Week 13 - Grand Finale

We had a look at the Web 2.0 Awards short list and chose the catagories of Blog Guides and Video. From these we then chose and examined Technorati and YouTube. We decided to do a keyword search in Technorati in order to identify blogs on library user education. We tried using the phrase "university library user education" as well as "university library literacy" but in both cases we found nothing. We then tried the term "library literacy" which found one relevant site. As in any searching it is important to use the right term or the most common term used by others.

We think that the simple search interface on YouTube as well as the fact that there is no need for third party software makes it a good forum in which to share videos with others. This could represent an opportunity for libraries to make available user education videos to their customers that will be easily accessible. YouTube is probably better known to students than other video sharing sites. This would be a simpler way for students to search and access library user education or library literacy.

What have you personally learned from this program?

We have become familiar with various examples of Web 2.0 technology ranging from blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, podcasts and videos. We have learned how they are defined and their characteristics. We have used many of these technologies and examined their relevance to libraries as part of our blog.

What have you learned about yourself, others and the organisation in which you work?

We have learned that by careful application and attention to detail over time, these technologies can be understood and applied. We also found that by teamwork and joint effort we were able to share ideas and further strengthen our understanding of Web 2.0.

What was the most important skill you have learned and why?

We discovered a common thread of these technologies which is the ability for users to generate information and share it with others. This principle can be applied to the creation of blogs, wikis or videos. The ability to establish RSS feeds was also extremely important because this drew more of the technologies such as blogs, wikis and library databases together in a form useful for library users.

What action will you now take if any?

The most important action will need to be much practice with these technologies. Practice will also involve examining the relevance of the technologies to the library and its users.

Would students use these technologies as part of the library's online environment?

Students may use these technologies providing the library clearly provides useful, relevant and interesting information. This information could cover library services, user education and current information on available resources. Students would need to be provided with clearly identifiable and simple access points to this information. This would apply whether it be access to blogs or RSS feeds or to interactive features of the catalogue.

Is there some specific technology that you would like to see ECU library adopt?

It would be a good idea for the library to generate a blog containing current information on new services and resources. This could be made available by an RSS feed that would keep the user up to date with developments in the library.

Week 12 - Podcasts

The podcasting directories appeared to be mainly of recreational interests. This included both the subject catagories and the tags. We found it difficult to find suitable podcasts related to library topics. There was limited information provided in the results that would help the searcher to evaluate the relevance of the podcasts. This makes searching a more time consuming task; too many podcasts would need to be opened to judge their intrinsic worth. It was found that there was more success using Google by searching by " university library podcasts". We were able to find a number of Australian university library podcasts including Curtin University, Murdoch University and RMIT University. We added the RSS feed for the Curtin University podcasts to our Bloglines account.

We checked Podcasting @ ECU site and it provides a general introduction to podcasting. There appears to be a useful discussion of how podcasting is applied at ECU. Unfortunately when it came to listen to a podcast we found that we needed iTunes installed on our computer to access the listed podcasts.

Week 11 - Videos

YouTube proved interesting in its range of subject material ranging from old documentaries, entertainment and to more academic discussions. It was difficult to find videos of high quality suitable for tertiary institutions. The search time involved in finding and evaluating suitable material proved demanding. YouTube is also heavily US in content. In examining Yahoo Video it was found that there was a lot of historical material and less current instructional content. Both Yahoo Video and Google Video yielded less useful results compared with YouTube.

Below is a video we found that gives a brief introduction to YouTube which may be of interest for this week's topic.

Week 10 - Social Tagging part 2

We searched for learning 2.0 in Technorati by keyword, tags and Blog Directory and found each produced different results. Keyword generated the a large number of results which would require some scanning for relevance. A tag search produced slightly more results and these appeared more specific. The Blog Directory search retrieved fewer results but these results yielded entire blogs on the topic rather than individual posts.

