All Good Things Must Come to an End

Thank you for the learning opportunity.

If Wikis and Del.icio.us indicate the direction in which KCLS is moving. I think I'd better go back and review those lessons. I had some trouble with those.

What I Think

My gut reaction is I'm so glad it's over! At various times I found the whole experience overwhelming, exciting, frustrating, intensive, thrilling, way too time consuming, and fun. I'll never be a total computer nut, but I'll also never be as afraid of the computer and its mysterious ways as I was. There are wonderful things out there in cyberspace; and if I get in a mess, at least now I feel I can get out of it. Why I might even take a few classes after I retire.

I enjoyed embedding a video in my blog from YouTube. I was thrilled to discover Google docs & spreadsheets and Zoho. I loved the LibraryThing Search Box. I wish I had time to read all of the RSS feeds. I was so proud of my Google custom search engine. I loved playing in Flickr Retrievr and relaxing with Flickr ColorPickr.

I'm surprised how this experience sharpened my computer skills (such as they are). I'm also a little surprised at my reaction. I really did enjoy it and I liked sharing the things I learned. I enjoyed telling my daughter about Google Docs and Zoho. She was really excited about using it for PTA newsletter contributors. I'd definitely like to stay active in some of the areas introduced. That surprises me. I thought I'd be the first one back in deleting everything.

There were certain things I could never have done without help. Thanks to our inhouse advocate, Sarah, and Steve I was able to post pictures on my blog. I could never have done that alone. They provided enough support that I didn't need to go outside the branch.

I would like to have seen the lessons spaced out a little more. Some were just too overwhelming. If you alternated between difficult and easy lessons it might have helped. I know some people lost interest towards the end. I believe that personalizing the lessons a little more would hold people's interest a little better.
The most memorable lessons (the ones that really stayed with you)were the ones where we were granted a little more license.

Would I like to see more learning opportunities of this sort? Yes, but not for awhile. If I could go back, would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

Podcasts, eaudio (overdrive)

I can almost see the finish line.
I listened to a couple library-related podcasts. I liked the Johnson County Library Presents Writer's Place Poetry Reading. The Thomas Ford Memorial Libary has Click a Story, but in today's world why just listen when you can see Dewey and Sketch on YouTube? Hennepin Co. Library TeenLink Podcast was good. My favorite and the one I subscribed to was KCET Podcast: Aloud at the Central Library. This is a series of author talks, discussions, interviews from Los Angeles. I subscribed to their feed.
http://www.kcet.org/explore-ca/on-demand/podcasts/

I'm ready for my M3P player. My very first download will be Thunderstruck by Erik Larson. I can't wait!

You tube fave.

This is a famous 1958 video I never thought I'd see again.

YouTube was very entertaining. I did see Dewey and Sketch there. But YouTube seems like such a broad venue. There's everything under the sun there. Dewey and Sketch are entertainment so I can understand their presence. But other than that, why would a library want to be there? I'm not very imaginative, but if a library was buidling a new branch, patron's could follow construction via YouTube. I will say that I might go back to be further entertained.

Web 2.0 Awards

I saw some old friends here: Flickr, Library Thing, etc. After viewing some of the other categories, I can definitely say you've given us the best of the best.

I explored some new categories--Travel and Events. I was especially intrigued by the Travel category. Kayak, http://www.kayak.com/ put all discount travel sites together in one place--a real boon for comparison shopping. Travbuddy, www.travbuddy.com was a nice site for sharing travel experiences thru unbiased travel reviews. Tripmojo, www.tripmojo.com, did a real fine job of comparative pricing of hotels. The Wayfaring site, www.warfaring.com was beyond me.
I might suggest the Kayak site to someone who wanted to do comparisons. I'd personally use Tripmojo.

In the area of Events, I couldn't link to www.evnt.org The link was broken. www.Zvents.com brought up poor results. But I really liked Eventful, www.eventful.com I searched dog shows for the Bellevue area. It came up with some wonderful (and weird) competitions in the surrounding area, not just Bellevue. It also is a site I might use for event info.

The key here was ease of navigation and familiarity. I did check out the categories of Books and Personal Organization. Nothing can hold a candle to www.Librarything.com and I thought the Personal Organization sites didn't have much imagination. http://voo2do.com/ was the only one that looked even halfway inviting.

Google Trends, Suggests, Transit

This was kind of fun. It took me awhile to get the hang of the kind of terms it could provide comparisons for. Democrats and Republicans brought up some interesting graphps. Iraqi War and the peace movement, too. My favorite was global warming and recycling. I think if you can come up with the correct search terms, you'll do fine with it. The trends that come up can be interpreted many different ways, so I'm not sure of what value it would be.

Now Google Suggests (search terms) was fantastic! I put in a search for the mountain, Changabang, and it came up with all the information I would ever need on the subject, plus links to photos and climbing history. I was really impressed at how simple it was. A winner!

Google Transit was confusing. It offered alot more--maps, traffic, satellite views, than I expected. So much so I got sidetracked into finding my house via the satellite views. I found it easily, but I don't think that's what the site is for. I'm going to go back and give the bus routes another try. I returned to Google Transit. Wow! How easy is that. Much better than Metro's site. This is a winner!

Google/Zoho for me!

I'm so excited to discover these features. I feel stupid that I didn't know about them. It is to my everlasting relief that something akin to Word and Excel is available to me. My home computer has some old Lotus Suite on it. This is absolutely the best thing we've done yet. It is so easy to use and so available.

For my example, I was able to write a letter to my homeowners' association. Now I can access it at home without emailing it to myself. It's great! Here's my facetious letter to the association:

" Dear Neighbors,

Guess what! I've decided to paint my house chartreuse and persimmon. I think it will liven up the neighborhood. Don't you?

I'll also be putting in a cyclone fence, huge metal butterflies and an innovative searchlight lamp post that will be, I think the hit of the neighborhood. I will also be removing all gutters and use instead those quaint rain chains at all corners of the house and in between.

In the conservation mode, I've decide to use a clothesline instead of my dryer and will be reusing my old toilet and bathtub as innovative planters. Don't worry about the engine in the driveway. They'll be fixing it soon. Pimp my Ride is going to overhaul the old Oldsmobile.

P.S. Bright purple awnings will be going up over the windows too.

Yours in the hood!"

This has simplified my life. Thank you!