WORD CLOUDS

Isn't "word clouds" a lovely term? My daughter introduced me to http://www.wordle.net/, and I had a lot of fun playing around.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Part 2

The Sheldons, the Howleys, and Mr. Williams take a trip to the lovely Boyce Thompson Arboretum to view the lovely changing leaves, the lovely birds, and the lovely ice cream sundaes at the lovely Dairy Queen in lovely Superior. A lovely time was had by all.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Part 1

Sheena, Richard and I did this hike, and we had a great time--there were more butterflies than I'd ever seen there, and a great treat at the Superior Dairy Queen--wish you all could have come!

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Guess who went to see Maureen McCormick's book talk at Changing Hands Bookstore! Blurry photo courtesy of me; photoshop work courtesy of Kerry!

Veit Springs Hike in Flagstaff

A DREAM OF A VACATION

Here's where the Howleys stayed on the coast north of Mendocino, California. It was thrillingly relaxing (if that's not an oxymoron!), and here's a link to more excitingly stress-free pix--http://www.flickr.com/photos/24015643@N03/sets/72157606566179611/

WALK ACROSS ARIZONA WRAP-UP

Our Walk Across Arizona challenge is officially over. For 16 weeks, fifty of us did our best to walk (or do other equivalent exercise) as much as we could. Besides walking, we biked, belly danced, gardened, shifted ranges of books in the library, did aerobics, used treadmills and elliptical machines, cleaned city streets, and more! And we did these things not only here in the Valley of the Sun, but also in San Francisco and San Diego, Hawaii, Michigan, Flagstaff, and who knows what other exotic places! We were sometimes waylaid by illness, injury, surgery, and distressing circumstances--but we kept on going. In fact, we kept on going for 7,144.3 incredible miles! I cannot adequately express how proud I am of each and every one of us, and how honored I feel to have been a part of this group--let's do it again NEXT YEAR!
This whole experience is such fun, and I'd like to end with a laugh! Below is a sketch I love from Monty Python, "Ministry of Silly Walks"--

GOLDEN DELICIOUS

Thanks to Dan Haskell, I have discovered an actual use for Del.icio.us.com, the bookmarking tool that was covered in lesson #13 of Library 2.0! Out at our information desk, we are now limited in the number of favorites we can have bookmarked on the two computers, so I opened an account in Del.icio.us, loaded all the favorites off my computer at my desk, and all the favorites that looked good to me from both Info desk computers and the Call Center computer. Now when I'm on the desk, I just log in to Del.icio.us, put it on a tab, and have instant access to all the sites I want, without having to remember them all, or go to something like Google to look them up. I love it--thank you, Dan, for the suggestion!!

Slideshow Experiment--California Coast Trip

I decided that I could teach myself to insert a slideshow into my blog--but it turned out to be extraordinarily time-consuming and difficult. I don't know exactly why, but I just couldn't get Flickr and Blogspot to cooperate, so if you click on the little red x above, you will see a presentation of our photos in random order. Thank you, and if anybody out there wants to give me a personal one-on-one tutorial on how to accomplish this, I'd be thrilled to learn!

Computer Use Is Fun!

If anyone is still reading these--I particularly wanted to emphasize how much I enjoy reading my colleagues' blogs that you have all done for this Learning 2.0 tutorial. They are by turns funny (yeah!), thought-provoking, beautiful, encouraging, and helpful--plus they give an insight into people that I've not had before, or provide a way to get to know some staff members I'm not well acquainted with. Sometimes when I read things I comment, but most of the time I just enjoy the blog without commenting. But even if you never see any remarks from me, for sure I have read your blog and got a kick out of it!

Cool picture of my home computer from the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonirvine/414517495/

Blogging Benefits

I can never resist something funny! But what I really want to say is that creating a blog is actually the Learning 2.0 lesson I enjoyed the most. I kind of said these things before, but I feel it bears repeating. When I first finished, I thought maybe it was using Flickr, or something like that. But my blog incorporates elements of almost everything I learned, and it is what I plan to keep working on, as time permits. One other thought I'd like to add about our Learning 2.0 experience is that I am already seeing benefits. The main benefit (other than having my blog as an outlet) is the rise in my self-confidence in regard to technology, which of course bleeds over in to other areas also. I have also been able to help several people, like my supervisor, for instance, so that I do keep using what I've learned--and that's great! One of the reasons that I want to keep working on my blog is so that I won't lose what I've learned through inactivity.

