Week 8, Thing 19

#19 Discovering web 2.0 tools
Throughout the course of this Learning 2.0 program we’ve explored just a small sampling of these new internet technologies and websites that are empowering users with the ability to create and share content. But given time there are so many more we could explore.

If you attended the NLA/NEMA conference keynote lecture on Thursday, October 16 by Annette Lamb you received a whirlwind tour of many web 2.0 tools and their applications in libraries. If you missed it or wish to review it, here is link to the presentation: Recipes for Success. This is a great resource to dip into and explore parts of as time allows.

Web applications, like many other web 2.0 tools, have been growing fast. It is still hard to tell how they are widely accepted and used. Most businesses are not going to stop using various “office suites” of products for word processing, spreadsheets and databases. However, it is clear that there are increasing numbers of new collaborative, social networking and information tools and they're not going to go away (at least anytime soon).

For this discovery exercise, you’ll select ONE site from the lists on Web 2.0 Awards or Lambs’ Recipes for Success and explore it. Be careful to select a tool that is Free and that doesn't require a plug-in or download. The majority of these free, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Discovery Exercise:
1. Select any site/tool from the lists on Web 2.0 Awards or Recipes for Success. Explore the site you selected.
2. Create a post about your discovery. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting?

Web 2.0 – with so much to explore, just start with ONE. :)

Week 8, Thing 18

#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops
The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past few years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the internet without the need of installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death to Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. But no matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides seem to agree; web-based apps have their place.

One major benefit of web-based applications it that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. You are also freed up from carrying a data disc or flash drive around. A further bonus is that they easily accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs (formerly known as Writely), to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at web-based word processing tools such as Zoho Writer or Google Docs, create a simple document and then document your discoveries in your blog. If you're up to the challenge, you might even export your document as an HTML file or publish it to your blog. With web-based applications, the possibilities are endless.

Discovery Resources:
A short list of web-based productivity applications – Note: Helene Blowers authored this list in 2006 using ZohoWriter and exported it as HTML.

Discovery Exercise:
1. Create a free account for yourself in Zoho Writer or Google Docs
2. Explore the site and create a few test documents.
3. Try out Zoho Writer’s or Google Docs features and create a blog post about your discoveries.

Optional: If you're up for the challenge, see if you can write something in a web-based word processor and then use it to post to your blog.

BTW: Here’s a document (viewable as a webpage) Helene Blowers mocked up in Zoho about some of the features she found beneficial.

Continue on to Week 8, Thing 19

Week 7, Thing 17

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, Helene Blowers at PLCMC set up a whole Learning 2.0 Favorites wiki* that’s for nothing but play!

For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the PBwiki Learning 2.0 wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page.

Discovery Resources:

• PBWiki Getting Started - Find out how this collaborative tool can be used
• PBWiki User’s Manual – General manual for PBWiki
• PB Wiki Demo -- Short video of PBWiki features
  

Discovery Exercise:
1. Access the PLCMC Learning 2.0 wiki and create a login account for yourself. At the bottom of the log-in page, in the lower left-hand corner, it says "Password = plcmc". That's the verification code. (Thanks to Sarah W. for this hint!).

2. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. It’s easy to do if you follow this simple syntax:
Example:
[ URL Title of blog]
[ http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com Learning 2.0 ]

With brackets [ ] and just a little typing, you’ve added a link - yup, it’s as easy as that!

* NOTE: The PLCMCLearning Wiki was created using the free version of PBWiki, a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit.
OPTIONAL: Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc). And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book review or short travel essay and link up to that.

3. Create a post in your blog about the experience.

Week 7, Thing 16

#16 So What’s in a Wiki?

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. You probably already know, and may have even used, Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia. It is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools has continued to grow. Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.
• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.
• Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.
• And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis, sharing meeting information and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:

Use these resources to learn more about wikis:

• Wiki, wiki, wiki - from PLCMC's own Core Competency blog
• Wiki’s: A Beginner’s Look – a short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.
• What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation
• Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – an overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.

Discovery Exercise:
1. For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding. Here’s a few examples to get you started:

• SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system
• Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library for their 2006 Summer Reading Club (for adults)
• Library Success: A best practices wiki
• ALA 2009 Midwinter meeting wiki – an example of a wiki created to support a specific event
• The Bull Run Library wiki - a public library wiki and also a Learning 2.0 participant
• WikiNorthia – a local history wiki by the Yarra Plenty Regional Library (in Melbourne, Australia)
• Other library wiki examples
  

2. Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?

So what's in a wiki? Find out by doing some exploring on your own.

Continue on to Week 7, Thing 17

Week 6, Thing 15

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...

