Thing 5

Hopefully there will be an image here which I have uploaded from Flickr of a contra dance I was at in Barberville in April 2008; hmmm after repeated attempts it didn't work! I'll try to upload an image from the computer. Ok this one worked. It's a picture I took of one of my favorite restaurants in Crescent Beach Florida with Randy at the picnic table!

Thing 4

I created my reader page and have several news feeds and one blog to follow. I've logged on several times to follow the news feeds. There are some favorite sites I hoped to get feeds from only to find they don't have a feed. So although I find RSS useful it is still somewhat limited in that I can't read all my favorite sites in one place.

In the future I hope this will help me in my job by finding RSS feeds on education/advising and Florida schools.

Alot of information is presented in the Resources secion of each thing which are very useful and although there's not enough time now to explore all of the, I hope to go back in the future to learn more.

Thing 3

I've been dabbling in things 1 through 4--so time to write what happened with 3.

I registered one of my blogs, English Country Dance Around Gainesville, on Technorati.

Then I did the same searches in Google Blog Search and Technorati--wow very different results!

When I did "english country dance" I got 1414 hits in Google but only 79 in Technorati! but I will say the Technorati results were way more to the point. Technorati also shows videos--seem to be from you tube.

Then I searched on "English country dancing" in each again I got very different results. In my first Google search, one of my blogs came up; but the second time I did it, several days later, none did. Whereas in Technorati my English blog came up--is that because I registered it in Technorati?

So like any other search--there are lots of ways to do it and lots of results--but I cannot figure out the preciseness. Why, when I know the precise words in my blogs can I not get them to surface in a search? Especially in Google when you can sort by date--so I can be sure it's not burried somewhere. And in Technorati, there are a limited number so its easy to look through them all.

Bottome line. Search is useful; not precise.

Thing 2

I'm fuzzy on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. But I think that's what this is all about--staying on the cusp of changing technology. And although I'm not employed by a library--I want to stay current with how I can use the library and the technology it has to offer. I'm doing 23 Things so that I will know the terminology and be familiar with all the changes occuring, what they mean, how they can be used, and how I can use them. I think this is especially important for Baby Boomers--to not fall behind. I know too many people willing to let it all go by. However, I believe by staying current and learning new things keeps one alive and healthy and interesting. I believe we grow old when we stop growing!

And yes, people always say--there's not time. Just like people say I don't have money to do that. It's an excuse. We all have limited time and money--it's the choices we make--how we choose to spend our time and our money.

I like 23 things in that it makes learning all this doable by presenting it in pieces, one at a time. And guides one as to where to look and what to do. And the fact it can be done at an individual pace!

First Day

Wow! I have a blog, where I can monitor my progress doing the 23 things! Now I'm curious to hunt down other blogs which may be of interest and after doing this one creating a blog for English Country Dancing.

I hope to learn lots from these exercises and move well into the 21st Century!