Relax and Reflect

As the cowardly lion said: "Ain't it the truth!" I can relax now.

At times, this Web 2.0 exercise was very frustrating but overall it was a rewarding experience. I finally downloaded a book to a cd, which was something I kept meaning to do. I listened to Pandora and then, was able to tell a patron about this site. One of my favorites was zooming around Google Earth. I would participate in another discovery program if offered.

I didn't like having to create accounts. I also thought this lasted too many weeks. I agree with some of the responses to #20, I would have liked more formal face to face discussions about the topics. Being a sub, I was lucky because I did have the opportunity to talk to many of my co-workers at different branches over these last weeks.

Thank you for the learning experience.

Gaming

Yahoo games is a good site with a lot of different games and puzzles. I liked the ability to choose higher skill levels with the puzzles. It's true children and parents often asked for game sites. I liked the educational games at Fun Brain, especially the "game by grade" option. What I didn't like about Primary Games was the annoying ads! Another frustration when trying to play a new game is when "how to play" info is not included or hard to find.

Maybe, SIL should put out info on game sites for seniors. Many recent studies encourage seniors to exercise their brains by doing puzzles or playing games. "Use it or lose it!"

Maps and Geotagging

Roaming Google Earth was a lot of fun. I zoomed into my neighborhood. I went back to where I just vacationed. I looked at the stars.

The next step could be real time images, which would not be good for privacy issues but great to see if a hike is snow free yet.

Avatar

Of course, I couldn't find an avatar exactly like me. When Meez asked for my birth date, I thought my avatar would show her age. But as you can see, I'm a young tennis player - the Williams sisters better watch out. I didn't have to show my walker. You can be anyone you want.



I don't live in Second Life and I don't want to live there. Some things are more fun in real life!

Podcasting

The libraries I podcasted were: Penn State U, "Honey Bee Crisis;" Pierce Cty, book reviews; and Washington State U, NPR News feed.

I can see podcasting being very useful for the Library.

They could be used for: book reviews; Library "how to's," such as place a hold or search a database; and publicity for an upcoming program.

I have no experience creating podcasts but have listened to many, especially emailed "jokes."

Online Applications & Tools

I can use these tools. Since I travel to different branches, my docs can travel with me. I don't have to attach them to an email. I can create and edit on the run.

My family and I can use these tools. One idea came from the "Read user examples," the person's family bought season baseball tickets. Instead of having to email back and forth about who could use the tickets on what day, they created a document which could be shared in real time. We could use this tool for planning family parties.

The more I think about the "share" feature, I can use that in many ways. Now, I just have to enlighten my friends about how to "share."

Search Engines

I tried two different searches in Rollyo, Mamma and Dogpile: "Helga Estby" and "Prune apple tree." For "Helga Estby," Rollyo and Dogpile results were very similar and a lot like Google with many duplicate sites. Mamma returned fewer results with the first few pages having more .edu and .org sites. Searching "Prune apple tree," again, Rollyo and Dogpile returned thousands of sites. Mamma and Dogpile had links to local (Seattle-Everett area) sites, which is good for gardening questions.

I prefer Mamma over the others because it returned fewer sites, under 100 as opposed to 1000s, and the web pages it returned were relevant to my search.