The 23 Things Revisited

Nebraska Learns 2.0 is starting up again. Hooray!

Before I get into the new exercises, I'd like to take a moment to review the original 23 Things and how they have or have not become part of my life.

Thing #1: Discovery has never been so much fun! And it remains fun. I always enjoy learning about new things.

Thing #2: Lifelong Learning. Ditto Thing #1.

Thing #3: Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps. I love blogging. I'm just not very good about posting on any kind of regular basis. But I think it's a fantastic tool, and I enjoy it.

As vice-chair of the NLA Paraprofessional Section, one of my duties is to gather topics for fall conference. As an experiment, I used a blog for this. (Blogs are easy and fast, and it required virtually no effort on my part to set it up.) It worked, but not as effectively as I would have liked. I feel as though I used a hammer to drive a screw. A wiki might have been a better choice. So, much as I love blogs, I have discovered that they are not necessarily the best platform for collaborative communication.

Thing #4: Register your blog and join the party. I think I will reuse this same blog for the new round of Nebraska Learns 2.0, rather than starting fresh. Although I will probably have to change the name to something other than "Anj's 23 Things," since I don't even know how many lessons the new program will contain.

Thing #5: Instant Messaging. Other than using Meebo on the public service desk, I don't really IM. It's not my preferred mode of communication, but it's handy to have around.

Thing #6: Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader. This one really has changed my life. I would never want to go back to checking all those blogs and sites manually. I have some specific technical issues with Bloglines, but Google Reader gave me some fits when I tried it out, too. But even though the readers all have flaws, they are still incredibly useful. I have two accounts, one for work and one for home. (I don't want to be reading comics at work, nor do I particularly want to be reading about the latest OCLC initiatives at home.) This is a technology that has become as fully integrated into my life as email and telephones. (And significantly more integrated than my cell phone.)

Thing #7: Finding Feeds. I've ditched a lot of the feeds I picked up during the original exercise, and I have discovered several more. My collection of feeds is organic, changing as my needs and interests change. That's one of the wonderful things about this technology.

Thing #8: Discover Flickr, Thing #9: More Flickr Fun, and Thing #10: Play around with Image Generators. Much as I loved Flickr and image generators during the original exercises, I honestly have not gone back to them. They're good services and it's nice to know they're there if I need them, but I don't have much use for them at this time.

Thing #11: Blog about Technology. I totally stand by everything in my original essay.

Thing #12: A thing about LibraryThing. As with Flickr, I liked LibraryThing when I tried it, and have not gone back to it since. I'm glad it's there, and I am a fan of Tim Spalding as the self-appointed watchdog against OCLC. I think LibraryThing is changing the library world and will continue to do so. So even though it hasn't become an integral part of my personal life, it is an integral player in my professional life.

Thing #13: What are you doing? I tried. I really did. I just can't bring myself to give a tweet about Twitter. It doesn't fill any needs in my life.

This doesn't mean I don't see Twitter's impact on society, though. Twitter is even better than blogging for spreading information quickly. Witness the Amazonfail wildfire. Twitterers are already a force to be reckoned with. What the future holds, who knows?

Thing #14: Tagging & social bookmarking in Delicious. Delicious has become an indispensable part of my life. As with RSS readers, I set up two accounts, one for work and one for home. If I happen to stumble across a website or blog post in one place that I want to send to the other, I use the for: tags to send it to my other mailbox. In this way, I can access my home and work bookmarks from anywhere, send selected bookmarks back and forth between them easily, yet still keep my professional and personal bookmarks largely separate. It works well for me. I did not blindly port all of my browser bookmarks into Delicious, though. I took the time to open each link so I could better tag and describe it. This also allowed me to discard dead or no-longer-relevant links. With the exception of the few daily-use bookmarks I keep on the browser's toolbar for one-click access, I have deleted all of my static bookmarks. Delicious is just that much easier to use and maintain.

Thing #15: Presentations go social. SlideShare is another one I've never gone back to, but I still think it's quite useful.

Thing #16: On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0. I still agree with my thoughts on this one, as well.

Thing #17: So what’s in a wiki? and Thing #18: Playing around with PBwiki. Not much new on this one for me. I still use Wikipedia almost daily, although I edit very infrequently. I use a Confluence wiki at work, and I edit procedures, code lists, and other core departmental documents as needed. I haven't really gone back to PBwiki in particular, but I haven't had a need for a new wiki. Wikis occupy a basically stable position in my life right now.

Thing #19 : Apps, They're not just for desktops any more. I haven't created many files in Google Documents, but boy-oh-boy am I ever grateful for the ability to view Microsoft PowerPoint presentations at home on my Mac, where I do not have PowerPoint installed. So I've found it to be a very handy utility.

Thing #20: Discovering Web 2.0 tools. I looked at several different web 2.0 tools back then, and I haven't revisited a single one of them.

Thing #21: You too can YouTube. I watch a lot of videos on YouTube. A couple weeks ago, I even created my own YouTube account and uploaded a video. (A brief video capture from the Spore computer game I've recently become addicted to.) So this is another service that has found a stable niche in my life.

Thing #22: Podcasts. I have never found a particularly stable or routine use for podcasts. I still sometimes listen to the NET Radio news podcasts while I fix breakfast, but that's about it. Perhaps someday I'll get into it, but for now, it's enough to simply be aware of the technology.

Thing #23: Is this really the end? Or just the beginning? Obviously, it's not the end. Thing #24 was posted today, and I hope to participate in this new round of Nebraska Learns 2.0 for as long as it runs. I expect I will have a similar experience--finding a few services I don't like, many I do like but have no immediate use for, and one or two that will become essential tools in my life.

Onward!