"Wikis are all about sharing information. 'Two heads are better than one' is an old saying, but the wiki equivalent would be 'the more heads the better'. Different people have different knowledge and skills, often very specialized. Having an encyclopedia that anyone can edit and contribute to allows people to share this knowledge very quickly and effectively" - to quote Sargia (Thanks, Sargia!)
Obviously, a wiki can be a useful tool for people working collaboratively within a team to acheive a certain goal. But that said, if they were trying to establish something like "best practice," I think there would be a most definite need for authors to provide their sources of information like with Wikipedia itself (otherwise the result could be less than desirable - there have been instances where people in a team have sometimes had different instructions given to them, depending upon whom they were talking to.) The beauty of Wikipedia is that corrections can quickly be made, and Wikipedia's requirement to provide sources of information (along with background pages to discuss them on) has lead to Wikipedia establishing an accuracy that now rivals Britannica.
More informally, it is a very quick and easy way to share opinions, for example like the Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki.
I think it would be quite interesting if our catalogue for instance, had a facility that let borrowers add their own book/CD reviews to catalogue records, like people do on Amazon or on the Internet Movie Database.
If I am thinking of buying a book or watching a DVD I like to read other customers' reviews, and I'm pretty sure something like this would be very popular with our customers if it featured in our catalogue !
I thought with the "subject guide wiki" of the St. Joseph County Public Library system that it would be a kind of alternative to the catalogue (perhaps a bit more user friendly for people not used to library catalogues), but I was surprised to see that it went beyond typical library stuff - eg. under Arts & Entertainment it had Local Attractions and Events, and even ads for local cafes.
It led onto things that I connect more with localeye, or recommended websites like in out Internet Gateway. If we were to do this I think it would result in a certain amount of unwanted duplication.
I enjoyed being able to add a tip to the CCL Learn wiki page (something I discovered quite by accident!) and to favourites.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
RFID or GPS for lost pets
I think that with all ever increasing progress in technology someone could have designed a GPS chip or something to find lost pets - a bit like an RFID that we'll be using in the library soon, perhaps ? Having seen how many pets are missing on Trademe and how upset their poor owners are, I would have thought some techie would have made a mint out of it by now.
Have had a rather unproductive week due to various things, and now I'm in the training room I'm finding that LAMS is not working particularly well - error messages, lack of response, or lengthy waiting periods. It certainly isn't the easiest way to be learning things, IMO.
Have had a rather unproductive week due to various things, and now I'm in the training room I'm finding that LAMS is not working particularly well - error messages, lack of response, or lengthy waiting periods. It certainly isn't the easiest way to be learning things, IMO.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Hyperlinks
The response to my messages about Moro have shown me that there are a lot of nice people out there and that they do take notice, so that has been a real comfort. No sign of him yet, but here's hoping...
I was pleased to be able to add a hyperlink to my last post but I'm wondering why it doesn't show up as underlined in blue. Perhaps because my background is black ? The underlining appears once my cursor hovers over the purple letters and it does go to the link, but I wonder whether anyone looking at it would click (excuse the pun!) as to whether there is an underlying link there. I should probably give them credit for having more nous than a learner like me. Still, it's great to be able to know how to do these things at last. Go CCL Learn !
I was pleased to be able to add a hyperlink to my last post but I'm wondering why it doesn't show up as underlined in blue. Perhaps because my background is black ? The underlining appears once my cursor hovers over the purple letters and it does go to the link, but I wonder whether anyone looking at it would click (excuse the pun!) as to whether there is an underlying link there. I should probably give them credit for having more nous than a learner like me. Still, it's great to be able to know how to do these things at last. Go CCL Learn !
Finding Moro & the power of networking
Wow ! Talk about the power of networking ! The internet can be a really powerful tool, probably only limited by by what we can think of what to do with it. I'm sure that people will keep on thinking of more and more things to do with it that are incredibly helpful.
My beloved white cat went missing after I let him out about 6am on Thursday and I haven't seen him since. Very surprising, because he's usually sitting outside on his comfy chair outside my front door when I come home, or he would soon appear. He always comes home, the only time being when he managed to get stuck up an extremely taoll cabbage tree across the road. On Friday I went round with a friend putting up posters and sticking flyers into letter boxes. I registered him lost with the SPCA.
