Week 10: task #23 Summary

Wow this has been a fast, busy and rewarding eleven weeks! A lot was covered. Some of the topics I was familiar with, some the terms were familiar but that was about it. I enjoyed learning about Flickr and avatars. I understand blogs and RSS feeds better. I will continue to use some sites such as LibraryThing and Library Elf and Del.icio.us. I had heard of Youtube but until now had not spent much time exploring it. I understand why it's so popular and additive. I've enjoyed most of the exercises. I'm very glade I didn't have to do this alone. A few of the tasks were very frustrating and if it wasn't for the support and guidance, I might not have completed the course. Now, when do we get to try Amazon's Kindle???? Star Trek Next Generation here we come!

Week 9: Task #22 Downloadable Media

I visited wowie and librivox and was a bit surprised by how limited they were. Wowie seemed to be very limited in what it had to offer and I got some strange "hits" from the searching. For Jane Eyre I got Jane Eyre and two books by Jane Rule, one book by Jane Simon and one book entitled Dead: with Dick and Jane 01. It was interesting that the librivox entry also linked to wikipedia entries of the book and Charlotte Bronte. I like the idea of books in public domain being available, but the practice of various people reading different chapters of the same book could be a bit problematic. I liked exploring the HCPL collections and I checked out one of the videos. I understand why the tutorial suggests that if using DSL to download one at chapter at a time because even on the staff computer it took some time to download.

Week 9: Task #21 Podcasts

I spent some time perusing two podcast sites, podcast.net and podcastalley.com and found some interesting sites. I added a few movie and book review sites to my blog and well as a couple of library/ librarian news sites. I don't have a mp3 player yet but when I do, there's plenty of artists and titles to choice from.

Week 9: Task #20 Youtube and other video sharing sites

I spent some time looking at the different video sharing sites that were listed. I saw dancing cats, hamsters and people. A musical version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a little strange but I liked the various comedies starring cats and kittens. The Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad brought back memories of libraries in the 1980's and how much public performance videos cost. As Time-Life was fond of saying when asked about the $350. 00 price of a VHS tape: "It's not the format but the contents." And I loved watching Cookie Monster and the Librarian.

Week 8: task #19 Web based apps

I've enjoyed looking around in Zoho. It seems fairly easy to use and the toolbar is similar to Microsoft Office. I played with different size fonts and colors and added pictures among other things. I like the idea of not being limited to one computer or for the need to have a jump drive or disc to work on projects. And you can't beat the price! I will definitely be using it in the future. Thanks iHCPL for introducing me.

Week 8: task #18 Social Networking

I've been reading some of the other ihcpl blogs and how they feel about social networking sites. I must admit that I feel much the same way. I can see where myspace and facebook and other such sites would be popular but I don't see me joining any of them. I tried myspace on a branch computer and maybe that was what turned me off to it. My first search was a general search using gender, age, etc. and I got tried of the screening page appearing after 4 or 5 pages and when I tried to go beyond the 10th screen the computer would reset and go back to the 1st page. It did this several times and it got very old, very fast. It was a little better when I tried a different route.



I looked at Yahoo 360. On one of the sites the blogger was explaining why she was leaving Yahoo 360 and moving everything to another site. It seems that she and many others have been having problems with the customer service team for over a year and wasn't getting any help. I did enjoy looking at catster and dogster. I grew up with cats and it was fun to see the various blogs. I always knew that pets become part of the family and can be just as important as a child. At lot of time and love went in to creating these sites.