#7 Technology

I remember our family's first record player and the disappointment on my dad's face when our 45 rpm recording of Bing Crosby's White Christmas didn't sound like it did on the radio. I remember our first 13 inch black & white television set and the fact that we got 3 (count 'em 3) stations on our TV in New York--Uncle Miltie, Jack Benny, Lucille Ball, Ed Sulllivan! I remember party-line telephones too! How much things have changed!

I remember the first time I used the Internet, and e-mail. and it was at OPL in the 90's. Pine was a text-based system. I remember thinking that it was much easier to pick up the phone to call someone than to use Pine. It was much easier to search for information in books. How much things have changed!

I sometimes am frustrated and feel as if I am so far behind the new waves of technology that I won't ever be able to catch up with my grandkids. I think that the frustration comes simply because it takes time, and play, to become comfortable with a new technology.

My grandkids seem to have an intuition about technology because they don't really know a world without it as I do. I watch them play WI, and wonder how they know how to play the games. It's pretty bad that grandma is looking for the directions, and a 5 yr. old plays without needing them. So, Saturday night when I'm watching them, after they go to bed, I'm going to play WI to see if I can figure it out!

#6 Flickr

Serene
Originally uploaded by serenity3540

I created my own trading card! Not too fancy, but I did it. I liked playing with Mappr and Montagr, but i loved Color Pickr. I took some time to put a few of a purple hue into my favorites. I will be going back to that particular tool. I love just looking at the color wheels. I'm really into jewel tones. Something about them satisfies my inner spirit I guess.

#4 Register my blog

I remembered to register my blog and it did sucessfully make it to the lists of Geek blogs on the O! What a geek page. It's fascinating to look at the blog titles. What a creative group of colleagues we have at OPL!

Week 2 #3

I just noticed that I didn't label my lifelong learning test post with this exercise number. I also didn't mention how easy it was to create a blog. It's an amusing exercise I will admit. I almost wish I liked to write, so I could use a blog to journal. However, to keep with my theme of serenity, I'm not going to add one more thing to my plate for this season of my life. In the words of a dear friend, "I'm NOT doing that!"

#5 Exploring Flickr

IMG_0800
Originally uploaded by serenity3540

Flickr is pretty easy to use. I can see where it might be a good way to share photos with a particular group of people. In this instance, I could have shared my vacation photos with the "cousins" who aren't really my cousins. I'm an honorary cousin and we did share all our group photos from several years ago. ( but not with Flickr)

I had fun playing with the editing tools in Picnik. I didn/t edit this one as much as I did some of my other beach photos. It was fun to use the brighten to make the colors more vivid, but I wanted this one to be darker. This one shows me and one of the cousins doing some body surfing off Pawley's Island, SC. Here I am up to my shoulders in my favorite medium--saltwater- my favorite place of Serenity!

Week 1

I read about 2.0 in Wikipedia and looked through the Library Wiki. I'm excited about learning some of the technologies, and doing it in a semi-structured environment. I'm glad for the opportunity to use some work time and am inspired by the incentive (mp3 player). I have an mp3 now, but it doesn't have the bookmarking capability (What luxury!)

After looking at the lifelong learning presentation, I think the habit that comes easiest to me is to have a goal. The hardest thing for me to do is take time to play. That's why being encouraged to use some work time to explore 2.0 technologies is important to me. My presnet learning goal is to complete this program.

Lifelong Learning

Everyday some new experience or new bit of information or new perspective comes my way. Trying to incorporate the new into my life is what lifelong learning means to me.