#22 audiobooks

Online audiobooks definitely sounds like a wonderful concept, and people with limited mobility, serious illness, visual impairment could benefit greatly from this concept. An online audiobook library would also allow multiple users, put an end to scratched and damaged material and offer borrowers the highest quality sound. An online audiobook library may also permit Pearl to help herself to locate the newest family sagas. Sounds delightful, but since many elderly people enjoy human interaction and are frightened of computers, struggle to find an on/off button, think a mouse is vermin and have difficulty placing a cassette into a tape player, than I think an online audiobook library may be more likely in the distant future than the present. An online audiobook library would be limited to a receiving computer and would not permit the borrower to listen to the material in his/her car unless they were to duplicate it onto a CD or tape.

#23 final summary

Ahhhh, what a @#$%&*? relief!! Completing this Learning 2.0 program has at times been a struggle for me to fulfill and I can’t believe that I am actually looking forward to checking and filing memberships once again. The course was lengthy and I think 12 tasks to complete would have been sufficient and more enjoyable. I did enjoy completing parts of it and it has helped to make me more aware of some great online services. The online services available to individuals are great. My favourite parts of Learning 2.0 were flickr, the online image generator, learning about the benefits of Wikis, online word processing, spreadsheets etc. and the wonderful service of YouTube. The Learning 2.0 podcast brainwashing sessions for each weekly task have also been very helpful in developing my American accent.

Online learning is a tremendous service, but my greatest concern is it is simply that; which is online, and can only be fully appreciated by privileged members of our society, like myself, who is fortunate enough to be able to use GRLC computers, ample internet and printing services. Many people and families simply can not afford the required equipment such as a PC, software including anti-virus programs and a broadband internet service. This is why public libraries are so valuable in providing individuals of all socio-economic classes with the same services and opportunities. The GRLC does provide a great internet service and the latest computing equipment to the general public at no economic expense. However, GRLC internet users have a very limited amount of time to use these online services and therefore very limited learning opportunities. This is compared to wealthier individuals and families who can afford their own computing equipment, software and 24/7 online internet services.

#21 podcasts

Discovering podcasts was useful, but I am not very interested in it, compared to YouTube. The problem with podcasts is that it is just listening and has no visual entertainment. Listening to Podcasts can become boring very quickly to me because I have a short attention span and limited brain capacity. I shall not be spending anymore time on my Podcast thoughts and I am urgently desperate to finish this blog once and for all and hope that my nightmares about blogging will soon cease, as my doctor has advised should happen.

#20 cont.

I now see the fascination with YouTube, and think I may now have an addiction problem with it. The problem with YouTube is that it has so much rare footage of subjects that I did not no even existed. I think I could spend a full week on YouTube with the assistance of many cups of coffee. A problem with YouTube is that you need top of the range broadband internet service, because the interruptions are very annoying (even with GRLC broadband). For people with dial-up internet YouTube would not be worth viewing, and unfortunately it could only be appreciated by people are lucky enough to have a decent computer and broadband internet.

I would also like to thank Sheena Murdoch from GEE library staff for giving me a helpful tutorial on how to set up my YouTube video on my blog.

#19 web 2.0 awards

Exploring the web 2.0 awards is a great index to fascinating and useful web sites for particular web categories. I was very surprised that these awards even existed. My first thoughts were imagining a group of computer geeks sitting in some hall, sipping red cordial and dressed in tuxedos while the MC (possibly Bill Gates), would announce and the winner is!! While the the awards does list some great web sites, I wonder who the judges are who decide upon places and think that they could possibly be biased and promoting their own orgaisations. The awards are definitely biased to American web sites and I am still looking for an offshore place getter. But after all, America is the centre (or center) of the universe.

#18 continued

I would like to add an example of Zoho writer to my blog but cannot because I am doing this exercise on the public interents, which do not allow me to save to the desktop or hard drive. At the moment we are required to complete our blogs on the public computers because the staff room computers will not permit me to access my blog and are shit-house.

#18 online productivity

I had been told about Zoho writer from the previous blogging group and think that this is a great online word processing tool. Since finding out about it, I often recommend it to library internet users who require quick word processing. One of the only faults with the Zoho writer is that it is not compatible with MS Word and so existing Word documents cannot be opened with it.