Week 9, Exercises 20-23

I've heard a lot about YouTube, but I haven't had time to explore it. I really enjoyed exploring it. This site is free and offeres so many interesting videos in any topic. We can easily upload video content and embed clips into our site.
We really deserve a heart laugh with Mr. Bean at the Library after learning so many new things.


Mr. Bean at the Library

Till now I haven't been familiar with podcasts. Now I've learned that they are non-musical audio sometimes video recordings available online and that we don't need an iPod to listen to them.I explored Podcast.net and Podcast Alley. Podcast.net didn'y work for me. My computer froze several times and I had to restart it. It takes time to find a useful podcast in this vast ocean of podcasts. Finally I found an interesting podcast about the history of Rome and and added the RSS feed for it to my blog.

For the 22nd exercise I familiarized myself with the structure of NetLibrary's ebooks by watching the Introduction to NetLibrary. I created a free NetLibrary account via my library account. I found some interesting ebooks and added them to my favourites. One day I would probably try to read them by downloading them to my PC, although I prefer reading printed books.

This is not the end. This is just the beginning...

I enjoyed every moment of Learning 2.0. I am really happy I learnt so many things about web 2.0 that I had not been familiar with. And I had a lot of fun, too.

Congratulations to the team for this wonderful learning journey!


Add this effect to your own photos

Week 8, Exercises 18-19

I had a lot of fun exploring Zoho Writeer and Google Docs. I created for myself a free account in Zoho Writer and then created a socument, inserted an image/photo from my PC, played with colours and explored its features, and published/posted it
to my blog.
From the list of Web 2.0 Awards winners I selected Picnik, an online photo editor, for editing and enhancing photos/images on my computer. I uploaded a photo from my PC and explored all the features of this tool, and then saved it to my computer. You can also upload and edit photos from Flicker, Facebook, Picasa, etc. This editor can also be used for editing and enhancing any images/photos in the library setting.
I also like Google maps, a collection of maps and satellite images. You can search for your favourite locations and addresses, zoom them, and feel as if you were there. You can also create personalized maps, add Google maps to your private or public website, etc.

Delphi

Delphi is an archeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo. His sacred precinct in Delphi was a Panhellenic sanctuary, where every four years athletes from all over the Greek world competed in the Pythian Games.

Delphi was revered throughout the Greek world as the site of the omphalos stone, the centre of the earth and the universe. In the inner hestia ("hearth") of the Temple of Apollo, an eternal flame burned. After the battle of Plataea, the Greek cities extinguished their fires and brought new fire from the hearth of Greece, at Delphi; in the foundation stories of several Greek colonies, the founding colonists were first dedicated at Delphi.

 

 

Week 7, Exercises 16-17

I often use Wikipedia (open-source ancyclopedia)for information on different subjects. It is really useful tool for collaborative writing, pooling knowledge and exchanging ideas. I have looked through the vast amount of information on the different kinds of Wiki and I am really amazed that there are so many uses for them. You can develop a web site without having any knowledge of HTML or other makeup languages. All of wiki’s users are potentially its authors. For me the big disadvantage of Wiki that it lacks an editorial control (sometimes it can be subjective, influenced by opinion, etc.). Wiki can be very useful in libraries for interaction with customers, with staff and as a communication tool for a shared workspace.
I really enjoyed exploring PBWiki to find out how this collaborative tool can be used. I added my blog to the PBwiki Learning 2.0 wiki (Favourite Blogs page). I also added my favourite movie to the Favourite Movies page as follows:


Who is singing this beautiful song and who is dancing?

Week 6, Exercises 13-15

For this week I explored the social bookmarking manager del.icio.us which enable us to bookmark a web page and add tags (keywords) to categorise our books marks. I created my account and booksmarked several web pages. I could see how many people bookmarked the same web pages by clicking on the bookmark. I could also see their comments and tags they used to categorise the same bookmarked site. Delicious is a useful bookmarking tool tha can help a lot in researching. I displayed details about my del.icio.us network by using Network Badges.
Then I explored Technorati, did a keyword search in Advance search for Learning 2.0 in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. The results were different (Posts - 2718; tagged posts - 1160; blogs about Learning 2.0 - 876). The Popular section was most interested for me because it includes the latest videos, books, news and movies.
Although my blog is probably already being captured by Technorati, I claimed my blog and created a watchlist.
Rank: 8,911,336
Tagged: civilization, classical, ancient period
Description: Archeological cites from classical period



It was really interesting to read the perspectives from the OCLC Next Space Newsletter. I like the video that illustrates Web 2.0. Technology and the Internet do change and affect the library services. Today libraries are moving out of the four walls and are taking their services to the users. Libraries have to incorporate ew technologies into their services to meet the user's needs. With the changes in technology, librarians are becoming more like teachers who have to put all their efforts in eliminating the barriers that exist between the patrons and the information they need. They need to assist the patrons to cope with the existing technology in the library. Sometimes I am looking back nostalgically to the time before the Internet revolution. People were studying, doing researches, writing good books, and reading books while lying in bed, etc. without the help of these new technological tools. I believe people were happier and life not so fast as today.

Week, 5, Exercise 10-12

Add this effect to your own photos

I had a lot of fun playing with online image generators. The Generator Blog offers very interesting generators. I used Ripple Effect generator on the photo of my city.
LibraryThing was a real fun for me. I am a book lover and a cataloguer at heart. I created an account (my LibraryThing blog) and added my favourite books (about 10). I linked my blog with my LibraryThing catalogue by using Author cloud widget which I copied and pasted into my HTML.
Then I explored Rollyo which enables us to search only websites that we like and trust. I created an account in Rollyo. I also created 4 search rolls (personal search engines) and linked my search rolls to my blog.

Week 4, Exercise 8-9

RSS is simple and less time consuming. I have created my Bloglines account and added feeds from different sites. It was quick and easy. You just need to copy and paste in your account (Add button) the URL of the feeds you want. I also posted a 'Subscribe with Bloglines' button on my blog.
RSS is very useful. You could use it to get the latest headlines from CNN, Fox, etc. I like RSS feed and will use it on my office and home computer to keep me posted on the news of my interest. Feeds would be very useful for library customers who could log in and mark RSS for new books and other formats. They could also learn about news without making an effort to log in into particular nespaper sites. RSS could also be very helpful for librarians to read reviews for books from different web pages at the same time. I also explored the search tools for locating news feeds such as Feedster, Syndic8.com, Technorati and Topix.net. I like Topix.net most since this tools only locate news and media RSS feeds for information and not weblogs.

The link to my blogline account is:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/Delphi1