Item 16: Wikis

I watched the Wikis In Plain English video. After having seen a couple of videos by this guy, I really like his style of explaining complex ideas in the manner he does!

I looked through many of the Wiki's linked to the Web 2.0 Blog (the IS wiki, the building projects wiki, etc).

I once made a wiki (just to try it out) and created one that contained links to sites I wanted to remember (think: Deli.cio.us but a page for each topical area). After starting it, I never really stuck with it.

Way back when, when I had initially heard of them, I though "it's crazy, anyone can edit them? How can you trust the information you find there?" However, I've since learned that there are limits to who can edit some wikis, and that as a collaborative tool, they're actually pretty darn neat.

Personally, I frequently use wikipedia to either get some base knowledge on a topic I know nothing about (and don't care much about the quality of the data).

Item 15: Tagging and Folksonomies - LibraryThing and Goodreads

These two sites have been my favorite sites thus far. My bookclub already had a group on Library Thing (but I dind't have an account) so I made one there first. I also made an account on Good Reads. I think I like Good reads better; I liked the ability to make a list of books I want to read (my "to read" bookshelf) and then sort it by other peoples ratings of the books (this can help prioritize which books to read next). I didn't like that LibraryThing is only free for the first 200 books; I can easily see that filling up very fast! I dind't see and fees for good reads, but maybe I just haven't come across it yet!

My profile on Good reads is: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/Librarian-JessieK

My profile on Library Thing is: http://www.librarything.com/profile/Jessiekovis

Item 14: Tagging & Folksonomies - Technorati

So far, Technorati is the thing I had the least bit of preconcieved knowlege about. I clicked on the link to the Tech. Tour, and I didn't think it was much of a 'tour'. After reading the page, I googled it to find out more about it. Wikipedia had a good article on it, essentially comparing it to a search engine like Goolge, but that it's searching blogs, versus the entire web. I wonder how much this is used?!?! Do people really care what the top blogs are? I guess it's a way to find interesting blogs... if lots of others are viewers of it, it must be somewhat interesting.

I then went to the Popular and Percolator features. Essentially, it's a quick place to see linke to those most read / hit / downloaded / linked blogs.

I did a keyword search for "Learning 2.0" in Blog Posts and in Tags (never could find out how to search the Blog Directory). I would've guessed that there would've been fewer hits under the tags than in blog posts, becuase posts would've only been tagged "Learning 2.0" if it was a major component of the blog post. There were 1100 or so in the tags; there were 1400 or so that came up in the blog post search. The first couple hits seemed to be the same in each.

I guess this is useful to others... but I have a feeling I'll never be back!!

I tend to look for resources that are qulified and credible, not socially interesting... maybe that's just the nature of a librarian? I guess this might be a good way to see what's going on in a particular field or for a particular topic and then network via the writers behind the blogs..

Item 13: Tagging & Folksonomies - del.icio.us

I watched the Social Bookmarking in Plain English video and thought it did a very good idea of explaining the idea of del.icio.us, tagging, and social bookmarks in general. I also like the way the video was made (not sure what it's called, but was cute!)

I viewed the del.icio.us tutorials Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to del.icio.us, scanning it mostly, becuase I already have a del.icio.us account, and know about how it works. I also peeked around the isdesk account to see it (saw it months ago at a supervisor or branch day demonstration).

I created my own account at the time I did (Nov. 06) after a "keeping it up" workshop on technology. I had imported my bookmarks from my work desktop and after tagging most of them, haven't used it all that much. When I set it up, I thought of it's usefulness being more due to the ease of having access to all your links from whichever computer you are on. Since most of my 'work' work is done at the same computer, it was just plain easier to make bookmarks! Maybe coming back to it now, I'll find more use...

Item 12: Play! Image Generators/Catchup/Review

The street sign generator "Add Letters" was ok, but a little unpolished. The text of the street sign was a bit boring, and just looked like typewriter text typed over the sign area. The second time I tried it with longer text, and instead of shrinking the text, the text just overflowed on either end of the sign and looked dorky. Oh, well.

I thought Reflectionmaker sounded like a neat idea, but I never got pictures to appear; both with trying to use a file I uploaded and a file that was currently on the web.

The Billboard creator and medical preseciption drug generators were similar to the add letters idea -- have a space that's filled in with custom graphics to make it look like your own bill board / prescription. To me, I'd never think of going online for something like this -- my first thought would be to use Photoshop or similar product. I guess though for those that don't have the desire to learn a graphics program, or don't want to pay for one, these were cute ideas. So was the fortune cookie creator (see graphic). Same idea -- limited space for text to appear on pre-made graphic.

Item #11 - MySpace

I've set up an account at MySpace and added a few friends from high school. I think something like MySpace is easier for me to add into my life, becuase you set it up once, and if anyone ever comes 'trolling along' and wants to be my friend, or wants to add comments to my profile or my pics, then I will get an email telling me. In this way, I don't have to login until I have a reason to.

I can imagine that it would be easy to spend hours looking for people you know or have known, reading about what they're doing and, maybe contacting them to be your "friend."

I've set my profile to private as well as any pictures I add to private, becuase I really don't want just anyone looking over my profile, as I've put some personal information in there about where I work now and past jobs, as well as where I grew up and went to school.

Item #10: Social Networking

I think it's a great idea for libraries to take part in social networking sites, especially as it relates to teens; I do wonder how much teens access them though. I wonder if there's ever been a study done assessing the impact they have on teens (either to attend programs or read more, or...), but maybe it's just too hard to measure.

Personally, I like the idea of myspace/facebook for keeping in contact with friends you see rarely or past co-workers... even my own family. As long as one is smart about the information the post and who they let see it, I see it as harmless.