Week 9 Thing 23: The Jumping off Place

Well, I’ve arrived at the very last Thing! It’s been a great learning experience for me, and I am actually going to miss working on these excercises. I’ve encountered new things, tried new uses for old things, and generally had fun.

All of the Things were internet skills or sites I had intended previously to explore, or would have if I’d known that they existed. It’s hard to make time to do all of the things you want to do, though, so having this program has really been about giving myself permission to play with new possibilities and new technologies.

Quite a few of the things that I’ve learned have altered my daily routines. I now keep lists on a personal wiki, I check my Bloglines in the morning instead of individual sites, and in a few minutes I’ll be listening to a downloadable book while I’m working. And those are just a couple of the changes.

Flickr is transforming my creative life. I take a half-hour walk through my neighborhood every day, and now I bring my digital camera with me. The ability to create new and unique images is fantastic, and it’s really the other people posting on Flickr that have opened my eyes to the possibilities.

Podcasts I already loved, along with Youtube. But now that I have my own blog, and can embed videos and podcasts on it, there are so many things to do with them that I hadn’t thought of before doing this program. I can’t wait to explore further.

As a library worker, I have a lot more information at my fingertips now because of my account with del.icio.us. I can also refer patrons to many sites I hadn’t known existed, by the simple use of tags. The online productivity software is something patrons have been wanting for years, and I am ecstatic to be able to link them to online word processing.

Basically, this program has had a beneficial effect on the way I live and the way I work. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and kind of wish we were going farther with the idea. The new mp3 player won’t be too shabby, either!