Year-End Business

Well, I can't quite believe it, but we are at the end of our CAP season together!

After no responses to last week's Challenge, I think it's safe to say that everyone is pretty busy right now with year-end tasks. So this week, I won't be posting a challenge.

Rather, I ask that everyone participate in the discussion section of Glen's most recent post. What has been the primary focus of your work days during your internship?


We will, however, be announcing the WINNER!

With quality, creative submissions to nearly every challenge since she began, and a total of SIX wins..... Shona Bracken! Thank you for all of your hard work! You will be receiving an awesome prize before term-end.

Special thanks, and a mini-prize goes to Lyndsay Belair - with a total of FOUR challenge wins, and lots of other great subsmission.

Mini-prizes also for Glen Dufour and Matt Chamberlain, who have posted many interesting shared stories and discussion topics for us throughout the season.

I hope to work with many of you again in the Summer. There are great things in store!

On one last note, let's take a look at the success of our blog! Here are the stats from our final month.

Great work gang!

Reflection

As the winter term comes to an end I've been doing some reflecting over what I've been doing over the past few months. As I'm mostly doing training I went though all my records and found that my training fell into these categories:

eBooks and Audiobooks
37.5%

Computer Basics (using a mouse and keyboard, windows, desktop, internet, email, etc.)
32.5%

Facebook, Twitter, Blogging
15%

Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations
7.5%

Other
7.5%

It seems that eBooks and Audiobooks and Basics took up most of my time. Basics training has always been popular at our branch and the eBooks popularity seems to be due to the recent surge in eReader popularity during Christmas. I was surprised that Facebook training wasn't more popular. However, the people I have seen for Facebook training did not originally want anything to do with it, but felt forced into it. It seems people are still skeptical about Facebook due to privacy issues.

What did you guys find yourselves mostly doing during your internship?

The future of hard-copy books?

Here at Woodlawn over half of my training sessions are for the eReaders and eBooks. I teach a lot of seniors and although a lot of them are skeptical about using this new technology for reading, they quickly see the benefits of having an eReader versus buying/borrowing physical copies of books. Because of this recent shift towards digital reading, it makes me wonder about the future of physical books - especially in retail environments. For example, Borders has already filed for bankruptcy protection and is reporting large decreases in revenue. Your thoughts on this shift?

Usage Based Billing

Has anyone been following the usage-based billing issue lately?

I understand that due to both public and political opposition the CRTC is now open to comments and suggestions from Canadians about the issue. I'm curious to see what they come up with. I'm also curious to see what you guys think about it. I feel the move is pretty anti-competitive and creates an oligopoly. It pushes the smaller ISP's to engage in UBB to stay alive among the top telecoms. Canada's bandwith caps also harms the digital economy and prevents innovation in the Canadian market; take Netflix for example.

Any thoughts?

Boo, Kinkos!

Hi,

Does anyone know where I can find cheap colour photocopying service in the Halifax area? I went to Kinkos to photocopy our one page double-sided colour newsletters, and it cost over $1 for each one. There must be a cheaper way!

Flying Cars in 40 Years?

A full week of one-on-one computer training sessions has really opened my eyes to some of the issues facing older demographics. A lot of people I am seeing tell me they have no desire to learn any new technologies (Facebook, email, internet, computers), but feel forced to do so to 'fit in'. As one patron described it, he doesn't want to be a 'caveman'. Many of these technologies require previous knowledge that some may not have. For example, to use Facebook you have to know what the internet is. To find the internet you have to know what a program is and where to find them. To open a program you have to learn how to use a mouse etc,. I feel that technology is evolving very rapidly and that if you are not following the latest in the technology world, you will quickly get swept up and left behind; something many of my senior clients are experiencing.

I often find myself thinking about what technologies are going to be out there in 40 years and whether I'll be able to keep up with them, or if I'll be swept behind. Any thoughts?

E - Readers

E - Readers

Hey guys,

I have to create a presentation about e-readers and don't really have much experience with them. I'm just trying to compile some resources and I was just wondering if any of you had some advice, experiences, links or info on them. Anything would be great!

Lynds

blogging help 101

Hey guys,

Anyone know if it's possible to "attach a Word doc. file" to the blog? I'm sure there's an easy way...I just can't get it! If anyone has any clue, please let me know!

Thanks,

Julie

Thoughts?

This is a short week for us, so a new challenge will be posted next week.
For now, A Yahoo Article that I saw and found very intriguing.

Link



Why Do you think this is?
....I can't help but think that I boost these stats at least 5 full percent !!

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