#20 Relax & Reflect (Completion)

I think this was a very cool project - it's so important these days to keep abreast of changes and developments in the online culture, and I think that this program gave me some kind of an idea how to keep on top of what's out there. Electronic literacy is rapidly becoming an essential skill in today's world - and is perhaps THE essential skill in the information marketplace, so I think the general awareness of new developments instilled by this program was very helpful to me not only as a library professional, but as a library patron.

Thanks everyone!

#19 Gaming

This was cool! I have been using Yahoo for 7 or 8 years for email, but I had no idea that there were so many games on there - very cool. There are some great time-killing games in there - I especially liked the Word Search came and the Scrabble. Fun.

#18 Maps and Geotagging

I was pretty familiar with Google Earth prior to this section, just from working on the reference desk. Google Earth has always delivered something extra when Google Maps doesn't quite get the job done - one feature, though that I was unware of was the star maps available through Google Earth. That was pretty amazing!

Geotagging is another feature I've found very useful for some time - I have been using Flickr's geotagging feature quite a bit through the past month or two, surveying flood damage in my Indiana hometown. The geotagging feature has helped me to easily locate the most recently uploaded images. Very useful!

#17 Avatars & Second Life

This is the avatar I created for the Teen Librarian page. Actually, I should probably update my avatar, I don't have the beard anymore.

When I think of an "avatar," I think of Timothy Leary calling the Beatles "divine avatars." Either that, or the episode of Star Trek: TNG called "Silicon Avatar" (which is actually one of the few decent episodes from the 5th season) , both of which predate the current usage by a number of years.

Avatars are fun. I guess in the online sense, I think of an avatar as more of a cartoony caricature of one's self, or the virtual characters created on sites like Gaia. I downloaded the Second Life software and was a little overwhelmed! It was fun to explore, but I definitely don't live there and don't think I'd like to! It's definitely a cool environment, but it was sort of an "information overload" type of situation for me. It will be intersting to see how this total-immersion virtual environment evolves, I have a feeling that this is the direction the online environment is moving!