Week 13- Grand finale

Learning 2.0
Certified Blogger


I have decided to choose the website youtube as my favorite site. I liked this website as I was able to access a wide variety of information posted by millions of people worldwide. The site was useful as it has a very simple interface and searching is a breeze. I dont think i can see any applications at this stage for it to be used in the library setting unless it could be used in conjunction with other resources, similar to user ed.

I did not find learning 2.0's instruction very easy to follow for somebody who is not very advanced in the tech field. The instruction could have been made easier for beginners to follow with more images in a step by step guide format.

The most important skill I learnt was the use of RSS feeds. This is a very important skill as it keeps me updated on all of the latest news posted on my subscribed feeds.

I will continue to use my bloglines account to keep abreast of all my subscribed RSS feeds.

I feel that students will use RSS feeds as part of their research to keep in touch with all the latest updates. Podcasting can also be a feature that they could access in gaining various information about the library such as tutorials on how to use the search catalogue. Virtual tours of the university could be incorporated in the future, podcasts can be integrated with this to allow students a better general overview of the campus.

I think i would like to see the library to adapt virtual tours, podcasting and RSS feeds.

Week 12 Podcasting

This week we learnt about podcasting. One of the downsides to using the podcast over the internet was the need to download certain programs such as quicktime in order for the audio playback to work properly.

Podcasts could be used in the university on a broad range of subjects. Remote students could access lectures via the podcast feature, the fact that it runs off RSS feeds means that they will always be up to date with the latest lecture without missing out. The library can also be used in the library through educational virtual tours. This would cut down on staff time greatly as the students can access these facilities at any time.

I was able to utilise the podcasting to keep abreast of cooking recipes from many different countries. I subscribed to numerous RSS feeds so that i will always have fresh recipes whenever i check my bloglines account.

Podcasting can also be used to read bedtime stories to children. I stumbled across a website that hosted a large range of childrens books in the podcast form. This may be a cheaper option than going to the library.

the link is below:

http://www.astoryforbedtime.com

Week 11 - Youtube, google and Yahoo video.

Youtube is an excellent site with a broad range of subjects from scientific experiments, to entertainment and humour. It was very interesting to do various searches through the site to hear about peoples academic discussions in regards to various subjects. While this is great to broaden your own knowledge on subject matter i feel it would be hard for the academic to utilise this tool effectively unless they know that the person discussing is in fact a professor as opposed to Joe Blogs from down the road in the sandwich deli. Yahoo video and google Video were similiar to youtube but were not as useful in terms of search results. I also found the layout of their site not as appealing or as user friendly as youtube.

Below is a video i found while searching through youtube. It is an interesting clip about a teacher utilising various tools on the internet; youtube, podcasting, etc to help teach students from all around the country. An excellent concept considering how in his country (USA) there is always a limit in funding for the arts and musical subjects.

Week 10- Social Tagging Part 2

Today i discovered the joys of Technorati. I was blown away by the fact that the website tracks over 5 million blogs. I had a play around with the website searching for various things with various results. I had a try of using their search tool and got over 6k results for learning 2.0. Using the tag reference was able to bring this search down to 125 but i feel the inability to further refine the results was a major let down. Perhaps if I used a number of keywords or tags i would further be able to refine these results.



I feel that the academic would not be able to utilise this tool as effectively for this reason as well as that of validity. Alot of these blog posts are not published material, therefore the validity of any information they may have may be off centre to say the least. Issues would arise if the academic were to reference their work from an unknown blog source.

Week 9- Social Tagging

This week I had a look through the deli.cio.us website and discovered the many joys of bookmarking. This handy little website is fantastic as it allows me to build up my own personalised group of websites which I visit daily. If I use somebody else's computer I can quickly and easily access this website to access my favorite websites which i visit daily. Coupled in with the RSS feed function it also keeps me updated on any new updates. The social tagging concept could be quite useful in the library environment where students can personalise their searches to better suit them by using their own tags instead of that the library uses. This can help eliminate time when they need to access certain searches, linked in with an RSS feed function, this would allow the student to stay updated on any new articles.

