#23 Summary and evaluation of 23 things

Yes I have reached the finish line and have made many interesting discoveries along the way. The programme is certainly a worthwhile exercise and I needed to discipline myself to sit down and work through the exercises at a steady pace. My favourites were online image generator, YouTube, Flickr, Library thing, Wikis and online productivity tools. So many of the tools have relevance for the work situation including RSS feeds, wikis, bloglines, tagging and online productivity tools. Initially I got stuck on no.6 Flickr mashups and needed to refocus and move ahead with the programme. Reading the newspapers and the green guide with the new Web 2.0 tools makes far more sense and is of greater interest after completing 23 things. The learning will now continue!!!

#22 Audiobooks

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Bibliographic Record
Creator
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870
Title
Great Expectations
Language
English
Category
Audio Book, computer-generated
EText-No.
8608
Release Date
2005-08-01
Copyright Status
Copyrighted. You may download this ebook but you may be limited in other uses. Check the license inside the ebook.
Download this ebook for free


After visiting the 774 ABC Melbourne podcasts tour which was excellent, it was time to browse Project Gutenberg and discover some live audiobooks. This site was user friendly and easy to locate relevant hits. I do prefer to read a book myself rather than listen to an audiobook - nothing would replace the visual enjoyment of flicking through beautiful artbooks and coffeetable books on travel. Audiobooks definitely have an important place - for the time poor and also the visually impaired are examples that spring to mind.

#21 Podcasts

Well nearing the end of 23 things and feeling as though I need to get moving to finish the project in time. Personally, I found Yahoo Podcasts easier to use and listen to programmes. Of course there seems to be a strong American flavour to the podcats and limited content on programmes such as "Spicks and specks" - maybe showing my Australian bias.

#20 You tube

Now for a library clip! You could definitely use You Tube to liven up websites and engage the attention of clients.

#You tube

Well this exercise is alot of FUN.

#19 Web 2.0 tools

So many Web 2.0 tools to explore - where does one start! StikiPad is a hosted wiki solution, but it does come at a price - plans starting at under US$5. PCPlus magazine comment it is "one of the smoothest usable wikis on the net." It is a personal wiki giving you easy ways to organise and share information with others.

Farecast predicts US domestice airfare price changes, lets users book online tickets and even provides refunds if they get their predictions wrong. I hope an Australian version of this site will be available soon.

#18 Online Application Tools

Zoho Writer is a real innovation - no need to use Word and Excel spreadsheets anymore! Documents can be saved online, published and shared as a public file. The templates on Zoho Writer are very useful, but unfortunately when I tried to open up a saved template it crashed. Practice, time and perserverance may be needed! I also perused the Googel docs and Spreadsheets, and Think free sites. These online applications definitely are impressive.

#Playing around with PBWiki

Well you can certainly have some fun editing wikis - I chose the Favourite TV shows and added my two cents worth. It was surprisingly easy to add information and edit details on the page - no more html codes etc. What an improvement for all concerned.

#16 Wikis

Now for some comments about wikis - I have used Wikipedia in the past and have found some of the information very interesting and informative. One of my concerns is the reliability and authority of the information. The information can be subjective and strongly influenced by opinion. Book lovers wiki was worth perusing and Library success.a best practice wiki had some interesting ideas about marketing libraries. Workwise it is an excellent tool to exchange ideas and edit information amongst colleagues.

#16 Wikis

A Wiki is a quick-to-build, easy-to-edit website on which all information can be edited, changed, or rewritten by the users or members of the site. It is an incredibly useful tool for collaborative writing, pooling knowledge or exchanging ideas, especially on a subject that changes or needs updating frequently.The word "Wiki" comes from the Hawaiian phrase "wiki wiki", which is commonly used to indicate something fast. The first Wiki ever made was WikiWikiWeb, an attempt to make an easily updatable website about certain trends in software development. It was started in 1995 and has been added to and continually updated since then.

#14 Technorati and #15 Web 2.0

With the rapidly expanding number of blogs growing at an ever increasing pace, the ability to search blog posts and tag via Technorati and boing boing etc is vitally important. The past week I have read so many articles in the Age, Green Guide etc about Facebook - a new social networking site taking the internet by storm. Rumour has suggested that the 23 year old creator has been offered over $1 billion from Yahoo for this service. The world of libraries is changing dramaticially and the articles I read emphasise the need to move with these changes away from physical collections and embrace new technology and interaction with clients.

#Del.icio.us

I usually associate this word with food, wine and chocolate!! This tool would be very useful if you have a computer at home and also travel with work allowing bookmarks to be sychronised whenever you sign on. It is easy to get distracted looking at how other users have tagged links and viewing new websites.

#Rollyo

This site could be useful for sharing information with colleagues - I set up a Rollyo profile for travel. It was a tossup between shopping and travel!

#11 Library thing

I enjoyed choosing some of my favourite books and seeing how many other people had chosen similar titles. Maybe it is the librarian/cataloguer coming out in me!!

#10 Online Image Generator

This lesson was fun and very easy to do.

#9 Finding Feeds

Feedster and Technorati were the easiest search tools to use - I found the syndic8.com screen quite cluttered and the sites from topix.net not relevant to the search terms used. One could spend hours on bloglines checking new feeds and keeping up to date!

#8 RSS and Newsreaders

How can one go past the BBC newsreader and not set up an account. It is a great way to keep up to date and informed on global news. Subscribing to feeds via method 3 makes it all very easy.

#6 Mashups #7 Technology

Some of the sites including Flickr billboard and notcelebrity UK were interesting and could have wide usage. Picasa Web is an excellent site to share travel photos and share experiences with friends.

#5 Flickr

Flickr is an interesting site - one could spend hours looking at the images.

First blog

It feels as though I am back in the classroom again and learning new skills and tricks. Habit no.2 accepting responsibility for your own learning resonated with me.