Play Time is Over…Time to Share and Compare

So close to the end—this is exciting! After a lot of sporadic starts and stops, I am almost finished. I had so much to learn and yet I had to keep putting 2.0 aside to keep up with work and program preparations. There were a couple times when I learned extra stuff that were supposedly basic (so basic that they weren’t among the 30 Things), but I was glad Learning 2.0 gave me the chance for me to learn them. I was overwhelmed by the number of accounts I had to create as I during the discovery exercises, but some of the tools were easier to learn if I actually used them, so I resigned myself to creating more accounts than I could remember. I was simply relieved that we had the time extension to finish all these discovery exercises.

There were really about 20-something exercises, not counting the registration/introduction and evaluation portions, and I liked some more than I did others. I sort of have this love/hate feeling towards blogging, because parts of it are needlessly complicated, and blogging about a discovery exercise takes more time than doing the actual exercise! I was thrilled with the potential of RSS feeds and readers, but unfortunately many of the sites I wanted to subscribe to don’t have feeds. I had fun adding an entry to the Reader’s Advisory wiki, though I would probably have less fun if I had to start up a wiki (reading the articles makes creating wikis sound difficult). I liked the chance to create an account in a social network, since having an account is very different than reading about one. I was glad for the chance to play with Flickr photos through all these third party sites (and glad that they willingly share their ingenuity!). The Web 2.0 awards had a wide variety of categories, winners, and new sites to explore. I had fun looking for videos in YouTube (and escaped creating another new account). Playing around with image generators was fun (though there were some duds), and I was constantly amazed by what people can come up with. I was glad to have a whole exercise devoted to Library Thing so that I could play around with the features. I could see some uses for the Del.icio.us and Rollyo accounts I’ve created.

It was fascinating to look at what my fellow bloggers had to say about Library 2.0 and to see how they have personalized their blogs. I saw all sorts of interesting widgets and decorations on different blogs. It was more fun when I could find the blog of someone I knew and look at what they had to say. Sometimes looking at other people’s blogs have helped me figure out some of the exercises, too, as other bloggers shared their experiences. It was reassuring to know that asking and sharing is encouraged, because I was not as comfortable on the internet or as knowledgeable about the web tools available as I thought, and I often needed help.

Learning 2.0 was big boost to my lifelong learning. I’ve had a chance to learn about all these Web 2.0 stuff I’ve never heard of (and ended up loving). I’m grateful that the Library department offered everyone the chance to explore the Web 2.0 tools available, because quite frankly I wouldn’t have known where to look for many of these incredible tools. Learning in the name of work; I can do that.