Reflections on SIL’s 20Things

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
The program helped me to have clarity on what Web2.0 is all about: promote creativity, share of ideas, and, collaborate with individuals or  teams. My understanding of web applications has expanded.  An incredible amount of ever increasing information available to me was opened to me. This reminds me of the Hubble Telescope YouTube presentation

Scientists discovered when they focused the Hubble telescope into a part of space that appeared to have no stars for ten or so days. They were surprised to discover galaxies upon galaxies. I had a somewhat similar feeling when I discovered the numerous wiki sites, podcasts and free web applications available online.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
The program helped me to see how the future is here without getting a clearer grasp on it. Well, no one person can grasp all the new things coming out in technology every day. But this class helped me to structure what appears chaotic jumble of Internet applications and concepts  and organized them into a manageable learning program. If I ever take any courses either at Sno-Isle or privately, I am sure something I learned here will come in handy.
 
Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
The sheer volume of information available and how most of the tools are free surprised me.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
What became obvious to me after this class is the need to structure the program as  a collaborative group-oriented class instead of personalized self-paced one. Without the help from others at my branch, I would have missed out on some things. There were attempts at doing this in the program when we were asked to chat online with a colleague. I saw how Mukilteo Safety Committee and Oak Harbor staff contributed to Sno-Isle Libraries Strategic Planning by creating collaborative wikis as part of the training.

What I will love to see is greater collaboration. Instead of separate bloggers, I would like to see one big branch blog with all staff members posting ideas and experiences they want to share. I was surprised and saddened to read a blog of a staff who was sharing something about her mother’s recent death and nobody posted a comment. This is because almost everyone was focused on completing their blog and only few people read or commented on what others were writing. Sure, this is a class but where does the line between simulation and practical life converge?

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

I will definitely take part in a similar but improved discovery program in the future.

Podcast For Everybody

The podcast resources available online today are overwhelming. From the podcasting directory on Libsuccess  to countless other podcast directories, there is something for everybody.

I visited the Alden Library podcast directory and found a podcast that Char Booth, a university reference and instruction  librarian, created to introduce herself to her students. I can imagine how Sno-Isle administrators, librarians and staff can have personal podcasts like that of Char’s in the near future. You can hear her on Kwami’s Shared Reader. She talks about her native Texas.

OverDrive

I took the webinar on OverDrive way back in 2005 when it all started with Lesly Kaplan.

I tried re-installing OverDrive at home and noticed that the rubrique “Upgrade Windows Media Player” can be confusing since it is not easy to identify the version.

Any way, I finally identified my version by right-clicking the Windows Media Player icon to the top left. Then I found the Help and About where Windows applications’ version information are generally located. 

While following the Windows Media Player Security Upgradedirections necessary to use OverDrive, I got the error that I did not have a genuine Windows license and therefore I should close Windows Media Player (I have the latest version 11. something) and restart.

This is surprising since I have a validated copy of Windows. When I restarted, OverDrive asked me to hit the Play button. And, surprise, the voice said I have set up the Security Upgrade successfully.

Google Docs and Zoho Writer

I attempted to copy a file I created in notepad into my newly activated Google Docs. I was using FireFox 3.0. and I was unable to use the copy and paste functionality.

It did not give the option of choosing if I want to control that functionality. It simply denied me the ability to do so. I then launched my Internet Explorer version 7.0.something and was able to copy the existing document into Google Docs.

I mean, I understand the security risks involved but to totally disable the copy and paste function beats me. Maybe there is a way to enable it that I am unaware of. Will have to explore that.

I tried both Google Docs and Zoho Writer. With an existing Google account, when you use Google docs for the first time, it asks you if you want to create another account. If you say no, you get to use the application immediately.

With Zoho Writer you can use either your existing Google or Yahoo accounts to generate a new registration. Which makes Zoho Writer sign-up easy.

Both tools have powerful word processing capabilities. What I noticed is that Zoho Writer looks more like Office 2007 with all menu items, lots of them, designed as icons.

A strange thing I noticed is that although Goolge Docs has fewer menu icons with some text menu items, I prefer that to Zoho Writer because it is simpler to use and less cluttered. Simplicity rules, I guess, and Google has figured that out.

Images

Mountlake Terrace Library Bear and Child

Here is the image I generated using one of the free online image generators.