Library 2.0 is term used to describe a new set of concepts for developing and delivering library services. The name, as you may guess, is an extension of Web2.0 and shares many of its same philosophies and concepts including harnessing the user in both design and implementation of services, embracing constant change as a development cycle over the traditional notion of upgrades, and reworking library services to meet the users in their space, as opposed to ours (libraries).

Many have argued that the notion of Library 2.0 is more than just a term used to describe concepts that merely revolve around the use of technology; it also a term that can be used to describe both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within libraries to make our spaces and services more user-centric and inviting. Others within the profession have asserted that libraries have always been 2.0: collaborative, customer friendly and welcoming. But no matter which side of the debate proponents fall, both sides agree that libraries of tomorrow, even five or ten years from now, will look substantially different from libraries today.

Discovery Resources:

• OCLC Next Space Newsletter – Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries?
• Wikipedia – Library 2.0
• Library 2.0 Discussions (list of great references from Wikipedia)
• Library Journal September 2006 article on Library 2.0 (there are some great references at the end of the article for further exploration as well).
• Tame the Web – the blog of Michael Stephens. Stephens did a presentation at the Fall Colloquium in Lincoln in November 2007 and continues to blog on library/web 2.0 (check out his tags).

Discovery Exercise:
1. Read some of the perspectives on Library 2.0 from the list above.

2. Create a blog post about your thoughts on Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?

Week 6, Thing 14

#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

So now that you’ve been blogging for awhile, you might be wondering just how big the blogosphere is. Well, according to Technorati’s annual report on blogs, State of the Blogosphere 2008 (issued in September 2008), 133 million blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002. 7.4 million blogs were posted in the 6 months prior to the report.

Blogging is so easy that these publishing tools are being taken advantage of by almost every industry, including libraries. Blogging has become a commercial enterprise – with many bloggers accepting advertising. Blogs have also become a trusted authority in both news and entertainment.

So how does a person get their blog listed as part of the blogosphere and how can you tag your posts with keywords to make them more findable through a Technorati search? The answer to the first question is that your blog is probably already being captured by Technorati due to the fact that you're already using Blogger, the most popular blogging tool. But if you want to join the party and have your blog officially listed on Technorati and also take advantage of the watchlist and other features, you’ll need to claim your blog yourself. As for tagging posts with Technorati tags? This is easy, too. All you need to do is add a little bit of HTML code to the bottom of your post (see the example below) and Technorati will pick up these tags when it spiders (or web crawls) your site. There are a lot of new features that have been added to Technorati this past summer, including new ways to search for blogs. You can search for keywords in blog posts, search for entire blog posts that have been tagged with a certain keyword, or search for blogs that have been registered and tagged as whole blogs about a certain subject (like photography or libraries).

Discovery Resources:

• Technorati Tour –from 2006 of the Technorati features
• Technorati Popular feature
• Tehcnorati Help – includes FAQ, Discussions and Troubleshooting

Discovery Exercise:
1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing various keyword searches in the different search areas. Do you get different results depending on where you search?

2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?

3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.

OPTIONAL: If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts by with Technorati tags so they can join tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “PLCMCL2.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist.

NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window.

There's a lot to explore.

Technorati Tag: PLCMCL2

Continue on to Week 6, Thing 15

Week 6, Thing 13

#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Delicious

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want.

In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored a few sites – Flicker and LibraryThing to name two --that allow users to take advantage of tagging and in week 3 some even used a common tag (owhatageek) to create an association between photos that we individually uploaded. This week, in addition to exploring Technorati tagging, we want to also take at popular social bookmarking site called Delcious (formerly known as Del.icio.us).

Delicious is a social bookmarking manager which allows you to bookmark a web page and add tags to categorize your bookmarks.

Many users find that the real power of Delicious is in the social network aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at Delicious and learn about this popular bookmarking tool.

Discovery Resources:

• Otter Group Delicious tutorial (8.30 min podcast with visuals) – Although this is from 2006 it presents a good overview of Delicious and why it is a useful tool.
• Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to Delicious – This is from 2005 but it presents useful information on getting started with Delicious.
  

Discovery Exercise:
1. View one of the Discovery Resources listed above to get a good overview of the features in Delicious.

2. Take a look around Delicious using the PLCMCL2 account that was created for the original 23 Things exercise by Helene Blowers. Note: In this account you will find lots of resources that have been highlighted or used throughout the course of the Learning 2.0 program.

3. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?

4. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?

OPTIONAL: If you’re up to the challenge, create a Delicious account for yourself and discover how this useful bookmarking tool can replace your traditional browser bookmark list. Also, talk with co-workers who have been using Delicious to see what they like about it. Some Geeks have already posted on using Delicious – ask them questions.

Continue on to Week 6, Thing 14.