Okay, I couldn't help it. I had to go back and try "me" as a Simpson...
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Reflections
I think Learning 2.0 was a wonderful series of exercise that demonstrated the depth and breadth of online technologies available. I can easily see applications for the Library system, particularly in marketing, promotion, outreach and especially communication (internally and externally).
One of my favorite exercise was actually creating this blog. I had always been interested in doing so, but never had made an effort to do so. Now that I know how easy it is, I won't hesitate in the future. I also enjoyed have time to explore Flickr. Of course, playing with the online image generators was a blast.
The areas of tagging and custom search engines were also interesting to me. I hadn't paid much attention to these things and am glad I'm more aware of them now while I use web 2.0 technologies.
Overall, I think the program was worthwhile. As a designated Learning Advocate, I felt I was able to provide sufficient help to others as they worked through these exercises and hope they felt supported as they worked. In my experience, there were some lessons that required you to know how to do things already. For example, some staff didn't know how to upload a photo from the web to their blog. Perhaps a tutorial for some of those activities should be considered.
The format of the training, with an emphasis on exploratory learning was very effective. If new library-relevant technologies emerge, I do think KCLS should offer similar training opportunities.
Finally, if I could go back in time and skip a lesson it would have been one of the tagging exercises (Tagging is Del.icio.us, for example). Those lessons seemed very repetitive and were already dealt with to some degree during the Flikr exercise. One web 2.0 techology that would be interesting to add would be Widgets and AJAX Applications. It might also be interesting to at least let staff know about the other web 2.0 resources available, such as:
Mathematics:
Calcoolate: Calcoolate provides users with a simple calculator with advanced expression support, mathematic functions, and history for viewing past calculations.
Calcr: Similar to Calcoolate, Calcr is a web-based calculator with mathematic expression and function support as well as history logging in a very minimalist design.
Create a Graph: Create a Graph is a free tool by Students’ Classroom that aims to make it easy for students to create bar graphs, line graphs, area graphs, pie charts, and point graphs. Navigate through its easy to understand visual interface to add data and customize graphs.
Resume Building
Emurse: Great service built for job hunters that want to create, send, and share a professional resume. Users can view their resume’s statistics, send out their resume via fax and ground mail, and receive a public or private web address.
To Do’s and Note Taking
Fifty Ways to Take Notes: Another Solution Watch roundup including over 50 ways to take notes using various web-based tools in seven categories.
Learning and Research
EasyBib: An “automatic bibliography composer” that lets users enter sources and fill out a simple forms to be given MLA style bibliographies. I’ve used this multiple times in the past for research papers.
Ottobib: Similar to EasyBib, Ottobib is a simple bibliography tool that allows users to enter multiple ISBN numbers for books at a time and retrieve the bibliographies in MLA, APA, AMA, or Chicago/Turabian format.
Wizlite: “Wizlite allows you to highlight text (like on real paper) on any page on the Internet and share it with everybody (or just your friends).”
Answers.com: Excellent site for researching anything at all. Make a search and receive results from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other information sources.
One of my favorite exercise was actually creating this blog. I had always been interested in doing so, but never had made an effort to do so. Now that I know how easy it is, I won't hesitate in the future. I also enjoyed have time to explore Flickr. Of course, playing with the online image generators was a blast.
The areas of tagging and custom search engines were also interesting to me. I hadn't paid much attention to these things and am glad I'm more aware of them now while I use web 2.0 technologies.
Overall, I think the program was worthwhile. As a designated Learning Advocate, I felt I was able to provide sufficient help to others as they worked through these exercises and hope they felt supported as they worked. In my experience, there were some lessons that required you to know how to do things already. For example, some staff didn't know how to upload a photo from the web to their blog. Perhaps a tutorial for some of those activities should be considered.
The format of the training, with an emphasis on exploratory learning was very effective. If new library-relevant technologies emerge, I do think KCLS should offer similar training opportunities.
Finally, if I could go back in time and skip a lesson it would have been one of the tagging exercises (Tagging is Del.icio.us, for example). Those lessons seemed very repetitive and were already dealt with to some degree during the Flikr exercise. One web 2.0 techology that would be interesting to add would be Widgets and AJAX Applications. It might also be interesting to at least let staff know about the other web 2.0 resources available, such as:
Mathematics:
Calcoolate: Calcoolate provides users with a simple calculator with advanced expression support, mathematic functions, and history for viewing past calculations.
Calcr: Similar to Calcoolate, Calcr is a web-based calculator with mathematic expression and function support as well as history logging in a very minimalist design.
Create a Graph: Create a Graph is a free tool by Students’ Classroom that aims to make it easy for students to create bar graphs, line graphs, area graphs, pie charts, and point graphs. Navigate through its easy to understand visual interface to add data and customize graphs.
Resume Building
Emurse: Great service built for job hunters that want to create, send, and share a professional resume. Users can view their resume’s statistics, send out their resume via fax and ground mail, and receive a public or private web address.
To Do’s and Note Taking
Fifty Ways to Take Notes: Another Solution Watch roundup including over 50 ways to take notes using various web-based tools in seven categories.
Learning and Research
EasyBib: An “automatic bibliography composer” that lets users enter sources and fill out a simple forms to be given MLA style bibliographies. I’ve used this multiple times in the past for research papers.
Ottobib: Similar to EasyBib, Ottobib is a simple bibliography tool that allows users to enter multiple ISBN numbers for books at a time and retrieve the bibliographies in MLA, APA, AMA, or Chicago/Turabian format.
Wizlite: “Wizlite allows you to highlight text (like on real paper) on any page on the Internet and share it with everybody (or just your friends).”
Answers.com: Excellent site for researching anything at all. Make a search and receive results from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other information sources.
Friday, May 4, 2007
YouTube
This site is absolutely addicting, but its also very useful in this day and age when I don't always get to see the news, etc. For example, when I hear about George Bush's dancing escapades, but didn't see it on TV, I can see it here. The mix of content is nice too. This music video is one of my favs:
It's also cool because you can leave comments; people even post video comments and other people film mimic videos. Its a crazy world we live in now, but also fun!
It's also cool because you can leave comments; people even post video comments and other people film mimic videos. Its a crazy world we live in now, but also fun!
Google Labs and Trends
I love Google Trends...it's really interesting to see what people search for. I entered "King County Library System" and found that people have search for that numerous times from all over the USA and in a few different languages.
I also enjoy Google Mars; it brings out the geek in me.
Google Page Creator looks like the one I'll probably try next. I'm ready to jump in!
I also enjoy Google Mars; it brings out the geek in me.
Google Page Creator looks like the one I'll probably try next. I'm ready to jump in!
Web 2.0 Awards
I looked in the "Communication: Email & Chat" category of the Web 2.0 Awards. The tool that interested me was Campfire. This would be a great way to deal with the challenge of meetings at KCLS between staff at the branches and Service Center. Because we're so geographically dispersed, this would make it less troublesome to meet and discuss about certain things. It could also be good for teams within branches or departments. Its much like Google Docs and Zoho, but with a more interactive environment, including chat. Very cool!
I was also interested in Slawsome, which lets you send voice messages over email easily, but their website was down.
Online Collaboration
Zoho and Google Docs are both very cool for simple document creation and anywhere in the world access to those files. I was actually introduced to Google Docs earlier this year. Its a technology we use often for group projects in our classes. Google Docs doesn't have much flexibility when it comes to more complex formatting, but it is convenient enough. It looks like Zoho has more available in that regard. I think I'll recommend trying Zoho instead of Google Docs next time I'm working on a class project.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)