Thing 23 The End!

Yay! I made it through the programme and with a few weeks to spare too! I found it all a very interesting exercise, especially the self paced learning aspect as my team booked time together to work on it and time variations between us all is quite intriguing. I found that there were some tasks we did that I didn't like and thought were quite fiddly or not useful. But I guess that is the purpose of this to get us thinking about what works and what doesn't. This programme has made me a Facebook addict and I use librarything to find books to read. At the beginning I really didn't think I'd make it through but here we are! We are definitely living in interesting times and technology is changing so fast. If you don't jump aboard you'll be left behind and that's especially true in the library environment. Bring on web 2.0 in the library!!!

Thing 22 NetLibrary

Well almost there (I hope!) NetLibrary is quite comprehensive and I added some ebooks to my favourites account. I think it's quite a good idea but I didn't actually find that the search engine was all that user friendly. Perhaps I was searching incorrectly but it wasn't terribly helpful that it located the word within the text. I tried searching by other methods and it still kept happening. I did find that the ebooks were pretty cool though. For now though I will stick to books.

Thing 21 Podcasts

I found this to be quite a good idea, especially if the speaker has a nice voice! Some of the voices were awful but I found a review I like of poems from Guatanemo Bay. I have suscribed to it on my bloglines feeds. I really liked the idea that you can listen to the podcast, sit back and relax without having to trawl through endless advertising like you get in review magazines. There is some really interesting stuff available in podcasts. I can see a future for it and I think it's something we need to do here! I used the Yahoo directory as it was the easiest to search, I didn't like podcast.net, I found it hard to get good search results.

rollyo link

http://rollyo.com/budnz/car_buying_heaven/

Thing 20- youtube

I'm already a seasoned youtube user. I've been using it for over a year now and I find it's really great for looking up tv shows that you like or for the nostalgia value of watching things from when I was a child. I like to look up old advertisements, they are highly amusing. Also youtube is good for people wanting to promote their bands or to publish their video works. I even stumbled across a video of someone turning the knobs on their dryer. Hopefully he can find someone to share his interest with! I guess it has it's downside in that people can use it for negative purposes like teenage bullies etc but unfortunately those types of people will always find a way. Mostly youtube is good fun and it can be informative. Here is a link to the opening anthem that used to play on tv when I was little and getting ready for school on the farm:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=o-r_PutRulM

Thing 19

I had a look at several of the tasks on the web 2.0 shortlist. I thought Meebo sounded really interesting but I couldn't get into it as it was blocked by mailmarshall. I guess the council's ITC policy is not web 2.0! Very annoying. So then I had a look at Lulu which was very interesting, being a site for new writers to publish their work. Not really something that I can partake in but when I publish my great NZ novel then I can do it there. I think it's a really good way for talented newcomers to get work out there and seen by publishers. It's a good example of what web 2.0 can offer people. I then looked at Yelp! which was a site for reviews of US cities by individuals. This offered a wealth of information such as the best drag queen shows and plastic surgeons in New York as rated by locals and visitors alike. Much more interesting than a travel book! It also has maps to show you where the reviewed places are located. Very useful once again!

Zoho writer

I really liked this site, it was a lot of fun. There were lots of things you could do with it that you can't do with MS word such as add tags to the picture and add smiley faces. I also like the idea that there won't be any complications with variations in software. Being able to access your documents from anywhere is really good too. I can see a really good future for this technology and this might actually be the most useful thing on the web 2.0 program!