My thoughts on 23 Things

I am very glad I've done this programme, and also that finally I can have a break from it! Doing it largely in my own time, during a few months which have been very busy and very stressful, have made it a bit of an ordeal, and there have been times when I thought I was going to be prevented from finishing on time, just by unfortunate events.
So I actually feel that it's a small, but significant, achievement.

Looking back, I realise I knew so little about web 2.0 before I started. Well, let's be honest, I didn't even know what it meant, though of course I knew some of its aspects without that label. There was a lot to learn, therefore, and I have! Not only have I gleaned practical knowledge about using the technology (and isn't it great that there are so many programmes free on the net!), but I have also gained insight into how it can be (and is) used by libraries in various ways.

My favourite thing just has to be actually blogging. And my least favourite? Twitter, closely followed by LinkedIn and such networking tools. It's fine if that's what you want to do, but I don't. Because of time constraints I haven't really done many of the 'other things', which I regret - but will perhaps be able to catch up on this at a later date.

Reading the blogs of others doing 23 Things has proved fascinating, and an inspiration in that so many people have uploaded such marvellous photos etc. There is clearly so much I could do if I wanted to get into this kind of thing properly. One day, maybe.

I've had a few ideas about how we could potentially use web 2.0 in our department, but whether that will become a reality remains to be seen.

Using widget to show delicious bookmarks. Or not.

Success! After yesterday's problems, I was about to try to add my bookmarks using a different widget when I remembered that the other possible factor was my user name - I hadn't been quite sure how much of it was required (I'll spare you the boring details). As soon as I typed in the version I'd not tried yesterday, lo and behold, all my bookmarks popped into their box on my igoogle page. Most satisfactory - it even inspired me to have a brief look at my chosen sites. I couldn't believe it had been that simple in the end.
And I quite like the idea of igoogle as my home page, but I would really have to make it work for me and not let it become a distraction.

Blogger Gadget

Well, this was a palaver for not much of a result - all my own incompetence, I hasten to add. First, I mistook my yahoo log in for my yahoo user name, and couldn't work out why it wouldn't work. Then it still wouldn't work until I saved it. Then it did work. Sort of. Only one photo has appeared, which is less than a stream, I would say. Admittedly my photos are very few and not really worth exhibitng anyway, but three or four would have been a small stream...
However, having said that, this device is clearly very simple to use, and the basic task has been successfully completed.

ThinkFree Office

This seems quite good, though harder to use than googledocs. I was very disconcerted by the time it took to access, and to download the Java thing, but perhaps this was because I chose to do this at a time when the network was overloaded. I was also surprised that I had to repeat the Java bit the next time as well. That done, however, I finally got to play around and especially liked the way I could add a table. This would be good for when I make up rotas. The idea of being able to work in this off-line is excellent; my home internet link is sooooooooooooooo expensive.

Libraries and Facebook

Having looked at the Facebook pages of various Oxford libraries, it seems to me to be used in the main by colleges and smaller libraries such as the Language Teaching Centre. I was very surprised to see Facebook there at all - I only knew about individuals' pages before, and thought it quite strange when an American friend told me last year that she'd set up a Facebook page for her university department (telling me sadly it still 'had no friends'. I can see advantages to using this medium to communicate with readers: speed/ease of posting, no paper, wide dissemination without the need for multiple notices. This would be very useful for e.g.time-limited messages about workmen, noise, closures (cf snow crisis), new books etc. But I don't see this is any advantage over a blog - unless it's that students are so regularly on Facebook that they check the library page at the same time.
Also, the sections for pictures, RSS feeds and links are a good idea - many things accessible from one place.

What about the more interactive dimension? This is what I don't take to. While it could be useful for staff to ask for specific information, all this 'fan' business and 'so and so likes/d this' seems juvenile and inappropriate in the context. Maybe I'm just an old square (as anyone using this term indubitably is!!)

Google.docs

I think I really like google.docs. I have used it before, although only to open documents which have been sent as e-mail attachments. Or maybe there was one occasion - the first time I came across it - when I actually edited a document and sent it back. This would have been a very easy way of proofreading and editing the articles for our parish magazine for Alice, but I've not done that more than the once. Pity. I would now, definitely. It would have been easy too to make changes, send the document on to the contributors and thence to Alice, so that queries could have been resolved en route. Ah well, I shall know in future.
Playing around trying out the different formats, fonts etc for this Thing was fun. The only real problem was that nothing happened when I tried to insert a special character, so I'm not sure whether diacritics are a possibility or not. I need those quite often. Other than that, creating, saving and sending documents seemed really straightforward. Definitely one to remember about!

