Reflections on Learning 2.0

This has been a long program and at times I found Learning 2.0 tedious. I really had to plug away at it sometimes because I wanted to give up. I am happy that I did finish because like most things, you have to plow through the boring to get to the fun/interesting stuff.

It was also difficult to find the time to do the work. I know there had to be some type of time limitation on it or else procrastinators (like me) would never have gotten around to doing it. However as a part-timer, my time is limited so I had to schedule these exercises into my calendar to be able to finish them on time.

Probably the front desk members got more educational worth out of this training than me because I do not work with the public. I think it was invaluable for them because they service the public that knows about these programs. Wouldn't we look really silly having to tell a teenager that we don't know what they're talking about and we're supposed to be their resource. Nevertheless, I learned a lot and would definitely participate in another discovery program. I can never say again that there's not much out on the web.

My Learning 2.0 Experience

Learning 2.0 has certainly been an education. I would never have known there was so many different applications/websites out there. I’m the one that surfs and surfs and never finds anything of interest on the web, while others talk about spending hours on there.

My favorite fun exercises were My Space, Online Image Generator and Flickr because they just entertaining, no real learning involved. Library Thing was another fun site because it was a great way to find books out there that you may not have given a chance. Rollyo really didn’t interest me because you could probably find the same information on google or yahoo. I had a hard time with the information on Wiki since it may not be reliable but as a general source of information, it works.

Library Mulch’s blog is really great. I enjoyed the graphics, pictures and just the look about it. Comparing his blog to mine is like comparing night and day.

Rollyo

Rollyo allows you to narrow your searches using credible sites. You can create your own search engines, then share them with others. If you always use the same site you can include just that single site so all your searches are in the same place. To add a search page to your site, just click on it and you get the message "search Roll Added". It's that simple. This site would be especially useful to students. Since students have to site credible sites when writing papers, this would cut their research site down greatly.

http://www.rollyo.com/ramonita023/

Library Thing

This website was one of the easiest to navigate on Learning 2.0 thus far. Adding books to LibraryThing.com was as easy as searching for a topic, scrolling down through the selection and clicking on it to add to your personal library. It couldn't get any simpler. The selection list was huge. I also like that you could see how many other members have also chosen this book.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rortiz

Image Generators

The warholizer image generator was alot of fun. I did not know these websites were available. I had to ask for help on linking it to my blog. I guess I need to surf the net more. I will bookmark this site to share with others.

Podcasts & Video

I really enjoyed the Denver Public Library’s podcast. It’s a story telling podcast geared to young readers (age 0-6). Members can select from a fairly large listing of books and listen to them being read out loud. If a child had a hard copy of the book, they could follow along with the narrator. I did not like that while the story is being told, there is a light show on the site which is distracting for children. The variety of the selection listing was good because it ran from nursery rhymes to entire storybooks. It does not however, note how long the story is.

Podcasts

I did not find anything really of interest to me on the podcast websites. I could not get into podcast.net directory and yahoo had a lot of junk in it. It felt like a waste of time to go through so many podcasts and not find many of substance. I do believe, however, that it would be interesting to do a podcast of the Central Library’s upcoming 20th anniversary. If not for nothing else, it would still be out there for historical purposes.