Overview

Photo credit - Sand dunes by Em Mires



I took the above photo whilst on my holidays recently, depicted is me amongst the impressive natural sand dunes of Maspalomas in the Canary Islands. This picture illustrates how I feel about my journey through 23 things (I have travelled up and down some things have have been frustrating and difficult to conquer but definitely worth the feeling of achievement no matter how small, I have come some way but there is still more to explore and develop).

I have found the experience really useful and although it has been difficult at times to keep up and find the time to dedicate to the new tasks I am glad that I have perceivered, especially as sometimes I have found it is more the process than the end product that has proven the learning opportunity. Working your way through a task and solving difficulties along the way has helped improve my confidence in creating and using Web 2.0 applications.

The highs were achieving tasks and understanding what contexts they could be useful in - much of this picked up from reading colleagues blogs, lows were on the whole technology fails in particular the pod cast was very challenging but at the same time, I think it could be a really useful tool to use.

Favourite things: I really liked a lot of the visual tools such as the image generators and also wordle, I have used these devices to liven up blog posts and personalise messages rather than using generic images.

Least favourite things: The Rollyo search engine I felt was not that effective and didn't add a great deal enhancement to the blog, I don't think I would tempt people away from Google. I think the RSS feeds linking to relevant information for the subjects were much more effective and widely recognised.

The things that I think I will use the most are the iGoogle page and LibraryThing. I have set my hompage at work to my iGoogle page and it is really useful to have everything on one screen, tasks, weblinks, favourites, RSS feeds etc. so practically it helps me to access information from one point (within reason). LibraryThing I had already set up previously before I did the 23 thing task, I do think it is worth mentioning though as it has made a difference to how I can publicise new acquisitions.