u really want to know????

This assignment has been an enjoyable yet frustrating experience for me. Some of the tools here were neat but kind of useless, some were just down right irritating and some i did think were pretty cool and would use again.

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

  some of my favorite things that i did was the web.2.0 list finding the geni site on genealogy. flickr was cool but i dont kno how useful it is. i just liked searching through the pictures. i also liked rollyo as a search tool. that it has set up databases with topic related links is a neat idea.

  the news feed RSS stuff was not my favorite. i dont think its pertinent to have news that intertwined in your life. they have sites like cnn and msnbc and foxnews or any other types of sites like entertainment music that you can just go see on your spare time. i dont see the need for this in ppls lives
• while youtube is obv one of the most famous audio/video sites used, that is for a good reason. its easy. podcasts are THE DEVIL.....completely irritating....thats all i can say about them...

• How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
• i think it has made me see that there are tools out there that i did not know about and with the rate of increasing technology there is no way to know everything that is out there. so keep searching and try anything at least once...even if it does turn out to be THE DEVIL

• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
• the one thing that really sticks out to me is the web 2.0 stuff and the blog sites. i knew what blogs were but never got into them but i kind of enjoy being able to rant in an unformal yet public light about thigns that people might like to read about and relate to or debate in a friendly manner.  
•  

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

i think the program is done pretty well. i dont tihnk alot of the tools are very pertinent or are too similar to each other and therefore redundant to be made into two different tools. but maybe switching up some of the tools for things more geared towards specific libraries that the students are interested in. but thats just me i guess. 

overall it was a  good experience. i learned alot and am now a little more literate if anyone ever asks me about one of these tools i have some experience even if i am not an expert. definitely helpful to know.

 

web 2.0....geni

the topic i chose was genealogy. i have always enjoyed projects wehre i had to do family  trees and hope to have some time to actually make it a hobby some day. this site is realllly cool. its easy to use and you can invite other people from your family to join to help create an accurate tree. it placed second on the awards list but i liked it better than my heritage which i tried out first. it was just simpler and better for getting started. probably going to use this tool in the future. i did not like that there is no scroll bar when your family tree gets to big to be displayed at once on the screen. you have to drag around the screen to move around the tree. this was not my favorite but other than that i really liked it.

http://www.geni.com/

zotero????

i dont really understand the point of this cite. while like others it is neat to be able to group favorite sites together, this one has way to many extras that you need to actyally make the site funtional. plus i am not an avid mozilla user so this site didnt work well with my internet explorer. too many plug ins and add ons and syncing.....just not very user friendly bc its not very basic...krug would be upset.....there is a favorites tab in most web browsers for a reason. this is not needed and way overly complex.


 http://www.zotero.org/schavann/items

library 2.??????

the perspective i liked the most was the one by Dr. Wendy Schultz about everything being a temporary place in time. She talks abuot how libraries like everything else in the world has not been a static entity. it has gone through phases and changes along with technology. however not only technology, but becoming its own community as well including things like cafes and business fronts and other things besides books and computers. i like how she refers to it as a combination of a "mind gym" and a "mind spa". its going to be an all encompassing institution of challenge, relaxation, invention, tradition, and other aspects of society that seem to be total opposites but are still compatible and come together in a library setting. very cool.

rollyooooooo

Rollyo is also a neat tool. I like that there are preset rollyos that ppl can use. the ebooks one is convenient for finding textbooks online (since they are wayyyyyy cheaper) but the one i liked the most was the rare book library. as a hisory nerd of course i like that there are sites that specifically aim at thigns like rare books from teh past listed in legit sites.this would also be useful in a library setting. you can use the site for social networking as well tho. also i like to look up articles about sports to keep up what is going on in hockey and football and this helped me use search terms on my own chosen websites to pick what i could use.

aint nothin but a library thang

Library thing is actually a really cool tool. being able to log your own books and even have suggestions made to you about what you should read based on your interests is really neat. almost like on amazon where they give you suggestions based on what you buy or look at. i like the forums. its ilke having virtual book reading club with people from all over the place. its really easy to use to. if you can find a book on amazon or ebay you can find it here. you dont need professional training on cataloging to make this catalog. it automatically does it based on your search keywords or ISBN. i believe it actually gets its information from amazon.com if i remember correctly. you can tag your books and organize your catalog however you want which makes it easy for you to retrieve them later. i think this is something that should be utilized and displayed for library users and even in institutions for employees to use for research or whatever else.

goooogle is taking over

i went through the list of apps and the two i liked the most were the calender and books. The calender was cool because you could add events access them from any computer with internet. I like that you could add attachments to events like if y ou had a meeting adn wanted to add a file that was needed for the meeting as a backup in case something happened to the original file, also i liked that you can add guests to these events. I did not like the rigidity of time slots available. there were only half hour time slots, you could not have someting at 1:15 or 2:45. i did not like that but other than that i liked it.

google books is something i have used alot in my UG work. i like that it has search features to locate certain words and you can zoom in to make print biggere and easier to read in teh pdf. you cant print them most of the time but i used to just read thema nd write it down my notebook when i found relevant.

while google has alot of good tools, i believe our reliance on technology to keep our lives organzed will some day bite us in the butt. i myself am oldschool i have a paper planner and i like to print and read my research on paper with a pen and a highlighter. but this is the world we live in and eventually everyone will have to adapt to the use of technology in every little aspect of life.