THANKS PBCLS!

Thank you for leading me throughout this learning journey.
I "LOVE IT"!!!

IS THIS REALLY THE END? OR JUST THE BEGINNING

• What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

The exercises that I enjoyed the most were RSS, Library Thing, Blogging, Wikis, Flickr, Zoho Writer, and Podcast among others. In each of them I found technology that easily I could use at work as well as in my personal life.

For example, I am using Library Thing to catalog all the books that I have read during my lifetime (if I could remember all!!!). Adding my own tags to the already existing ones, helped me and other readers to understand some other topics inside the book not perceived by others.

• How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

I have always thought that life is and endless school, where I am the avid student eagering to set up new learning goals.

• Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I have used flickr and You Tube before. Wikis was the big surprise. Just the fact of being able to create my own page is a big accomplishment. I like the idea to share, to edit and to add feeds to other published wikis.

• What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Some frequently asked questions and answers should've been available for users. Perhaps online help from the coordinators would have been useful specially for those who were not computer savvy.

• And last but not least... If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

Absolutely yes! These opportunities do not come everyday. It was an incredible experience for me!

OVERDRIVE DIGITAL MEDIA COLLECTION

Animal Farm by George Orwell
"It is an account of the bold struggle that transforms Mr. Jones' Manor Farm into Animal Farm-a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution that bears an insidious familiarity. The climax is the brutal betrayal of the faithful horse Boxer, when totalitarian rule is re-established with the bloodstained postscript to the founding slogan: But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others..."

This service provided by the Library is one of the best among others. It allows you to listen to your favorite book, fiction or non-fiction, from the comfort of your house. It can be downloaded into your PC or to any MP3 devise, or it can be burned to a CD.

It is ideal for those who cannot visit a Library due to disabilities.

If you can't come to the Library, the Library will come to you... thanks to new technology!

PODCAST!

In this new experience, I found podcasts related to book reviews, book shows, authors interviews, the author festival, and also news related to Libraries such as the Library of Congress. So, surpringsingly podcasts are not only limited to certain categories such as music, videos, and other frivoulus topics.

In my research, I found a podcast from the Mississippi State University Libraries were they informe patrons on news and activities.

I also discovered a podcast from the James J. Hill Reference Library were they advertised a business speaker series in 2007. Very interesting!!!

And lastly, I subscribed to a podcast known as the Book Hobby, a place for book reviews, author interviews and much more.

And the list is endless...

YOU TUBE: ECUADOR LIFE AT ITS PUREST!

The reasons I chose this video on Ecuador is very simple. 1. It is my country of birth. 2. I like to promote nature, and 3. I want other bloggers to get a feeling of these beautiful and virgin geographic sites.

Definetively, I think You Tube will be a good addition to our PBCLS site and to our libraries. We can promote our programs in a video style. We can also advertise some type of books by inserting clips of them.

Web 2.0 Awards Winners

One of the Awards Winners I chose was Genealogy, and inside this category I opted for My Heritage.
I was able to create my own family tree. I have never done one before. By using this tool, it was pretty easy to create and edit all my family information.
Yes, I see a big potential in using these tools by Library users. There are easy, editable, and they can be the owners of their own web page.

ZOHO WRITER

INCREDIBLE!
Zoho Writer is the best!
I was able to create my document about the shrimp industry in Ecuador. I edited, inserted pics, saved and published it in my blog. Everything done in a wink of an eye.
I was even able to share my document with some friends by using email addresses.
Could not be any easier!
Thanks Zoho...

Shrimp industry

THE SHRIMP INDUSTRY IN ECUADOR

The shrimp industry started in Ecuador towards the year of 1969. Farmers who started in the business did not have enough information about the cultivation. Originally they started by capturing the shrimp seeds from the oceans or estuaries and then transport them, in plastic containers, into the breeding pools. These seeds were maintained in the pools under specific conditions. The water had to be under certain temperature, and the larvaes were fed following nutritional patterns. The seeds lasted in these pools por a period of 4 to 8 months until they turned into adult age. Then they were ready for being reaped and commercialized.

The original size of a pool was between 20 and 100 hectare, but today the ideal size is only of 10 to 25 hectare. Normally, the pool shape is rectangular, but some shrimp farmers opt for the trapezoidal ones depending on their convenience.

Most of the shrimp farms are located near the ocean, where farmers can pump salt water into the pools.

Ecuador is the first country in exportations of captive shrimp with a production of 120000 tons of shrimp, which have produced earnings of lots of money only defeated by the petroleum. Also the shrimp industry has given employment to more than 500,000 ecuadorian people.

The principal buyer of Ecuadorian shrimp Is The United States with a 42%, also other important buyers are: Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, etc.

Technorati Tags industry,shrimp,farms,pools,ecuador

PBCLS Exploring Web 2.0 SandBox wiki

I chose to do a wiki on Restaurants. My favorite one is Bahama Breeze.

About 3 weeks ago, I was in Orlando and one night we went around the International Drive area. We spotted this restaurant, and we thought it could be good. It was incredibly good. Excellent pina coladas, yuca frita as an entree, and then the yummy and delicious Coconut Shirimp.

Food was a delight. That is why I highly recommend this restaurant.

Wikis can be really good for Libraries. Different kind of wikis can be created for example, wikis on best sellers, wikis on authors, wikis on books of the month, wikis on topic of the month. In conclusion the application of wikis can be a plus!

