Thing 18

I really like these web based applications. I can see a lot of uses for them. Particularly for me in my role as secretary for a community group. Instead of emailing minutes to the chairperson for editing, they could be accessed on Zoho and done on here. Would save a lot of toing and froing. Would also save having to save documents to flash drives.

 

Zoho Writer is an easy word processing application to use and has all the features of Microsoft Word. I like the tags options so users can file as they wish. I also like how you can publish to your blog and I am up for the challenge so am going to try that.

 

The only downside for me with Google docs and Zoho Writer is that I can't access them at work so would not be able to use it there for any word processing I do there. Bit of a shame.

Might be worth talking to our IT people and finding out why they are blocked.

Technorati Tags     Writer,applications,Zoho,web,Google,Learning,2.0,Thing,docs,18,based

PBWiki

Thing #17 - playing around with PBWiki was interesting. I had a look at PLCMC's Learning 2.0 wiki and their favourites page. Added a post in favourite birds then put my blog into the favourties blog page. Lots of favourites to look at here.
Will definatley go back to play around in their sandbox.

Wikis

I have had an interesting time looking at Wikis for thing #16.

Libraries are certainly using them in lots of useful ways. Uses for them are “only limited by your imagination”, to quote one site. The possibilities are endless for what libraries can use wikis for. The only drawback would be that because anyone can edit them then wikis can be open to vandalism.

Some of the ideas that I found for wikis that appeal to me are:
posting agendas prior to meetings so some discussion can occur beforehand,
using wikis on staff intranets, and posting book reviews.

The Library Success: A best practices wiki is a great site. Getting libraries to share ideas or anything that could be useful to other libraries is a great initiative. A lot of useful categories to look at here. I explored a lot of interesting links from this site.

Overall, I like the ideas of wikis and I think they can be very useful to libraries.

Go Hawks

Go Hawks
Originally uploaded by littlelibrarygal

Hawthorn football club (Australian rules football) are simply the best.

Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Rick Anderson's article, Away from the "icebergs", was very insightful.

I would have to agree that the emerging technology and information that is freely available via the internet will change libraries as we know them.

In the future, possibly even now, there would be no need to purchase reference books (although I often find I will get what I want from a book quicker than the internet). Library staff will need to be educated in the new online applications so they can assist their patrons.

Libraries no longer have the monopoly power for information, which is good news for some patrons, but for libraries it's now a matter of adjusting how they offer their services to people seeking information. They will need to update and reevaluate how best to serve library users.

Generation Z (or the igeneration) take their mobile phones, ipods, laptops everywhere. They already take the Web 2.0 applications for granted so it will be their generation that will mostly demand the change from libraries.

One thing for certain is libraries as we know them will need to change or be left behind.

Technorati

I found Technorati very easy to navigate through and find other bloggers with similiar interests. Found quite a few blogs relating to the Learning 2.0 program and read a lot of positive comments from people who have done the program.

I liked how there were different search options but I probably would not use this application regularly. Will check it out now and then though, when I get time :-)

del.icio.us

I enjoyed this exercise and learning all about this application. I like how del.icio.us uses free form tagging and has no specific rules or guidelines. I now know what folksomonies are.

I had some fun following other users “tag trails” to discover other websites of interest to me, enabling me to further build my knowledge network. Have started to create quite a good information directory on del.icio.us.

I can see many benefits for using this application, including creating reading lists and for researching material.

I like how you can see how many people have a site bookmarked, which is a good indication that the site is worthwhile.

I think del.icio.us is a great discovery tool and I am certain that I will use it lots.