Wikipedia

This is not the first time I have used Wikipedia. Several times, when I have been stuck for a piece of information before a class, an on-line search has produced a Wikipedia article. Clearly also, this is the reference tool of choice for today's students, as I have often heard them mention it. This Thing has led to me to go more deeply into it, and actually I find the whole concept pretty interesting: people joining forces to produce an article. I had heard it criticised for inaccuracy, and scaremongering about how easily information can be changed, so I was fairly sceptical abut what I would find. However, I looked at three articles about an author, my home city, and my old college - all of which I know well - and was pleasantly surprised. I suppose this bears out what the information article says about mistakes being quickly corrected by users. Makes sense. The 'discussion' sectin was soemthing I'd not been aware of before, and might be a way of finding peole with shared interests. Or maybe just oddballs. I decided not to join in with any comments because I didn't want to sign up for yet another thing. So all in all, I was a bit disappointed not to collaborate on an article but didn't find anything to add or correct.

Wikis

Now here I feel I have learned something useful. I read about what Wikis are, and what they might be good for. I'm vaguely curious about what goes on in the C & RD wiki, but fel I would have nothing to contribute, in all probability. Looking at the signposted web 2.0 wiki, I read all the case studies with interest, before setting out to look for references to OULS to edit, because this was all I had to offer. Finally found one in the Linacre piece, and changed it. Rather a minimal contribution to a wiki, I grant you, but it's done.

Twittering away

Well no, not exactly. 'Engaging with my network' has not been a success. As I said in my last post, finding friends on Twitter didn't work too well, although technically I do have one follower. I have faithfully looked at the posts tagged ox23, and I did do a retweet. I've looked at various things, but there seem to be vast numbers of useless comments, which are just a waste of time. I think I understand the 'how' of Twitter, but am not convinced there is a 'why' in my case. It seems much more the sort of thing for a mobile phone, but I have no intention of trying that! Yet.

Twitter

Ah Twitter, how marvellous. At last I'm going to be introduced to the source of gossip from eg Sarah Brown and other significant people...What? This is so difficult to get to grips with, and after a bit I really doubt the applicability for me, personally or professionally. The best thing is the little bird logo. I signed up, dutiful to the last, and tweeted. And waited. And then looked for people to follow. From my mailbox I found two former students...That wasn't appropriate. Then found organisations from the lists. Signed up to follow Oxfam (no sign of Christian Aid in which I have a personal interest) and then thouight better of it as I don't have time to do this. At least I discovered how to follow and un-follow, which I guess is the point. A friend is following me, no doubt just from kindness; she will be disappointed as I don't think I'll be tweeting much. However, I'm sure she hasn't time to read tweets anyway, so that's OK.

LinkedIn

Well, I've done as instructed and explored this site. And signed up to it. However, I have a great dislike of putting personal details on the web, so really wouldn't be happy with using this. I can see the intention, and perhaps it even works well, but I just can't imagine ever feeling comfortable with doing this this way. And from reading the blogs of various other 23 Thing-ers in Oxford, I am heartened to see that I am not alone in my reluctance.

YouTube

This was hilarious, especially before I found out how to turn the volume on/up, although marginally more meaningful than soundless podcasts, for obvious reasons... After amazement at the number of videos of squirrels, and at the mere existence of videos of snow falling in Aberdeen, I turned my attention to 'library' videos and watched a few guides to university libraries. They were all American, and unfunnily funny to the nth degree, except that of Vassar. I'm sure with more time I could find much better ones.
On to channels: I hit on the idea of watching the video my friend David uploaded of St Giles' Fair last year; and the one of our departing church organist playing her special fair voluntary (Lefebure-Waly) - huge wave of nostalgia, I have to admit. It was good to see what else he'd uploaded - e.g. snowy Headington, and Mummers' Play.
I then switched to YouTubeEDU but there didn't seem to be as many institutions represented as I'd expected, though each had lots of videos. Had a quick look at the Open University. I'm glad to have discovered all these resources exist - and look forward to returning.

Podcasts

After initial technical difficulties (being too ignorant to know how to turn up the volume and get sound), I listened to Thought for the Day (3 minutes was about as much time as I had), then switched to the University's podcasts and tried part of an interview with Professor Barry Cunliffe and the whole of a short interview with a friend of mine at St Hilda's. I was very impressed by the number of University podcasts there are, especially of the big lectures I never have the time/energy to go to. This could be very useful. I subscribed to Thought for the Day, as that was easy to do and a genuine interest.

Even more Delicious

I finally succeeded in adding St Stephen's House Library and the Language Teaching Centre Library to my network. Delicious seems quite easy to use, but although I can see the point of all this in the abstract, nothing in my experience to date makes it seem useful to me.

Delicious

Yesterday I couldn't get to grips with this at all, as I just couldn't work out how to install the bookmarklet. However, this morning it has proved very easy to add bookmarks by just entering the URL of the site, so I feel cheered by this. The only websites I use/know are very dull, but I duly bookmarked them, tagged them etc. I can appreciate the purpose of this, and was amazed by how fast the pages appeared when I clicked on them in Delicious. I have yet to send a bookmark to anyone though.
When I had a quick look at the Web 2.0 list for Oxford libraries (and bookmarked it) I was surprised by the number of things on it. Went on to St Hugh's and St Stephen's House things and came away from the former's Library Thing's page thinking yet again what a vast distraction such resources might be.

