Week 5: Tagging & Social Bookmarking Wrapped up

For social bookmarking we looked at del.icio.us and what can I say, "I love del.icio.us." It is so easy and I can access it from anywhere. I can send links to paticular subjects to people. I can see how many people have bookmarked the same websites. I can even add notes to the bookmark records so that I can remind myself or let other people know why I saved this webpage. Helping kids with homework? Create a tag with their name and send them the url, then when they have homework they can see the websites you have selected for them. No guessing where they are getting their information. It is easy to delete them too, which makes maintenance a breeze. Just click on delete. Want to change the note or add a note, just click on edit. And best of all, I can access them anywhere I can access the internet.


Tagging presents it's own challenge for me, I keep forgetting what tags I am using. Now, don't get me wrong, I remember the tags, I just don't remember if there is an 's at the end or not. Did I make it all one word or did I use the _ in between words. So I end up with duplicates, which I have to go back and fix by editing my records. Oh, and let's not forget when I make the typos and create completely different words. LOL

Week 4: Library Thing & Rollyo: Wrap Up

Here is my favorite feature in LibraryThing:


The Early Reviewers. You sign up (you must give name and addresss) to try and win prepublication books in a type of lottery. At the beginning of every month will publish a list of books that will be available, what countries they will be available in and how many copies. Yes, they have a description of the story so you can decide if it is something you want to read. They have fiction, non fiction, cook books, biographies, and more. When you find one you want you click on request. If you are lucky enough to be selected (there are usually only 10-20 copies, with hundreds of people wanting them) they will send you a copy of the book, in exchange they want a book review. Wait, before you start going, "A book review. I don't want to write a book review." It only has to be 25 words or less, and no you don't have to write a glowing review if you don't like the book. And before you ask, no I have not received a book yet, but I keep hoping. What is the saying, hope springs eternal.

Week 3: RSS and News Readers

What can I say? I would be lost without Bloglines, right now I have 133 feeds and it is about to go up. Everyone has come up with such interesting blogs that I don't have feeds to...yet. That means I will have to go through my feeds and do some weeding. You can keep track of you feeds just like you would your favorites, but you are then tied to that computer. And what happens if your computer crashes? Bye, bye feeds.

I love the fact that my feeds are available when I want them and from where ever I am at; midnight on my home computer or while I am on vacation on my laptop. Yes, I have been known to take my laptop with me. It hasn't always worked, but that is a different story.

The idea of RSS feeds on webpage’s makes a lot of sense. I would like to see RSS feeds on the subject pages or a new books page. This would allow people to subscribe to the feed and know when new books were added or new links were added to the subject pages. Or how about an RSS for the database page; they could find out when a database has been added or deleted. The potential is there, it just has to be utilized.

Week 2: Image Generators

Week 2 was also a chocoholic’s delight as we all created our custom candy bars. That is just one of the many image generators that are available on the web. You can create fortune cookies, candy bars, posters, magazine covers or you can alter digital images.

I decided to create my own fortune:

http://www.commentsjunkie.com/fortunecookie/

I've always want a Warhol but could never afford one so I created my own.

http://www.shadowfire.de/warholizer

If you try the warholizer and it doesn't work right, scroll down and look for a link to the older version.

Week 2: Flickr

Well, week 2 has come and gone. Everyone did a fantastic job and should be extremely proud of themselves.

To display our photos to the world we used Flickr. Flickr is just one of the many services that is available on the web. It has its limitations: maximum of 200 photos can be displayed at any given time, limited photo editing, and unless otherwise specified all photos are available for copy by anyone. There are other products available like Picasso (Google) - able to store 2000 photos and works with Blogger. I discovered this recently and I am currently comparing the two. I am also going to be looking at other sources. I have added a slideshow from my flickr account; you should be able to see it on the side.

