some fun.
This is asssignment #21 I believe in the library 2.0 training.

you tube posting

I found a wild horses video on you tube that I posted to my blog. It has beautiful shots of wild horses from around the country. It seems to take a long time to load when I open my blog. It has been trying to load for about five minutes tonight. Last time it opened very quickly so who knows. I understand there are two million videos on youtube right now and that is pretty amazing. It takes a while to find anything you really want to watch but it is a fun resource.

Wild Horses

this a you tube choice i found to post

Week 8 assignments #18 and #19

I have played around witt Zoho Writer as an online word processing program and it seems like a good one. I could see using it at home where we don't have microsoft office software on the internet computer.
I also started to review the award winning web 2.0 websites and really like www.care2.com. Of course it would appeal to a bleeding heart liberal like myself. I hope to finish reviewing the sites today because I am leaving for vacation tomorrow.