Task 17 Playing around with PB Wiki

Well I had a go and put some info into the Favoutite things pages and added my blog last week, but now I can't see how to find what I did.

I think wikis have great potential and I tried to set one up for our Library team but of course the invitations to people were 'spoofed', quite funny really when we consider that we are meant to be moving forward. I guess we can within the guidelines.

Task 16 Wikis

Wikis seem to be very popular and well used. The examples promoted in this activity indicate that Wikis are a very adaptable technology. I think they would be very useful for information sharing in so many situations particularly work team communications, social clubs, interest groups and enthusiasts. We have had the problem of dead links in subject guides so I'm sure in a Wiki environment we would be made aware of these quite quickly, perhaps eliminating embarrassing dead ends.

The St Josephs school was well set out and easy to follow, Book Lovers and Library Success were also good

I like the idea of open sharing however it is unfortunate that some people won't do the right thing and I notice that some sites require email details before allowing access, as a protection against vandals. Wikis would be an acceptable starting point for general information, but I would be inclined to look directly for specific or known sites for information where quality control was important.

I can imagine that library catalogues would be more helpful to clients if there was a Wiki functionality where people could comment about the resources they have used or where cataloguers can enter more expansive details such as contents pages perhaps. The information about WorldCat.org and Open WorldCat is very interesting - perhaps we could run our own bookshop as well as we'd have a captured market.

In our TAFE community we could have Wikis for each faculty within the Institute where people can network and also use them between Institutes where they might work like VTANs and TLNs. I really liked the example provided by the busy Meredith Farkas for using Wikis for conference information, this would be especially useful to the inexperienced and visitors to the locality.

Task 15 Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Five interesting articles. Some great ideas for those who know how to make it happen.

I find myself wanting to clasp firmly with both hands to what I currently know and understand. I have some concerns about the reality of participation and interactivity of our clients with our systems, loss of control and integrity, but at the same time I am aware that the library world as I know it has to transform in order to remain part of our rapidly changing environments.

I'm sure it is a lack of knowledge on my part as much as anything, I imagine some parts of our systems will be locked down and kept secure. Over time my concerns may become irrelevant and I will have to adapt or be swept along in the current of change.

Policy change usually does not keep pace with changes in technology and policies will vary according to the environments we work in and the clientele we serve. I feel that
libraries do aim to provide the pertinent information in a timely manner, but these articles suggest that we need to be better able to meet the information needs of our clients when and how they want it.

Task 14 Technorati

I found that there were more hits when searching on entire posts rather then tags only, I guess that might be because people are tagging less. The number of hits also varied according to the amount of authority selected. What does "authority" really mean here?

An annoyance when changing search terms, the previous term appeared again. It sometimes took three attempts before the new search was actioned.

There is still some rubbish in the results.

I tried to join Technorati and claim my blog but wasn't able to, will try that again.

I would have a go at Technorati tags but don't have the "Edit HTML" window available. I'll put it here and see what happens:

PLCMC2 TQLlearning2

Task 13 Del.icio.us

I couldn't get to the tutorial unfortunately, but had a look at other explanatory material. I like the idea of greater accessibility to links and not being restricted to a single PC. The tagging idea allows for broader descriptors and it is very easy to move around the links, share and see how information is organised. It is an interesting change from my more usual structured way of thinking. There seems to be a lot of extraneous material to sift through. Bremer's Horticulture page is good and yes I think delicious can be used as a useful research tool. I think I saved some sites to my account but still need more experience to feel familiar with it.

Task 12 Rollyo

Like anything this tool is fine for those who like it. I am sure that sites were added to my roll, because I don't recall putting them all in, perhaps that happens with the use of tags. I found I still had to copy & paste sites from the searchroll to search for them i.e. no direct links

There are options for others to add information which can be helpful but equally it has the potential to become cumbersome. Personally I prefer to find what I like and put sites into folders in my Favourites.

http://www.rollyo.com/stella_de_guara/

Select...Australian thingsBooks+AuthorsReferenceSuppliers C/careTV and FilmSearch The Web

Task 11 Librarything

This was interesting and easy to use. A useful tool for record keeping, checking other titles of interest, publication details, folllowing tags and posting & reading reviews. Library thing is also great for networking, very clever.


www.librarything.com/catalog/Stella55

Task 10 Image generators

Lots to look at and choose from and again lots of time spent doing so. I really liked the Generator blog as it provided so many other links. I particularly liked the Delftware generator.

Go to http://www.royaldelft.com/index.cfm? and click on Choose your own plate. It didn't allow me to copy the image, but it is the closest I'll come to owning one.

I would have liked more designs to choose from in the Christmas card generator and I didn't find it easy to edit. A nice feature here is a link to other presents for the month of December which was fun also.

I had a play with http://logospetrucci.ch/ which was ok the Watermark generator at http://whak.com/test.jpg and Guess the title at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/guess.php

Task 9 Finding feeds

As usual I find so much to look at. This task has taken me 3 hrs. I probably need a better understanding of the searching techniques.

I think the Bloglines search tool was good. I tried lots of searches on Syndic8.com before I was successful. There really is a lot of "stuff" out there and I think I'm used to relevance ranking which these tools don't seem to do. Perhaps I just haven't discovered the best searching methods yet.

I don't think I found anything unusual but it is interesting to find out about and have a look at these tools / resources.

Cheers
Stella

Task 8 RSS Feeds

I think RSS and newsreaders are an efficient and convenient way of receiving current information from the sources of choice for professional or personal use.

I imagine at work that information can be targeted for specific teaching areas or faculties and forwarded or distributed accordingly.

I have yet to try, perhaps there are feeds from suppliers, publishers etc. One would find information to assist with reference questions and with further experience, one can assist clients in the use of this technology.

No doubt there are many more uses than I will ever know about.

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/Stella55

I'm not really sure if the above is the Bloglines URL required for this task. If it is I didn't get it from the 'Share tab' within my bloglines account, as I couldn't seem to make that tab appear. I found it after clicking on the 'Blog tab' on the left hand pane.

Well I did indicate early on that I really am a novice at this.

Cheers

Task 7 Comment on technology

Technology can be wonderful especially for those who love experimenting to find out how to make it suit their purpose. It does greatly eliminate the barrier of distance in terms of communication and information sharing and building.

The range of technologies is more vast than I will ever know and it is so rapidly changing and evolving that it is easy to feel left behind. I think we live in a world where we no longer have a choice to remain unaffected by technology.

This current learning opportunity is my first exposure to Web 2 technologies and it can feel a little overwhelming at times. I can see people have a lot of fun with them and I hope to be able to do the same when I become more relaxed with it all.

Cheers
Stella

Task 6 Trading card

My attempt at a trading card, well a restful trading card.

Task 6 Mashup

This was found on Flicker mashup by seeview9 from outer space and labelled "getting wierd in the woods of maryland".

I would normally find the colours uninteresting but I like the effect of what looks like snow melting over fallen leaves perhaps in the foreground and the denuded trees in the background. There are different textures. It looks as though there could be a figure standing in the middle of the picture - on a journey.

Flickr fun

This photo of Golden Bay and Gneina Bay were taken in August '05 while on holiday. The village of Mgarr where my Father comes from is not far from here. He would often go to these bays as a child.

Comment on habits of successful learners.

Beggining with the end in mind is probably a good thing though I don't know where the journey will take me. I'm not confident with new technology however I'm sure it will improve as I work my way through the tasks. I will aim to view problems as challanges.

First day

Well I've started even though I was a little worried. I'll have to be brave enough not to take any backward steps in the learning Web 2.0 process.