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

Congratulations! You've reached the 23rd thing. Be sure to give yourself a pat on the back for completing the programme. There is just one last discovery post.

For your last and final exercise for this programme please reflect on your learning journey and post a few thoughts. Here are some questions to prompt you if you're drawing a blank...

• What were your favourite discoveries and exercises on this learning journey?
• How has this programme assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this programme that surprised you?
• What could we do differently to improve upon this program's format or concept?

And last, but not least...

• If we offered another discovery programme like this in future, would you again choose to participate?

In closing, I want to thank each and every one of you for joining me on this journey. I hope that this is not the end of our learning journey together, but rather it's just the start of something amazing!

Thank you.

#22 The end is in sight

The original learning 2.0 site at PLCMC talks about audiobooks in #22 - they have a subscription to NetLibrary (see the original post here). Since we do not have any subscriptions to audio books yet, your discovery exercise will be to look at the different free audiobooks available on the internet.

There are subscription audio book sites as well, like Audible, but take a look at some of the free ones available:

• Audiobooks.org


• Audiobooksforfree.com


• Librivox

or search the internet for other sites.

OPTIONAL: Try downloading a title from one of the sites. You don't have to have a portable player to listen to audiobooks, you can also listen to it from your computer.

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the internet. What differentiates a podcast from a regular streaming audio of video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.

In 2005, "podcast" was named the "word of the year" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting, it's easy to see why.

Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minute commentaries to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There's a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that you don't have to have an iPod or a MP3 player to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker.

iTunes, the free downloadable application created by Apple is the directory finding service most associated with podcasts, but if you don't have iTunes installed there are still plenty of options.

For this discovery exercise participants are asked to take a look at some popular podcast directory tools. Do some exploring on your own and locate a podcast that is of interest to you. Once found, you can easily pull the RSS feed into your Bloglines account as well, so that when new casts become available you'll be automatically notified of their existence.

Discovery Resources:

• To find out more about podcasts start with Google and search for podcast tutorials.
• There are many, many podcast directories and finding tools out there. Here are just three of the more popular ones that, unlike iTunes, don't require a software download:

Podcast.net
Podcastalley.com

• What? You want to learn how to be a podcaster too?

Beginner's guide to Podcasts and Creating Podcasts
How to podcast tutorial

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look at one or two of the podcast directories listed and see if you can find a podcast that interests you. See if you can find some interesting library related podcasts here like book review podcasts or library news.
2. Add the RSS feed for a podcast to your Bloglines account.
3. Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?

#20 You too can YouTube

Well, you too can, but as we know YouTube is a blocked site during office hours on campus. Just imagine how slow our internet connection would be if it wasn't! But, if you're interested in doing the discovery exercises, good news: sites like YouTube and Facebook and Flickr are only blocked during office hours. So you can come in a bit early or stay a couple of minutes later to look at these sites.

Withing the last few years online video hosting sites have exploded allowing users to easily upload and share videos on the web. Among all the web 2.0 players in this area, YouTube is top dog, serving up over 1 million video views a day and allowing users not only to upload their own video content easily, but also embed clips into their own sites easily.

Do some searching around YouTube yourself and see what the site has to offer. You'll find everything from 1970s TV commercials and 60s music videos to library dominos and kids singing about bloopers here. Of course, like any free site you'll also find a lot of stuff not worth watching too. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't explore and see for yourself what the site has to offer. :-)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore YouTube & find a video worth adding as an entry in your blog.


2. Create a blog post about your experience. What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video you did? Can you see any features or components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library web sites?

OPTIONAL: Try placing the video inside your blog using the copy and paste code for the "Embeddable Player". Note: you'll need to use Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting this code.

Other popular video hosting sites:

• Yahoo Videos


• Google Videos


• Others - top video site list

NOTE: Videos, like music downloads, are bandwidth hogs. The reason for you only being able to access these sites after hours.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

Throughout the course of this learning 2.0 programme we've explored just a small sampling of these new internet technologies and web sites that are empowering users with the ability to create and share content. But given the time there are so many more we could explore. The number of web 2.0 tools are growing daily with only a handful emerging as market dominators. And although time will only tell which of these new collaborative, social networking and information tools will remain top, one thing is for sure, they're not going to go away (at least anytime soon).

For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to select any site from this list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees and explore it. With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you (like Books or Personal Organisation) and then simply select a tool / site to explore. Be careful to select a tool that is Free and that doesn't require a plug-in or download. The majority of these are free, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Select any site/tool from the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees. (If you prefer to select from just the winners, here's a link to the short list.)
2. Explore the site you selected.
3. Create a post about your discovery. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site's useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting?

Web 2.0 - with so much more to explore, just start with ONE. :-)

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the last few years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the internet without the need of installed desktop publications. Some experts speculate that this trend may meant the death of Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. But no matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides agree: web-based apps have their place.

One large benefit to web-based applications is that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. Another bonus is that they easily accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs to author and publish posts to your blog. It's the type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing.

For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to take a look at a web-based word processing tool called Zoho Writer, create a simple document and then document your discoveries in your blog. If you're up to the challenge, you might even export your document as an HTML file or publish it through Zoho to your blog.

With Zoho and web-based applications, the possibilities are endless.

Discovery Resources:

A short list of web-based productivity applications - authored by Helene Blowers in Zoho and exported as HTML.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Create a free account for yourself in Zoho Writer.
2. Explore the site and create a few test documents.
3. Try out Zoho Writer's features and create a blog post about your discoveries.

Optional: If you're up for the challenge, try using Zoho's "publish" option to post to your blog.

BTW: Here's a document (viewable as a web page) that Helene Blowers mocked up in Zoho about some of the features she found beneficial.

#17 Playing around with PBWorks

"Sandbox" is a term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, we've set up a whole UFS-Library Learning Favourites wiki that's for nothing but play!

For this "explore-and-play-with-wikis" exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the PBworks Library Learning wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply "favourites": favourite books, favourite vacation spots, favourite restaurants, favourite anything ... all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favourite Blogs page.

Discovery Resources:

• PBWorks Manual and Tips

Discovery Exercise:

1. Access the UFS Library Learning wiki and create a login account for yourself.
   
2. Add your blog to the Favourite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there.
   
3. Create a post in your blog about the experience.

OPTIONAL: Add a favourite or two to a few other pages. And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a seperate page for book reviews or a short travel essay and link up to that.