web 2.0

learning2.0 - web 2.0

A Wiki Here, A Wiki There

March 17, 2007 by 0 Comments

I’m trying to catch up on my learning 2.0 exercises. Wikis are the first up to bat. I’ve played around with wikis before and I’m still trying to figure out my exact position on them. I’ve set one up for the CLA presentation I’m doing in May since the panel is scattered around the country. I set up a PBwiki but it hasn’t had a lot of use. This may be due to the fact that when I set it up, you had to know basic html to edit the page – I’m glad to see this has changed and it should convince more people to try to use a wiki. I’ve also recently worked on a project using Google Docs, which allows collaboration, and I’ve had a more positive response to using that than the wikis. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I must admit though, the ability to use social software such as a wiki to collaborate on projects has made life much easier!

Academic Librarianship - web 2.0

Movers and Shakers

March 16, 2007 by 1 Comment

A big congrats to Amanda Etches-Johnson, McMaster’s newest Library Journal’s Mover and Shaker! She is a celebrity in the library 2.0 world and recently became our User Experience Librarian. Amanda is a colleague of mine (right across from my desk in fact) and it has always amazed and inspired me how much she contributes to librarianship. This accolade is well deserved Amanda – congrats! Keep up the great work!

Second Life - web 2.0

Web3D

March 7, 2007 by 4 Comments

Yes, I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, Second Life is the beginning. But the beginning of what? A new 3D social network? A new 3D internet? A new virtual world? A new way of teaching, learning, or collaborating? The beginning of web 3.0? All of these? Well, there have been some interesting posts on Web3D and why they think it’s the next step. Check out Vicki Davis’ post on Cool Cat Teacher (scroll down to the entry The Frontier of Education: Web3D) and a response at Sean’s Emerging… Definitely food for thought.

I think the important point is that our students are comfortable in this type of environment and that 3D environments will help allow students to collaborate, explore and learn in ways that are more appropriate to them.

learning2.0 - library 2.0 - web 2.0

A Word on RSS

March 2, 2007 by 4 Comments

I just thought I better write something about rss, since that’s what’s up this week in our Learning2.0 program. What can I say about rss that hasn’t been already said? I’m hooked, that’s all I know. Once I discovered them (thanks Amanada!), I’ve been a mad subscriber to rss feeds. I likely have too many feeds now. I love that they keep me up-to-date about what’s happening in our field, technology, and the world. My bloglines account is always open; I probably should seek help. I’ve become very reliant on my feeds but I hope in a good way, as it helps me keep up with my professsion and my patrons. If you’ve just started using rss, watch out! It’s addictive!

web 2.0

Musings on Facebook

February 26, 2007 by 1 Comment

As I think I mentioned, I recently gave a presentation on Learning in Facebook and Second Life (I’ll post the links as soon as they’re up). I thought I’d ramble a little on Facebook, but not on the academic/library side of things.

One of the things I really like about Second Life is the ability to collaborate and network with people you’d never dream of working with, either because of distance or time constraints or any other number of reasons. Recently though, I’ve found Facebook acting in a similar manner. I knew this was possible, but I hadn’t intended to use Facebook that way, just to hook up with people I presently know and look into applications for libraries. Well, I have had friends who I haven’t seen since grade 7 contact me, I’ve made new connections with librarians through groups I’ve joined. It’s been quite amazing really and I’m starting to see a whole new realm of potential for Facebook. It’s amazing the people I’m finding, or who are finding me, in Facebook. It isn’t an addiction … yet.

With our learning 2.0 initiative, I’m sure we will all be creating accounts soon. Many of us already have one, and in a strange yet distant way, I feel closer to them – I can see what they’re up to, if they’ve had a good or bad day, start conversations – either online or when I see them.  This is one of those odd things about social software though – in some instances, the only contact is through an online medium, when in fact, they are in a nearby, if not the same building. This closeness with distance is a bit of a strange phenomenon and one I might look into more at some point.

web 2.0

Watch This!

February 11, 2007 by 0 Comments

I realize that a plethora of library blogs have mentioned this video on Web 2.0, but if you haven’t watched, make sure you do. We recently showed this video while demo-ing possible web 2.0 applications to pursue – it highlighted both YouTube and explained web 2.0 in a great way. I think it helped explain why we should be looking closely at web 2.0 applications. All in all, a great video.

library 2.0 - web 2.0

Heads Up!

February 8, 2007 by 0 Comments

I just thought  I’d warn you that you will see a lot of library 2.0 posts in the next while. This is not a bad thing. Starting Monday, the Emerging Technologies Group will be launching Learning2.0 at McMaster and will last for 12 weeks – each week a new library 2.0/web 2.0  technology will be introduced. Although I have played with many, if not all of these technologies, I’m quite excited by the program. In fact, many of the staff our excited – which is great! We even had Michael Stephens come and give a talk and start the excitement!

On a related note – I’ve finally gotten a hold of Jenny Levine’s Gaming and  Libraries report! Can’t wait to read it. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on virtual worlds and gaming and teaching and libraries and have a couple of talks coming up on the topic. I’ll post on that another day.

web 2.0

What’s Next? The “wooki”?

December 7, 2006 by 0 Comments

The Kept-Up Academic Librarian shares a story about a book that’s actually a wiki! Two business schools will be working with Pearson PLC to create this “wooki” (I have no idea if that’s a term but I figure it works for a book that’s a wiki). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the content will be about web 2.0 applications in the business world. Will this be the future of publishing? There are some advantages to creating a book as a wiki – constant updates, which are important in the business world, could be done quickly and cheaply. Presumably, such a wooki would not be open for public editing. Oh, did I mention that there is a fee for this too?

Academic Librarianship - library 2.0 - Second Life - web 2.0

Libraries as Friends

November 27, 2006 by 0 Comments

We just had a great talk by Alane Wilson of OCLC here at work, looking at a myriad of things, including the OCLC Environmental Scan, trends and branding. One of the questions after her talk was in regards to social networks and friends. This also relates to the point she made that people inherently ask friends for information first. In order to become a place which people more frequently use for their information needs, we need to be considered friends and to accomplish this we must be in their social networks (ie. Facebook, MySpace, etc). This also raised questions about what a “friend” is becoming in the social web, with the answer being that there are varying degrees of “friends”. Further to this was the fact that many are now finding and creating friends rather than simply finding existing friends in these realms.

This got me thinking about how friends are made in the virtual world of Second Life, which probably isn’t too far off from social networks. In Second Life, I befriend a number of people, particularly librarians involved in the project and I do this mainly so I can find someone to help me out in SL and who I  may be able to approach to bounce ideas off of; since we are both librarians in a virtual world, we likely have similar outlooks. I also befriend newbies and others I have longer conversations with and I do this so that they may have someone to approach again if they have any information needs. My list of friends continue to grow, but in actuality, I don’t know any of these individuals. Little personal information is shared yet friendship is extended. They are simply a name on a list that I may never actually speak to or encounter again.

Libraries may find their Facebook and MySpace pages in the same place, on numerous lists but never contacted. What will be difficult to do is to stay on the evergrowing list of friends or contacts and not be forgotten or overlooked. Yes, it is important to be in the spaces that our existing and future patrons will be and I fully support libraries reaching out to user groups. What we need to do is figure out how to make ourselves important and useful in these spaces and not just a name on a list that is never thought of again. Do I have an answer for this? Not yet…..