Week 9 - Podcasts, Video and Downloadable audio

Week 8 - Online Applications and Tools

Online applications or freeware applications have been growing in popularity for several years. I have some experience using OpenOffice as an alternative to the Microsoft or Corel Office Suites. Like OpenOffice, the online applications are free and provide many of the same functionalities of the costly software. The user must have Internet access and no installation, updates, patches, or downloads are necessary to use. This is a big plus if you have an older computer without the capacity to run newer software, or just don't want to spend money for the software. The creators of these products have designed them using similar terminology and icons so that users who are familiar with the Microsoft products can fairly easily adapt to these new tools. One feature that I particularly like is the ability to create pdf files without the installation and expense of adobe acrobat writer.

Week 7 - Wikis

I am a big fan of Wikipedia, and have used it often when looking for answers to questions or more information on a specific topic. I find it interesting that the public has the ability to change the information on the site. This creates an obvious potential problem which has created some problems with their content, but overall the information is typically very good. That being said it cannot be relied upon and total fact, and must be verified by another source for accuracy.

In the library world, this would be beneficial in training areas and departmentally for information and procedures. Each department can share issues and / or problems encountered and how they were resolved, patron problems, and any procedural information that may need to be referenced for things that are not common.