Tags work a little differently in different environments (see what I wrote about LibraryThing)!
I have looked at the del.icio.us material and set up the widget and tag function on my IE browser and started the import of one of my browser "favorites" folders. I am still waiting for the import to finish as I am writing this.
The idea of being able to get to my bookmarks from whereever is a great one. Anything that helps organize bookmarks will be great. Mine need a greater degree of organization. I don't know if del.icio.us will help enough or not until I can see how the imported ones appear and what else I should do with them.
I think it is also something that could be useful for some of our library users.
I also looked at Furl and Pagekeeper, which appear to have a better visual interface.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Thing 16, Assignment Calculator and Research Project Calculator
I am familiar with the Assignment Calculator and have code to add it to areas that I control, though I haven't yet.
The research project calculator is interesting. I find in it so far a lot of content similar to what I used myself in a long one shot (four hour) course I taught on repeated occasions at another college on information literacy and basic research skills, how to organize research, steps in research, etc., evaluating sources.
The research project calculator is interesting. I find in it so far a lot of content similar to what I used myself in a long one shot (four hour) course I taught on repeated occasions at another college on information literacy and basic research skills, how to organize research, steps in research, etc., evaluating sources.
Thing 9, Online Collaboration Tools, OR: the case of the refreshing screen
I requested permission to edit the Declaration in Google Documents. The request must have triggered some message to the 23 Things people or account, because I also received in my gmail account, a link to the Zoho version...which I don't recall requesting!!!
I totally agree with the comments in the 23 Things blog,
which I read before starting this thing
a. the Google documents editor drove me nuts! The screen refreshes so quickly that you can't make your edit and save it in a timely way. It appears that the screen is on its own timer for refreshing and it is not keyed to whether you are keying something in or not. Finally, I just rushed in and clicked on something and managed to get the word truth in the first line edited and saved into a larger size.
I could not edit the copy of the Zoho document that was sent to me. After reading the Books Rock! comment on the 23 Things blog, I decided that it wasn't worth it to set up an account...Books Rock! said that the document goes away after login and she/he could not find, retrieve or upload the practice document.
Given the quirks of these document editors, though they are a good idea, they appear REALLY flawed and why would we want to share document editing this way? There must be better tools....or am I missing something here?
What would the founding fathers think?
I imagine that the concept of collaborative editing would appeal to them very much, though perhaps only Franklin and Jefferson would become beguiled by our 20th/21st c. technology!
I totally agree with the comments in the 23 Things blog,
which I read before starting this thing
a. the Google documents editor drove me nuts! The screen refreshes so quickly that you can't make your edit and save it in a timely way. It appears that the screen is on its own timer for refreshing and it is not keyed to whether you are keying something in or not. Finally, I just rushed in and clicked on something and managed to get the word truth in the first line edited and saved into a larger size.
I could not edit the copy of the Zoho document that was sent to me. After reading the Books Rock! comment on the 23 Things blog, I decided that it wasn't worth it to set up an account...Books Rock! said that the document goes away after login and she/he could not find, retrieve or upload the practice document.
Given the quirks of these document editors, though they are a good idea, they appear REALLY flawed and why would we want to share document editing this way? There must be better tools....or am I missing something here?
What would the founding fathers think?
I imagine that the concept of collaborative editing would appeal to them very much, though perhaps only Franklin and Jefferson would become beguiled by our 20th/21st c. technology!
Thing 10, Wikis
Below is the entry that I added to the 23 Things wiki
"The idea of setting up a wiki so that our library users could list items that they would like us to get (not that we have the funds for acquisition...another story) is something we are going to give some thought to. No idea that this was so straightforward. I can see other uses for wikis outside of the library too, in other collaborative areas of life!!!
(4/3/08, Fire/EMS/Safety Library)"
The You Tube video from Common Craft on wikis was excellent!
The other links were a bit superfluous, other than the one, Wikis, A Beginners Look slide show. In general so many links in a thing are so time consuming and I feel that I just get in deeper and deeper. Each thing takes quite a long time and I end up with many windows open on the computer. Today, probably because earlier work at the library involved downloading some large documents, the computer froze and I had to empty the download cache to continue working on 23 things!!!
I created a private wiki for a group with whom I am collaborating, using PB wiki. I am learning as I go along. I am a bit confused about the notification or not. Will the people I have invited get a notification via email every time the wiki is edited (unless I turn the notification off)?? The idea was to avoid lots of email among the group.
Prior to viewing the Common Craft video, I knew that wikis existed but didn't have a good idea why they would be useful.
I can see how this is a cool collaborative tool!
On Wikipedia: hmmm....I know it is useful for some really obscure information. As an academic librarian, however, I do feel that researchers and students should verify information found there in other sources, including print-based (e.g. reference and article databases) ones.
If I were making an assignment, I would instruct students that Wikipedia could be a last resort, not a first one.
There are many instructors who do limit their students to information by format. This is increasingly interesting to cope with in the library since many journals are no longer held in print format and the student cannot get the most relevant information in print.
However, I do think that it is important for every student to have the experience, at least once, of finding an article (from a citation) in an actual print journal so that they know about this process as a tool.
