Week 10: #23 Is this really the end? Or just the beginning...

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey? My favorite was FD Toys & Flickr….the possibilities with what you can do. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals? I now feel as techno-savvy as the young customers that we serve or maybe not. There is so much out there that I still don’t know about and hopefully I can continue on learning. Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? I couldn't believe some of the videos on YouTube and what we can do with it. What ideas do you have for using these technologies at Harris County Public Library? What else do you want to learn about? What other web 2.0 applications are you interested in? These technologies are what our customers use daily, weekly, monthly, or occasionally. And we have to have the knowledge to help out customers with the new or newer or the newest technology that we know of. We probably cannot provide the technology, but we can tell the customers about it. I fully appreciate and understand that we need to be aware of what's out there and I'm certain that putting all of this together and monitoring it was a lot of work for many people, so thank you for that. I would like to thank all the iHCPL team who put this training together for us. The people behind the video productions, the writers of the discovery exercises, the people tracking our posts and who dutifully sent out the bling every week. It has been extremely the best and most useful training program I have participated in since I came to HCPL. This was the best and awesome! We just need to continue from here on…. This is not the end, but the beginning to better our self....we can learn each and everyday, there is no stoping on what and how we learn......

Week 9: #22 Downloadable Media

I like our HCPL Overdrive site. In the past I have checked out an e-book and eaudio before and would check out more if I had more time to read from my computer or just regular book. I prefer to do the audio and video downloads from home, but I don't get the time, since my daughter wants to play games whenever my husband or I are on the computer. I like the overdrive collection better than the two other sites that we were asked to look at. The LibriVox site offered audiobook downloading for free and the Wowio offered free e-books. The sites aren't bad and they're easy to use and download stuff from. I did get account with Wowio, but didn't find anything that I would really read right away. I like the some of the classics that they have. I still like the HCPL Overdrive site better than the other two sites.

Week 9: #21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I went through all of the suggested podcasts directories listed and went searching for a podcast that interested me. Also, another part of the discovery exercise was to find some interesting library related podcasts such as book review podcasts or library news and add it to the RSS feed for a podcast to my Bloglines account. I used the Yahoo! Search to find podcasts. I found the Denver Public Library Podcasts site. It has podcasts of stories for kids, book reviews, author interview and various literacy topics. Pretty neat! Also, I found interesting things at the Orange County Library System, which was the first public library to offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The library provides their customers with the knowledge of an author visit at the library, find out about the next book sale, and learn about health and business programs plus more by using the Library's RSS. Their OCLS Children's Podstory, where the children and families can enjoy listening to their storytellers share their favorite tales. I do think podcasts are very useful, as a way of reviewing information that people may have skipped over when it was first presented to them. It’s very useful tool to have. I am still trying to keep up with what I have learned.

Week 9: #20 Discover YouTube and other video sharing sites

There were some many videos on YouTube for me to go through in one day. I do have personal YouTube account and I have posted videos on YouTube before. You just have to be really careful when you post videos on YouTube. You have no knowledge of who will watch those videos when you make them public. The library can use YoubTube in so many ways....such as 1 minute marketing (that already happening), short storytime videos of library staff reading books and peorforming fingerplays or songs, or puppet shows by staffs and lots of others ways that library can use YouTube. YouTube is here to stay and we as library should use the technology to help promote us to the best or our abilities.