Thursday, November 29, 2007

Downloadable e-Audios and Podcasts-Friday 30th Nov.

Following my blogging/slogging yesterday about e-books etc, the concept of audio e-books for listening via an ipod or computer would be a great boon for the home service library clients.
I am confident that learning to use an ipod would be less intimidating and cumbersome for elderly clients. An added bonus of accessing e-audio books applicable across all ages of library customers would be no loss or damage to tapes / cd's.

Podcasts would be an excellent way of listening to programmes, interviews retrospectively, following the time of original broadcast. The ABC Radio National and ABC 774 are examples which offer podcasts to download.
As I am finding that it will take my lifetime to learn to speak Italian, I am interested in researching the possibility of participating in learning Italian via a podcast.

Ciao again,

Robert

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

E-books / e-audios - Thursday 29.11.07

Enjoyed having a look around in the discovery exercise sites for e-books and audio e-books online --ie, Netlibrary, Overdrive and World e-bookfair.
Recently I have been assisting our library's outreach / home service co-ordinator.
The sites explored above have enormous potential to assist clients of the library home service, at least in theory.

The difficulty I can see surrounding this , is the "general" computer illiteracy and feelings of irrelevance felt by our elderly library clients ( despite having witnessed wonderful exceptions of elderly library clients who have embraced computers) .

Unfortunately I don't have the answers, but if this problem could be somehow improved, what a terrific resource for such a group of library users.
Conversely, reading from an actual, physical book still holds a greater appeal than reading from a screen for many library users.

Ciao,
Robert

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Cream reunion concert


Week 9.

Great to explore Youtube site. Heaps of rock music videos to sample. Loved viewing videos of the 2005 reunion concert of British rock group, Cream. Superb videos and sound of Cream performing "White Room" and "I'm so glad" .

Robert

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Zoho - November 15th

Very impressed with the variety of templates and tools available in Zoho - resumes, presentations, ticketing, word processing, etc. An excellent site to access for the various word processing applications. The internet is providing a way of harnessing "people power" to break the monopolies of the likes of Microsoft corporation.



Checked out the discovery exercise nominations and awards. Very American. For example, I am interested in travel and would most likely access Australian sites such as Lonely Planet , YHA and Backpacker.

Cheers,

Robert

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Wikis 2.11.07

Explored the discovery exercises and links for wikis. There are a vast array of useful links as the Princeton library book lovers site indicates.
I have accessed wikipedia sometimes to find information for library patrons.
The wikis tool opens up another virtual "google" world of information. Paradoxically, the need to cross reference information is still pertinent.

Cheers,

Robert

Friday, October 26, 2007

October 26, 2007.

Spent a very useful session exploring Learning 2.0:-

Flickr-would you believe that I don't yet own a digital camera ??; still use a film camera but don't panic just yet-I do have plans to go digital next year. Still even without a digital camera to share pics around, I can enjoy viewing landscape photos on Flickr.
Libthing- bring it on--it could revolutionize our library's cataloguing department!!
Tags-reading about how tags are used.
Delicious-reading how this social bookmarking site is used. Contains useful links of interest eg travel destinations.

Photo Blog



I thought that I would like to introduce a photo to my blog site. Including a photo of ApolloBay is significant to me as going back to my childhood, our family have spent many holidays staying at ApolloBay and in later years exploring the surrounding otways with the bushwalking group.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

First Impressions

I have been enjoying the learning 2.0 programme. Available time has been the main reason why I have not created a post until now.

Reflecting on the past activities, there are some wonderful resources on the net, but I don't really spend a lot of time using the internet, unlike my studying days when I was completing a library tech course.

The online social networking opportunities are extensive. It has been educational to learn about and to be aware of them. The newsfeeds seem quite a foreign concept , as I still prefer to listen to ABC radio news in the mornings and read a newspaper. There is also the option of the 24 hour newsradio station. Cheers for now.



Robert