The 23rd Thing -- Summary

I've reached the end -- in the nick of time. I went back to re-read my blog to help me recall what were my favorite discoveries or excercises. I was impressed that I could do a blog, amateurish and uninspired as it may be. Flickr was impressive. How amazing it is that there are all these beautiful photographs by people around the world right there at my fingertips! I won't go looking for RSS feeds, but I am pleased that I now have New York Times Movie Reviews also at my fingertips. The generating of images and my avatar was fun, although I needed help with the avatar. I was pleased to learn about Del.icio.us and to have 23 Things so easily accessible from there and to later tag a blog and a website that I would use again thanks to Technorati. Wikis are well worth exploring more so that I can put them to use or at least participate in using them. The Web 2.0 Awards list provides a wealth of information that I can use again, and I enjoyed my exploration on yelp.com. I liked the podcasts too.
The program assists me in lifelong learning goals by making me more knowledgeable about what resources are out there. It also gives me a little more confidence that I will be aware of Web 2.0 resources when they are mentioned by others. I hope I will be able to utilize them to help people in the library.
A take-away that surprised me is that so many people spend so much time engaged in Web 2.0 activities. I don't understand how people have so much time for it, but I suppose some make it a priority in their lives.
I would definitely participate in another discovery program like this one. I think it would be improved by being realistic about the amount of time it takes. I spent an average of two hours on each lesson, more on some. If I hadn't taken three months off right in the middle because of other things going on in my life I would have spent much more time on each lesson. However, if I hadn't had some help from a co-worker, I would have been hopelessly stymied at some points. That was what took the most time, trying to find my way when I didn't know what I was doing. I know that the leaders of the program at HCPL would have helped me too, but since I was under the gun, there was no way to call on them.

Thank you for introducing me to many fascinating Web 2.0 resources. I know I've barely scratched the surface.