Week 10 - Feedback

I didn't enjoy this course to begin with. However with some help and encouragement from Merrylegs, and by the time I had finished Thing 3, I was enjoying it and spending more time at my computer than I should have been. I have learnt a lot of new things along the way, and enjoyed sites like Flickr, Image Generator, LibararyThing, YouTube and Zoho to name a few. So Thank you to ACL Learning 2.0 for making me do the course because I wouldn't have known what great things were out there in the cyber space otherwise.

Week 9 - Podcasts

As suggested, I looked at Podcasts. net, Yahoo podcasts and Podcastalley.com. The latter was the easiest to use. Searched for book reviews and chanced upon Book Bites fo Kids, which had interviews with authors about their books and writing for children. I did not listen to all of them but added these to my Bloglines. Found a few more but one in particular from the top ten podcasts, " Nobody likes Onions " , was very entertaining.

Week 9 - NetLibrary

Week 9 - NetLibrary

A few years ago, when eBooks was first introduced on our library website, I created an account and only used it once. At that time, there were not many books in the eBook collection but now it is getting bigger. I must admit that I don't really like reading books on the screen but however I did spend an hour or two reading from one topic to another. Found a few books and have added them to my Favourites. There seemed to be a large of collection of English Literature (mostly Shakespeare) which I think would be good as a study guide for college students.

Week 9 - YouTube

Week 9 – YouTube

I visited YouTube and was amazed at the number of video clips that could be found. There were many interesting ones. No wonder I can spend hours in front of the computer! I especially like the music category. I found an old time favourite video clip, "Singing in the Rain" by Gene Kelly, which I have embedded in this post.

How could the library use YouTube technology? Well, a video clip with an introduction to ACL and our services and teaching customers how to use our website, or giving instructions on how to use library equipment for staff would be great. Maybe an induction or familiarization video clip for new staff...just a thought. We could have 'staff only' entertainment and comedy video clips that have been created and uploaded by staff who want to share their jokes or interesting things they have done.

Week 8 - Discovering Web 2.0 tools.


I browsed through the Web 2.0 Awards shortlists and to my surprise there were heaps of Web 2.0 websites.Some of the winners, like Facebook, Flickr and Google Docs, were those we have come across in this "Learning 2.0" journey. Just for fun I had a peek at Picnik and learned how to manipulate photos and images. Tried out Google Maps and played around searching for locations in New Zealand and overseas and was thrilled to locate families and friends' houses using the Satellite option. I then tried the Question and Advice category, Say-so and thoroughly enjoyed reading the responses to the question "Is Santa Claus real?" The result at the time I logged on was 466 (of course Santa's real!) and 283 (no, sadly he is not real). My response was "of course Santa is real" and that made it 467!

Week 8 - Online Applications & Tools

It's great to be able to manipulate the same documents/ spreadsheets/ presentations from any computer using these online application tools. I used to save my incomplete work and library photos taken on my digital camera onto my flash drive to work on elsewhere. I can now easily upload files etc from home and access them at work place. I had a look at Zoho writer. The features are similar to Google Docs. Since I already had an account with Google, I decided to stick with it.

Here’s a simple coconut cookies recipe from a colleague at Central Library compiled in Google Docs:

Coconut Cookies

Makes 16 - 18

100g Butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Salt

2 cups desiccated coconut (long strand)

Cream butter and sugar

Add egg, mix well

Add dry ingredients

Stir in coconut

Place heaped tablespoonfuls of the mixture
onto a prepared baking tray, leaving a little
space between them to allow for spreading.

Bake in preheated oven at 180º C for 12 – 15 minutes

Week 7 - Playing around with PB Wiki

I visited the Discovery resources and took a PB Wiki tour, viewed the Video Gallery and browsed the PB Wiki tips. Creating a wiki was a much easier process than I thought. As required, I have added my blog to Acllearn.wiki.com and added my favourite song ‘You Raised Me Up’.