Now, I know I said that having the photos available for anyone to use can be a drawback, but it is also a plus. Last year I was in Oklahoma City and while there I went to the memorial for the bombing victims. I created a set in flickr and posted my photos in the set and made them public. This year around the anniversary date I received an email in flickr from a reporter for an online news service. She was writing an article about the event and needed photos. She had found my photos and wanted to use some of them, of course I said yes. This would have never happened if my photos had not been in flickr. Since I gave permission the photos that were selected now have a mention in the comments with a link to the article. Do the pluses outweigh the drawbacks? You will have to decide for yourself.

Week One: Getting Acquainted and Blogging

Week one got off to a good start. Everyone did a fantastic job creating their blogs, they were original and fun. I personally am not much of a blogger, I have a difficult time taking what I am thinking and committing it to paper (I guess it is actually cyberpaper). So I can appreciate the time and effort it took to create the blogs and write the initial post.

For those who are having a difficult time, it will get easier. And remember, you are not alone in the course. Yes, some people are having an easier time and other's of you are struggling a little. We had the same thing happen in the first group. By the time the last course had ended you could not tell the difference between those who started out ahead and those who struggled. It will get easier as you go through the course. If you need help or have questions, ask. I will do what I can to help.

Ok, now that I have that off my chest here are some photos that will hopefully end this post on an upbeat note.

Cherry Blossoms in Washington, DC

What would I find if I Googled You?

Think about it for a moment, if I or anyone else were to Google you what would we find? Would we find blogs where you are talking about family, friends or perhaps even a rant about the boss or really irritating coworker? So, go ahead, Google yourself, I’ll wait. Oh, and don’t forget to Google any alias’s you use, either. Were you surprised by what you found?

So what did you find? Did you find more personal information than you realized? Did you find those blog posts you forgot about and wish you had never made? Did you find any photos you didn’t realize a friend had posted? Did you find enough information that someone could impersonate you or approach people you know under the guise of a friend?

Consider too the image all that information portrays. Take a good look, but from the eyes of someone who doesn’t know you and is basing their opinion strictly from the information on the internet. If a complete stranger were to look at this information, what type of image would he/she form? Why am I asking this?

Because I had someone (that I had recently met) tell me, “I Googled you and found you’re blogs.” I didn’t think anything about it because I have Googled myself and seen everything that had come up before. But later I started to think about it and it led to this question, “If you were to take all the information and create an impression based on that information alone, what type of person am I?” Am I someone you want to know? I you were an employer, would want to hire me? Am I the type of person I would want for a friend?

Am I trying to scare you so much that you want to run screaming and never touch a computer? No, that is not my purpose. I want to be aware as we start creating accounts and putting information on the web that we are actually putting pieces of ourselves on the web and once it is out there you can’t get it back.

Beginning of the Summer 2008 Web 2.0 Tools Course

Welcome to my blog!!

As we journey through the course this summer I will blogging right along with you. I will be sharing my thoughts and views for you to read and hopefully enjoy. :)

Here is a little information about myself that I didn't include in my introduction in the discussion thread:

• I love plants and have a huge garden
• We have over 200 roses bushes
  
• I have 1 cat named Happy
• I have 4 nephews whose ages range from 10 - 18
• I like to visit new places, but I hate the travel to get there

Here is a photo I took with my cell phone this morning of one of the rose bushes that is blooming right now. We will get a few more blooms this summer, but nothing like this.

Reflections

What a learning experience this was! I learned to create a course in WebCT (I will be taking the class that teaches how to that this summer). I actually put everything I learned about facilitating an online course to the test. Overall I think I would have received a B for facilitation and maybe a B-- for design.

What did I learn from all of this and what will I do differently? A lot of what I learned and what I will do differently are tied together. I learned what can happen if you don't stress netiquette at the beginning of the course and will start every course with reading and a quiz on netiquette. I learned that people get upset when they miss the first week and can't catch up. So from now on, no late arrivals. Mainly I learned that I need to tweak the weekly lessons. So between now and June I will be making some changes to the course.

