Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Challenge Conclusions





When I began this, I did not think I would get all the way through the challenge but here I am!


I am still mulling what tools I think will be useful to me in the future. I know that wikis serve a purpose as referred to in my previous posting, and possibly a blog. Flickr will be a good source for pictures and tagging can be useful in narrowing a search and tracking my sites of interest, especially if I do any work from home.


Personally, who knows yet what I will use. The best part however, is that I believe I may have learned about some tech tools that my kids may not know about yet! Guess I shouldn't count on that one. At least I am acquainted with the concepts so we can converse in a somewhat reasonable fashion. And, like any new knowledge, I now have a good framework for building from because I know of options.


My biggest frustration is the fact that not all sites are intuitive/user friendly for those with limited experience. Our staff now need to sit down together and explore options and share how-to's. Some were more frustrated than others, I guess depending upon how tech savy each is. Terminology even in the area of instruction does not always make sense. The longer we use stuff, the more we forget what our own learning curve was like and of course, that learning curve may be much steeper for some. I still remember the first time I had to use a mouse--I did not have a clue--and I often forget when working with the public that for some, they are still back there--do not have a clue--about whatever.


Thank you for making this course available. Since it was not linked to a particular time of the day, i.e. no chat or phone, it was a little easier to squeeze into my schedule. There were some days when the only way to do any of it was from home.

To Wiki or Not to Wiki...

Wikis are an interesting phonomena, from huge, like Wikipedia, to very small, collaborative or private. So, how do I think I'll use one?

Well, one library seemed to use theirs for posting all sorts of library info: articles, calendar, etc. A blog could do the same thing but the wiki has the advantage of using multiple pages that are searchable whereas the blog just continues on and on.....

I also liked the subject library wiki that brought together library info and public info by topic. This type should definitely be open to the public as then related activities can be easily added. Definitely, more than one librarian would need to be involved with the maintainance of this type of wiki.

Editing of a wiki is much easier than many web pages and since my library website is not very user friendly, a wiki could be an ideal way to easily add stuff to the web page, via a link, without all the fuss and bother of using a tech. Since it is possible to limit who as access to the editing, this seems like a very useful tool for me.

Actually, I used a wiki last summer to put our summer reading program info on the web. lplsummerreading.pbwiki.com. I have not changed it yet for this year but plan to do so. Since I am generally responsible for the library news articles, I'm still considering which format I would prefer for them, wiki or blog. I think I am leaning towards the wiki--just not making it available for public editing.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tag, Your It

Wow! It's been awhile since I've been able to work on this.

Looking around del.icio.us is both good and bad. The video makes it seem so simple, and the concepts for pulling together related stuff are great. But when I enter del.icio.us itself (not subscribed, of course) I am overwhelmed. There just seems to be too much stuff.


I can see how tagging my own stuff is helpful. The social part seems more cumbersome but I guess if it is used as a means to expand upon my own tag terms and find similar sites then that is ok. I think being subscribed would help my exploration more too.

I did find it interesting to put in a desired search term--it would be worth experimenting with results that way as compared to google.

I am looking forward to wikki's as I as a little familiar with them so may have a little more foundation to build from.