Tuesday, September 16, 2008

How about making a COMMENT?

Ooops I missed Thing 07 while working through the 23 Things. I'm glad I went back to it at Jason's request. I read the 'code of conduct' for commenting (how obvious), looked at the techniques for encouraging comments (ProBlogger) and discovered why people don't bother commenting. Comments are good should the blog require a response, a compliment or if controversial you may wish to get in on the argument. I've commented on 'kimbo says' for her pic from flickr and Alternatives blog about vodcasts and the useful link was worth a thank you. I also went to the staff 23 Things and made an encouraging comment on John Collins Weblog. While I was on the task I've created RSS feeds to these blogs. I've now listed these three blogs in my blog list. (can you see it...just over to the right>>>>>)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Hooray! 23 Things Completed

Firstly, thank you Jason for your great work on this project. I liked the self paced learning style and you packaged the exercises well.
I will use some keywords to describe my feelings about the 23 Things.
scary DISCOVERY *fun* interesting CHALLENGING inspiring confusion REWARDING
I believe libraries need to embrace new web technologies. Our business is to disseminate information and the www is rapidly becoming a major element for information retrieval. Knowing how to best apply some of these products will be the challenge. In my experience with Chisholm students, many of them find the web daunting. But, I guess there are an awful lot out there who are very experienced with the web. They're the ones who don't ask for help. So, maybe we could introduce workshops on basic/advanced use of Flickr, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Docs etc. Or schedule a roving librarian to demonstrate these tools. Rotate these staff across campuses so that the staff member and the student gets a wide variety of experiences. Some other virtual services could include a wiki for student and staff suggestions, a blog alerting students what the peers in their subject area are reading. Podcast library/web services. It would be great if we could do something digitally with our Reference collections. I believe they are sadly under used. All the best to the library team in your quest to find suitable "things" which can be applied to the library. I hope that working as a casual staff member I can keep my IT knowledge current and keep up with you all!

Library 2.0

I have read a number of articles and will continue to review more. This 22nd Thing has raised an awareness of where libraries may be heading. It looks very much like our future and in the words of Edna Mole (The Incredibles)...........
"be distinct, or be extinct".

iGoogle

Handy place to keep the 23 Things. Google is a massive and powerful tool. I have so much more to learn. However what I have learned so far has been fairly simple. Just hope I remember again in the future. I am a fan of Google. It's a great way to connect with the world! If I had more time in my life I'd like to play around more with Google and other web technologies.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Google Books

Another option for discovering books and finding resources both in business and personally.