For Exercise 17
After getting to know the functions of a Wiki from the previous exercise, I have the chance to work on a Wiki for real.
In this new exercise, I explored the http://learning20rrs.pbworks.com/. There we will have to request access first then we can edit the pages. I contributed in several "favorite" pages, such as Favorite movies, restaurants, vacation spots and sports. The application is as simple as doing a Word document, except you have to set the display method of the new links, whether to be opened in the same page, or in a new window. By the way, I like the topics being selected and I'm very happy to share my favorite things with my colleagues.
Feb 17, 2010
What's in a Wiki
For Exercise 16
Ever since the appearance of Wikipedia, it has became one of my handy tools in getting factual information of historical events, movies, celebrities and books and their authors. I prefer to search information from Wikipedia over other kind of website, because of its one-at-a-glance plain page design, without the hassle to click many buttons and jump from page to page.
For those who have limited skills in webpage design, a Wiki is an easy and convenience way to use it for simple publishing and to be shared among a community. The basic design of a Wiki is somewhat like the text version of a webpage. With reference to the BookLoversWiki of Princeton Public Library, a little bit design is added to the interface which made it more appealing.
I'm surprised to discover that Wiki could be used as an event page, like the 2009 ALA Annual Conference. The way the conference detailed are presented is convenience to its members to skip for those information which they need with the topic words stated, without the need to read everything. For the libraries, I think it will be useful for the posting of library courses.
Ever since the appearance of Wikipedia, it has became one of my handy tools in getting factual information of historical events, movies, celebrities and books and their authors. I prefer to search information from Wikipedia over other kind of website, because of its one-at-a-glance plain page design, without the hassle to click many buttons and jump from page to page.
For those who have limited skills in webpage design, a Wiki is an easy and convenience way to use it for simple publishing and to be shared among a community. The basic design of a Wiki is somewhat like the text version of a webpage. With reference to the BookLoversWiki of Princeton Public Library, a little bit design is added to the interface which made it more appealing.
I'm surprised to discover that Wiki could be used as an event page, like the 2009 ALA Annual Conference. The way the conference detailed are presented is convenience to its members to skip for those information which they need with the topic words stated, without the need to read everything. For the libraries, I think it will be useful for the posting of library courses.
Feb 16, 2010
Library 2.0 & Web 2.0
For Exercise 15
Though I'm working in an academic library, I have not take any programme in library science before. In a user's point of view, Dr. Wendy Schultz's Library 4.0 in her article To a temporary place in time is quite a perfect one. Of course, it will take time for a library to evolve to such an ideal one.
After reading the perspectives listed, most librarians which contributed the articles proposed to add more interactive features in the library webpage so as to putting the library closer with users and to have their active particiption. Like many online bookshops, Amazon has been doing quite a good job in providing interactive elements on its webpage already for a long time. These commerical websites encourage users' participation and attract traffics. Readers' reviews are a good reference for potential buyers. I think the libraries can take reference from the successful online bookshops to observe what kind of services are avaliable for users.
Though I'm working in an academic library, I have not take any programme in library science before. In a user's point of view, Dr. Wendy Schultz's Library 4.0 in her article To a temporary place in time is quite a perfect one. Of course, it will take time for a library to evolve to such an ideal one.
After reading the perspectives listed, most librarians which contributed the articles proposed to add more interactive features in the library webpage so as to putting the library closer with users and to have their active particiption. Like many online bookshops, Amazon has been doing quite a good job in providing interactive elements on its webpage already for a long time. These commerical websites encourage users' participation and attract traffics. Readers' reviews are a good reference for potential buyers. I think the libraries can take reference from the successful online bookshops to observe what kind of services are avaliable for users.
Searching for Blogs
For Exercise 14
Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. According to the explanation in Wikipedia, the name Technorati "is a blend of the words technology and literati, which invokes the notion of technological intelligence or intellectualism". (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technorati)
In the first exercise, by searching "Learning 2.0" in Blogs/Posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory from Technorati, different results are generated:
1. Blogs/Posts - got a blog with an article on Learning 2.0 from Blogs; got many different blogs with "learning" and "2.0" in their content;
2. Tags - no same or similar keywords can be found
3. Blog Directory - no result from search
For the second exercise, as the What's Popular page is not avaliable now (Technorati's Popular section is currently unavailable. Popular features will return in the near future. Popular videos are available now in the new Technorati Video Section), no comment could be made at the moment.
Technorati is quite an informative platform with a wide varieties of topics from blogs. As most of its users are probably from the America, all the information listed in the homepage is generally on American politics, entertainment and technology. As a user in Asia, there is a distant between me and the American news which I have no background, but it's still a good way to know what is happening in the other side of the world.
Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. According to the explanation in Wikipedia, the name Technorati "is a blend of the words technology and literati, which invokes the notion of technological intelligence or intellectualism". (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technorati)
In the first exercise, by searching "Learning 2.0" in Blogs/Posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory from Technorati, different results are generated:
1. Blogs/Posts - got a blog with an article on Learning 2.0 from Blogs; got many different blogs with "learning" and "2.0" in their content;
2. Tags - no same or similar keywords can be found
3. Blog Directory - no result from search
For the second exercise, as the What's Popular page is not avaliable now (Technorati's Popular section is currently unavailable. Popular features will return in the near future. Popular videos are available now in the new Technorati Video Section), no comment could be made at the moment.
