Monday, March 26, 2007

Thing #23! At Last!!!

Yay, that laptop is mine!

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
My favorite discovery is that most of this stuff was not as hard as I thought. There was so much of it, and I'd heard about a lot of these things for so long, I was afraid my aging brain would explode trying to wrap itself around all of it. Actually, the web has come a long way in ease of use; ditto most of these services/programs/thingies. For the most part they were pretty intuitive. Gotta say I had a lot of fun--way too much, actually--with the image generators and YouTube. It's that visual thing.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
It's given me a lot more ideas about how to spend my retirement, and confirmed that I have to get broadband as soon as that happy day arrives. I'm definitely going to use LibraryThing to catalog my personal library. It's convinced me I need to get an M3 player. It's given me a lot of good info to share with friends and family. Since I'll be continuing my involvement with a Mythopoeic Society, it's given me some tools that might be useful for group projects in that context or any other small nonprofits I might become involved in. As someone with a visually disabled family member I really appreciate knowing more about audiobooks & podcasting, and will continue to educate myself about those possibilities.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
See #1 & #2--the fact that these were not as hard as I expected, and more things to amuse myself with in retirement--YouTube junkie coming! It was also surprising to see all the attention we got from people outside the library. Adding the ClustrMap was a great idea and a real revelation!


4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
This program was perfect for me, because this is the way I learn best--give me a little guidance and leave me alone, then let me write about what I learned. Not everybody learns best that way--it was probably good that you added those drop-in sessions for people who learn more effectively in more of a group setting.

And last but not least…If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you choose to participate?
You betcha. Especially if I don't win that laptop!

Major kudos to all who worked so hard to make this happen and keep it going!

1 comment:

Virtual Services Team said...

Congratulations! And thank you for your thoughtful insights throughout the program.