Wrap-up/Reflections

I THINK I have done each unit, and hope I didn't skip something. I am finishing this evening because of some "quality time" since no one came to the class I was supposed to teach, which is good, because this learning does take some time.
Definitely the favorite parts were finding photos, videos, newsfeeds, and ways to share books and reading. I even enjoy the blogging part, although reading others' blogs will continue to be reserved for experts in the subject or news areas.
As mentioned in various blog posts, I can see uses for many of these tools in some of the work I hope to continue doing in my life, both professionally and as an amateur writer. I hope to not stop learning, and that includes learning about new technology. That is one of the reasons I enjoy working at the library. What I don't like are things that are just too "cute" and too amateur. I feel real connection with Jon Stewart's take on "friending." Some of the "friending" we were supposed to do with our blog and meebo just didn't work. That was just one of the technical difficulties. Several of the instructional videos could not be heard, no matter how I turned up the volume. Some activities were just not easy to figure out, and although in theory it would be nice to work with others on some of this, and on occasion I did, the fact is most of this was done while I was alone right here in my basement corner. No one to just ask for help. No one around. Room mostly empty. Friends?
I would say the number one problem with this self-study is that there was no time dedicated for all who wanted to participate to actually have time to dig into it. I consider myself lucky to have this evening and a real block of time. I raced through everything earlier just to finish. Just to finish by a March deadline and vacation leave. Most units were done in small minute increments over some days. I would forget what I had started and learned. Luckily I WROTE down some of the login sites, as I changed my password every so often. I TOOK NOTES so I could prepare a semi-sensible blog. Writing reminders on a post-it or scratch paper--I am so high tech.
It would have been great fun to work with other people on some of these. I have talked to some others, they have had some of the same problems.
I will end by saying I am glad for the exposure to the many forms of "citizen media" that are now available. I can understand how some people can become so involved with all the possibilities. I am not sure the content is worthwhile in most cases, but I hope I can continue to pull together the really fabulous and worthy media to enjoy myself and to share, just as I have done with good books for a long time.

Audio & Video: Video

I enjoy these video websites, some of the videos are well done or just fortuitous depending on the circumstances. Some of them are terribly amateur, the Home Movies of years gone by are just the same home movies of today's technology.
I did a rather broad category search of a popular tourist destination. Yellowstone. Should be lots of videos of Old Faithful. Youtube, of course, seemed to have hundreds and one I chose was very slow loading and lots of people in the foreground, heads moving and hair blowing. Bliptv had fewer choices, but I found a very good video there, and the artist had just used the natural sounds as recorded rather than dubbing in some music (which by the comments on Youtube, is popular but I prefer natural). Metacafe--I looked at the "#1 weekly top earner" but the title link did not go to that one. I did my subject search again and looked at one that had earned $800, and it is very funny of a bear coming up to the car to check them out and tries to eat the mirror. That is what I mean by a "fortuitous" moment. Whoever was holding the camera did a better job than most, and I am glad they are now paying for their vacation with this video. Viddler had many fewer choices in my search, and youaretv had zero hits. Revver I nearly gave up on, as it was very slow to load the website, but the videos then ran smoothly. Ads kept popping up and I hated it. ScienceHack had possibilities, but the offerings so far are somewhat limited.
I enjoy these sites. I actually have a couple very faves that I know are on Youtube, Kosovo--now that Kosovo is independent we emailed it to some friends, and dancing treadmills. Watching them brightens my day, and I know I will return to Youtube and Metacafe just for fun.
Definitely libraries could build a collection of informative videos and offer our account to the public. I personally would not want to search here if I wanted to paint window trim, but maybe if it were already collected as "the very best" free video.

Alternative Blogging

I really didn't like these quick and catchy blogsites. If you have nothing to say with a regular blog, there is even less to say with a shortened version. If I were into texting, cell phone camera and mp3, maybe. Looking at the sample posts I made, I do like the way the url is an instant link from what I called it. It is very social, with just your "in crowd." So here it is:
uimich940.tumblr.com