Yes I have lots to blog about re: ALA, but it’s the weekend and family time. So I thought I would share my shopping experiences and why Web 2.0 - shared user content is so great.

I bought my kids a kiddie pool for the 4th of July and it had a rip in the seam. Just what you want on July 4th when it’s hot and you want to entertain the kids.

So I’ve got the defective one all packaged up and ready to return and am taking a few minutes to look online at reviews of other pools. I finally found the pool–who wouldn’t love a pool with two slides!

But wait, the reviews are horrible and look at this user uploaded photo. It’s obvious that the manufacturer did some major photoshopping to the original image. I am so glad I spent the time looking at the reviews.

I love that Amazon is allowing users to upload their own photos with their reviews. It’s nice to see a product in real use…even if the consumers in this one do look a little miserable.

If you haven’t heard of Geek and Poke take a look! Hilarious cartoons about Web 2.0 and technology and best of all they are Creative Commons licensed!

This one is for all my tweeps out there.

This has been shared on a few sites (thank you Polly-Alida Farrington for posting). The information is so good I wanted to pass this on as well.

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has released its list of top 100 tools for learning from a survey of 155 educators (81 from the education field and 74 from workplace learning). Each of these educators listed their top 10 tools for learning for both their personal learning and for creating learning solutions for others.

You can view the full results here.

Below is a table of the top 10 broken down by workplace learning and formal education.

What does this show? It certainly seems to confirm my feeling that formal, traditional (Learning 1.0) approaches (i.e. content-based courses, tutorials, etc) are still dominant in the workplace, whilst educators are embracing a much wider range of Web 2.0 tools to create more social, collaborative and informal approaches to learning.

I can’t agree with this more. I attend monthly chapter meetings for ASTD and it seems that educators and librarians are light years ahead of most of corporate America when it comes to using Web 2.0 for learning.

Take a look at the full list and share your thoughts. I’m surprised that Bloglines or another news reader is not higher on the list. I know for me personally that would rank as #1.

I was surprised after looking at this list how many of these tools I have already used: Technorati, Bloglines, Craigslist, Writely, ThinkFree Office, HipCal, Flickr, FaceBook, MySpace, Deliscious, Rollyo, YouTube, PBWiki, JotSpot.

Wow! I did not even realize some of these were “Web 2.0.” Of course Web 2.0 is just a name. It seems like more and more of what has become popular on the Internet are ways to connect to people. After years and years of the Internet and computers having the nerd or geek stigma, it is becoming cool to be online and to use computers. When I started college more than a decade ago I never heard the phrases “Facebook me” or “Google it” and I typed all my papers on a typewriter. Now these phrases are a part of the every day language and I can email assignments to my professors. Not only do I not have to print papers out on paper, but for some classes I don’t even have to have a book–the materials are all available online.

Back to my point. For years computers and video games were to blame for alienating people. Now these tools are providing channels for people to connect in ways that we never imagined. Through this blog I have “met” a librarian in Australia. Because of the Internet I am able to complete a degree from a university that I have never seen or been to. I am taking a class from a professor who lives in another state. There are students living as far away as Saudi Arabia. My teaching partner for another online class lives in a different time zone. I can use Skype and call anyone in my family at any time of day…for free. The world seems smaller, but the opportunities seem endless!

Web-based productivity applications are great for people who are not always at the same computer: students, library patrons, most library staff. With a user name and password you can create, edit, and save documents, calendars, spreadsheets, and more. Look out Microsoft!

However if you are going to use these tools you must have a reliable Internet connection. As some Blogger users have found, if you take too long to create a post, Blogger times out and you lose your post. I have not had these problems with Writely or Zoho, but I do not use them frequently. The key to using any application on a computer, web-based or not–SAVE your work, save frequently, and save in multiple places and formats.