The neighbours were very sympathetic and supportive (I discovered that he is very well liked and known around the neighbourhood!), which was very gratifying, but I was particularly intrigued by a neighbour whom I didn't know very well who very helpfully brought round some print outs from a website pets on the net.
Pets on the Net is a New Zealand's nationwide database for lost and found pets, atarted up in March 2002. It is a nationwide free lost and found pet service fed by information from many SPCAs, animal shelters, vets and the public. Later it was expanded to free ads for Pets for Adoption and also Pets Wanted to Adopt:
"with huge success with thousands of pets reunited and rehomed as a result. All classified ads are totally free* and can include photos.
"It's fair to say that prior to our inception, it was pretty dark days in NZ if you lost a pet...Services for lost pets were totally paper based and required daily telephone calls and subsequent trawling of paper files or physical cages to check a myriad of potential shelters. If people found a pet, they could only use radio (if available), or newspapers which took days to publish. It was all very haphazard and therefore incredibly frustrating. Then came the beauty of sharing information on the internet...Now our database has drawn together many fragmented and often small/volunteer based services into one powerful, easy to use "whole" on the net.
There is no compulsory membership, no product/services to buy or fees to pay to use any part of this service. And we never shut! Pets on the Net is available online 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."
My beloved white cat went missing after I let him out about 6am on Thursday and I haven't seen him since. Very surprising, because he's usually sitting outside on his comfy chair outside my front door when I come home, or he would soon appear. He always comes home, the only time being when he managed to get stuck up an extremely taoll cabbage tree across the road. On Friday I went round with a friend putting up posters and sticking flyers into letter boxes. I registered him lost with the SPCA.
The neighbours were very sympathetic and supportive (I discovered that he is very well liked and known around the neighbourhood!), which was very gratifying, but I was particularly intrigued by a neighbour whom I didn't know very well who very helpfully brought round some print outs from a website pets on the net.
Pets on the Net is a New Zealand's nationwide database for lost and found pets, atarted up in March 2002. It is a nationwide free lost and found pet service fed by information from many SPCAs, animal shelters, vets and the public. Later it was expanded to free ads for Pets for Adoption and also Pets Wanted to Adopt:
"with huge success with thousands of pets reunited and rehomed as a result. All classified ads are totally free* and can include photos.
"It's fair to say that prior to our inception, it was pretty dark days in NZ if you lost a pet...Services for lost pets were totally paper based and required daily telephone calls and subsequent trawling of paper files or physical cages to check a myriad of potential shelters. If people found a pet, they could only use radio (if available), or newspapers which took days to publish. It was all very haphazard and therefore incredibly frustrating. Then came the beauty of sharing information on the internet...Now our database has drawn together many fragmented and often small/volunteer based services into one powerful, easy to use "whole" on the net.
There is no compulsory membership, no product/services to buy or fees to pay to use any part of this service. And we never shut! Pets on the Net is available online 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Spreading it around
After some of my colleagues saw my pictures they wanted to know the website address so that they could do use the photo toys, too. When one of them thanked me, I said,"That's all right. It should be spread around !" to which she replied: "Yes - acutally, that's what social networking is all about - spreading it around..."
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Mosaic and Ning
Ah, I am so enjoying playing around with Big Toys ! It's nice to be able to display photos in a different way. I am realising that I learn by doing, and it's only by fiddling around with pictures, and posting to/editing the blog that I am finally getting the hang of things. By the time you do something for the fourth time it definitely starts to sink it !
Have joined Ning and posted to it. Once again, I don't think I will be using this much - I have far too much "stuff" coming my way every day without adding new RSS feeds or social networking sites. Still, it was good to see Ning, where you can start groups of your own where people need to be invited.
Social networking and Facebook
Have been reading about these and have been interested by the fact that they don't follow the traditional business model. In the traditional model the supplier and consumer have separate and distinct roles, but with social networking the people who join up are both the consumers and providers of the content. The privacy issues also concern me, especially after further reading about them.
Some time ago my partner joined Facebook and encouraged me to do the same. I joined up, but didn't do much with it. (Contrary to Andrew, who became addicted to Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia wars !)
I received quite a number of friendship requests after I joined up (many of which I turned down (because I didn't know who they were!), but it was really interesting recently to get messages from two people I have not seen for many years and who now live overseas.