Technorati may have limited applicability for academic and tertiary libraries. It was difficult to make judgements on the relevance of results. It would be necessary to view individual posts or blogs to evaluate their quality. Users may need to be careful with the retrieved information as there may not be editorial or review processes. This observation is particularly important for researchers where the authority and accuracy of information is vital. Examples of the need for both authority and accuracy would be in statistics and quotes from other sources.

Week 9 Social Tagging

This could be a good way of creating and managing bookmarks. There are benefits in being able to choose suitable tags according to personal preference rather than from a specified list. It is also a good option to be able to identify other web sites by searching using the same tags. A problem may be the personal choice of tags because it may be difficult to select the appropriate term that others have used for a particular topic. This would make tag searching similar to keyword searching on Google or a library journal index in that all syonyms would need to be considered carefully. The ability to link to other web resources using tags of others could be an effective way to construct a list of web sites on the searchers' specialties.

Week 8 Virtual worlds

Second Life enables real time interaction and this could be a useful medium for networking and sharing of knowledge. This may be of lesser importance to the bulk of users who would be more drawn to the visual and entertainment attractions of the virtual space. Although Second Life could be used as a means to find and retrieve information it is questionable that this would be easier than traditional databases. It is possible that users would be less academic and be more interested in interactive animation. Those looking for academic information are more likely to use conventional web browsers rather than the more complex process of constructing and navigating avatars around a virtual world.

Week 6 Photos and images

We have successfully posted a photo to our Blog. We decided to select a small image size and for it to be positioned on the right hand side of the page. This process was fairly straightforward.

We explored the Flickr website. We found that Flickr can be useful for grouping photo images into themes and tags. This can structure large numbers of images and enables users to locate and retrieve images that are needed. This could be useful for those involved in graphic design and photomedia.

We looked at a few of the Mashups. We were unable to open the Mappr web page. Next we examined Flickr color pickr and this site enables one to retrieve images based on a colour pallette. This site would be useful for those involved in graphic design and photomedia. We then went to Montagr but we couldn't find an obvious prompt that explained how to use this application.

Week 5 - Wikis

These can be a useful source of information because almost anyone can contribute. It's a good way for people to share information. They can have various applications ranging from billboards through to encyclopedias and at different levels of complexity.

Wikis would probably engage gregarious and social types of students who enjoyed interactivity. Other students would probably still derive benefit from the information content.

The type of application suitable for libraries would probably be suggestion boards. Another application may be the ability for students to review and comment on items in the library catalogue.

Week 4 - Journal database RSS feeds

We have generated an RSS feed from a keyword search in the ERIC (EBSCO) database. We explored various searches in education in order to yield a manageable number of results. These search terms should provide new articles that will be posted to the feed in the future.

The feeds generated from database searches would act as a useful alert service for anyone searching on a particular topic. It would be an excellent way of keeping current on articles published in a subject area.

These feeds would assist undergraduate students to identify current publications for their assignments. They would be particularly helpful for people undertaking long term research. For example, research students and academics could maintain feeds on particular search terms that are relevant to their research or teaching fields.

This technology would engage those students who have a pre-existing interest in applying web technologies to their research. For other students it would be important to convey the advantages of this technology to ongoing research.

Week 3 - RSS Feeds

We have completed the exercises for this week. It has been good to find out what RSS feeds are all about. They seem to be an effective means to alert someone to information of interest. This would be useful to students and researchers interested in particular subject fields. The search facility on Bloglines was quite useful and it was relatively easy to subscribe to feeds from the search results. However, some of the topics we searched for yielded limited success. We did not find search tools from other sites to be very helpful. The week 3 exercises have been a structured introduction to RSS feeds and we now have the skills to add feeds of interest as they are found.

Week 2 - Blogs

We have just set up our Gmail account and the blog. Although this was an relatively straightforward process it was good to have someone with past experience to help us through the steps. We can already see the possibilities of this form of publishing. It will be very interesting to explore these possibilities over the next few weeks.