The last thing - reflections

I have now completed the 23 Things, some better than others. I have found some applications that will make my life easier in my non-working life and others that will be eventually adapted into corporate life. I don't think that I would be bothered with Rollyo but I quite like the idea of tagging books and websites so Library Thing and del.icio.us may come in useful at home. For a couple of small volunteer organisations that I work with the online productivity tools (for want of a better term) may beomce indispensible - I can see online calendars that members of an organisation/group can sign into and add eventss to being very useful and replacing much of the paper that is currently attached to my fridge at home.

The other lovely surprise was how easy it is to create a blog and link items into it so I am off to set up my own relating to life with 4 boys, a student husband, a gorgeous but naughty labrador and a half renovated house! Got to be a readership out there even if it is just to make you feel better about your life!

I think some of the technologies are best left for teenagers - politicians etc should stay pout of youTube, mySpace etc - they just look desperate! Besides which teenagers need to have their own language - nothing makes you look like a pillock more than trying to be as cool as a teenager. NOONE is as cool as teenagers - think of yourself as a teenagers - did you really want some sad sack thirty or 40 year old doing the same stuff as you. We need to be careful we don't get dismissed by the folk we are trying to reach as try too hards! As the mother of 2 teenagers who would want to be in their shoes again. they too will grow older and become uncool and unhip. But then I am a mother of teenagers who is actually enjoying having teenagers around. They are fun, feisty , full of angst and just generally gorgeous! But I wouldn't want to be one again!

Wikis, Podcasts, YouTube and Online Productivity Tools

Well, I seem to have powered through the last few activities - I think wikis will increasingly be brought into corporate life as well as being applied to organisations such as P & Cs and into schools and higher education.

The online productivity tools are very useful for groups such as sporting organisations where volunteers run the news letters. How useful to have documents that are available on the web and that can be accessed by those who want/need to update contribute. On an environmental note - fewer scraps of paper being sent home as well. An online calendar would be a fntastic asset to to volunteer organisation where members can look up what is on and add activities etc. (I must suggest this to our webmaster for 2nd Abootsford Sea Scouts - at the moment I have several pieces of paper with dates and times stuck to the fridge!)

My kids are into YouTube and as a whole I feel it is quite uncool to want to be as uptodate as the teenagers in your life! However it did give me the chance to see the "Obama Girl" video and Hilary Clinton's spoof of the Sopranos ending!

The Hilary Clinton video


You Tube is quite fun ... could be a way of advertsing the library - A youtube of the SuperLibrarians of the ATO perhaps? faster than a broadband connection...more accurate than the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

The Gutenburg project is fantastic and hopefully they are read by fantastic narrators. I can see podcasts changing the way visually impaired people get their information and the range of material available to them must be increasing by the minute. Sometimes technology is a wonderful thing!

In a similar vein, my favourite digital archive for librarians is the Avalon project from Yale Law School - not audio but an archive going back to 44 BC - the aim of this is to archive every important document of the law, history, politics and diplomacy. A fantastically useful site. It can be found at
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm

del.icio.us, techncrati and Librarian 2.0

After exploring del.icio.us and technorati I think I have the tagging thing just about weighed off. I really like the way I can organise sites and blogs that I am interested in via del.icio.us and tagging can be very useful.

What I have found interesting is the whole future of libraries being tied so closely with the changes that the Web 2.0 is bringing about - although as they say, the more things change the more they stay the same - anyone for Library 4.0?

Well I didn't think it would be this easy to generate an image for the blog. I like flowers and with a household of males there are fewer flowers in my life than I would like. Here is the name of my blog in flowers



This one is for my boys - very cute



The image generator is called Image Chef and it is available from
http://www.imagechef.com/ic/final_widget.jsp

And now for something else: Library Thing

You can see the beginnings of a catalogue of my (and the rest of the gang's) home library. Just click on the icon



Rollyo - it looks like a lot of fun and one of those things that lends itself very nicely to one's personal obessions ie. quilting sites. I won't even start with this or else I could end up spending enormous amounts of time looking at sites.

I was particularly taken with the rollyo for quotes which can be used for all sorts of things.

http://rollyo.com/kizuki-sama/quick_quotes_search/

Enough for now ... other things to get on with.

RSS feeds and stuff

Wll, I've looked ar the RSS feeds and they seem as though they could be very useful barring glitches with technology. I would like some general news feeds and some for work. I am going to try and add some blogs that I particularly like and that imspire me to work towards a career change (once children and husband complete their education) - with 4 boys this is going to be a long term project.

Well, this is it - I am trying to share my blog rolls in this.
http://www.bloglines.com/public/karenski

Adding Pictures

I have finally organised myself and managed to look at a whole heap of photosharing sites. There are many adherents to Flickr but I quite like this site BubbleShare. And besides, it has pictures of my lovely son Declan receiving his Cub Sixer award. There are probably photos of him receiving his Grey Wolf award on there somewhere as well. One of his leaders is an techie and is wonderfully clever with all this. I, on the other hand, am not.
So, without further ado, here is Declan...

This album is powered by BubbleShare - Add to my blog

Well, this is it - first entry

Well, this is it - my first attempt at creating my own blog. I have been thinking about this for quite a while now and have put it off because 1) I think it could get addictive and I have several addictions in my life now and 2) at home it is almost imposssible to get computer time (I have to compete with 4 computer literate boys and a husband who is studying full-time).

It is rather nice to think I can try this at work! I suspect I will end up trying my own at home albeit it very late at night when I am supposed to be sleeping!