Having that contact, seeing their photos/information has really brought them a lot closer and that has been great. I can see now why people like doing this but I don't think I will be using it as frequently and heavily as many of our young people.
I am still very cautious about putting information about myself "out there." (Some of the quizzes are rather funny, but I would prefer to use my precious time doing other things.)
I clicked on Sam's invitation to join Ning and found to my embarrassment that my invitation had "expired." Better get round to things a bit quicker, obviously !
Some time ago my partner joined Facebook and encouraged me to do the same. I joined up, but didn't do much with it. (Contrary to Andrew, who became addicted to Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia wars !)
I received quite a number of friendship requests after I joined up (many of which I turned down (because I didn't know who they were!), but it was really interesting recently to get messages from two people I have not seen for many years and who now live overseas.
Having that contact, seeing their photos/information has really brought them a lot closer and that has been great. I can see now why people like doing this but I don't think I will be using it as frequently and heavily as many of our young people.
I am still very cautious about putting information about myself "out there." (Some of the quizzes are rather funny, but I would prefer to use my precious time doing other things.)
I clicked on Sam's invitation to join Ning and found to my embarrassment that my invitation had "expired." Better get round to things a bit quicker, obviously !
Image generator's fake magazine covers
Ah, at last! I've found out how you can make fake magazine covers and put your face on other people's bodies (when I was in Customer Welcome at Christmas time some people in the team tried to do this as a humourous greeting but none of us knew about Image Generator then) What marvellous fun you could have with this !
My first ever mash up using Big huge Lab's Flickr toys
Wow ! I'm excited. I was intrigued by the list of all the things you could doin Flickr toys, but thought I would start simple. And hey presto, here is my first mash up! I had a problem viewing the photos in later attempts and also I would like to edit it,but I haven't quite figured out how, yet. I can see I will be playing around heaps with this stuff trying to master making some of these wonderful creations.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Mash ups not working
I took an interesting look through Flickr (although still feeling rather overwhelmed at the huge volume of stuff) and thought. "Oh, that would be fun do cards and artwork," but when I moved onto the mash ups section I found that NONE of the listed options worked when I clicked on them. I felt most frustrated, particularly as my next activity was to blog about my experiences with them!
I find with some of today's technology I can feel very helpless (unlike with the good old fashioned book, which is very straight forward by comparison !) I was hoping that by doing this course I would become familiar with some of these new things and be able to help some of our customers (who also might be feeling a bit "helpless") but to be honest, so far I have found things frustrating rather than exciting or enjoyable...
Last session I enjoyed being able to share problems and overcome them with the help of other people in the class, but this week for the first hour I am sitting here on my own. At the risk of sounding negative, I don't really find lams a good format for presenting the learning, and I'm hoping some more people will join me soon...
Eehh!! About 10 minutes later the mash up choices I clicked on have finally appeared ! (I had long since given up hope of ever seeing them.)
Here's hoping it will be much better from here on...
Thw wikipedia explanation of mash ups is a bit over my head. It uses a lot of terms that I don't understand. I probably would have been better not to look at it.
Ah ! Now here's something I like ! Flickr Toys - I think I'd quite enjoy making a movie poster or magazine cover of my own. (Somehow I don't think that is something I will be doing for our customers, but it certainly captures my imagination and makes me feel like something enjoyable is happening at last !) I must have a go tonight at home.
I find with some of today's technology I can feel very helpless (unlike with the good old fashioned book, which is very straight forward by comparison !) I was hoping that by doing this course I would become familiar with some of these new things and be able to help some of our customers (who also might be feeling a bit "helpless") but to be honest, so far I have found things frustrating rather than exciting or enjoyable...
Last session I enjoyed being able to share problems and overcome them with the help of other people in the class, but this week for the first hour I am sitting here on my own. At the risk of sounding negative, I don't really find lams a good format for presenting the learning, and I'm hoping some more people will join me soon...
Eehh!! About 10 minutes later the mash up choices I clicked on have finally appeared ! (I had long since given up hope of ever seeing them.)
Here's hoping it will be much better from here on...
Thw wikipedia explanation of mash ups is a bit over my head. It uses a lot of terms that I don't understand. I probably would have been better not to look at it.