Phoenix Mountain Preserves Hike with Walk Across Arizona Teammates

Going up the trail to the saddle and back with Deanna Adams, Paula Crossman, Kathryn Morrison, Richard Howley, and Alisa Hawthorne.

Flickr Vs. Picasa

On my lunch hours, I am loading some of my photos onto Flickr, and I think I'm going to really enjoy having online access to my pictures. However, the process is so slow. If I try to upload more than one photo at a time, my computer gets hung up. I don't even dare try it on the prehistoric computer I have at home! Plus without upgrading, it doesn't seem like there is that much initial storage space on Flickr. I've been told that Picasa is easier to work with, and also has other advantages, but I can't access Picasa through my work computer, don't want to be using the public pcs to be doing this, and see above for my at-home situation. Dear Tackies, can you as a committee get us clearance from the City to use Picasa for the same purposes that we might use Flickr in our jobs? I've heard that the Learning 2.0 lesson series will run again sometime in the future, and maybe Picasa could be included as an alternative to Flickr?

Exploring, Adventures, Discoveries

Captain Cook, Amelia Earhart, Christopher Columbus, Chris Howley...what do all these people have in common? Great voyages of discovery! Library 2.0 has been just that for me. I appreciate having had the chance to take this voyage and would be willing to sail again. To be able to chart new courses for myself and explore new territory was very valuable--I feel MUCH more capable and knowledgeable about technology than before. Hands on was definitely a better way for me to learn than attending lectures or just reading about these things. I loved having a blog wherein I demonstrated the various techniques I had learned. And by also covering areas that I'm not that interested in, the tutorials widened my horizons. My favorite lessons were Flickr, image generators, YouTube, blogs, Web2.0 tools, Facebook. But whether I personally enjoyed every lesson or thought every tool was useful for me, I still am glad to have had to opportunity to get acquainted with them all. Thank you Tackies!

Audiobooks

I regret to say that doing this exercise is not an option for me at this time. I have had tutorials on Overdrive, and understand the basic concepts, and I hope that will count as completion for step #22.

Podcast Puzzles

While this assignment seemed straightforward enough--it is essentially a copy and paste operation--it turned out to be overly complicated and difficult. When I went to Podcastalley.com, chose something to add, and added it to my Bloglines feed, I couldn't actually play the podcast without downloading software that I did not want to download. So I tried going through the NPR link. I picked something and added it. It worked perfectly, so I left the site. Then I went back to try it again, and could never get back to it, or any other podcast for that matter. I eventually discovered that I missed a step the second time around that I did not miss the first time, but it was all JUST BY CHANCE! Anyhow, I had a pretty high frustration level with this one, and I think it is mainly because I am feeling the deadline looming and also because this topic is not as interesting to me. That doesn't surprise, because I didn't much enjoy the topic of RSS feeds, and this one seems rather similar. Good to know about, of course, but not where I want to spend a lot of time.

Google Docs

I decided to try Google Docs to make a chart, which I am not very skilled at doing, as you can see from the above example. If this chart is extremely rudimentary, it is my fault not Google Docs.

#19...And the WINNER is...

This was one of the sites I liked the most, http://www.farecast.com/, but frankly I love exploring this kind of stuff and could spend hours looking at the Web 2.0 award winner nominees. I love that someone else has already sifted through all the entries and chosen the jewels, and I get to come along and dig my hands into the treasure chest!

splslearning wiki / Favorite Vacation Spots

>splslearning wiki / Favorite Vacation Spots: "I would like to nominate an under-rated spot here in Arizona. It's not technically a 'vacation spot,' I guess, but it is a beauty spot--Montezuma's Well. This national monument has lots of water, both gushing and still, desert and riparian environments, Native American ruins, animals, and hardly any humans! What's not to love? It's close enough for a day trip, just north of Montezuma's Castle, and I think it's free.

splslearning wiki / Favorite Books

splslearning wiki / Favorite Books: "If I reveal the name of my favorite book, I would also reveal my password, so instead I'll talk about a book that I just love and re-read about once a year--Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel! (I think all the sequels are a big disappointment.) It combines several of my interests--prehistoric peoples, language, plant lore, survival, etc. into a riveting adventure story about the ultimate outsider and her desire to belong. I know it's not classic literature, but I just don't care--I plan to keep on reading it annually! In fact, I think I'll get back into the world of shamans and sabertooths (or is that saberteeth) tonight!