Summing it Up...

Now as my blogging experience comes to an end (for the moment anyway) I have come to realise that this Create-Communicate-Collaborate project has taught me a lot and has challenged me to go out of my comfort zone. 

Having a look back at the learning goals I set myself at the start of this project, as well as the ones I set in the middle, I think that I accomplished all of them to some degree. I was able to extend my knowledge of Twitter beyond what I already knew but I did not do so for Google Docs/Drive. I think that I did not accomplish this part of my learning goal because I devoted my time to learning about RSS feeds, something which I hadn’t looked at before. I also contributed to a collective resource, however, since completing my post on BillionGraves I have not gone to the site since. This may be due to the rapid pace we have gone through different Web 2.0 tools meaning that I just had the chance to learn about one tool before having to learn about the next. Another thing I have learnt is how valuable a mobile phone is these days. I was able to keep up with Twitter and write blog posts and reply to other peoples blogs on the go. It has been fantastic, until I lose reception on the train. 

The main learning goal I feel I have achieved is that I’ve increased my repertoire of Web 2.0 tools which may benefit me in the future. But at the same time I have found that it has been a bit tedious to write a blog post each week. But I think that it has been a valuable experience in itself. I hadn’t written a blog previous to this so I have learnt a lot about blogging too. I have learnt how to change the layout of a blog (only now am I almost happy with the layout of my blog), I have worked out how to embed links and I have learnt that Google can be your best friends, or your worst enemy, when you need to know how to do something.  

An important aspect of this project is that it has further taught me to be resourceful and persistent.  I think that this is an important skill going into the information management industry because as I have learnt technology is an important part of IM and the technology we will be using will not always work and we need to know how to deal with that.

Oh, one last thing. The thing that has annoyed me most about blogging? Proving I am not a robot when replying to other peoples blogs. Does anyone else have trouble reading what the code says?

Well that’s it for me

Goodbye and Good luck with your experiences with Web 2.0

A little tour of my home town...

In my final week of exploring web 2.0 technology for this project I have had a look at Google Maps and Mashups. 

In the past I have frequently used Google Maps for finding locations and looking at what a building looks like via street view but I have never created a map of my own. I didn’t even know you could do it. With the expectation that it would be a difficult process I was happy to find out I was wrong. Deciding that I would map out some of my favourite places in my home town of Geelong I had no trouble pinning places such as the Geelong City Library and then drawing lines to link the places together. 

Surprised with the ease of use I thought I would link some of my own photos to each of the places. This is where I come unstuck. I found out (thanks to a Google search) you cannot simply upload your own pictures from your computer, instead you have to upload your photos onto the internet (I used Google +) and then you can put them in your map. So I tried to share the link to my photos within my map, but all I got was broken links. Feeling a little broken and defeated myself I almost gave up but after hours of trying I figured out that my pictures would appear as a placemark or as an image in the description by dragging and dropping the image in to the relevant area. I am sure there is a more technical and correct way to do what I did but I am yet to find it and truthfully I don’t care because it worked in the end. So below is the final product. 

View A Tour of my Favourite Places in Geelong in a larger map

Knowing what i know now Google Maps seems easy to use as a Mashup tool which  got me thinking as to how professionals in an information management setting could utilise it. While IM businesses could use it for the obvious and put a map on their website which pinned their location they could use it for more creative purposes as well. Maybe the likes of a historical society or library could map out a town pinning important landmarks, write a brief summary of its relevance and link some photos of the building throughout its history. Or they could use a web-mapping tool to pinpoint historic events on a map such as Bomb Site has done.   

And what about Mashups for other purposes? Well after a quick Google search here are some of the more interesting ones i found...

Flickr Sudoku 
As the  name suggests you play a game of Sudoku using numbers from Flickr. 

Screenshot from http://flickrsudoku.com/

Sleeping Time

Search the name of your friend's (or favourite celebrity's) Twitter name to find out their sleeping patterns. This site uses a persons last 1000 tweets to determine an approximate sleeping schedule.

Screenshot from http://sleepingtime.org/

Say it in Bacon (Not for Vegetarians)

This website allows you to make your own text designs using real bacon. The customised bacon design can then be printed onto a product such as a T-Shirt. 

Screenshot from http://www.sayitinbacon.com/

And on a side note if you really want to utalise your Mashup skills maybe you should try GovHack. Form a team and try to create a Mashup using Government data.

Investigating Social Bookmarking…

This week I have been exploring the world of social bookmarking. While I have heard of this Web 2.0 tool in the past I haven’t known much about it beyond its name. So I decided to start with this question:

What is Social Bookmarking?

To answer this question I did what I always do when I don’t know something- I asked Google. As always Google provided me with a wealth of information including this YouTube clip. This clip taught me that a social bookmarking site allows you to save all your web bookmarks in one place and give each bookmark tag/s or keyword/s to describe the site. These tags increase the findability of bookmarks as they’re sorted by the keyword you give them. The way that these bookmarks become social is that they’re public and as such other users can see them and use them to discover new information about a topic or use the same tag to add bookmarks themselves.

Some different types of Social Bookmarking sites…

CiteULike Homepage

 
CiteULike

CiteULike is a social bookmarking site which has an academic focus. It allows users to manage their scholarly articles as well as discover new references that their peers have shared. It also allows the storage of PDF files.

 

Delicious Homepage

Delicious

Delicious allows users to store and sort their bookmarks using tags and share them online. It also allows users to discover what others have bookmarked on any number of topics.

                 

                                                

Kaboodle Homepage

                                                                         

Kaboodle

Kaboodle focuses on ‘social shopping’. It allows users to recommend items by posting links to shopping websites while also allowing users to discover new products.

            

Twitter Homepage

 

Twitter

Apparently Twitter is the most popular social bookmarking site. It allows you to share links with others and tag the link. But an issue maybe finding a link you have tweeted months ago. If you want to look at the top 15 social bookmarking sites click here

           

                                                                                            

Some of the difference between these Social Bookmarking tools and desktop products such as EndNote?

One of the main differences I can see has to do with accessibility and sociability. Social bookmarking is just that, social. It allows you to create an organised place to store your bookmarks in an environment that has the potential to be accessible to anyone anywhere in the world. For instance academics can share and keep track of what other’s all over the world have tagged and bookmarked relating to a certain scientific issue. This is in contrast to EndNote which seems to be more private. To share your EndNote references you have to email them to your peers/friends. You can also share your references using EndNote Web. But this requires that the person you want to share with also has EndNote Web. Another potential difference between the likes of Delicious and EndNote relates to referencing. EndNote allows you to create correct in-text citations and reference lists in a word document using numerous different referencing styles. The likes of Delicious doesn’t let you do this (though  CiteULike does). 

Something which annoys me slightly about EndNote is that it doesn’t support Android devices. This is in contrast to Delicious that supports both Apple and Android mobile devices. I think that this contributes to the accessibility differences in social bookmarking tools and desktop products. I often use my tablet as a laptop so it annoys me that I can’t use Endnote on it.

Using Social Bookmarking in an Information Management context…

Social Bookmarking has the potential to benefit Information Management professionals in numerous ways. Here is just a couple-

• IM professionals could use the likes of Delicious to collaborate with co-workers to create a shared account in which everyone is able to keep track of relevant websites and articles on a particular topic or project.
• Libraries could utilise social bookmarking to create lists of useful links on particular topics.
• Libraries could share links to upcoming events in the library and the surrounding community