Wikis
I didn’t know much about wikis before I started this module (except knowing about wikipedia) so it has been interesting to see the different wikis out there and what they are used for. I enjoyed looking at the Book Lovers Wiki - devloped by the Princeton Public Library. I like the idea of staff and customers being able to post book reviews for each other. As a means of reader advisory in a library I feel this could have potential. I had a look at Library Successes: A Best Practices Wiki also and thought this could prove to be helpful in the future. It was created as a one stop shop for librarians all over the world to share great ideas and information. It is impossible to know what librarians in other libraries in your country and other countries are all up to – and this wiki aims to help share this information in one forum.
Connor and Dinosaur
Ning
I have joined ning and added to the CCLLearn forum, I didn’t find this too difficult at all – yay! I have also created my own social network for my family and friends. At this stage I have only invited my husband and one other friend and have explained that they are included in my experiment to decide if I want to continue to use ning. I customised my network page and added a few features such as live on line chats and the ability to download music from the internet. I want to explore ning more as I like the idea of only including who you want to in your network. I made mine private as well. What do others think of ning?
Connor with 'New Bear'
Social Networking
I didn’t realise there were so many social networking sites out there! I had heard of a few of them but not others. I already belong to Facebook and Bebo, but all my friends and family would probably ask why as I never check them! I can’t remember my bebo login etc and I only check facebook every month or so. I just find that being on a computer all day at work and then coming home and checking my hotmail, my trademe etc I can’t be bothered logging onto Facebook (and my husband hogs my computer because it is newer than his). Also my husband does check his facebook regularly and keeps me updated as we have contacts in common:-) Whenever I do log on as well I have numerous requests and just end up deleting a lot of them as it would take me forever to got through them all. However I do believe it is a good way to keep in contact with people overseas etc and will make a concerted effort to check Facebook at least once a week. I will admit though I am a bit wary of social networking sites as I know prospective employers google prospective employees to see what comes up. Also friends can post photos of you that are not so attractive etc!
Anyway for the purposes of this module I joined twitter and added myself as a follower of Claire. I don’t anticpate checking in very often but I now belong:-)
I also wanted to add a photo to my blog so I added a photo of my son Connor who just turned four (he was younger in the photo).
I call this Michelin Connor
Photos and Images Module
I have enjoyed this module and feel I have learnt some really cool stuff. Wordle was quite fun and I created a wordle with the words to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ I then took a screen shot and pasted it into publisher. I cropped it and got rid of the windows stuff around the outside and saved it as a jpeg so I could add it to my blog. If this sounds a bit complicated I can show you if you want:-)
It was pretty easy to post to my blog from Flickr once I worked out how to add my blog. I had a quick look at Online Image Generator and will definitely go back and have another look as there seemed to be very interesting things to create with your own photos. Putting yourself (or someone else) on a magazine cover could be fun!
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star Wordle
How have other group members doing this module found it?
Green Pleats
I found this image on Flickr Color Pickr – a mashup that lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color. Not sure what you would use it for but it pretty cool anyway and I’m sure I’ll think of something!
Simply sunning.
I found this photo on flickr under ‘explore’ and then ‘last 7 days interesting.’ As per the title I thought it was really stunning! (I also added it to my blog through flickr!)
After thoughts
Thinking about how librarians etc can use RSS feeds, I agree with Gillian’s comment yesterday that they would be good for sites that you check infrequently and/or are updated infrequently. Then you have all new posts sent to google reader (or whatever reader you use) and don’t have to keep checking those websites.
Podcasts
I had a look at podcasts yesterday and completed all the exercises – yay! I didn’t find them too difficult to add to google reader as you did much the same as with RSS feeds.
We had a group meeting yesterday and it was great to catch up with everyone and see how they were feeling. It was reassuring to hear that other people were finding parts of the programme challenging and the jargon confusing.
Claire suggested a great website for demystifying web terms if you are confused. Webopedia is an online encyclopedia of web terms – perfect for someone like me!
RSS Feeds
I have just started the RSS module and am obviously up to the bit where it says to post a blog about this exercise! I decided to use google reader as I know a bit about gmail and use google heaps, although if I have time I might have a look at bloglines. What have other people used? Google Reader or bloglines? I have added five feeds so far including oddstuff from the stuff website – some of the articles are hilarious! I had a look at the ‘getting started with google reader’ page which is only just over a minute long and if you are a bit stuck about adding feeds it might be worth having a look at. (I couldn’t get the google reader guide that was suggested to work? It came up with an error message). Anyway I thought it was quite good on google reader how you could look at a list view and browse the headlines.
I am keen to give RSS feeds a go although to be honest I don’t know if I will keep using them. I tend to use the same few websites (stuff, tvnz etc) to keep up to date and don’t have a problem going directly there. Although I do realise RSS is not just about news, but other information as well. I have subscribed to the new fiction feed at CCL and am keen to get quick news about new titles. You never know though I might decide I can’t live without RSS feeds and be converted. I will keep you up to date!
I do think there is real potential for using RSS feeds both professionally and personally. It is just about making it work for you. It is like anything either you like it or you don’t and you use it or you don’t. That is why I am going to try RSS feeds to see if they work for me:-)
I think a lot of people are unaware of RSS feeds (and other technology on the web) and I think this would be a good topic to use in a pass it on exercise.
My First Blog
Hi everyone, I have finally managed to set up my blog and my blogroll all by myself! Hopefully I have done it all right…… oh well time will tell. How is everyone else doing with theirs? Has anyone started the next module yet?