Ah ! Now here's something I like ! Flickr Toys - I think I'd quite enjoy making a movie poster or magazine cover of my own. (Somehow I don't think that is something I will be doing for our customers, but it certainly captures my imagination and makes me feel like something enjoyable is happening at last !) I must have a go tonight at home.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Sharing and learning
Week two, and I'm really glad to be in with other people who are also having difficulties - not that I want them to, but just that it is good that we are able to share these things, have a laugh, and be able to help one another out.
What I have found difficult with lams (where CCL learn is run from) is that it has no back button. It means that you are continually having to open up new windows, having to keep track of what bits are where, and wondering whether you haven't missed a step, or left something uncompleted. In everyday life I like to be able to plot a fairly straightforward and logical path, whereas what we are using for this seems to be "all over the place." Click here, go there, watch this video clip, read this over here... To me, it feels a bit "jumbled," but maybe that's why there is a checklist at the end !
After subscribing to just one RSS feed today, I don't think I will be adding any more just now. One look at it and I got the distinct feeling that for me it would lead to unwanted information overload. I have enough problems keeping my e-mails under control without subscribing to more stuff.
I like to keep things simple - to search in a targeted fashion rather than having heaps of unfiltered or mostly irrelevant stuff to look over. I'm willing to admit that by the time I finish this course I may have changed my mind (perhaps when I find one I'm really interested in) but for now my time is too precious to subscribe to a number of feeds for no particular reason.
The good thing about it however, was that at least now I know what RSS feeds are, what they look like, and HOW to subscribe if I want to. Understanding of and awareness about these things is certainly something I am grateful to be getting. It is good to receive some direction in how to go about doing these things and no longer be in the dark. Ah, enlightenment !
What I have found difficult with lams (where CCL learn is run from) is that it has no back button. It means that you are continually having to open up new windows, having to keep track of what bits are where, and wondering whether you haven't missed a step, or left something uncompleted. In everyday life I like to be able to plot a fairly straightforward and logical path, whereas what we are using for this seems to be "all over the place." Click here, go there, watch this video clip, read this over here... To me, it feels a bit "jumbled," but maybe that's why there is a checklist at the end !
After subscribing to just one RSS feed today, I don't think I will be adding any more just now. One look at it and I got the distinct feeling that for me it would lead to unwanted information overload. I have enough problems keeping my e-mails under control without subscribing to more stuff.
I like to keep things simple - to search in a targeted fashion rather than having heaps of unfiltered or mostly irrelevant stuff to look over. I'm willing to admit that by the time I finish this course I may have changed my mind (perhaps when I find one I'm really interested in) but for now my time is too precious to subscribe to a number of feeds for no particular reason.
The good thing about it however, was that at least now I know what RSS feeds are, what they look like, and HOW to subscribe if I want to. Understanding of and awareness about these things is certainly something I am grateful to be getting. It is good to receive some direction in how to go about doing these things and no longer be in the dark. Ah, enlightenment !
Eeeh! Help!
After a delayed start due to technical difficulties (couldn't log in for most of my first CCL Learn session, then only the first module loaded - the other modules didn't load until tonight - the night before my second session), I'm trying to find my way round. Hmmm...How do I change my privacy settings ? I can't see the "settings, then permissions" tab that the instruction talks about. Help! I can't even find my "dashboard" !
I feel like I'm going round in circles trying to find things. I go into the help, click on links that look like they might answer my question and what do I get ? A screen that says NOT FOUND. Frustration is beginning to build and I'm feeling more than a bit lost... Ah, at last, the penny's dropped: I need to log into my Google account before I can do anything... Phew ! Now we're getting somewhere at last.
Can see this is going to take a bit of getting used to, but won't I feel good once I know what I'm doing ?! I think I'll feel quite proud if this old dog can learn a few new tricks !
I feel like I'm going round in circles trying to find things. I go into the help, click on links that look like they might answer my question and what do I get ? A screen that says NOT FOUND. Frustration is beginning to build and I'm feeling more than a bit lost... Ah, at last, the penny's dropped: I need to log into my Google account before I can do anything... Phew ! Now we're getting somewhere at last.
Can see this is going to take a bit of getting used to, but won't I feel good once I know what I'm doing ?! I think I'll feel quite proud if this old dog can learn a few new tricks !
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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