The Last Thing !!

Such a relief to have finally finished this journey, a few weeks late. I have learnt heaps and am no longer totally ignorant about what Web 2.0 technology offers. Much of it has been fun - the obvious things like the social networking sites, using Flickr and YouTube. Other parts of the journey were hard work, particularly fitting it in with other demands and not being able to access some sites at work. Ended up doing some of it at home in my own time just to get it done.

All in all a very positive exercise though and probably the only way to upskill a large number of people in a huge variety of new skills and knowledge.
Thank you.

Week 9 - No 22 - E books

I really enjoyed this exercise, feel I learnt a lot. There is so much freely available both from eLibrary and Project Gutenberg. Also interested to see that electronic audio books read both by humans and computer generated voices are available. Those needing to download these would certainly need help I would think, it doesn't seem a simple process. Is a bit mindboggling just how far the electronic explosion has gone and how much is available at your fingertips now.
Gret to see how cheaply one can purchase electronic books also - tempted to buy Nights in Rodanthe!

Week 9 Podcasts

Nearly there! Podcasts are now on my horizon... have subscribed to http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/podcasts/newstalkipod.xml (Newstalk ZZB radio) because I don't seem to get time to read the papers nowadays and also seem to miss the TV news because I am cooking or gardening or some other riveting task when the news is on!!

Hopefully this will enable me to know what is going on in the world a bit by listening to some interviews etc that I may have missed.

Week 20 (No 20) YouTube

I am a fan of YouTube, you can have so much fun!!! Must admit it's mostly the funnies I look at. Did find some great footage of Gordon Ramsay interviews which had a few too many swear words in to put on my blog. Also a great funny of Gordon as a kid "evaluating" his lunchbox to an exasperated Mother.
But my favourite is the Simon's cat series, if you've got a cat you'll relate to these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg Follow this link.

Week 8 No 18 (doing it out of order!)

Had a little play about in Zoho Writer and am a bit familiar with Google Docs through our Learn.net. However I'm sorry can't get too excited about this, would just rather use Word if I want to do some word processing. There seem to be so many ways of doing everything, it is getting a bit overwhelming. Not to mention having log ins for Africa!!!

Week 8 No 19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

FIXYA

I chose to look at a site called Fixya which offers technical support for all things mechanical, electrical etc which includes household appliances, computer equipment, phones and even cars.

You can search for solutions to your problems and if you don't find one, post your query and see what help arrives (!!!). Someone had a problem with their fuel gauge behaving strangely, another had windscreen wipers that switched on and off at will, solutions were offered.

New Zealand Fisher and Paykel appliances are well represented on this site so it is not just useful for US brands.

It seems this is a useful site for librarians to know about as we don't have repair manuals for appliances and cars any longer. There are also spondosred links to Consumer and to repair companies (NZ).