This is the End…for Now

I was repeatedly amazed by how much 2.0 tools there were available for people to use (if people only knew they were there). I feel lucky to have the chance to keep up with the times and to learn to use these tools. I was actually concerned that I might not be able to get through all 30 Things (or that I would be able to learn anything at all). I am glad to have a supervisor who supports my efforts and to have co-workers who covered some extra hours on the desk so that I can finish. Their efforts have really made it possible for me to explore 2.0.

Thank goodness that the deadline was moved to the end of February; I took longer to get through all the discovery exercises than I expected (Writing these blogs can take up so much time!). I was surprised that so many of the Web 2.0 tools were available for free and that most of them require creating an account with them, too. Having to keep track of so many different accounts (and their accompanying passwords) can be exhausting and off putting. The social aspect of 2.0 took some getting used to, because I felt uncomfortable having so much of my personal information on the web.

While I can see that a lot of well thought out planning went into the program, there are still some areas that can be improved:

Basic computer or internet skills need to be considered. Throughout the exercises there seemed to be an assumption of certain skills, such as bookmarking, including hyperlinks, finding and copying html codes, and adding blog elements. Perhaps there should be a pre-survey to find out what people know how to do or need to learn before starting Learning 2.0.

In the beginning, the discovery exercises tended to have more instructions and explanations; I liked the reassurance (sort of like someone holding your hand as you venture into unfamiliar 2.0 territory) that I was heading in the right direction. A few of the later ones would have benefitted with instructions, especially pertaining to how to get the html codes needed to embed something into the blog if we had to post the results of our experimenting somewhere in the blog. Library Thing and Rollyo come to mind.

I would have liked to read fewer articles (or hear less podcasts) for the sake of learning how to use a 2.0 tool instead of reading about it. I often found that I did not see the potential use for a lot of these 2.0 tools before actually using them (or subsequently creating accounts for them).

Is there any way to cut down on all the accounts we had to create throughout Learning 2.0? I grew nervous with the increasing number of accounts I had to keep track of. Or is there a way to direct the created accounts towards library work, so that creating an account would be useful?

The time commitment required needs to be considered. The time needed to complete the discovery exercise and still keep up with work deters some staff from participating, especially part-timers. Some of the part-timers I’ve talked with would like to participate, but they simply don’t have the time with the hours they work to do both 2.0 and maintain their workload. I’ve also noticed that fewer technicians and aides tended to sign up.

Perhaps the beginning of the 30 things should have started out more actively, because the amount of articles, podcasts, and video clips to wade through can be mind-numbing and a turn off. Many of the exercises are more hands-on learning than what the first couple of discovery exercises suggest, and some people don’t have the patience for all the background information.

Here are some of the discovery exercises that could be condensed and fixed:
*Learning about Web 2.0 Library 2.0, and then discussing it with co-workers. We have to be instructed to discuss what we learn? That’s sad.
*Move the Lifelong Learning exercise closer to the blog exercise, if we still have to blog about it. It was a bit confusing blogging about Thing 2 during Thing 7.

*When the blog account is created, perhaps there should be more encouragement to play around with the page elements, blog layouts, edit/delete posts, etc. A few explanations or directions on how to use them might have helped. While some people might do that on their own, I think a lot of us might have a little tunnel vision when it comes to the exercises, doing what's in front of us instead of looking into the tools a little more.

*Instant Messaging should be more hands-on. While I think it’s great to learn about how the Library is using IM, perhaps one of the exercises should involve practicing with an actual IM account (though creating yet another account might frustrate some).
*I found the MySpace and social network articles rather unhelpful in my understanding of the appeals and possible benefits of social networks.
*Try cutting one of the Technorati exercises. Having it twice seemed a bit redundant.
*One exercise with podcast was probably enough. I didn’t find myself learning that much more from Thing 24 to 25.

While going through Learning 2.0, I ran into some trouble with some websites used in the exercises being blocked. Could the filter be removed for the duration of the training?

I realize that the blog entries need some direction, but ironically I find that writing the blogs to answer the questions raised in the exercises took more time than the actual lesson!

Could the exercises be offered in smaller portions? Even with the extra weeks allowed, the weekly schedule made me feel like I was falling behind when I had to stop my 2.0 progress to keep up with work.

Last of all, if another discovery program like this is offered in the future, I would definitely participate! This was an amazing opportunity that I leaped at the chance to take.

Play Time is Over…Time to Share and Compare

So close to the end—this is exciting! After a lot of sporadic starts and stops, I am almost finished. I had so much to learn and yet I had to keep putting 2.0 aside to keep up with work and program preparations. There were a couple times when I learned extra stuff that were supposedly basic (so basic that they weren’t among the 30 Things), but I was glad Learning 2.0 gave me the chance for me to learn them. I was overwhelmed by the number of accounts I had to create as I during the discovery exercises, but some of the tools were easier to learn if I actually used them, so I resigned myself to creating more accounts than I could remember. I was simply relieved that we had the time extension to finish all these discovery exercises.

