End of the journey!

Wow, I've done it! And what a journey! Thanks to the training team for their support and encouragement throughout the process.
Looking back, there are times when I felt lost, kind of like being given all these random pieces of a puzzle-- colourful, definitely of use, but what to do with them and where to start! But as I forced myself forward along with the programme, all these pieces were falling into places presenting in front of me a wonderful Digital world, a world I had before assumed too difficult to navigate through its vastness and wilderness. With the knowledge gained throughout the programme, I am confident now to click into various sites and use some of the amazing tools to get the information I want, create something for myself, and share things with others if I want........I'll definitely re-visit some of the many sites to explore more and further!
I enjoyed exploring Flickr, Image Generator, YouTube, My Library and RSS feeds too! but all this is just the beginning of a lifelong learning experience!!!!!

upstream

upstream
Originally uploaded by -stacey-

Colors, Fire Lake

Colors, Fire Lake
Originally uploaded by Kayak49

social networking

Social networking using Myspace for libraries has certainly got great potential, some issues raised in some of the articles are quite interesting and thought-provoking. Social networking is definitely the way to go for libraries to reach their teenage users as those are the group who are the biggest fans of social networking, be it Myspace or Facebook, etc. They are so "well educated" with on-line information that it would be naive to get surprised by what they know and how much they know these days! It certainly is a challenge for libraries to create something fun as well as interesting and educational to attract them. I quite like Library Loft among other sites.

There's certainly a great space for North Shore Libraries to explore into, and to understand our teenage patrons and create the social networking site to get them connected and contribute would be an ongoing challenge.

Myspace, Bebo, Facebook

I have looked around at these three sites, but I do not feel like that I would want to join any one of them, at least for now. To my understanding, Myspace is more of an entertainment/social networking site with some stuff there quite hilarious or even hideous; Bebo is more or less the same; while Facebook is the one I heard about a lot and saw how it worked when my son was using it. It is really a site for socializing and connecting to friends and sharing ideas with them, etc.

I didn't get to downloading more images to my blog or seeing the NSL Facebook site as I have to join up before I can do them, but I think I may well sign in with one or two of them later when I have more time!

eBooks

While browsing around I can see digital formats’ potential to deliver content to readers rapidly and efficiently. However I still like the idea of a physical book rather than an electronic one.
Project Gutenberg is my favourite -- very easy to use, especially with its Top 100, making it so user-friendly. Searched for a couple of Shakespeare's works, just to test it and found it very quick and easy.

Podcasts

I looked into different sites and found that Podcasts is the easiest to use, the display is clear and easy to follow. And when I did the RSS feed to my Bloglines, it seemed to me things we learned before are putting into pieces and making a lot of sense now.