"The idea of setting up a wiki so that our library users could list items that they would like us to get (not that we have the funds for acquisition...another story) is something we are going to give some thought to. No idea that this was so straightforward. I can see other uses for wikis outside of the library too, in other collaborative areas of life!!!
(4/3/08, Fire/EMS/Safety Library)"
The You Tube video from Common Craft on wikis was excellent!
The other links were a bit superfluous, other than the one, Wikis, A Beginners Look slide show. In general so many links in a thing are so time consuming and I feel that I just get in deeper and deeper. Each thing takes quite a long time and I end up with many windows open on the computer. Today, probably because earlier work at the library involved downloading some large documents, the computer froze and I had to empty the download cache to continue working on 23 things!!!
I created a private wiki for a group with whom I am collaborating, using PB wiki. I am learning as I go along. I am a bit confused about the notification or not. Will the people I have invited get a notification via email every time the wiki is edited (unless I turn the notification off)?? The idea was to avoid lots of email among the group.
Prior to viewing the Common Craft video, I knew that wikis existed but didn't have a good idea why they would be useful.
I can see how this is a cool collaborative tool!
On Wikipedia: hmmm....I know it is useful for some really obscure information. As an academic librarian, however, I do feel that researchers and students should verify information found there in other sources, including print-based (e.g. reference and article databases) ones.
If I were making an assignment, I would instruct students that Wikipedia could be a last resort, not a first one.
There are many instructors who do limit their students to information by format. This is increasingly interesting to cope with in the library since many journals are no longer held in print format and the student cannot get the most relevant information in print.
However, I do think that it is important for every student to have the experience, at least once, of finding an article (from a citation) in an actual print journal so that they know about this process as a tool.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
thing 8: Mosaic (Big Huge Lab) and efolio
I have a link on the side bar to the photos I found but it didn't make an image. I am not quite sure why.
I will write more about this later.
Later (edited 4/3/08).....I went to Big Huge Lab --the mosaic link and then brought up the html from the previously constructed sidebar element which had the flickr url locations of the photos I wanted to use. I set up a 3 x 3 grid and then pasted the urls into the 9 locations. This, still, just gave me a list of links to each individual photo in the side bar.
I looked some more and there was a prompt to save the mosaic (as a jpeg). After some experimentation, I realized I had to save this to my computer. When I did this, I deleted the old sidebar element and added a new one which was a picture rather than an html and voila, got the mosaic!!!
Efolio:
I use efolio to author the library only website, http://library.project.mnscu.edu
Thank goodness for efolio! Site hosting and updating is problematic in our organization and I can always get into efolio and make updates and edits to the library website and don't have to depend on anyone else or any other software!!! It has been a totally wonderful thing to have access to this for the library website.
I also previously looked at the other tools such as the slideshows but each of them had some drawbacks. In some of the teaching I do, anything that I can use that would not require students to have to have particular software to see the images is a good tool.
I will write more about this later.
Later (edited 4/3/08).....I went to Big Huge Lab --the mosaic link and then brought up the html from the previously constructed sidebar element which had the flickr url locations of the photos I wanted to use. I set up a 3 x 3 grid and then pasted the urls into the 9 locations. This, still, just gave me a list of links to each individual photo in the side bar.
I looked some more and there was a prompt to save the mosaic (as a jpeg). After some experimentation, I realized I had to save this to my computer. When I did this, I deleted the old sidebar element and added a new one which was a picture rather than an html and voila, got the mosaic!!!
Efolio:
I use efolio to author the library only website, http://library.project.mnscu.edu
Thank goodness for efolio! Site hosting and updating is problematic in our organization and I can always get into efolio and make updates and edits to the library website and don't have to depend on anyone else or any other software!!! It has been a totally wonderful thing to have access to this for the library website.
I also previously looked at the other tools such as the slideshows but each of them had some drawbacks. In some of the teaching I do, anything that I can use that would not require students to have to have particular software to see the images is a good tool.
Non linear accomplishment of things: Thing 14 (LibraryThing)
LibraryThing is not new to me. Over a year ago, I set up an account...but I'll be darned if I can remember what the username or password were! Luckily, my recollection is that I didn't put a lot of books into it!
Over the past weekend, I spent a great deal of time on LibraryThing for a personal blog I have started as a result of 23 Things.
I learned then that, contrary to another online universe that I have been spending time with, LibraryThing considers 2-word phrases as whole tags (that other place considers each word separated by a space as a separate tag). LibraryThing notices the end of a tag (when there are several) by the insertion of a comma when you are tagging. I learned this the hard way since I put a random books (book covers) widget into my personal blog and had to edit most of the tags on the close to 40 books I had put in to get the subset of the ones I wanted to show up.
How would we use LibraryThing here in the library? Well, we could put the covers up of our newest books. Right now we have a New Books list that we publish on the website quarterly after we receive it from OCLC. It would be additional work to add these items to LibraryThing and a certain number of them won't have covers already in LibraryThing. For the 5 books I put in, two of them have covers that are images I grabbed from the publisher's website.
At this point, I didn't put the link in the random covers to link to "my LibraryThing" since there are only 5 books in it.
