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.