What will I remember the most from this course? The looks on their faces when they would tell me how proud they were that they accomplished the task for the week. The pride in their voices when they spoke of their accomplishments (because several of them didn't think they would be able complete the tasks). How several of them took what they learned and ran with it, one especially comes to mind: Pam's Genealogy Blog. I am proud of all of them.

Was it all fun and games? NO!!! Was it worth it? YES!!!! Will I be doing it again? Yes, starting in June.

See you in June!!!!!

Weeks 8, 9 and 10

A lot of time has elapsed and I am finally catching up. At the same time I was teaching this course I was taking an online course. To read about my experience in the Certificate in Online Teaching go to: http://thoughtsonline-roseypenguin.blogspot.com/ Now on with the course:

Week 8 was social networking where we covered MySpace and Facebook. The general consensus was that everyone seemed to prefer Facebook over MySpace. Facebook does seem to be older and more professional. Now that is not to say that you will not find teenagers on Facebook. As a matter of fact 4 of my friends are teenagers. As soon as I had added my nephew, two of his friends added me as well. The week we were studying social networking, MySpace was in the news (again!). We had a really good discussion on safety differences between the two with people posting links to articles about safety and tragedies. It was one of the better weeks.

Week 9 was podcasting and YouTube. We listed resources for them to go and listen to podcasts and then asked them to find library related videos to share. Some of the videos were a little off the mark, but hey, they tried. I created a podcast to show them how easy it was, I was hoping someone else would give it a try. But nobody was up to the challenge. It was a looooong week.

Week 10 was Second Life and a party. Yeah!!! All they had to do was sum up their experience and read about Second Life. They were not required to actually go create an account in Second Life. A couple of people did and last I heard they were having fun. The demonstration of Second Life hit a few snags. (It work perfectly during the dry run). I couldn't get Second Life to run, it took me about 20 minutes so I kept a running dialog and took questions. Then Sarah got stuck in a sitting position and couldn't stand up, wish I had taken pictures. We toured the Statue of Liberty, took a ferry ride (Sarah fell through the boat), visited the Sistine Chapel, and Information Island to see the libraries. Then it was on to pizza. Yeah!!!

Week 7: Wikis

This week is all about wikis and so we set up a FAQ Wiki for the GSU Library. We are going to explore collaborative group work. Our wiki has a page for each of the departments in the library and the idea is to post commonly asked questions along with the answers. The beauty of a wiki is that one person can post the question and someone else can come in and supply the answer.



There is also a good discussion going about the authenticity of the entries in wikis. The fact that some wikis allow anyone to edit with checking the facts raises flags. We are discussing the different ways of limiting who edits the wikis. There are passwords, locking the wiki, and the discussion is continuing.

Week 6 Wrap-up

Well we survived Week 6. There were a few problems with downloading the del.icio.us buttons to the toolbar. For some unknown reason different computers showed different buttons. It was a little confusing, but it got straightened out. There was also a little debate about tags, subject headings and bookmarks.


Tags are subject headings that are assigned by the user. There are popular tags which many people use and there are suggested tags which are recommended by ? I don't know who recommends the suggested tags, are they experts, authorities, I am not sure. I have noticed that many of popular tags are the same as recommended tags.

Week 6: del.icio.us and Technorati

Here is my wrap-up of del.icio.us and Technorati. I use del.icio.us all the time and I am slowly changing all of my Google bookmarks over to del.icio.us. It is easy to use and to share, each tag (subject heading) that you use will have it's own URL and RSS feed. You can share the URL or they can subscribe to the RSS Feed. If you are working on a group project, you can assign a group tag and everyone can pull up all of the websites that you have tagged. You del.icio.us tags are accessible on any computer, anytime, anywhere.

Technorati, well I just don't see the use for it at this time. I claimed my blogs and well that was fun, now what? I will check occasionally to see if it gets any better, but for now I don't plan on doing anything with my account.

