Our 23 Web 2.0 Things Challenge

The Learning 2.0 program was originally created by Helene Blowers at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg County (PLCMC). Whether you are a library manager or not, we encourage you to view the archive of Helene's Infopeople webcast, Web 2.0: What Library Managers Need to Know to get a flavor of the excitement generated by the 23 Things. We give thanks to the PLCMC and the Missouri River Regional Library for generously allowing copious amounts of lesson copying. Without them we would have no program.

1. Read this entry (that's right, the one that you are reading now), and this FAQ to find out about the program and to make sure that you are eligible to participate. Remember: to take our challenge you must take or participate in at least one of our Web 2.0 events.
2. Set up your own blog on Blogger.com & add your first post.
3. Register your blog by sending an email to infopeeps@gmail.com with your blog's URL and begin your Web 2.0 journey. We will then add your blog to our blogroll that you see on the sidebar of this blog so everyone can see what progress you are making.
4. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image-hosting site. Set up an account and join some groups! And remember, blog about what you learn!
5. Have more Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & third party sites.
6. Look at some of these library websites that are using Web 2.0 to enhance their offerings and create a blog post about anything Web 2.0-related that you think would be useful in your library.
7. Learn about RSS feeds and set up your own Bloglines newsreader account.
8. Locate a few useful library related blogs and/or news feeds and add them to your Bloglines account.
9. Sign up for a Twitter account. Track your activities using Twitter for a few days. Think about how Twitter might be useful linked on a library website and blog about your Twitter experience.
10. Play around with an online image generator. Blog about your experience(s).
11. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.
12. Check out Ning. There are lots of libraries on Ning. This tool lets you create your very own social network space! Create your own space, and invite some of your colleagues to join! Blog about ways you think this tool might be used in your library.
13. Learn about social bookmarking then create a Del.icio.us account and add and tag some Web 2.0 sites.
14. Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts.
15. Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries and blog your thoughts.
16. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.
17. Add an entry to Infopeople's Our 23 Web 2.0 Things wiki.
18. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.
19. Explore My Maps on Google Maps and create a map for your library and add a picture of it to the map.
20. Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos.
21. Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts.
22. Teach someone else how to use one of the technologies described above and blog about your experience!
23. Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog.

Infopeople's tech challenge got its kickoff May 9 when Helene Blowers formally announced it during her webcast (thanks, Helene!). So welcome to all of you who have taken the plunge, and to all who are thinking about: come on in, the water's fine!

I thought I'd mention a tool that is NOT on the 23things list, but is still interesting and worth a look: Library 2.0 Ning. It's an online community just for librarians interested in Library 2.0. Here's my page: http://library20.ning.com/profile/eoshea. Signing up is easy and free.

I just wanted to say hello to all of you who have embraced the challenge and are working on the 23 things! To further pursue this whole Ning thing, I created a Ning network for Infopeople. You can see the page here. feel free to join our group, or the Library 2.0 network, and/or the Learning 2.1 network.

A big round of virtual applause goes to Jacqueline Siegel of the California State Library! She is the first official finisher of Infopeople's 23 Web 2.0 Things challenge! You can check out her blog here. Congrats, Jackie! Keep up the good work, and keep twittering!

For those of you wrapping up your 23 things, be sure to check out Learning 2.1, and try out more 2.0 things.

Jackie Siegel has written to say she wasn't, in fact, the first finisher of our 23 things challenge. Who was? We want to give credit where credit is due, so come forward, if you finished before her!

Back when you all started out on this 23 Things adventure, we promised you a flash drive for participating. Well, at long last, the shipment has arrived! Yay! Here's a pic of one so you can see what they look like:

This is pretty much a life-sized image. Dirty details: 512MB USB flash drives, no lanyards included.

Please send your name and mailing address to infopeeps@gmail.com and we'll pop one in the mail to you! You have to be on our 23 Things blogroll to get one, so lurkers be warned - we're checking! DON'T put your mailing address in the comments field of the blog - that could open you up to snail mail spam and other ickyness.

Well, the true first finisher prefers to remain anonymous, so I think we're just going to say a collective and hearty, "Congratulations!" to all of you who finished. Now get out there and find MORE things! And be sure to request your USB flash drives!

We discovered that some of your emails joining the challenge inadvertently ended up in our spam folder! We think we caught all of them but please take a moment to make sure that your blog is listed in the 23 Things blogroll on the right sidebar. We don't want to miss anybody!

I wanted to take a minute and say congratulations top all of you who have participated, and still are participating in our 23 Things challenge. The official end date has passed, and we selected the three grand prize winners. It was a tough decision, because you all worked hard, and accomplished a lot. I think everybody did win, in a way - you all gained a lot of knowledge, and now are conversant in many things 2.0.

So here are the winners, and their blogs:
*1st Place: Alexandra Provence, Alex's Web 2.0 Fun
*2nd Place: Maria Diaz-Slocum, Jump to the Next Curve
*3rd Place: Pam Chesney-Algar, Library 2.0UhOh!

And here are some honorable mentions; especially the California State Library folks who participated in the challenge couldn't accept any giveaways - even the flash drives, so we will give some of them a nod here, and congratulate everyone for jobs well done:
*dwmoody.net
*Web2Exchange
*Just call me Pat
*Chapman Library 2.0
*Siegel's Droppings
*Library Grace

I just finished adding several folks from Yorba Linda Library to the blogroll. Welcome! And yes, we have flash drives waiting for all of you who finish the challenge! I can't figure how to reverse the order of the blogroll, so I'm afraid your blogs are appearing at the bottom. Nothing personal - I just can't make it go the other way!

You'll notice that there are more than 23 things now listed. For the purposes of the challenge, you only have to do the 23 we list here. But if you're feeling industrious, or just curious, take the plunge and try some of the additional tools!

I have changed Thing #12. It used to be Rollyo, but I think Ning has a lot more potential as a tool for libraries to use. Just a heads up to anyone nearing #12. Feel free to check out Rollyo. It's interesting, too!

BTW: Infopeople has a Ning page: PeepSpace! Check it out!

Hello! I haven't added a new thing in a while, so to make uop for it, today I have TWO new things. The first thing is a web browser. It's called Flock, and it calls itself the "social web browser." Whay do they mean by that? Basically Flock lets you integrate all of your Web 2.0 activities, from Flickr to YouTube to your RSS feeds in one place. if you have a blog, you can even set Flock up to post entries to your blog! It's free, and available for PCs, Macs, or Linux. Give it a try!

NetVibes is a personal start page service, like Google or Yahoo, but the emphasis is on customized media widgets. You sign up for a free account, and then you can personalize your page to send you the latest content from RSS feeds, pictures from Flickr, your Facebook page, even email from your webmail accounts!