Last post :-(

It's true I've finished the 23 steps, I'm going to miss you! Wonderful learning experience and my hardest of all learning goal of not being able to PLAY has been quashed forever!!!

My favourite tools are igoogle, bloggin, delicious (n tagging) library thing, RSS feeds and the whole darn thing really.

My unexpected outcome was that I didnt want it to end, I havent posted for over a week, as the end was inevitable! Boo hoo

On a positive ending, I can still play and have heard a whisper that there may be similar steps in the not too distant future.

Bye :-)

Getting social with MySpace

I've looked at both Facebook and MySpace and purely because my daughter is with MySpace I have concentrated on this one. For a definition I checked out Wikipedia - pretty much a tool for social networking but as these examples show, can be useful for contacting people and building relationships within a library environment.

Art in the library Australian

Teen zone American

I can imagine us using the tools for sending messages, linking various interest groups via blogs, creating a library profile (about the library and it's people) services, links to interesting places and all the while creating access to library content!

Podcasting

I starting using itunes when I got myself an ipod (to help with bike riding), from the online store I subscribed to some free podcasts, n purchased some songs for around 30c each. I can now listen to music or radio broadcasts from my pc or ipod.

I'm very over my current music on the ipod, and as the itunes library holds many more songs than my ipod can ever hold I can change them around - which I should do now!

For the library exercise I checked out Sirsi dynix , a colleague had shown me some interesting podcasts that she had subscribed to. The site provides a great intro to podcasts.

Personally, not at all interested in knowing how to do my own podcasting BUT never say never, the library website might have a need for it! Here's a 4 step how to guide

You Tube

OMG - this is an amazing tool, huge potential and the more time I spent looking around the site the more intrigued I became. I actually found my son's youtube account and subscribed to it! He has posted 5 videos of bmx stunts and tricks and one on how to drink beer quickly using a gravity assisted device.

As a learning / teaching tool there are a huge number of videos to support delivery especially if using technology comes into play.

I found the subject headings didnt help me find clips, it appears that videos can be tagged but I'm unsure how to search using them (no cloud?). The search box is good and once you've come across something youtube gathers similar content together making it easy to choose.

I have spent toooooo much time playing with youtube, I wanted to load my avatar icon as my login pic. Unfortunately youtube won and I failed to change it... I had to download a video first and capture this - then make a change - very confusing!!! As I dont have a video to upload I was going around in circles.

Let me know if you had more success than me! I'll be chatting youtube stuff (and beer consumption) with my son in the future as he has obviously got his head aroung it!

Discovery web 2.0 tools

Unbelievable to think there are 300 - 500 web 2.0 tools currently on the net... makes you wonder how many will actually end up dominating. From the web 2.0 awards we can see those that were shortlisted.

For those that appeal to me I have chosen a few - standing out is del.icio.us - fantastic tool for sharing information socially using tags... brilliant idea with huge potential for library use.

For images I love flickr, youtube for video BUT special mentions for biblio.com and librarything for library oriented uses - with some social networking exploration ideas too.

For fun - fwditon.com - just for jokes and to play a quick game by Grant Robinson guess the google

Online productivity tools

AKA web based office applications like word, excel, databases and even powerpoint. Pretty darn good idea, especially for sharing across networks and especially for editing purposes and especially good for overcoming application version translation (e.g Word 2.0 - 6.0).

Tried accessing zoho writer without success, I registered but was unable to do anything other than that - weird AND too time consuming so I gave up and tried google apps instead!

This application is free and very useful! I played with both and presentation (like ppt) and have found it okay to use, certainly lots of potential although it is hard to imagine people not having similar applications already included in their PC package... but we do have a machine at home without word!

See my presentation test using google docs, click on 'start presentation' top right hand view.

Wiki stands for quick

What CAN'T be a wiki?

Wikis appear to provide many uses... lists and lists of lists and dont we love lists! Great range of settings and screen arrangements too. Possible means for providing subject lists, info content manager, endless uses... e.g. we are using a car parking wiki...

Consider tho, if protection and privacy are issues perhaps other means of sharing need to be considered.