And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make: Week 9, Thing 23

Yea! I have reached the end of my 23 Things. It’s very exciting to have the end in sight. Now for a summary about my learning. When thinking of my favorite discoveries or exercises, I find it hard to pick one. I really enjoyed doing the avatar. Flickr was fun to work with and to find out about the different things you can use it for. I also really enjoyed YouTube and learning about podcasts. I have learned a lot about different technologies that are out there. This program has definitely opened my eyes to how the Internet has dramatically expanded since I was in college and graduate and that wasn’t all that long ago, only about 2 to 3 years. Scary to think about it really. It makes me realize how much I really need to keep up with what is going on out there and what people are using on the World Wide Web.

One unexpected outcome of 23 Things was giving me the idea of how to organize my list of reference websites as part of a project I was working on. While using Rollyo I thought it would be a great way to organize and access my list of reference websites and for staff and customers to use them. Well I had more than 25 websites on my list, but it did give me the idea to use Google’s similar service I had learned about at ALA. Now we have a great very own search engine with over 300+ websites and growing. Another great take-away was learning how to use a wiki and how to create one. I used this knowledge to set up a wiki for the Teen Team to use as a place to post book reviews on to help us discuss books that we could possibly use for our Teen Summer Book Discussions. I also even learned to be enthusiastic about podcasts. :)

I found the format for this program was very helpful. It was organized very well and if one truly explored the site for Thing 1, then one would know where all the information can be found about each activity to be explored. Any snags would be more from the implementation within each library system as far as getting things completed for this program. I enjoyed completing this program. If another was offered again, I would choose to participate. I use the Internet a lot and so do a lot of our customers. Whether we like it or not, the Internet is here to stay and is evolving at an ever increasing pace. We as librarians need to keep up with such technology. Even if we don’t personally use it on a regular basis, we need to be aware of what is out there and what our customers are using or could possibly use to help them access the information that they need and want.

How would I describe my learning experience? Fascinating at times, slow at times, dragging my feet at times, but overall it has opened my eyes to what is out there. Even as a 20-something adult who grew up using a computer and the Internet, there were still many things that I learned and I am glad I did. What doesn’t kill us, only makes us stronger. :)