I am just not sure whether this is something that would be good for us or not? Maybe rather than linking such a display to our blog, it would make sense to insert it into our web site. I don't know how many patrons will look at the blog as opposed to the website?
I must admit, however, that I really do like the covers feature of LibraryThing as it appeals to visual people.
Over the past weekend, I spent a great deal of time on LibraryThing for a personal blog I have started as a result of 23 Things.
I learned then that, contrary to another online universe that I have been spending time with, LibraryThing considers 2-word phrases as whole tags (that other place considers each word separated by a space as a separate tag). LibraryThing notices the end of a tag (when there are several) by the insertion of a comma when you are tagging. I learned this the hard way since I put a random books (book covers) widget into my personal blog and had to edit most of the tags on the close to 40 books I had put in to get the subset of the ones I wanted to show up.
How would we use LibraryThing here in the library? Well, we could put the covers up of our newest books. Right now we have a New Books list that we publish on the website quarterly after we receive it from OCLC. It would be additional work to add these items to LibraryThing and a certain number of them won't have covers already in LibraryThing. For the 5 books I put in, two of them have covers that are images I grabbed from the publisher's website.
At this point, I didn't put the link in the random covers to link to "my LibraryThing" since there are only 5 books in it.
I am just not sure whether this is something that would be good for us or not? Maybe rather than linking such a display to our blog, it would make sense to insert it into our web site. I don't know how many patrons will look at the blog as opposed to the website?
I must admit, however, that I really do like the covers feature of LibraryThing as it appeals to visual people.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Thing 7: Web Communication Tools
Newish, newerish, newest - or maybe old, medium, and right now? That's how I think about some of these communication tools.
Today I attended a very good presentation by John O'Brien, VP of Academic Affairs at Century College who reiterated that today's 19 year old college students don't email so much as they IM or text message. I have seen this in people related to me.
Here's the dilemma we keep confronting over and over when thinking about these tools in regard to our own library. ....the percent of typical 19 year old college students who use us is only one segment. We have very technology savvy students and many non traditional students (some of whom have no computer skills) who cover a wide age range. What percent of our core users are using these tools????
Our use of email: we are so dependent upon it that we have almost stopped talking with each other, a hazard.
Our use of IM: it has been used as an intergroup communication tool, rather than one that we have opened to the public. It is the only way we often can get a response from one of our group members who is outstate, and this is not a millenial! If we ever set up an IM type "Ask Us" Meebo would be good since it could enable anyone from different IM products to interact with us.
Text messaging: who would pay for this? We don't have cell phones in the library. I don't do text messaging on a personal level either due to the cost. Yes, yes, we know that the newest research says that the thing that people of a certain age could not live without would be their cell phones, above their computers. The video demonstration of a student texting a librarian (is this in a library) puzzles. Is there some reason a face to face question is bad?
Webinars: wonderful! We "attend" them all the time for training. Time saver and money saver. Almost as good as sliced bread.
Twitter. I watched the videos. I understand that if you are at a giant conference with many venues like ALA it could be good if a bunch of people all have texting or iPhones or Blackberries and could use it to set up meeting after sessions for dinner. Otherwise, I don't get it nor its extensions. I am trying to figure out why anyone would use it.
Again, feeling overwhelmed by all the technology possibilities in Web 2.0. It is up to us all to pick and choose wisely given that there is only so much that can be monitored at once and also for us to produce quality accurate work.
Today I attended a very good presentation by John O'Brien, VP of Academic Affairs at Century College who reiterated that today's 19 year old college students don't email so much as they IM or text message. I have seen this in people related to me.
Here's the dilemma we keep confronting over and over when thinking about these tools in regard to our own library. ....the percent of typical 19 year old college students who use us is only one segment. We have very technology savvy students and many non traditional students (some of whom have no computer skills) who cover a wide age range. What percent of our core users are using these tools????
Our use of email: we are so dependent upon it that we have almost stopped talking with each other, a hazard.
Our use of IM: it has been used as an intergroup communication tool, rather than one that we have opened to the public. It is the only way we often can get a response from one of our group members who is outstate, and this is not a millenial! If we ever set up an IM type "Ask Us" Meebo would be good since it could enable anyone from different IM products to interact with us.
Text messaging: who would pay for this? We don't have cell phones in the library. I don't do text messaging on a personal level either due to the cost. Yes, yes, we know that the newest research says that the thing that people of a certain age could not live without would be their cell phones, above their computers. The video demonstration of a student texting a librarian (is this in a library) puzzles. Is there some reason a face to face question is bad?
Webinars: wonderful! We "attend" them all the time for training. Time saver and money saver. Almost as good as sliced bread.
Twitter. I watched the videos. I understand that if you are at a giant conference with many venues like ALA it could be good if a bunch of people all have texting or iPhones or Blackberries and could use it to set up meeting after sessions for dinner. Otherwise, I don't get it nor its extensions. I am trying to figure out why anyone would use it.
Again, feeling overwhelmed by all the technology possibilities in Web 2.0. It is up to us all to pick and choose wisely given that there is only so much that can be monitored at once and also for us to produce quality accurate work.
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