There were really about 20-something exercises, not counting the registration/introduction and evaluation portions, and I liked some more than I did others. I sort of have this love/hate feeling towards blogging, because parts of it are needlessly complicated, and blogging about a discovery exercise takes more time than doing the actual exercise! I was thrilled with the potential of RSS feeds and readers, but unfortunately many of the sites I wanted to subscribe to don’t have feeds. I had fun adding an entry to the Reader’s Advisory wiki, though I would probably have less fun if I had to start up a wiki (reading the articles makes creating wikis sound difficult). I liked the chance to create an account in a social network, since having an account is very different than reading about one. I was glad for the chance to play with Flickr photos through all these third party sites (and glad that they willingly share their ingenuity!). The Web 2.0 awards had a wide variety of categories, winners, and new sites to explore. I had fun looking for videos in YouTube (and escaped creating another new account). Playing around with image generators was fun (though there were some duds), and I was constantly amazed by what people can come up with. I was glad to have a whole exercise devoted to Library Thing so that I could play around with the features. I could see some uses for the Del.icio.us and Rollyo accounts I’ve created.

It was fascinating to look at what my fellow bloggers had to say about Library 2.0 and to see how they have personalized their blogs. I saw all sorts of interesting widgets and decorations on different blogs. It was more fun when I could find the blog of someone I knew and look at what they had to say. Sometimes looking at other people’s blogs have helped me figure out some of the exercises, too, as other bloggers shared their experiences. It was reassuring to know that asking and sharing is encouraged, because I was not as comfortable on the internet or as knowledgeable about the web tools available as I thought, and I often needed help.

Learning 2.0 was big boost to my lifelong learning. I’ve had a chance to learn about all these Web 2.0 stuff I’ve never heard of (and ended up loving). I’m grateful that the Library department offered everyone the chance to explore the Web 2.0 tools available, because quite frankly I wouldn’t have known where to look for many of these incredible tools. Learning in the name of work; I can do that.

Rolling On and On and On…

Rollyo took some warming up to. Perhaps my topics were too obscure when I tried out the search rolls for e-Books, rare books, photos and quotes from Thing 28. Ironically, most of the photos in Free Photos were from Flickr (I had already created a Flickr account!), so I didn’t find this search roll too useful. I was able to find some interesting quotes in Quick Quote, but the book searches were dissatisfying.

This search tool didn’t thrill me at first, because I had to create yet another profile. Again. I had originally planned to do option 2 where I just checked Rollyo out, but I didn’t find the experience particularly enlightening. So I gritted my teeth and registered for a Rollyo account.

It took me awhile to get the hang of how Rollyo worked. For instance, the searchrolls showed up as a dropdown menu on the top of the screen instead of a new window even when you’re at the bottom of the screen. It was easy enough to create my own searchrolls: I clicked on the tab, chose a title for it, and typed in the URLs. I could have also copied searchrolls from other Rollyo users, but I wanted to create my own searchrolls with websites I’m familiar with. I ran into a little trouble, because I wanted to link back to Rollyo account in the blog, but I found out that I had to make my searchrolls public for anyone to use it. I thought my searchrolls must be simplistic compared to other users’ searchrolls. However, when I searched through some of the searchrolls similar to mine, I was pleasantly surprised to find that mine were comparable, having more websites than some, less than others.

Rollyo wasn’t too exciting until I tried to use them for searches. When I entered a topic in one of my newly created searchrolls, it pulled up results from all the websites I selected. I was thrilled by the ease of searching multiple websites with one search. Rollyo feels like a combination of Google and Del.icio.us, with a search engine searching through sites I’ve added to a list as I did with Del.icio.us. At the worst, if your searchrolls yield no result, you can have Rollyo expand your search to the Web as well.

Flickr Exercise, Take 2

Rainier Aurora 2,
originally uploaded by Dan Hershman.

This is my attempt to post a Flickr photo through Flickr's Blog It feature. Interestingly enough, I could write my blog in Flickr and it wills still show up with my blog! Unfortunately, there's no formatting features, and I have to go back into Edit Posts to fix that. Now if I can retroactively go back to my first Flickr post and add the picture right...

This Comes from Working in the Library

Who would have thought that so many people would feel the need to categorize all the books they’ve ever read and liked? Clearly, this is a popular hobby because Library Thing has so many members that it can boast about being the largest online book club in the world. Membership is free up to 200 books in your catalog, and then you have to pay for a yearly or lifetime membership. That little tidbit sort of took the fun out of cataloguing my own library; I now have to worry about staying within my limit when I have so many favorite books I want to add. I ran into Library Thing back in Thing 19 and have been slowly adding books into my library since.

