wrapping up Learning 2.0

I missed the deadline for the Nebraska Learns 2.0. I did learn about new web applications. I learned more about some that I already used. Some that I never got to I will to go through and learn. Others that I never got to I use quite a bit already. All in all it was a good experience, and if such a program is offered again I will try to participate and keep up so that I get the full benefit of the program.

Thing 8 Discover Flickr

I’ve looked around Flickr before, looking at pictures when people have posted about it on their blogs. It can be a very helpful site! At one point a group I used to belong to started talking about ATCs. I was clueless and they told me it was for Artist Trading Cards and suggested I go to Flickr and search on that tag. If you are a quilter try searching Crazy Quilt ATC. You’ll find some beautiful work. These pieces are only the size of a Baseball trading card.

I’m not going to blog about the ATCs on Flickr though. I want to talk a little bit about this picture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/halsi/3096163440/

I am a fan of urban decay photos. To me they are absolutely inspirational. This particular photo is a ruined theatre in Germany, uploaded by Hasleman. What little I’ve looked around he has quite a few urban decay pictures. Anyway anyone can see that this is a falling down building with chipped paint, exposed wood, and well to me it looks like the ceiling is going to cave in. I suspect I would have loved to play inside it as a child. Now as an adult I’d love to stand inside and smell the rotting woods, examine the details of the pillars, see if the stage can still be walked on. I would try to imagine the plays that had been performed here. What would the audience have looked like? My imagination just runs wild with all the what were(s) when it comes to these urban decay pictures.

Thing 7 finding feeds for RSS

I’m having the same problem Anj mentioned in her blog post. 5 more feeds, I already subscribe to quite a few. So I went looking. It took me a while to find 5 that I really wanted to follow. We’ll see if I keep them all. The ‘chosen ones’ are a mix of politics, library, and personal interest. I expect that I will keep at least one or two and I really need to go through all that I am subscribed too and see if I want to keep them all. Since the bloggers at least don’t all post daily I may end up keeping them all as I won’t have to read something from all of them every day.

Thing #6: RSS feeds

I have been using Bloglines for about a year now. It has always been mostly personal stuff. I tried to do the exercise for this, but bloglines seems to be down at the moment. But what do I think about RSS feeds. I love them. For just news I read straight from the reader. For blogs, I often go ahead and click on the link and go to the blog. I've found that on occasion, with some of the craft type blogs, the formatting doesn't transfer well. I will go back a little later and try to add some of my co-participants blogs and some of the recommended feeds from the exercise.

2 posts in 1 More Learning 2.0

Thing 4:

Register your blog and join the party.

Ummm, well for Leraning 2.0 this is done, however as far as how does this help my patrons or co-workers. If they don't know where your blog is, how are they going to be able to go there and find all that useful information you keep learning and typing about? If you are going to use your blog for work, then the people who need to know what is in it need to know where to find it. Advertise yourself!

Thing 5:

Instant messaging

I IMed with Allana, and asked her about starting up on this whole program of Learning 2.0. The whole conversation went exactly as a reference question should go. She was right there; there was virtually no wait for answers. Afterwards I jumped in and started looking around the Learning 2.0 site and thinking about how all this can work in a library setting.

There is a lot of potential for keeping up with co-workers in a different part of the building, asking questions about how to get that invoice paid, or clarifying procedures. It also has some benefit for reference work, but if your reference desk is busy with face to face questions, the person handling IM for reference might be better placed away from the desk.