Thing 23 Summary of Program

My favorite things about this program involved being creative, creating an avatar, adding pictures, creating a list of books on Library Thing, even just adding my thoughts to the blog. This program assisted my lifelong learning goals by giving me new tools for additional information gathering. I feel like my brain is swollen with all of these new possibilities. I guess I wasn't surprised at how long it took to investigate these tools, but what does surprise me is how much time people must spend on the computer in order to take advantage of them all on a regular basis. No wonder our society is having a problem with obesity. I definitely was feeling some eyestrain through it all too! I loved the whole concept of this program, but I definitely felt a little discouraged back there in weeks 4 and 5. Maybe another week needs to be added to get through some of those things. It seemed like too many different things in one week. I picked up some steam again towards the end. If we had another discovery program, I would definitely join in again. If I had to describe the experience, I would say that it was like having new ramps or bridges open up on my personal information highway. But maybe that's just because bridges have been in the news alot lately!

Thing 22 Downloadable Audiobooks

This is one "thing" I've already done! I have already downloaded and listened to a number of books from Overdrive. I have a Phillips GoGear that uses Windows Media Player but I think it works pretty similarly to an Ipod. For the books I've wanted to read, Overdrive has been the better choice (over Netlibrary) and I find their site pretty easy to browse and easy to download. Project Gutenberg, which I was not as familiar with, looks like a great source for classics. I'll go there for a fix of the Jane Austen books I haven't read. Some of the old Wizard of Oz series by Frank Baum look fun too. This is a great site to recommend to patrons.

Thing 21 Podcasts

This was a little harder than I anticipated. After discovering NPR: Books on the Yahoo Podcasts and creating an account, I wasn't able to get the podcast from subscribing, I had to end up clicking on NPR and going directly to their website. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I did end up adding the podcast to my bloglines account. I can imagine listening to some of these on my MP3 player if I can figure out how to transfer it (the next task!) but am still more interested in listening to books themselves at this point.

Thing 20 You Tubevideo

Thing 19 Web 2.0 awardwinners

Craigslist is a classifieds directory. I had heard my son speak about it in connection with trying to find or sell furniture for an apartment and also finding an apartment in DC. While in Chicago he was able to find apartment listings across the country. I didn't realize that there were also many job listings and this might be an additional source to recommend to patrons. It can also be an alternative to selling items on E-bay but is different in that you need to assign a price like a paper classified ad. I didn't like that initially I had difficulty figuring out what other cities Craigslist covers, but if finally discovered that clicking on the Craigslist name sent me to that list. The DC Craigslist also covers MD and NVA. I noticed some other award winners that I have looked at before. Did you know that if you put a site in Google Maps that is across the ocean from your starting point, it directs you to swim across the ocean? Now thats an app with a sense of humor!

Thing 18 Web-based applications

I chose to use Google Docs to post this week's comments to my blog. This is great to know about. I can see using this with members of my extended family to keep up a family address list. This seems very easy to use and options seem even clearer than Microsoft Office. There aren't as many font styles, but then this is mainly for documents, not flyers or signs. The nice part is I don't have to remember another username and password!

Thing 17 Sandbox Wiki

There isn't a lot of organization to this wiki. I wish some people had just commented on one Favorite Reads page, instead of creating separate pages. The "Favorite Vacation Spot" is a more useful example where you can see different people's input at a glance. Turns out the Carolinas are pretty popular with people from Maryland!