The work to get my Visual Shelf from Library Thing to show up was practically another triple lesson for me! In addition to learning about Library Thing, I learned to add links and other page elements to my blog, to make certain text in my blog hyperlinks, and to search for the html code for materials to embed into my blog. For the longest time my blog was extremely plain without any Widgets or decorations, but after all these extra lessons (mostly from other co-workers), I can proudly say my blog isn’t so bland anymore. I went on a slight detour from the discovery exercise to adding hyperlinks in some of my previous blog entries, to find widgets for my blog (I had a slight disaster on my blog when certain widgets were inserted too many times; I also tried to alter the dimensions of a widget to fit it into my blog), including a list of links to some of my fellow bloggers on my page, and adding a cool photo slideshow on my page!

I found the experience overwhelming when I searched for favorite books, because some titles have lots of different editions and I have the option of choosing the edition that I liked. I found some books in my favorite series grouped together, but their pictures rarely appeared while on my bookshelf. I found it slightly confusing how to include and modify tags, especially with the older entries; I still find myself unable to edit the tags on them. Library Thing has the option for you to add favorite authors, but the process sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t (or I fumbled my way onto the correct path the first time and now can’t repeat the steps).

Library Thing clearly offers more to readers who become members than those who just want to browse around. If you’re not a member, you can still get quite a bit out of the experience. Non-members can search Library Thing’s catalog for information about a favorite book, read the posts from discussion groups and look at the statistics for different categories in Library Thing, People can get book recommendations for titles they might like (and even recommendations for books to avoid based on the title they searched for!).

Perhaps, Library Thing is the solution for some of our customer woes. Take for instance those customers who always want to know what the title of that great book they’ve read (and then bemoan the fact that the Library doesn’t keep records of previous checkouts). If they have a Library Thing account, they can save the title in their very own catalog! Those people who want to join book clubs or find others with similar reading tastes? Well, Library Thing has plenty of them—surely there is going to be something for everyone! Now, all we have to do is persuade those same customers to check out Library Thing while making sure they still have reasons to visit the Library.

Someone Clearly has Too Much Time on His Hand

I can’t believe some of these huge image generators originate from people’s blogs! Really, someone must have a lot of time to make all these generators for us 2.0ers to enjoy. The Generator Blog had 927+ generators for playing around with different names and images!

With so many image generators to explore, I guess it’s no surprise to run into some duds. The Christmas Tree decorator reminds me of one of the Facebook applications, just a little trickier to find and “give” gifts. The Snowflake generator made a snowflake that looked unremarkably like the star drawn by an elementary school kid, and the snowflake looked the same no matter how you moved your mouse. The Brain Scanner generator looked fun, but it seemed random how your name gave you certain brain cells when your brain “scan” was generated. Alas, the result wasn’t so amusing because my brain scan only had angry or sad faces.

I tried a couple name generators and didn’t find them particularly impressive. The Tibetan Name Generator sounded interesting, but the link didn’t work. I found a Chinese Name generator where you could even choose different styles of calligraphy from ancient style to handwritten style, to have it written horizontally or vertically, but the unfortunate thing is that it generates a Chinese name only based on the phonetics of your name, so it’s really meaningless gibberish.

This generator is for someone who adores chocolate.

This link is to the chocolate I personalized. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the image to show up in my blog without creating an account with the site, so I included a link instead.





This is a variation of the Ninja text with a wizard instead.

I actually spent less time on Letter James and FD Toys in this exercise. Letter James didn’t seem to offer much image generating fun and felt more like a money-making venture. Back in the Flickr exercise, I had already checked out FD Toys. It didn’t have as many image generators, but they were easier to customize and often did (unfortunately) require you to have a photo file to play with. All in all, a little fun makes learning go a lot faster.

The Pod Invasion Continues

Let me get this out of the way: More podcast exercises don’t make me like it more. While I’m impressed with what other libraries, such as Arizona State University, Denver Public Library and Sheridan Libraries have done to incorporate podcasts and videos into their website, I don’t see myself avidly podcasting either.

I can see some of the work that is needed to make podcasts successful, and it is a big undertaking. If the Library starts posting podcasts, we need to make sure entries are added regularly so that listeners will come back for newer entries. Denver Public Library had podcasts dating back to 2006! I would think if we ever do podcasts, each library would do their own podcasts about stuff at the particular library. We’d also have to figure out how long we need to keep the entries. The podcasts should also be searchable by content, so categories for podcast topics and tags for podcast materials can help the customers find one that interests them.

Podcasts can be great, but they still have some faults. Podcasts are still for the most part audio files, so they aren’t as immediate as a person talking or reading to you. How about those people who are visual or tactile learners? Audio format won’t be as effective for them. While some of the storytelling I listened to from other libraries’ podcasts was great, I missed seeing a book with pictures in front of me. It was disconcerting to hear a disembodied voice read a story but not be able to see the storyteller.