Finding Picnik was easy, as was connecting to my photos in Flickr so I could edit them. With my limited range of photos (3) and even more limited time, editing has been rather limited. I've cropped one photo, with good results, and put a strange tint on the one of the kitten so that has obviously been edited. It doesn't seem possible to zoom in on the kitten and save that shot, as I tried for ages and gave up. I'm simultaneously intrigued and horrified by the range of things one can do, especially the hideous kitschy frames, and the odd colour/light effects. I'm hoping to include one or two edited pics in this blog as evidence.

Photo finish

Uploading the few photos I could glean from e-mails proved to be much easier than opening the Yahoo account had been. This wasn't difficult but it WAS unwieldy and frustrating, and I was a bit vexed by the site's responses to my attempts to find an available ID - Phooey! The name .... is already taken (numerous times). Does anyone actually say Phooey!? And as for the fact that when I finally made it on to Flickr I was rewarded with 'Hola,{name}, now you know how to greet people in Spanish', well, that wasn't really the object of the exercise, was it? Leaving aside the fact that I already knew the expression thanks to the Spanish girls who kindly yelled 'hola, las bottas' when I was out in moon boots several years ago in Woodstock Road ...

So, I've managed to upload 3 very different photos to Flickr, and also explored geotabs and found a phenomenally good shot of Old Aberdeen High Street. I'm inspired to work out how to transfer my digital photos to the computer, but not right now as I'm falling dreadfully behind with 23 Things and everything else.

Thoughts on blogs

I've decided I love blogs - writing them, that is. Clearly it's the medium I've been waiting for all my life, but as a consequence I keep having to remind myself of security and privacy issues. It's too easy to blog away as if one were just thinking aloud.

As for other people's...I've had a look at some of the library blogs suggested by 23 Things, and I can now see the point of them. For news, up-to-date information and things not suited to notices (which people don't read anyway) this is obviously very suitable. Do readers look at them? Perhaps they do. I didn't know they existed until now, but then I'm not very up with technology. I wonder whether putting things on a blog lessens the need to answer the same basic questions again and again. For my own part, I was busy the other afternoon processing some very interesting books by African writers, and suddenly thought that a blog would be just the thing for announcing the arrival of particularly interesting items.

However, I still think that the temptation to spend hours more on-line blogging or reading blogs just for interest, in other words because they're there, is worrying.

more RSS feeds

In a desperate attempt to catch up, since I'm still on last week's Things, I followed a link from my googlereader page and subscribed to Cherwell (for the unofficial version of University life), and then remembering there is a feed from the University's homepage, to the News section on that. For both of these it was just a matter of clicking on boxes, so no cutting and pasting URL's. Then I was reading the BBC news (news junkie that I am!) and subscribed to the feed for the NE of Scotland. Why not? This was still child's play, as it were. so I shall really have to take a few minutes later and be more selective and imaginative, and find something that really involves setting a feed up the (slightly) harder way.

RSS feeds

Setting up the RSS feed to the 23Things blog was easy, because the instructions were very clear. When I got into Googlereader to do that, I realised that two RSS feeds were still there from when I went to the WISER session on 'Keeping up to date'last year sometime: two academic journals - this could be useful, if I ever have the time to get back to my own research. I feel as if I have therefore done the task about subscribing to other things, but I guess I will find new ones too, otherwise I won't know how to do it, will I?

addition to Things 1 and 2

Well, the first task last week was easy as I already had a google account. I have been happily using gmail for some time, and find it much easier to use and organise than Nexus. However, igoogle was a new one on me, and so it was interesting to find out what it was. Creating a start page was fun, but I can't help being disturbed by how easy it would be (is) to spend an awful lot of time tinkering and adding things to it for no real purpose. I'm not really sure it's any better than just searching from the normal google screen. Still....I dutifully added my 5 gadgets: weather, date/time, 'to do list' and, variously, artwork of the week (until I found a comment saying it might have a virus in it and got rid), penguins (ferrets wouldn't load on my home computer as it's too slow), then (when penguins were too slow for the same reason) the phase of the moon.
As for 'themes', don't get me started! Why does google think it's OK to offer photos of scantily clad women, of a sort that used to be found on British beer cans in the 1960s?!
I chose Tea House in the end, as it seemed inoffensive and I had to choose something...

I'm very dubious about the prospect of uploading a screenshot of my start page and have not yet done this part of Thing 3, because I'm not sure if any computer I have access to has the necessary software. However, Laura has kindly given me a hint as to where Paint might be, so I shall give it a go soon. Thanks Laura!

First post (how original)

Well, being a little bit older than some people, I am very, very glad to have the chance to learn about all this Web 2 stuff in a structured way. In fact I was beginning to despair that I had been left behind by technology, but actually I have heard of a great many of these things but didn't know they came under the heading of Web 2.

In addition, I think it is excellent to have a chance to have what we learn recognised in this way. It is a hugely refreshing change for me, and is definitely acting as an incentive to get down to the training. By the end of this, I hope to be more conversant with web-based things, and even to appreciate their value in my working life.