Thing Sixteen: Student 2.0 Tools

Boy, why didn't I have these tools when I was in school? I could've used them in grad school, too. The U of Minnesota Assignment Calculator is such a clean, simple way of kicking off an assignment in a thoughtful and organized manner. I love it that there are as many or few recommendations for helpful links as you wish to use. Somehow the "official" timeline would enable me to work more efficiently, I think, as though I had some responsibility to someone. This, as well as the Research Project Calculator, would help in so many situations-especially with written assignments. I've always had a nasty habit of doing everything at once; not entirely at the last minute, but not with enough time either. I believe that a lot of my thesis papers would have been so much better if I had given myself time to really ruminate on the research that I had done instead of instantly synthesizing it (the research) into a paper. I suppose many people do it, and the Assignment Calculator enables you to be more methodical in your process. Slick.
I've already recommended it to a friend. Hopefully she'll tell me what she thinks. I think the library should absolutely link this to an education link or a student link on the resources page.

Thing Fifteen: Online Gaming

After some reading of random 23Thing participants' blogs to see if I'm a total wet blanket about all of this online gaming stuff, I realize that I'm not the only one who has qualms about it. Second Life in particular totally creeps me out, especially after watching the Ohio University video about all the opportunities for learning and networking at their Second Life campus. Just absurd. Why would I want to go to a less aesthetically pleasing universe? So I could fly? Well, maybe; but seriously, it's not as though most people are going to Second Life to learn. People are creating virtual lives. People are creating virtual lives. Can anyone really think of anyone who could not benefit from spending more time working on REAL relationships, real jobs, real wardrobes, real bodies? Second Life is not a game. I love the computer, and this is what I fear about the computer, and the future and young people. Humans strive to avoid reality in all sorts of different ways, and this is just another way to do it.
I think Puzzle Pirates seems like a way cooler alternative, but I really didn't want to sign up for it with my new computer. I've, many times now, managed to introduce viruses to computers even though they've been armed with the latest anti-virus shields. I'm just not willing to try it.
The upshot is that I think gaming is fine. Of course people should be able to play games, and even do Second Life if they want. If there is someone at the library willing to take the reins and trot out the program, so be it. It's just not gonna be me.

Thing Fourteen: LibraryThing

In case y'all didn't notice: I added my LibraryThing widget a long time ago. There are few things more pleasurable than finding out what others have read. LibraryThing is a delightful site. I love the options of knowing what other people have read based on the similarities of their libraries to yours. I love the "more recommendations" and the(brilliant) "anti-recommendations." Seriously, choosing the hot links to either of these categories after you have found a particular book leads you to all sorts of intriguing titles. So many people are a part of LibraryThing that I think it works really well. Millions of books are represented.
And the tagging! I cannot tell you how many times I have used LibraryThing to find a book that I was unable to remember the title to. More often than not I have located seemingly un-locatable books. I think that alone is a good reason to be familiar with LibraryThing. I think it would be great to have LibraryThing integrated into our catalog. From what I gather it is a simple thing to do.
I also belong to Goodreads. Not so many people contribute, so I don't think it's as great as LibraryThing. But check it out, it has a nice feel to it also.

Thing Thirteen: Online Productivity Tools

I've had a customized iGoogle homepage for a while now. It's got some kind of groovy artwork by John Maeda (?) that changes throughout the day. I rather like it, but maybe it's time for a change. Aside from the art, I've got my RSS feeds, BBC headlines, "Top News" headlines, weather, email notification, quote of the day and time and date. It appeals because it's not too fussy, yet there's a bit of an aesthetic. I like having the email and rss feeds right in front of me so that I can immediately access anything new.

I think if I did more group projects these varied tools would come in handy. It would be great for anyone to be able to access group lists, notes and agendas. I think the whole Backpack tool would be really cool, if everyone in the group felt comfortable using it. I think I would like to talk to someone who actually uses it frequently to see if it really does encourage productivity, or if it becomes another time waster. I foresee my once/month plan for a night out with my best friends becoming a whole heckuva lot more slick looking. We'll see.

I scoffed at the idea of using any more tools than I already do, the reason being that I spend more time on the computer than I should anyway. But then I was reading someone elses blog, and he/she said that they used Ta-da Lists to help remember books to request. YES. I have a long hand-written list of books that I want to read and I sometimes have it with me, but having it online would enable me to access the list at the library. So, I guess what I said before: you don't have to invent uses. Use tools when you need them. Just know that they are there.

