#23 wrap-up

Overall, the webthing challenge was enjoyable and worthwhile, and it was useful to be explore all of the web 2.0 things, even if I didn't care much for what I found on a couple of them. For instance, although I found little on YouTube to inspire me personally, it is a phenomenon that is very exciting and a great forum for everyone. I already knew about LibraryThing but because of this challenge I learned more it and it's probably the one I talked-up the most to my family. As for what the library should get more involved in, maybe some of the applications that enable collaboration between staff at different branches (Googledocs). And it might be a good idea to add some computer classes for the public that explore some of the same things in the challenge. What I liked the least was that while I would have loved to thoroughly investigate some of the Web 2.0 services, by the time I did the basics of each step of the challenge, so much time was already spent that I couldn't devote more. Will Web 3.0 provide some way for us to bend time?

Thing #22

I did things a bit out of order here, but blogging about them in numerical order. I had heard that doing the NJListen exercise was turning out to be impossible on our PCPlus computers in the branch so I brought in my laptop and used it to attempt this task earlier today. With the help of another staff member and well over an hour of time, we did finally successfully download an audio book of Pride and Prejudice. It takes forever and uses a large amount of memory space but I think that once I get my MP3 player, and I get accustomed to the long down-load time, it will be worthwhile to use this technology and service.

Thing #21

http://www.comedy4cast.com/

the above links to an ok podcast site, I listened to the one about creating new business-speak words.

Similar to my experience with YouTube, I find it very easy to find a variety of clips, but nothing that seems especially worthwhile, and quite a bit that were of such low quality (as to content and/or technique) that it was more annoying than interesting.

Sorry to be so negative, but that does sum up my experience with these last few exercises.

I should add though, that weeks before exploring YouTube for the purpose of the webthing challenge, I found it useful for a graduate school assignment. I had to write a paper for my Traditions in Oral Narration class, about the listening experience. I searched YouTube for storytelling videos and found one to base part of my paper upon.

Thing #20

Link to a YouTube video of a daffodil blooming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKLSgn1Yr3Y

I browsed around youtube for quite awhile, trying various searches and didn't really find much worth watching, maybe I'm just not in the mood.

Thing # 19

The Web 2.0 resources, on seomoz.org, I want to check out further are:
http://wufoo.com/ because it might be useful for creating an online survey to use with library customer groups;
http://www.esnips.com/ because it looks like a good comprehensive and flexible (& fun) web content storage and sharing tool
http://www.onesentence.org/ very intriguing! As a student of storytelling, who loves really short, high-interest stories, I couldn't ask for a more suitable site! I am amazed to learn how compeled I am to keep reading the one-sentence stories of strangers.

I would like to investigate the game sites that earned awards but I know I don't have the time and if I did I'd probably get hooked, so I'd better not. shoot!

http://www.newsvine.com/ hmmm, maybe, I'm reserving judgment until I have more time to check out this news/social content site
http://www.thebroth.com/home.html This could be lots of fun with visuals - my favorite mode of perception, I want to play with the mosaic!

I think "Content Aggregation and Management" is a type of catch-all term for sites that don't fit into a more specific category.

Thing # 18

Google docs would be great for collaborative projects with teens. For instance, if I had a group of teen volunteers working on preparing a Reader's Theatre presentation for younger children, and the teens wanted to work on an original script together. Each member of the group could contribute, as their time allows, to a script, or a series of scripts (they could each be working on their own script but all of them in the same document, with an agreement that each can only directly edit their own, but make suggestions for the others') in progress on a Google word processing document.

Also, I'm currently on an NJLA committee that does most of the work via e-mail. A shared Google document used to manage all the work contributed by each member would be very useful - and really save space in my e-mail account!

Thing # 17

Public wikis are useful, any group separated geographically can work together virtually on the same project. Wow, isn't that an escape of the space/time continuum?