In Summary.....

Although I still have week 8 to complete here is a summary of my thoughts of this programme:-

Wow what a ride! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed 23 Things and the opportunity to play with all these technologies. My favourite discoveries were the generators, in particular creating line drawings from photos and Palooza Head! These things were lots of fun. I can however see how some of the other technologies can be used by libraries. I want to investigate a bit more with Library Thing as I’m sure I can catalogue my DVD collection in their somehow. Skype is one of my all time favourite technologies that I have used for work and home. Not sure how we used to live without it. Imagine if I was travelling over seas now how easy it would be for me to keep in touch (and how cheap?!) We already use this in our work environment. SirsiDynix’s podcasts will always be a permanent RSS feed from my NetVibes account. They have so many interesting topics to listen to. I have also enjoyed learning how to embed different things into my Blog page using the scripts provided by so many of these services.

This programme has most of all been heaps of fun. I’ve enjoyed taking part in it along with my colleagues and sharing ideas and stories about what we have discovered. I think it has taught me that it pays to keep in touch – and now I have some tools that will assist me in doing this (i.e. NetVibes and RSS feeds) and help with my future learning and professional development.

What surprised me most about this programme was the colleagues who embraced it with both hands and got a lot out of it. They were certainly not the ones I originally thought would be the ones to run with it! Huge congrats to the Wanganui staff who are beating their Palmerston North Colleagues (me included) to finish the programme. I have also been amazed at how well they have done and what they have discovered and shown me when I have been working over in Wanganui.

The only suggestion I have for improving the programme is to divide up the weeks so there are more than 9 and just have 1 activity on the go at a time. Maybe even introduce some more technologies as there are always new ones popping up. Life long learning never stops ………………….

Yes yes and yes I would take part in future programmes like this (and hope to recommend this to the wider UCOL staff as I think it would be great for them too). Bring it on!