I do think that it's valid to think of participation: many of these tools are most useful if multiple people participate. If they do not, the pages founder and become irrelevent. Like our reference wiki; it seems that people have found other ways to get their questions answered, convey information and form a community. There are just so many outlets...

Thing nothing

Just an interruption to moving forward to further "Things": my Thing Eight sucks. I just went to my site posing as an innocent visitor and my Zoho presentation bites. Whatever happened in the import process is NOT good enough to post on a blog, dammit. So, I know everyone is waiting with baited breath, I will be working on an amazing replacement. Soon. Whatever that could possibly be, it will. Be.

Thing Twelve: Do You Digg?

I just don't have time to be messing around with seeing what everyone finds important. Even for the library, most of the articles that get nominated seem to be silly, like "Best Mugshot Ever." Sure, these are fun to browse and laugh at, but there seems to be a lack of real content; stimulating, yes; analytical, no. I've used links that have taken me to articles on these sites, but it seems that it would be just as easy to have been linked to the original article. I guess what I'm saying is that for things like news I don't have great faith in the hoi polloi to pick out what I think is important or significant. So there.

Thing Eleven: Social Bookmarking

The fun thing about doing 23Things is that I realize I'm not as behind the curve as I thought I was. I use a lot more of the web 2.0 things than I think. What I'm realizing is that these technologies should be integrated to do more easily what you were already going to do. I don't think it's necessary to try to invent uses for things that seem, well, time consuming or frivolous. I mean, it's cool to know that there are all those photo manipulator APIs out there, and I know that so many people use them a lot, but I will rarely, if ever, have much use for them. Some of the people I've talked to at the library about the 23Things project seem to feel put upon or resentful of having to do this, and I think that's fine. If their job is going the way they want and they are able to do what they need to do without web 2.0, cool. For myself this opens doors to the possibilities and gives me a library context; for that I am grateful. I do, however, think that all this signing up for accounts is intrusive. Who knows who is aggregating information about me? Following a digital/online trail is easy. I've been able to find out first and last names of people using nom de webs (not on purpose) just by following links to their various accounts. Not that they are necessarily trying to hide their identities, it's just that sometimes you don't realize how social social networking is. For some things I've set up accounts that I had originally believed would be used solely for myself. Now when I've come to want to link to them, I've been having some hard times trying to change screen names etc. Not to mention that many sites recognize my computer. I don't think it's going too far to be wary of these things, especially when we find that our government authorized illegal telephone taps. God knows who cares or why, I just want the freedom of anonymity...

Anyway, I have been using del.icio.us for a couple of years now, and I love it. I'm not really interested in the "social" part of it, but I really like being able to save online articles and blog entries etc. without having to cram the bookmark feature on my computer. Plus, the tagging makes them far more easily retrievable. I don't know how much I'd use del.icio.us for research, I guess it would depend on the topic. Like Wikipedia, del.icio.us might be a good way to start research and find primary sources.

I think tags are so unbelievably useful. Sure, there are always the too general tags, but in so many ways tags enable searches using regular language. I like that. And I like looking at tag clouds.

One thing that I've had a problem with is posting favorite articles to del.icio.us from a computer that is not mine. It seems that no matter what you must download the bookmarklet to be able to add favorites to your account. Regardless of if they (the bookmarklets) are removable, I think I should merely have to capture a URL to add it. I don't want to always have to add things to computers that are not mine. I just thought that was weird, I couldn't believe that it wasn't as easy as I thought it should be. Otherwise, I really like del.icio.us. I do not, however, enjoy having to type it.

Thing Ten

I edited the 23 Things on a Stick wiki. Well, all I really did was change all of the words "wiki" into bright red, but still. I've edited some Wikipedia entries before, like spelling and punctuation, but no real content I guess. I feel like I'd have to do some hard core research with a list of sources before I could do that, and that's what stops me. But, I think the beauty of Wikipedia is that there is a lot of stuff out there that people know, but don't necessarily know how or why they know it. And that's what makes Wikipedia a great starting point for research; it gives you enough information about something to help formulate meaningful questions. I think it is absurd to ban Wikipedia, but I don't think it's a good idea to use it as a primary source.
Wikis in general are cool for all the reasons that the last two exercises were cool: they allow collaboration through the internet. Strangely, despite all the enthusiasm for wikis, the one that is set up for the reference librarians at my library languishes. Is suspect no one feels they have time for it, as there is no specific focus to it. Maybe I'll have a crack at it...

