Reflection

Well, this is the end of 23 Things (for now).

Looking back, I have to say that my favourite parts were tools I was already using such as digital images and YouTube.

Least favourite was Technorati (see post).

I do have to say though that creating the blog was fun, and something that I hadn't really bothered with before. I partake in quite a number of blogs created by others, but the driving need to create my own was never really there. It'll be interesting to see if I can sustain the momentum and keep this going. I'll probably start a new one, if anything related to my popular culture interests. That seems to be what everyone else on the Internet is doing.  :-)

Not sure that this really affected my life-long learning at all, but then I was already using a number of the Web 2.0 tools that we covered.

Overall, an interesting experiment, and I would definitely recommend for others to do this program as well.

Mashups

For me a mashup will always be the fusing of two songs to form a new tune (vocal from one, instrumental from the other), usually with a punny title - eg. "Get Outta My Way" vs. "California Gurls" (sic) --> "Get Outta My California Gurl". I don't care what Wikipedia says...

But, having to look at the Web 2.0 angle, I can see where the name could be transferred to other media.

As for where the use of mashups would be applicable within a library setting, I think that online tutorials would probably be a good fit, encorporating a number of media.

I did see on MashedLibrary an odd suggestion that the bib records for library catalogue should perform more like twitter (with limited number of characters) and then link the other information from elsewhere [Idea #21]. I'm not sure that being so reliant on 3rd party data is such a good idea. Too many potential problems I think...

Podcasts

I used to religiously follow a couple of podcasts that I could download from some pop culture sites, but I missed a few eps and realised that I couldn't be bothered catching up. Sad really.

Anyway, on to this week's topic. I tried Podcast Alley, and found it to be pretty ok. I subscribed to B-Movie Cast which has podcasts for some old (classic?) B-Movies. To be honest, there wasn't much else that sparked my interest. I'm sure that if I had delved a bit deeper that I might have found a couple more.

YouTube!

YouTube really has been a revolution for video content sharing, and it really is hard to think of how I ever got by without it. I remember setting the video to tape Rage on the ABC just to see the newest video clips. That seems so antiquated now. Go to YouTube, search, and viola, instant video. Much simpler! The above clip is the 1st trailer for the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs the World - I've just re-read the graphic novels, and the DVd comes out this month, so it seemed appropriate.

Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

I had a look at Craigslist, as I always hear about it on various American movies and TV. It seems to focus on local areas, which is a bonus, and has lots of forums, advertisements for jobs, sale items, etc. On first galnce it looks a little chaotic, but with some navigation I could see it being used as a tool within libraries for communication and other uses. There might, however, be better (and more secure) tools out there, with more specific requirements for libraries.

Google Docs

You'll find the document I created here. A bit of creative bankruptcy, but I needed to come up with something quickly...

The process of using Google Docs was actually quite interesting. While I had heard of the tool before, I hadn't actually used it, and can definitely see the value in documents stored online that multiple users can access, even allowing discoverability via Google. Nice.

UoN PBWiki

Couldn't access this to get it to work...

The idea of having a 'sandbox' to play in is a good idea, but potentailly dangerous for those that are easily distractable...