Hi All
You may wish to check out these tutorials- one on RSS feeds
and one on Wikis. They are short and to the point.
Cheers
ELLE
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Second Life
Second Life is a most interesting place. Some people, it is said, become quite taken with it, so much so that they have the same emotions and reactions as a first life. For me, I prefer something more tangible - the trees, flowers and birds and the sound and feel of the surf.As for a library environment, I can imagine we could create exactly what we have now if we so wished, even the fact that we live on an island. Seems a bit depressing though. I suspect if the university had a presence in second life similar to the real world, then we would be obliged to folleow and provide the services required.
Not only would our libraries be providing a physical comunity hub on campus, but in second life as well. I would like to choose the seating. We seem to have done quite well with that aspect at Joondalup.
ELLE
RSS Feeds
Hi
I am late finishing this exercise on RSS feeds and yes, like everyone else, I found this exercise the most difficult. Well , the only difficult bit was the RSS feed from EBSCO. Selecting and managing RSS feeds from elsewhere was a breeze. I can also see how useful RSS is in trying to manage an explosion, not only of information, but information sources. It is useful using Bloglines to search for Blogs on a topic as well as using it as a host for managing sources of interest.
I am late finishing this exercise on RSS feeds and yes, like everyone else, I found this exercise the most difficult. Well , the only difficult bit was the RSS feed from EBSCO. Selecting and managing RSS feeds from elsewhere was a breeze. I can also see how useful RSS is in trying to manage an explosion, not only of information, but information sources. It is useful using Bloglines to search for Blogs on a topic as well as using it as a host for managing sources of interest.
I think it interesting that the RSS feed from the database was so difficult , even when following instructions. Even when following others intructions, Ebsco doesn't seem to want to email me my alert, so I give up on it for now. This is how students feel I am sure, when they revert to using Google instead of the databases. It all just seems too difficult.
For now, I need to move on
ELLE
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Wikis to be sure
Hi Did you know that Wiki means fast or quick in Hawaiian?
My thanks to Rod Maynard in Flickr for this photo of Hawaii - unfortunately, this is somewhere that I have not visited.
Another post to comment on the Wiki exercise. I am quite excited about Wikis as they seem to have lots of potential from providing a web presence for the institutions as used by a number of public libraries to being a useful forum for group work. The excercise that we had to do asked the group to comment on the library orientation brochure and make suggestions for its future design. this type of exercise seems to be one being picked up by educators using the Wiki for group work and administration tasks such as working on policy manual changes.
When I was discussing this exercise with a colleague, they asked the question about how this was different from email? A very good question, I thought, however, easily explained in that the comments made by individuals are in one spot for all the group to see. There is also less chance of things going astray. A Wiki generally has a coordinator whose job it is to take the comments forward, synthesising them into a reporting mechanism.
Jimmy Wales at the Education.au seminar in Perth recently, commented that Wikis are generally successful when dedicated to a single suject. His example was the Muppet Wiki. Anyone visiting this Wiki knows that if a subject like Perth is prompted then the information sought and provided will relate to the Muppets and Perth.
I would like to investigate a Wiki as an information sharing tool for a subject area or maybe a whole of library news forum. My thought on this is required though.
Enough of my rambles for now as I am so longing to do the RSS feeds exercise which everyone has advised is the most difficult of all. I have done the reading, but not the exercises - too many things happening at the moment. You find that once embarking on the path of social networking the information overload that one may have previously been experiencing just becomes a whole lot larger - I did say enough of my rambles.
ELLE
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Welcome to my Blog
Hi
I've set up this blog to track my learning through the 23 Things discovery exercises in the ECU Library Learning 2.0 Program. I've got this far in setting up the blog, which is Week 2's exercise. It was not too difficult, but I think I have a problem with my Google Account user name and password. Also, my email address is on display. I am hoping it goes away when I finish this page.
I have had to set up a new Blog as I could not access my old Blog to add new posts. I worked my way through the help offered but still no joy. There is a learning message somewhere in here but at present I can't see it for the frustration. I expect that it might be : when all else fails start again. In my old Blog I noted that a picture made the entries look nicer, so in this one, I have tried adding a picture of the new Joondalup Library at ECU, but it was much too large. I have added another of my favorite things instead: a picture of roses.
It is a shame about the Joondalup Library bbuilding, as it is a building to be excited about, not the least because it was only opened this year. The students love the atmosphere and are regularly seen in groups with their laptops in heavy discussion. A social atmosphere created in the physical environment.
Enough chatting for now ELLE
I've set up this blog to track my learning through the 23 Things discovery exercises in the ECU Library Learning 2.0 Program. I've got this far in setting up the blog, which is Week 2's exercise. It was not too difficult, but I think I have a problem with my Google Account user name and password. Also, my email address is on display. I am hoping it goes away when I finish this page.
I have had to set up a new Blog as I could not access my old Blog to add new posts. I worked my way through the help offered but still no joy. There is a learning message somewhere in here but at present I can't see it for the frustration. I expect that it might be : when all else fails start again. In my old Blog I noted that a picture made the entries look nicer, so in this one, I have tried adding a picture of the new Joondalup Library at ECU, but it was much too large. I have added another of my favorite things instead: a picture of roses.
It is a shame about the Joondalup Library bbuilding, as it is a building to be excited about, not the least because it was only opened this year. The students love the atmosphere and are regularly seen in groups with their laptops in heavy discussion. A social atmosphere created in the physical environment.
Enough chatting for now ELLE
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