Friday, April 2, 2010

Thing 23- Final thoughts about this training

This has been a good training- very hands-on with a lot of flexibility in how to progress and try out various things. I read a lot of other bloggers' postings, which enriched my own experience. I would definitely participate in any future offerings. I have learned about new things I'd never heard of, I've watched podcasts and tutorials on things I'd heard of, but never experienced, and I've looked more in-depth at things I'd already done some things with before. One of the most positive byproducts is that some of the terminology is being used more widely, like mashups or delicious, and I now have a point-of-reference for their adaptation into the wider language. Of particular value to me have been FLICKR and the image-generator, as I am a yahoo email user- so my image is now on my email, and I have a site for posting my pictures. I am glad to have started a list of RSS feeds, which I have been checking back on, and to learn to easily recognize the icon for this possibility. Also, knowing about Zoho and Google docs may be helpful with customers at our public computers. And MERLIN is a site we all need to know. The negatives are quibbles compared to the positives. The broken links were no fun, but then again they do illustrate the ever-changing environment of technology on the web, and I was encouraged to find out how other people had dealt with workarounds, if there were any. Perhaps somebody could get CEUS for recreating those exercises with new links-
Also, as a part-time person, the logistics of doing this training have been challenging. Without enough time off the desk, and without my own computer and in a common workspace environment, it has often been too difficult to focus and have the necessary time to follow-through. My most successful explorations, and the ones I have remembered the best, have come from doing the exercises at home. I hope future trainings like this will be offered. They provide a lot of value.

No comments:

Post a Comment