A little bird told me that it was time for something fun, I have to agree. Learn was created on three principles; Collaboration, Experimentation and FUN! So lets see what kind of fun things are out there....
Game Consoles - All three major game console manufactures have recently announced price reductions. MSNBC Article With OCLS offering games, this is a great opportunity to take advantage of great prices and a great selection. Nothing like saving some money and having fun!
Web Based Games
Launch Pad - this remindes me of the Rube Goldberg contest! If you like solving problems or puzzles, this is a great choice. Remember to TEST first, then experiment. Maybe you are more kinesthetic...Paper Critters combines basic drawing tools and a little bit of Paint to enable you to create your own critter. You supply the scissors.
Green Games - Here are three games that will teach you something about saving our planet while you are playing: World Without Oil, Sharkrunner, and Electrocity All three were nominees for a Webby award last year!
Facebook Games - If you have spent any time in Facebook, and have at least one friend, you have probably come across some of the many games that have been developed for the FB community. The popular game developers, Zynga, are behind such hits as Farmville, Mafia Wars, and Vampires. These games are highly addicting and should come with a warning label! Farmville was launched on June 19 of this year and currently has 11 MILLION people playing! That is the power of FB and social networking! Other popular FB games include Farkle and Soririty Life.
Arcade Style Games - Kongregate won a Webby last year for it's games. I mentioned Zynga above, here is an opportunity to test drive the games that are hot in FB without a FB account.
How about some new music "stuff"?
Remember the lesson we did about life long learning? Here is a new website for those that are musicians. Nowplayit- features instruction on how to play a song right from the people that wrote/performed the song. No more shifting through third party interepations of what someone thinks the song sounds like.
Do you know about the Live Music Archive? The LMA's motto is "Universal Access to Human Knowledge". How can you not love that? LMA offers an archive of DRM free concerts for a zillion artists and bands. I will admit that you won't find every band there, it isn't Amazon after all. But what you will find is streamable, downloadable, sharable and free. I think that is cool. Take a look and experiment - if you find something that is tempting but you aren't sure - use LivePlasma to research the group.
One of the other sites tied into the Live Music Archive is the Internet Wayback Machine. Do you remember what the Library's first website looked like? Here it is on June 12th 2002. Some of the images won't load because they probably weren't archived. (Sheri - was that Front Page?? ) Search for something from the "old days" The Wayback Machine
Got the Travel Bug??
September and October are excellent months to travel. As you know, the hurricane season is winding down and with the kids back in school, many beach resorts in the Caribbean are pretty empty. If you don't mind plenty of space, easily finding empty beach chairs at the pool and on the beach, tons of towels and almost individual attention at resturaunts, now is the time to go! Here are few websites to help you travel smarter, cheaper and better: Budget Travel - Check out what they have on the Rockhouse Hotel in Negril - click the link to the hotel's website and check it out - very nice! The Lonely Planet is much more of a travel guide than a travel/sales website. Boo sort of reminded me of Travelocity and the other "majors" but it differs in that it tells you where to go to get the best price for your hotel. I don't think it sells directly, but is more of a referal service. Try it for the Orlando area, you might be surprise how inexpensive some high quality hotels can be!
This is the End....
As you have probably heard, this is the last module in Learn 2.5. I am constantly reminded that all Libraries aren't created equal and that the people at OCLS are what makes it such a special place. I met a LMS grad student last week that was out to observe at our middle school LMC. She told me that she had just learned the definition of Web 2.0 and Learn 2.0 the week prior to her visit! To say I was shocked would be an under statement! All Libs are not created equal - you are at a good one!
And for those of you that were looking for some corny easter egg finish with the Doors singing The End....come on! Do you think I would troll out 10 minutes of drug enduced pyshco babble-drama to end this? Isn't that a tad too cliche?? Ok, Ok! You heard the man, turn the lights down....The End
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