Thursday, January 24, 2008
My Learning 2.0 Experience
My goals for lifelong-learning have not really changed, I'll still be an autodidact until my dying day, but I have learned the value of looking outside of my own experience to enrich my learning experience by sharing it more with others. I have always been eager to share my knowledge with others, and receive theirs in turn, but this program really pointed out the wonderful benefits that can come from participating in a collective learning experience.
Checking out the blogs of my coworkers only highlighted the extent to which they have really embraced these "things" and used them as springboards to their own lifelong learning goals. I had a great time commenting on some of those that I explored, and it was very interesting to see how others approached the same challenges that I faced in my own journey. I also was surprised to learn a few things that I had missed in my initial evaluation of each of the "things", so the review and comment process was a valuable one in and of itself.
In conclusion:
Blogging, Good!
Learning 2.0, Good!
Blue hair, Good!
Thing 30
While I was previously aware of many of the sites and tools that we explored in this training, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were many "things" that I was either completely unaware of or did not know the full potential of. Marrying these discovery exercises to library related services and concepts really brings them home for me in ways that looking at them for their own sake could not. I especially liked the pointed questions and discussion starters that helped me to focus my thoughts around how these new tools and gadgets could really make a difference in the way we do business here in library land. It is easy to become mired in the "this is how we have always done it" philosophical swamp, and these exercises were a great way of breaking out of that mold.
Finally, I especially enjoyed the collaborative aspect of the program, allowing and even encouraging staff to work through problems together for the benefit of all. It is my sincere hope that this strengthened spirit of teamwork and cooperation will continue to grow from this experience and will help an already wonderfully productive staff to work together even more smoothly in the future.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Rollyo
This is the Rollyo search bar I created for ecology/conservation related searches. This tool is pretty cool, but you have to be careful with it because it does not seem to do as much ranking as other search engines do, and it can potentially return a huge quantity of hits. Wading through all these hits can be much more time consuming than it would be to search individual sites, or even a more selective search engine such as Google or Exalead. I will play with it more to see if I can customize it to produce better results, but even so it is pretty neat to be able to customize the search in that way. Very interesting.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Library Thing
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Video and Audio
Podcasting
I have not tried creating my own podcast yet, mostly because I don't have a mic on this computer, but I plan to give it a go on my home computer! I have really enjoyed the podcasts Cindy has used in this series of exercises and I think that they can really add to the richness and depth of an online educational experience.
YouTube
I have used YouTube before to post video to my blog, so this one is not really new to me, but I think it works pretty well. I don't think the resolution is as high when video is added this way as opposed to say when I add it to my Facebook page, but it is a really easy way to get content up on your blog...
I chose to add this clip because it highlights some of the work I do with the VAQ Stranding Response Team, and because Andy Fox makes such a big deal of the smell. Enjoy!
Image Generators
Just one more fun FD toy I thought I'd add to the blog... this is a bit scary, but really cool at the same time. I can think of plenty of uses for this in the library environment, such as creating posters for programs or displays. Fun!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Flickr Toys
Tagging with Flickr
Monday, January 7, 2008
deep
This is a photo of me surfing in Kitty Hawk back in March of 2003 or 2004... time flies, so it is hard to keep up. This was a great day though, and everytime I look at this picture I get a warm fuzzy feeling all over remembering it. On the subject of posting photos to the blog via this Flickr tool, I really like the option to add content in this way. It makes it very easy to search for photos and to then link them to my blog without having to wory about crediting the photographer or other rights issues. Very nice.