let's make sense of it all.

Well this is my final post. What did I think about Learn and Play? Overall I enjoyed it and think it definitely upped my learning quotient. I know have tools that I didn't before. So lets go through the list.


1. read the blog got the tee-shirt
2. I learned that my lifelong learning habit is that it's never to late to learn.
3.created my short and mighty blog-loved the Serena Williams pic.
4.registered my blog and added some blogs to my blog list
5.explored flickr and uploaded some photos
6.created a weird collage with a flickr mashup site
7.had fun doctoring photo's with picnic
8.created a bloglines account-am now a faithful reader of dilbert-love rss feeds
9.added learn@play to my bloglines account and some other library rss feeds
10.created my own read poster with the online generator.(love the pet snake)
11. opened my library thing account-love the virtual bookshelf.wonder if they'll do one for movies. added library thing's search engine to my blog.
12. explored twitter-love the little peaks into my friends world. have made new friends.
13. learned about tagging and delicious-so cool not to have to be home to access my favorites.
14.Read away from the iceberg-blogged about balance not a seismic shift.
15.learned about wiki's and their uses-love the idea of collaborative projects that can be down without endless emails.
16.added my blog to the learn and play wiki sand box and posted some comments.
17.Looked at google docs and uploaded one of my old book sale schedules and invited the new volunteer coordinator's to have a peek-again a great collaborative tool.
18. familiar with paypal and esty-ebay for homemade items.
19.used pandora which I already had-love the cite-awesome way to learn about other artist you might like.
20.found a cool run dmc reading rainbow video on youtube.
21.used pod cast alley to search for prairie home companion podcasts.
22.looked at moldi and downloaded some audio books-cool cite

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

I loved flickr,delicious,library thing,and twitter.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

I feel there are now more tools in my arsenal to make lifelong learning a habit.
I'll be sharing these with customers and hopefully enriching their lives in the process.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
You can be more connected through the Internet that I thought. I never thought of the Internet as away to build community-now I can see the possibilities

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
More time to do the task and having a guru at each branch who's already done the program to be a trainer or go to person.

And, last but not least…

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?
I'm so there-sign me up

des

MOLDI

I just spent some time looking at the Mid-Ohio Library Digital Initiative. There were certain things that I liked. I liked that I could download interesting books on disc for my own listening pleasure. I also liked the fact that I didn't have to sign up for another account-All i needed was my handy-dandy Columbus Metropolitan Library card and off and running. You can also just search their catalog with out having a specific title. What was frustrating? How about having the third book in the series but not having the second? I was looking for "Perelandra" but got "That hideous strength" instead. Another thing that bothered me-You can't really search by author so much. This is really hard if your author has a initial for the first name(i.e. M.C. Beaton or J. California Cooper). I can see where this would be a great service to our home bound patrons who have access to a computer.

des

podcasting?

I found this in my meandering way while searching for prairie home companion pod cast. The music similar but the information is not. I think pod casting could be a great way to show patron's how to use new technology. We could even do a FAQ that they can watch on the website at their leisure. I've already used podcast at home to listen to the weekly installment from lionbrand yarns. I don't think I've quite got the hang of it yet-but I'll keep trying.

des

Opening Pandora's box

I absolutely adore Pandora. I've had it for a while. I like creating my own radio station and learning about other artist that I might like to listen to. I also like the fact that if I hate a song-I can rate it and never hear it again. What don't I like? Your request for a particular song may never be played. For example: My first station was Paul Carrack-I'd heard his song"Satisfy my soul" and wanted to hear the whole song again. No dice-they played every song from that album but "Satisfy my soul". You can also delete stations if you get tired of it. I highly recommend it.

des

Google Docks

It was fun playing around with ordering functions and inviting people to tweak my book sale schedule. I like it-nuff said.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=punje8gwUFFTEx_T2GcuPWw&hl=en

Youtube and friends

Youtube is a wonderful thing. Sure some of the postings are of bad quality-but you can truly find gems from the past. Here's a message from Run-DMC. If you want to find blast from the past or upload your own remake or video youtube is the site for you. But don't take my word for it(reading rainbow reference).





des

The wonderful World of Wiki

Not much to say about wiki's. I liked the youtube demonstration better than actually using wiki's. I do however see how it can be useful. You could use wiki's to put together programs between branches.

Away from the icebergs?

I recently read Rick Anderson's "Away from the icebergs". I agree with some of his points but think a comprehensive approach needs to be taken rather than relying totally on technology to serve our patrons.

Point 1. The "just in case Collection". I do agree that we do buy a lot of materials that are now available on the Internet. I think we should evaluate collections and see what makes sense for each library. Buying 256 copies of Janet Evanovich's latest book may not be the best use of library resources. I know he is probably speaking mainly of items available online. I still think people enjoy the physical act of reading. I don't necessarily want to curl up with my laptop and read the latest Tamora Pierce book. Maybe we could make our collection smaller without getting rid of it totally.


Point 2. Reliance on user education. I'm all for making technology more user friendly and exploring avenues to that effect. However, I'm also in favor of reaching out into our community and looking for teachers there. Soon we will have a huge population of retiree's looking for something to do with their free time. Why not tap into every possible resource you have to offer better services to our customers. We can have volunteers run basic training courses. It's a win win situation. The volunteer helps their community and the patron learns in a comfortable environment.

Point 3. The come to us mentality. I think virtual branches are coming if they have not happened already. I like the idea of the library being incorporated into our patron's everyday lives. We're here to meet a need.

des