Technorati is quite an informative platform with a wide varieties of topics from blogs. As most of its users are probably from the America, all the information listed in the homepage is generally on American politics, entertainment and technology. As a user in Asia, there is a distant between me and the American news which I have no background, but it's still a good way to know what is happening in the other side of the world.
Tagging & Social Bookmarking
For Exercise 13
Hello there! Happy Chinese New Year!
What a great start in the Year of Tiger to learn something new!
Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms (generating a kind of folksonomy).
After exploring the Delicious website, I'm now with a clearer idea about tagging and thrilled to know that the mass of grey and black words grouping together is called "tag cloud" in which the size of those word reflects their popularity. What I like Delicious most is that we can organzie our favourite sites by centralizing them in one place and can access them anywhere! It's much more easy than managing "My Favorites" in the PC.
I tried to take a look of the bookmarks under the tag "books" and very happy to see a number of very useful websites, together with related tags like "library", "literature", "ebook", etc. It's great to know what websites are popularly bookmarked and what are the most popular tags nowsaday.
The registering procedure is very simple and easy to follow. I created an account for myself and saved some bookmarks in my account already - My Delicious. Also, I've put the network badge at the right column of my blog. You are very welcome to join my network!
Hello there! Happy Chinese New Year!
What a great start in the Year of Tiger to learn something new!
Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms (generating a kind of folksonomy).
After exploring the Delicious website, I'm now with a clearer idea about tagging and thrilled to know that the mass of grey and black words grouping together is called "tag cloud" in which the size of those word reflects their popularity. What I like Delicious most is that we can organzie our favourite sites by centralizing them in one place and can access them anywhere! It's much more easy than managing "My Favorites" in the PC.
I tried to take a look of the bookmarks under the tag "books" and very happy to see a number of very useful websites, together with related tags like "library", "literature", "ebook", etc. It's great to know what websites are popularly bookmarked and what are the most popular tags nowsaday.
The registering procedure is very simple and easy to follow. I created an account for myself and saved some bookmarks in my account already - My Delicious. Also, I've put the network badge at the right column of my blog. You are very welcome to join my network!
Feb 12, 2010
LibraryThing
For Exercise 11
Apart from eating and sleeping, reading is an important element for me to sustain my life.
The first application I know for listing books is weRead from Facebook. Members share their comments of the books that they read in a simple platform. Compared to weRead, the LibraryThing is a much greater reading community with more features. One of its features which I like is that it would give reading recommendation to me according to my reading list. Sure I am very interested to know what other similar books are avaliable.
It is also interesting that it allows interaction between authors and reader in their Author Chats forum, and it provide a platform for members and authors to give their books away to another member who write a review about the book and being selected randomly. It is quite a meaningful way to clear the shelves for new books and for the authors to promote their works.
You are welcome to visit my library in the LibraryThing below, or check the widget of my library in the right column:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/darbyshaw
Enjoy reading!
Apart from eating and sleeping, reading is an important element for me to sustain my life.
The first application I know for listing books is weRead from Facebook. Members share their comments of the books that they read in a simple platform. Compared to weRead, the LibraryThing is a much greater reading community with more features. One of its features which I like is that it would give reading recommendation to me according to my reading list. Sure I am very interested to know what other similar books are avaliable.
It is also interesting that it allows interaction between authors and reader in their Author Chats forum, and it provide a platform for members and authors to give their books away to another member who write a review about the book and being selected randomly. It is quite a meaningful way to clear the shelves for new books and for the authors to promote their works.
You are welcome to visit my library in the LibraryThing below, or check the widget of my library in the right column:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/darbyshaw
Enjoy reading!
Feb 11, 2010
Image Generators
For Exercise 10
Great to have something new to discover in this exercise!
I'm thrilled to found out that there are many different kinds of image generators which could serve for different purposes, such as for making your own garden signs, post-it, magazine cover.......you name it! I created a movie poster for one of my favorite cartoon character by using the Movie Poster generator in BigHughLabs and here is the image:
The generators here are very easy to use, just upload an image and type a few words then click. It is especially useful to those who do not have softwares like PhotoShop. However, the layout of the design is limited and so there's not much change we can do.
Apart from the poster, I also created a header for my blog using the Blog Header generator and applied it in this blog already. This is one of the items which I wanted to know how to make one for a long time. Thanks for the Web2.0 Team for introducing this funny and useful exercise to us! Happy Chinese New Year!
Finding Feeds
For Exercise 9
Amongst the search tools for finding feeds as suggested in the exercise, I think the Bloglines' search tool is the most convenient and easy to use. Once keywords are entered, buttons for feed preview and subscription to the feed come out together with the search results.The result page is simple and easy to read, without too much irrelevant information cramping in one page.
Meanwhile, I found that both the Bloglines' Search and Google blog search are very good search engines for articles in blogs. From my search of a BBC drama "Lost in Austen", I found some very interesting reviews and writings on it. I'm also happy to find the blog of the Seattle Public Library from the searching process which has a very rich content of books and popular culture.
Amongst the search tools for finding feeds as suggested in the exercise, I think the Bloglines' search tool is the most convenient and easy to use. Once keywords are entered, buttons for feed preview and subscription to the feed come out together with the search results.The result page is simple and easy to read, without too much irrelevant information cramping in one page.
Meanwhile, I found that both the Bloglines' Search and Google blog search are very good search engines for articles in blogs. From my search of a BBC drama "Lost in Austen", I found some very interesting reviews and writings on it. I'm also happy to find the blog of the Seattle Public Library from the searching process which has a very rich content of books and popular culture.
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