As we finish out June, we are also finishing up the first year of Learning for Life Online. For anyone who’s been reading along since the beginning: thank you. I’m going to work hard to make the second year of LLO as fun and fascinating as the first.
For our 50th post, I’d like to challenge you to choose one of the tools or services we’ve looked this past year and sign up for it or try it out. Pick something that intrigued you but you never got around to it, or something that looked ridiculous and you want to see if you were just missing something. Doesn’t matter how big or small a thing it is – just do it. Review the basics of playing with a new online tool or playing with a new gadget and remember to have fun!
Try One New Thing and play around with it for the month of July. As you try it, comment on this post with your experience or thoughts, and any suggestions you have for using it.
Rather than make you go back through the past year to look for your one new thing, here’s a quick reference list:
- Get back to basics with search engines and online maps and see what you can do
- If you’ve got a Boston Public Library card, see what you can do in our social library catalog
- Sign up for Facebook and make sure to go through the account and privacy settings
- Twitter is more than just people talking about themselves. Search for restaurant reviews, travel suggestions, or just sign up to follow your favorite celebrities.
- Ready to take the plunge and start a blog? Pick a topic to talk about and get going.
- Play around with Flickr or another photo gallery and upload your favorite images
- Search Youtube and other online video sources for shows, home movies, and how-to videos
- Got a smart phone or tablet? Find and use one new app to make your life better or more fun
- Ebooks are as hot as ever. Whether you have an getting started with an ereader or you read on another device, you can learn more about finding them and downloading ebooks and start reading!
- Or, choose from anything you can buy and download: books, music, and more
- For free, you can listen to streaming audio (short podcasts or live internet radio) or watch streaming video
- If you don’t already have an online account, sign up for one. If you have one, trying signing up for a different one and see what makes it different…or better!
- Got a Google account? Try creating a flyer or a form with Google Documents (now Google Drive) or schedule your life with Google Calendar
- If you Yahoo!, see what else you can do.
- Pick a social news site and follow what’s news for a month
- If you’re job hunting, use a new online career tool
- Let your visual style shine through with Pinterest
- Create a Tumblr blog and share your sites and insights with the world
- Say no to Google and try a new search engine for your next question
- If you take the MBTA, pick a transit app to figure out an itinerary
- Choose a social game and challenge someone to a round
- Play around with Google Street View or the Google Art Project
- Mobile grocery shopping like Stop & Shop’s ScanIt!
- Spotify your life with music
- Listgeeks for list-making and sharing
It takes time to make a social tool a part of your life, including your life online. Whatever you choose to do, give it to the end of July and then see what you think of it. Let us know here if your opinion has changed, and how.
Thank you all again for following along, and enjoy your One New Thing! See you in July…