The End

Well finally made it to thend. It has been a good experience. I enjoyed some parts more than others. My favourites were definitely iGoogle, Youtube and the social networking sites. It's a real shame that so many of the web2.0 products are not allowed on ouir intranet. Thanks YPRL

Week 10 YouTube

Another go at embedding a video from youtube.
Tutankhamun's Tomb



Yes it worked! well I think this feature is great. I think youtube is a great resource and has lots of educational possibilities. Its a pity its blocked on our hospital network as there are many educational videos that could be used.

Week 11: E-books and Audiobooks

Yay the last activity! started looking around the world ebook fair and searched for some books, however everytime I clicked on a link I got asked for an ID and password. Not again, does this website need joining up? Discovered that it's not free as I thought but you need to pay $8.95 so I went to the project gutenburg site and had a look at a few ancient egyptian tiles. Found a couple of nice old ones that have nice plates/pictures of egypt 100-150 years ago. Also listened to the audio version of an egyptian book. I think it's great to have access to electronic booksespecially for studying. very useful to be able to read parts of chapters etc. Also the audiobooks are a blessing for the vision impaired. However apart from reading the odd chapter or listening to snippets of audio, I still prefer my books in print.

Egyptian Symbols

Egyptian Symbols

Week 10: Podcasts and Vidoes

PODCASTS: I have listened to podcasts in the past in regard to library training. And have also received the odd email with podcast files. Today I found a podcast on ancient egypt. After listening to it I added the rss feed for Archeorama podcast to my googlereader page. The only thing I didn't like is that once again you need to subscribe. However after exploring i discovered that if i add the rss link to googlereader i can listen without subscribing to a podcast service, so I also added a hip hop music rss feed. Cool stuff.

YOUTUBE: I have used YouTube for watching music videos. Fantastic. also have watched some TV episodes. Watched a couple of library videos - very funny. Haven't worked out how to embed a video yet. will try a bit later

Week 9 Rollyo

Thought I'd have rollyo done earlier but have been away for over a week. Have had a look at lots of different rollyos on my two favourite topics of ancient egypt and hip hop music. Interesting to see results limited to certain websites, but even so for some searches I still got thousands of results. Not another login!!! The one thing that I am over is having to login to so many of these services.
I tried importing some of my favourite bookmarks but having a little trouble getting it to work. I followed the instructions but when finished I got a blank page that said done. Not sure if I like this site. I can see that people might find it useful to search a few particular websites, however I manage OK with the websites I have bookmarked and also as they tend to require specialised search techniques I think that in my case its not so necessary. For more general purposes it would be good such as school kids doing homework on particular projects etc.

Week 9 Wiki's

I have been using wikipedia for quite a while and how always found it useful especially when working out anatomical terminology and stuctures for my literature searches. I had look at some of the library wikis and really like what's been done. It's a great way to display current and relevant information and websites to library patrons. especially things like new books and staff favourites. I also like the links to community information and events. The USCA Library’s wiki is quite good. http://library.usca.edu/index.php/Main/HomePage
It demonstrates good use of wiki for a library service and I can definitely see the benefits for our library service. It has everything that a patron would need including library information, how to search for articles and books, library service descriptions and links to forms and websites etc. It's also great not having to know html to create the wiki. The only drawback is of course maintenance but I suppose that would be the same for most web resources such as keeping links up-to-date, adding new links and also checking edits.

Week 8 Social Bookmarking

had a look around delicious. Wasn't on my normal PC so didn't import my favourites. So I started to search around for a few and added them to my account. why oh why do we have to have so many accounts? I don't like this site half as much as I liked iGoogle. perhaps if i had 100s of websites that I used a lot it would be more useful. I only have a few at work that I use constantly. Had a look at people's comments about various websites. Could be useful for those sites that are not worth the time to check out. in terms of research assistance, I suppose it could be useful if researchers used a lot of websites contantly and also travelled a fair bit and needed to access those sites.

Week 7 iGoogle

I love this product. What a great way to have all your favourite sites and services together on the one page. Had fun personalizing my page. I like the fact that you can personalize each tab to a different theme. I created a music tab with graffiti art as the theme and then added some of my favourite music sites. I also rearranged the sites on my home tab and included those outlined in the activities including the unshelved gadget for the library comic strip.
This definitely a site I will use again

Week 6 Google Tools

Have just created my first google doc. Uploaded a song I wrote from my PC. It's in Spanish and I was very pleased to see that I culd do a spell check in Spanish! something i couldn't do on Word. Would be handy feature for files created at work or home where you have different versions of programs and sharing docs or spreadsheets without having to carry around a memory stick too.

Google Maps - have used these a number of times to check out addresses and even looked at my house and street a few months ago. Another thing I like about google maps is when you get the red markers indicating where places are on the map, as it did when looking for a brunswick hotel. I have used this feature when looking for real estate.

Google Books - looked up a few of my favourite egyptian books and a few other topics. Found it useful to get not only the book information but which libraries I could borrow from. Looks like a great feature to have for people who want to find out some information about a book before buying or borrowing.

I can't think of a more global word than google at the moment. I have a few overseas friends who when we talk about information we always mention finding it on google even when not speaking in english, so maybe it is like MS but without the pricetags.