Social bookmarkings & Tagging

I have used tagging and social bookmarking before but mainly… other people’s ones from their deli.cious links  and  had my own tags for my photos in Flickr as well as searching for photos by tag there.

 

 So this unit was mainly about setting up my del icious account , see how it worked, creating another Flickr account and learnt a bit more about it.  The setting was OK but the installing of it on my toolbar proved a bit problematic.  Eventually managed to so, but I am not that amused at seen another toolbar appearing there with the tab corresponding to the different links.  I think that can be deleted but I still have not master it completely. I like the idea of having my work tags available as and when I want, and  it doesn’t have to be just my work staff, I can create another account  for my hobbies; this certainly appeals to me, as well as being able to make them private or public at will.

 

I like tagging, as I think each one of us has their own way of classifying things, quite often based on the use we make of a particular web page, as well as helping me to find things that have a habit of disappearing when needed. The cloud viewing of tags I find it very funny and quite telling when it comes to let you know  what people interest are.

 

This is something that can be easily adopted by the library, to deliver links to their user.

 

RSS Feeds or Ready to See Subscriptions

 

This is a system that collects and displays information from different sources on the web, like WebPages and blogs. It maintains a list of the pages we are interested in, checking them for updates, displaying a summary and a link to the new entry.

 

I had used feeds before and almost forgotten about it. I set up a Bloglines account a while ago, to keep track of some blogs.  It was easy to keep up, as normally there is one entry ever so often, on each blog.

 

What I was not ready for, was the avalanche that awaited me when I created my course account with Google Reader.  I added the feeds suggested on the activities and watched.  Later on the day 70 items were already listed.  I waited 2 days and there were nearly 500!!!  It was overwhelming.

 

 So perhaps a feed to a newspaper is not the best option as they are updating non stop. I guess this has to be treated like a database search; by being very specific with what is subscribed to if I want to ensure that only relevant information is collected. 

Another apple, I mean wiki

This week I had a go at creating my own wiki.  I was surprised as to how easy it was to make one.  In the past I have used Wikipedia and found it very useful, even if sometimes coverage of the topic searched left a bit to be desired for. 

Seeing how easily anyone can add content made me wonder about the quality, reliability and accuracy of some wikis.

At the same time I like the one stop shop, where all the information related to a topic is on one point or close on subpages or links.  The fact that is so easy to update might help to keep it relevant and up-to-date.

I can see its uses within the work environment as it promotes collaboration and resource sharing.

First steps

Second task and already doing catch up as I joined at the last minute and could not attend the introductory session held at SKEN.

I have already created my IM account and managed to hold a conversation with Janet. Would like to try having more people on the next one, to check if this is working OK.  I read in the blog of another colleague that some people could not get conversations with a third party.

 I am wondering whether this will be useful in a work context.  It could be used by people on a project, or a course like ourselves. I remember seeing some publicity about distance learning mentioning this facility, to contact the tutors.  Having said that Outlook is also used in the same context, but IM has the advantage of allowing multiple users to attend the same conversation.

Personally I think it can be a bit distracting having IM on while at work, of course this is nothing that a bit of time management can sort.

Hello world!

I am creating this blog as part of my Learning 2.0 course. The course aim is to cover web technologies and allow us some hands on practice in the form of tasks.  I work as a library assistant at St Mary’s campus library, part of Imperial College London.  Ours is a medical library supporting the students and staff of St Mary’s Hospital and other trusts.