Week 5: Play Week (Image Generators, Rollyo, and LibraryThing

Can you believe it? Week 5 already. This week are playing with Image Generators, Rollyo and LibraryThing. Let me start off with LibraryThing, I have just started adding my books and I don't see the attraction. Maybe I will change my mind after I have added a few more books.

The image generators are fun, here are a couple of images I created:
I used the fortune cookie generator to create my own fortune cookie.

I used LunaPic to alter a digital photo. I can see libraries using image generators to create images for signs or displays.

I create a search roll in Rollyo on the topic of plagiarism that is located on the side of the blog. I can see libraries (especially public) using this to create search rolls for online dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.

Week 4 - Bloglines and RSS Feeds

Week four was all about Bloglines and RSS Feeds. We had everyone sign up for Bloglines and subscribe to at least two RSS Feeds. I have been using Bloglines for several years and I subscribe to 123 feeds. Many of them are library related, a few fun blogs, comic strips and blogs from this class as well as blogs from the online course I am taking. The best part of using Bloglines is that the feeds are there, ready and waiting for me to read them. I don't have to worry about missing anything.

I see great potential for RSS Feeds in Libraries, they could be used for new books, changes on subject area pages as well as what's happening in the library.

Next week: del.icio.us, tagging and Technorati

Week 3 Wrap UP

We finished week 3 and I hope everyone had fun, I know I did. There weren't too many problems last week, at least nothing major. At the end of the week when week 3 ended the discussion thread disappeared, I fixed that the next morning. It didn't disappear until after the week was ended so it really didn't affect any one's meeting the deadline. We have started releasing the material a little earlier in response to requests by several people.

Playing with Flickr

I was trying out some of the Flickr applications and liked PictoBrowser Builder the best. I had found a different one that looked promising, but unfortunately I don't understand French. I will use Flickr for photos for now (but I will continue to save my photos elsewhere too). And I definitely won't put pictures of my young nephews up, unless I make them private and even then I am not sure if I will. I might put them, make them private for a short period of time and then delete them after my family has had a chance to look and download/print the photos they want.

Here is my slide show using PictoBrowser:





Here is the link if you want to try it yourself:

http://www.db798.com/work/

In order to start creating your slide show, click on the word pictobrowser which is located in the bottom right corner off the slide show.

Week 2 - Blogging

Week 2 has officially been wrapped up and all the blogs look fantastic. There were a few small glitches, such as I forgot to fill in the calendar for that week. No one knew when the posts were due which caused some confusion; I checked the calendar to make sure I didn't do the same thing for Week 3. I did, so I added it right then and there. Sarah and I noticed that the checklist seemed confusing so we are trying a new format, we'll see if it works. There were also problems with the adding the links in WebCT, so I did a quick tutorial using Captivate and that seemed to help.

Next week we will be exploring Flickr and how it might be used by libraries. I am hoping that some will share their photos.

Week One Wrap Up

Week One was an interesting week, there were technical issues (I would type a message only to have it disappear the minute I hit save) and some confusion over start dates and posting. Things worked as the week progressed, people got more comfortable with posting and we explained why some people had started post before the official start date (they were excited and eager to start).

We (Sarah and I) also realized that we needed to take a fresh look at next weeks lesson. We will be constantly tweaking things and making changes as the course continues (this is a learning experience for us as well as everyone else in the course). We will be learning what works and what doesn't, so please have patience.

Class Has Officially Started

Well class officially started today, unofficially it started last Thursday. More than half the class have already logged in and started posting (with only a few minor glitches). Everyone seems excited and interested in learning new things.

Welcome to GSU's Web 2.0 Learning Experience

The staff of Governors State University Library will spend the next ten weeks learning about Web 2.0 and it's impact on Libraries. We will be exploring blogs, wikis, Flickr, tagging and much, much more. We hope that everyone will have as much fun learning about Web 2.0 as we had creating the course.