Week 10 - #23 THE END!!!

Well, I thought I'd never get here! This training has been a long process. At times frustrating. At times really enlightning! Overall, I really enjoyed the training. I was pleased to find that I was already at least somewhat familiar with many of the tools we learned about. I guess I'm not as out of the loop as I thought! And now I feel much more secure in my knowledge about all these tools. I even feel like I can help patrons explore what's available out there. In terms of using these technologies at HCPL, I'm actually in the process right now of creating a blog for my branch's children's department. It's a little slow going because even though I am now fairly familiar with Blogger, I've decided to use Wordpress because it seems to have more functions. So it's learning all over again! On this department website, we may include some of the technologies we've learned about, such as Flickr and Avatars.

Thank you to all of you who put this program together for us. It was great. A lot of work, but great!

Week 9 - #22 Downloadable Media

I am, of course, already somewhat familiar with HCPL's digital offerings since I took that training class! I think it's great that we offer this service. However, I do find the selection very limiting. I'm sure that this is something that will change in time. I had to plug in several titles before I found one offered on on HCPL's site. I also checked out LibriVox and Wowio. I wasn't overly impressed. I think it's great that there are these free sites that offer books, but, again, to me the selection seems limited for now.

Week 9 - #21 Podcasting

I was a little familiar with podcasting before iHCPL. I've primarily used it for entertainment purposes. I've often listened to podcasts of NPR programs (especially since here in Houston, our NPR is pretty pathetic-just a few hours a day). For purposes of this assignment I added NPR:Book Tour to my Bloglines account. I didn't really like podcast.net. I found that site hard to sure and difficult to find podcasts of interest.

Week 9 - #20 You Tube

Today I explored You Tube. I have used You Tube before. I like it, but I liken it sometimes to shopping in a thrift shop or discount clothing store. You can really find some great gems, but you really have to dig for it. The most frustrating part of You Tube (or any other video sharing site) is buffering. But that's just a personal tic and I don't know a way around it. Mostly, it is kind of a time suck. You look at one video, notice suggestions on the right for similar videos, start looking at those, and before you know it, an hour has flown by!

In terms of its use in a library setting, I think the most useful aspect to our patrons is the Howto & Style section. I love this section, especially for cooking videos.

Week 8 - # 19 Trying out Zoho

Today I tried out Zoho. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first but now I'm really excited about it. I can see immediate benefits to telling our patrons about this site. In our branch, we always have kids working on school projects, typing for a paper for 2 hours, but who still don't finish. These kids usually never have a disk or a flash drive to save their work on. If they use Zoho, they can easily save their work and continue working on their project from school, home, or the library. OK, I think I've been converted!