Thing #23-Summary of Thoughts

Wow! I can't believe I'm finished! I feel so much more "with it" now! While I may not use many of the applications I learned about, it is very beneficial to have been exposed to them. Prior to doing the "things", I was under the impression that anyone who had a blog was quite a techie! Now I know that is not the case. I am no longer as intimidated by these new technologies. My favorite discovery during this process was the RSS feeds. I view my bloglines account daily, and it saves a lot of time to go there rather than all the different web sites! The Zoho Writer is also a tool I will use in the future. Web-based word processing and spreadsheet applications are a dream come true for me! I have greatly enjoyed this learning experience and would definitely participate in a similar exercise in the future!!

Thing #22-Audiobooks

I established an account with NetLibrary and searched for books I thought might be interesting. The search engine on the web site is easy to use, and the site is easy to navigate around. I downloaded an audiobook called "The Magic Kingdom". I was surprised that this process took only seconds! The length of the audiobook is over 10 hours, so I doubt I will ever listen to very much of it. I wish I could figure out if the book is broken into chapters and if so, how to fast forward. This is a wonderful tool if you like to listen to books on CD (or on your computer)!

Thing #21-Podcasts

It took me awhile to complete this "thing" because I have no sound on my pc. I finally remembered to bring in headphones so I would be able to listen to a few podcasts. I looked around on the podcast.net and Yahoo podcasts directories. There are podcasts on every subject imaginable! That seems to be a common theme with me--I had no idea this existed in such magnitude! An avid Disney lover, I subscribed to the "All About the Mouse" podcast and listened to two episodes. I attempted to subscribe to a workout podcast from podcastgo.com, but while I successfully subscribed, a blank page is returned when I click on each episode--must be a problem with their podcast (or me!). I don't know how often I will listen to podcasts, but it is a wonderful concept!

Thing #20-You Tube

You Tube was a lot of fun! There are so many cute animal videos! I don't really see this as an educational tool, unless the subject matter were to be instructional or informational. I have tried to place my favorite video in this blog. It is a patient golden retriever putting up with a kitten's antics--very cute! It reminds me of my now 15-year old cat, Pookie, when he was a kitten (he bothered my dog this way).
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Thing #19-Discover Web 2.0 Sites

I have not posted any new entries lately because I have been having so much fun exploring many of the recommended sites! I always wondered how some people could possibly spend so much time on the internet, and now it is beginning to make sense to me. However, there comes a point when I can no longer look at another web site! I love bloglines.com and have a collection of feeds I view daily through this site. Picnik.com is very useful, as is Yahoo! Answers. These three are among my favorite new sites (new to me, that is!). How nice it is to know they exist!

Thing #18-Zoho Writer

I loved Zoho Writer! Below is a document I created using this tool and inserted in my blog using the publish feature. Zoho Writer is an excellent tool that I will definitely use in the future. I am going to explore the Google Docs site as well to see which tool I prefer. What fun!!

Learning to use Zoho Writer

I am playing around with Zoho Writer, an online productivity tool. It seems a lot like a word processing program, although there are more things on the tool bar and I am not familiar with them all. I'm going to see what the Anchor button does...never mind, it says to "insert anchor" and I don't know what that means. How cool! You can add an emoticon! ΩΩΩ This is from the insert special characters button. Neat! I'm not a big fan of Word (it tries to anticipate what you want, and 99 out of 100 times, it is NOT what I want) and this seems much better. I really like Zoho Writer!

Thing #17-Sandbox Wiki

It was fun to try to actually add information to a wiki. The Sandbox wiki is great in that it allows you to test things and see what does/does not work before perhaps posting them elsewhere. I created a login account and added my blog to the Favorite Blogs page. However, when I attempted to link it to the blog, "error on page" was returned. I think it may be a glitch that will be fixed, at which time I will try again. It still seems very strange to me to be adding content to a web page. I need to "get with the times"!