Week 8 - Second Life

Second life is an interesting concept that has been around for a long time. I believe that because it is still in its early stages of development, the pursuit of knowledge may be secondary to other more primal pursuits. In the long run when more people adopt it as a second home it may be a good area for libraries to share their knowledge similiar to that available through more open source websites like wikipedia. However students looking to find information would probably find it alot easier and straightforward to use the library catalogue to find what they need. Being in a virtual world, study and finding educational resources may be secondary in their things to do list.

In the virtual world there is also a higher risk of hackers accessing the library facilities and abusing the information available to the public. Because of these risks i feel that the library being implemented into a virtual world is not such a good idea.

Week 7- Catch up week

Week 6- Photos and images

i have successfully posted a picture on my blog. i have decided to position this picture in a central location so as to highlight the picture. i have browsed through the flickr website and have found it useful to upload a large amount of pictures to share with people. This could be useful when travelling overseas and wanting to share pictures with friends and family back home. In a library setting it can be used by graphic design, or photomedia students to store images for later use.

Week 5- Wikis

This week I learnt about Wikis. I believe it is an excellent resource that allows anyone to contribute their 2 cents worth. Students could use this as a feedback signboard to post suggestions on what is good and bad in the library. Wikis could also be used to communicate to library staff if they are not able to access a phone or their email accounts.

Wikis could also be used as a tourist information tool for travellers looking to travel to a new destination. Having stories of places where other people have been would provide a more personalised account of where to go.

RSS feeds

I really enjoyed this exercise especially the searching in the database. I made sure the article is full text before I added it to my RSS collections.



How useful would this be?

To be able to incorporate interesting articles in my blog which could be shared by my fellow bloggers with the same interest as mine is so exciting. I could add any latest news or findings in my blog and a friend from any part of the world could go in access my blog and download whatever articles that is of interest to them.



Where can you see this being used?

Students could do the same they could enhance their research thru blog networking especially if articles they need can be only found in databases we don't subscribe. Make sure that the article is full text.RSS feeds has great potential. After all RSS feeds are electronic alerts so any updates which are not relevant can be quickly isolated and ignored.



Do you think this technology would engage students?

yes. Introduce blogging in user ed then stand back and watch. It will be exciting to watch as it spreads like wildfire.

This week I opened my bloglines account.Each morning I eagerly check my Gmail account to see if there are some subs waiting for me to open. I often come accross RSS in my readings but I never found time to research it let alone to learn it. I am glad I am in this Library Learning 2.0 not only that I have learnt more about what RSS is, but I have the chance to subscribe to so many RSS feeds too. I was merrily chosing what to subscribe and ended with 16 subscriptions! More readings to do... mama mia.

One of the video links under resources was not working. When I clicked on it it opens and froze. I tried several times but it never worked on me or maybe it is me and my midas touch.

Talking about midas touch, a friend who is a techno lass was about to show me how to incorporate my National Geographic sub to my blog. When we went into page element we noticed that I do not have the "add a page element" template with out this we cannot add anything to my blog. Luckily she has a computer brain that understands the http language. A big thank you to you techno whiz you are an angel otherwise I will have to start all over again. She waved her magic wand and bingo my add a page element template was installed.
My RSS was incorporated at last and I uploaded a new photo. It's now spring in the hills.

Until next time...the saga of a blogger continues.

This is an exciting week learning the journey of a "real" blogger. Creating a gmail account was a breeze but creating my blog using the blogger was a bit frustrating. I kept my cool and kept on "pressing on my retry button" and look what I ended up to. Thanks to Mr. Patience.

A friend showed me with patience how to upload my favourite flower.

Inserting images is so much fun. Don't you agree? I still have a long road to travel by. Same as the road in the picture below. Must sign off until next week.