Reflections on Learning 2.0

For me, this has been an interesting, challenging, eye-opening, and sometimes frustrating experience. I really want to understand and improve my facility with these new technologies but it doesn't come easily or intuitively for me. Going through the motions on some of the programs has given me a little more confidence that I can do it, and it has been a stretching experience.

I think my favorite parts were learning how to set up a blog, and I hope to develop that as a tool for communicating my thoughts about books I am reading. I also was happy to discover delicio.us because that will be a useful tool for me in my work. I was surprised to see how the computer/internet is becoming such an amazing place for sharing ideas and work and how customized it can be for your own particular purposes (e.g., wikis, bloglines, etc.).

My biggest problem is time - time to practice, time to become more familiar with different sites, and simply time to "use" the tools that are available. In the long run, they may save time but until they become part of my routine, it is just one more thing to think about.

In going through this learning process, I found that it was very difficult for me to do it at work. Maybe I was too distracted, but in the few "off-desk" hours I have, it always seemed that there was something more urget that needed to be done. Therefore, I ended up doing a lot of the exercises on my own time at home. I didn't mind doing that, but perhaps in the future it would be helpful to have a scheduled "class time" once or twice during the learning period, so that if people want to, they could attend a lab at a library in their region (maybe for an hour before opening or something like that) just to get a little help as needed or catch up. That would have helped me with some of the obstacles that slowed me down. My local "mentors" were very helpful and willing to do what they could, but I wasn't always available when they were and vice versa.

All in all it has been a good experience and I hope I won't forget what I have learned but will keep on and use some of these new technologies. I think this was a great idea and I would be willing to learn more in the future.

South Park

South Park
Originally uploaded by cajkaren.

This is my feeble attempt with this South Park "game." I needed a lot of help to crop, copy and post it to my blog. Thanks Toni!

Podcasts

I see podcasts as an alternative to video, especially if you don't want your face shown online. In my previous post I suggested the idea of booktalks or teen book "commercials" and perhaps podcasts would be a way to present these anonymously. A story could be read as a podcast also, and children could listen to a story online.

YouTube

It can be addictive looking at the different videos available. Again, I can't believe what people manage to come up with and how they find time for it, but then we all have our own "hobbies" I guess. With the increased quality of video and ability to put it online quite easily, I can see this as being the new way for families to exchange photos with one another.

In terms of library use, I can see this as being a way to link video "announcements" to our library website. Perhaps we could have brief previews of upcoming concert performers, and like the Dewey & Sketch shows, we could have a weekly link on our Kid's Page with a live reading or telling of a story. Kids could just click on the link to hear a new story every week. I can see having teens making video "commercials" for good books they read (if we can get around the Internet safety/liability issue). There could be video clips of librarians doing booktalks or children's librarians demonstrating how to incorporate early literacy skills into story times. Maybe not all of these ideas are desirable, but it seems that there could be many ways of using this technology.

Web 2.0 Awards

It was fun looking at some of the award sites. I especially enjoyed "Guess the Google Image" and "True Stories Told in One Sentence." However, I don't usually have time to play around on the computer so I don't think I would visit very often. I am amazed at what people come up with though. Do they have another life besides computer stuff or do they not have to do household work like cleaning, shopping, laundry, cooking, etc.?

Google Labs

I looked at quite of few of the "lab sites" but I am not sure they would be that useful to me right now. I could see adding the Google Reader to my Google Home Page and it would probably do the same type of thing that Bloglines does with the RSS feeds (if I understand it correctly). The other things were not that interesting to me.

Online Word Processing

I didn't realize that this software was available online. For those who don't have Word or access to it in a particular place this could be very helpful. I can also see how it could be useful for collaborative work in a group project, as well as another way to back up files that could be lost if something goes wrong with your computer.