WIKIS

I really liked this part of the exercise. It is interesting to know that you can create a page of your own, you can add info to someone's article, or you can edit something that is already in wikis.

St. Joseph County Public Library wikis is simple, easy to read and to understand. It gives you important information. They give you other subject options.

I think ALA 2008 Anaheim, CA wiki is very informative. It is the kind of site that provides servers with everything related to the conferences.

The Bull Run Library is all you need to learn. You will find it there! Great.

Libraries can really benefit from wikis. Each Library can have its own page advertising services, or they can open a wikis for patron's requests, where

PERSPECTIVES ON WEB 2.0, LIBRARY 2.0

I read some of the articles related to the innovation of our Libraries services.
I completely agree that our Libraries have to move away from printed collections into those that are available to the patrons online. Those that can be reached from their homes, work, and in the libraries.

Todays concept of libraries is more than a service provided by libraries employees. It is a a more accessible and participative service in which patrons can consult but also interact, suggest, and leave their own feedback.

I see Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 as the immediate technology for our libraries. They both are similar in technology. I agree with the concept of Library 2.0 in which library collections should be digitalized and accessible to everybody. This works well with the principles of the OCLC.

Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 represents the beginning of a new Library concept.

Let's move forward!!! Let's go for Library 2.0.

EXPLORE TECHNORATI

In exploring Technorati, I found that many blogs are about the Palm Beach County Libraries. They are talking about the Mousing Around Tutorial. Another blog describes how to find list of Science Fiction books by going to PBCLS page, and how to find links to these books.

When I searched for the tag Web 2.0, surprisingly I found 29,943 posts. The post published for this specific tag are related to web 2.0, technology, web, internet, blogging, etc.

It is amazing how this new technology can put together web sites, comments, blogs, and articles into one site.

DEL.ICIO.US

It is handy because it keeps all my favorite sites in one place.
It is useful because I can access these sites from any computer.
In the Library, it will apply for research only with those sites that are frequently requested.

WebFeat

By using WebFeat I was able to find several articles related to my town Guayaquil, Ecuador.
One of the articles was in the World book and described very well the location of my town, as well as some history of the city.
I also found articles related to the politics.
The good thing about WebFeat is that all the articles were condensed under one search.

My Library Thing!

My library thing is an interesting site. You can catalog your own books. You can keep track of what you've read. You can add tags for specific books.

It's like creating your own personal library.

Image Generator

The image generator is a lot of fun.
I really enjoyed this part of the 23 things. I was able to play and
create images, puzzles, design book covers, convert images into
animals, calendars, etc.

This image was created by using Turbanizer.com.

Fd's Flickr Toys

SWC pics
Originally uploaded by acunafabiola

This image of my coworkers was converted into a puzzle by using the fd flickr toys.

This cute pic was taken on St. Valentine's celebration. I thought it was really nice, and for that reason I changed it into a puzzle.
In the pic Ravi Ramlall, JP Chua and Fab Acuna.

RSS, my own experience!

At the beginning, my experience with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) was very frustrating.
The more I worked with it, the more I learned about it, and the more I started liking it.
What I enjoy the most about it is the ability to group in one single place all of my favorite sites, news and articles without having to go any other place.

History of Cell Phones

The inventor of the first hand held cell phone Dyna Tac 8000X known as "the brick" was designed by Rudy Krolopp. This cell phone weighed 2 pounds and it had only a half an hour of talk per charge. Motorala CEO Martin Cooper was the person in charge of making the first phone call using this device on April 3, 1973. This phone was sold for $3,995.

The first commercial cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979.

In 1990, the United States was the first country to make a phone call from a digital phone using a 2G system technology.
Text messaging was introduced in 1980, but actually was used in 1993 by an engineering student by accident. Nokia commercialized the use of text messaging in Japan in 1995.

In 1996, the fashion phones were introduced. Motorola marketed their Star Tac phone. This lighweigh 3.1 oz. clamshel style phone, was the smallest and lightest of its time. It could be clipped to your belt.

In 1998, the blue tooth technology was introduced.

In 1999, the Blackberry was introduced. It is a wireless handheld device that supports email, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing and web browsing.

In 2000, the 3G (third generation technology) was introduced.

2002, before the T-Mobile Sidekick phone became Hollywood "it" phone, it was known as the HipTop phone. This cell provided truly mobile web browsing and email access.

Also in this year, cell phones appeared with a built-in camera.

And finally in 2005, cell phones companies were able to come up with a phone that combined the itunes from Apple technology and the best of Motorola. Today's cell phones are not only for communication purposes, but also for taking pictures, surf on the web, listen to music and many other features.

Blue foot boobies

Blue foot boobies
Originally uploaded by _ Alain Derksen _

Blue-footed booby scientifically known as Sula nebouxii. It is a bird from the Sulidai family. Its name comes from the Spanish word "bobo" which means stupid bird. It is easy to tame.
This is a marine bird, mainly lives in the water, and only looks for land when it is breeding time. They land in the rocks.
This gorgeos bird lives along the Pacific Ocean, but is mostly and almost uniquely found in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador.
The blue-footed booby is not bigger than 32 inches. Curiously, the female is bigger in size than the male. Its eyes are yellow, and feet are of a bright blue color.

Blogging can be used in Libraries.
It will tremendously help to interchange information on different subjects.

I think the 7.5 habits of highly successful learners is an excellent source to get started.
I am a good learner, and I am open to new technology.
The only obstacle I foresee, it will be finding the time to learn.