Is this really the end? Or just the beginning?

Reflecting on my learning journey and a few thoughts about my journey through this programme:
Yes this experience has certainly enhanced my Web 2.0 skills, encouraged me to experiment, explore and learn about the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the context of information on the Internet today, provided me with the information and knowledge & new tools (freely available on the internet) to provide better service to our customers. Yes it really has been a fun and rewarding experience along the way!
Now I have got to the end I can go back & explore a bit further, some of the things that I rushed through when pushed for time.
It's taken a little longer than I would have liked, because of time constraints at home & at work. I appreciate that our Managers have been totally supportive of this training.

ebooks

Visited Project Gutenburg, a source of free ebooks & explored some of the titles available & took a look at the different ways you can download or read them. There are over 25,000 free books in Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog, with various means of searching, including an advanced search with different options for searching.
Title on the left appealed to me: "A mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily Italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial evidence, a chivalrous Englishman, and a police force with a keen nose for the wrong clue, are the ingredients from which Major Griffiths has concocted a clever, up-to-date detective story. The book is bright and spirited, with rapid action, and consistent development which brings the story to a logical and dramatic ending."
URL for this ebook: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11451/11451-h/11451-h.htm
With a frontispiece in colours By Arthur O. Scott
1907

Podcasts

There really IS a podcast out there for just about every interest area!! My discovery process. Did I find anything useful here?
I took a look at some popular podcast directories & finding tools & chose Podcast.com which didn't require a software download & shows more than 60,000 podcasts on a very wide range of useful topics. Podcast.com has a Community page where you can find members and browse their podcast directories and playlists. Fresh playlists are listed on the sidebar. There is also a page for adding a podcast feed.
I explored this directory & located a library related book review feed that I find interesting: "Book Recommendations, Blog and Podcast: Books on the Nightstand"
I pulled the RSS feed for this into my Bloglines account so that when new casts become available I’ll be automatically notified of their existence.
Also added it to my sidebar on my Blog.
There is a definite use for podcasts on Library websites for book reviews, advertising Library programs, etc.

YouTube videos

Exploring YouTube is very interesting- there is a lot of rubbish, but also a lot of great stuff! There are lots of videos worth adding, but I've chosen an intro clip of the TV series "The Librarians" as I love the program & view it religiously. My favourite bit is the Librarian hyperventilating into the paper bag when she gets to work!! I placed the video inside my blog using the copy and paste code for the "Embeddable Player” & Blogger's Edit HTML tab when pasting the code.



Liked the video made by the Library Graduate students of the University of Pittsburgh for National Library Week, which really gets the message across in a semi humorous way.
Features or componets of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites? Well, yes, a whole new marketing oportunity for Libraries!

My Grandson showed me this YouTube video- it's called "How to Marshall a Jet & British Style".

Online Applications & Tools

Took a look at the web-based word processing tool, Google Docs, created a simple photo slide show of County of Devon in UK, using one of their templates, inserting some images from a Google Image search, then published it through Google Docs to my blog. With web-based applications, the possibilities are endless. I like this online office and productivity application- so many options including sharing & a wide range of templates. You can publish your document to the Internet, where anyone will be able to access and view it online. They will also be able to join the presentation online and chat with others also viewing the presentation.