Exercise #23: Reflections

My favorite discoveries on this learning journey were learning about sharing Word and Excel documents on the Internet. Now I have a virtual shared network. I'm trying Zoho for now and see how it works. I think that has some real potential for me.

I also like learning about Del.icio.us and how to tag bookmarks --that also will save some time so that my work bookmarks and my home bookmarks are the same. Having them organized without having to put them in folders will be nice.

I loved Rollyo search and being able to create my own searches that would be restricted to the websites that I'm interested in. Google search grabs everything, and sometimes I don't want everything.

I had no idea that there were Generators to create posters and calendars and games--no more creating my own Baby Shower games now that I have access to a Generator that will do that for me.

I can see that to be a lifelong learner of emerging technological innovations, I first need to know that there's something to learn. So I should subscribe to Wired or Web 2.0 managizes or get an RSS feed from the SJ Mercury on emerging technologies. Second, I have to make time to learn new technologies. Maybe it should be built into the work week like the Friday afternoon review. I had discovered Bloglines a couple of years ago and had set up some feeds, but after spending a few hours figuring it all out, I didn't take the time to regularly go back to make use of it. Then you forget your passwords and the time I spent learning didn't get fully utilized. I just need to realize that learning new technologies takes a lot of time and once mastered, if I don't incorporate them into my normal routine, I'll lose them. Third, I really prefer to learn from a book or training video. Learning online requires more hit and miss, "try this and see what happens" type of learning. I find that I get stuck and then I'm not sure how to proceed, or I don't really understand the power of the new technology until someone shares how they're using it with me.

I think that this program could be improved by completing it over 23 weeks instead of 9. One exercise a week would have been fine for me. Or even one new service a month. Learning out podcasting this month -- here's some websites to read, here's some training to go to, here's how to set it up, here's how to use it. I'm afraid that by going so quickly through this exercise, I really didn't have time at work to complete the projects and really explore as I would have liked.

I think eliminating the opening podcast on goals would be great. That exercise really gave me second thoughts about wanting to do this at all.

I think that the Bloglines exercise got too complicated and I'm not sure why. I think that I spent several hours on it, and because it came so early in the series, I thought that each one coming after would be even more confusing and time consuming. So it would be good to break that one up a bit, let people know that it was a hard one and that if they don't have time, they could skip to an easier one and come back to it.

Thanks for the opportunity to learn all of this and I look forward to what's coming next.