Thing Nine

Funny, I was just cleaning out and organizing my email when I can across a "Welcome and Activate Your Account" email from 2006 from something called Writely. When I clicked on it now, it re-directed me to Google Docs. I vaguely remember at some point reading about having an online word processor and thinking what a great idea that was. Obviously, I even went so far as to sign up for it, only to never ever use it. Fact is, I generally have no need for that sort of thing, but now that my (other) professional life is taking off , I'm sure I'll be needing it all over the place. Well, not really, but I absolutely think it is great to be able to store documents online and have them be available for editing for selected people. I think Google Docs and Zoho are similar and that the more I used either one the better. I mean, it's just a matter of becoming accustomed, right?
I think the founding fathers would have been so excited not to have to write everything longhand. I, however, am sad to see the demise of cursive.
On another, not really related subject, I'm having something really weird going on with my last post. Every time I try to go into the edit posts page so that I can add a link into "Thing Eight," it flashes quickly on the edit screen and then disappears. I can right click and reload it, but the same thing happens. It's published with all the stuff, it's just that I am unable to further edit it. I think it must somehow be related to the Zoho presentation, so I'll have to remember that and find out what's going on.

Thing Eight

I figured, since it seemed I would have to sign up to Zoho for Thing Nine, when we edit a public document, that I might as well go ahead and do it now and use their online presentation/slideshow maker. It's kind of cool, but boy, I spent SO much time on it and it doesn't really have the sweet options that I would like. Granted, if I used it a couple of times it would definitely get speedier, and I'm sure I could figure out how to customize it so that the page appearance is better, but still it seems a bit clunky to me. With that said, I could see how it could come in handy. Not having to sweat importing a presentation to a new computer would really save a lot of anxiety, I think. It just wasn't as easy to manipulate as I would've liked.
Please forgive the cheesiness and roughness of the presentation, I HAD to force myself to quit or I would have spent forty hours on four slides:


For those of you who cannot appreciate the Unofficial Ontario Theme Song: Take off, eh?

Thing Seven

I can't imagine not using email. It's just so great to have text-based way of sending information that's faster than writing letters, but not instant. Which brings me to IM; I don't want to say I'll never use IM for personal use, it's just that I can't even stand talking on the phone. I hate having to make small-talk, or trying to come up with a conversation for the sake of conversing unless I can see someone's face (in person). With that said, IM at work rocks because we don't have to pick up a phone. It is so much faster and easier to be able to identify who is where and contact them directly without the added interface of a phone, since all of us are pretty much staring at the computer screen constantly anyway.
I'm ashamed to admit, being the mover and shaker that I am, that I am slow on the uptake as far as texting is concerned. Part of my issue is, again, the frivolous nature of seemingly 95% of texts(basically to hook up, right?) . Then there is the problem of cost: until it's free, I'm not adding another charge onto any of my bills. Speaking of, check this out all you readers of my blog (har har): Japanese Bestsellers. It's astounding and unsettling to read about these books because the sentences are shorter and the plot lines are virtually non-existent, but what strikes me is that the writers are really, really young. This is what young people do, and whether I like it or not, that is how people will want to communicate. More evidence: "Digerati." Yuck. Maybe if I just start doing it and stop bitching about it I won't hate it so much. I think, for the library, if messages could be sent and received using a computer then it wouldn't be so sucky. And I love the idea of request and overdue notifications being sent through text if a patron desires.
BTW why are the article links from 23 Things On a Stick from 2005? Are they the original articles from the original program? I think they should be updated.
I attended a Minitex webinar about Google custom searches. I started watching a webinar on OPAL, but my browser didn't work correctly. I could have switched, but I just thought I would try them both anyway. I think webinars are a great idea, I just have a hard time staying focused when I'm watching in my livingroom. It's great though-I don't have to take time off work or at least drive anywhere to go to a class. Smart. I'm gonna spend a bit more time to find something really interesting.