Thanks Kathryn

Final post is a BIG THANKS to Kathryn Greenhill our enthusiastic mentor who has let us join and share her journey. Rather than demonstrating and telling us Kathryn created a framework (based on Helene Blowers "23 Things')and then devised activities so we could use and explore each of the applications. Then to create pages on our blogs that we have enjoyed doing - most of us are pretty proud of our blogs. Across the LIbrary staff the depth of understanding of social software has rocketed. What will we do with this knowledge? Use Twitter and Googledocs and wikis and blogs to enhance communication? Has it shifted peoples' mindsets so we will not be so wary of new applications and ways of operating? It's really up to us what we do with the knowledge and way of operating (not forgetting those still to embark on this journey - mentoring roles?)
Murdoch University Library is indeed fortunate to have our Kathryn.

My 23 Things Experience

I was determined to work through all 'Things'. At the outset I was concerned about finding sufficient time to do this and it has proved difficult. It's meant that every activity has been done in a rush but it's been do it like this or not at all. On the positive I have worked through every application and have developed base level competency in each tool I intent to return to many, use more and develop further competence.
I didn't blog much earlier on - didn't get into blogging, however because I had many posts to catch up on I have blogged a lot recently and to my surprise am getting into it (I would never have anticipated this happening. I'm no longer so inhibited about putting down my thoughts. Maybe it became easier to blog when I realised that no one was reading it anyway (everyone is either too busy or too into their own activities to want to). One thing I didn't do was to read others'blogs - at the outset I intended to engage with others' 23 Thing journeys but with no time even to complete my own activities there was no way that I could look at other peoples blogs. The few times I did I couldn't craft a satisfactory comment ('looks great; didn't seem adequate)This was ashame - I plan to read them now. So the whole social interaction didn't really happen through blogs, thouguh I did spend time talking with colleagues and looking at some of their applications/creations.
What will I use - definitely Google reader and RSS; Googledocs; Del.icio.us; my fledgling wiki; flickr/picasa, imersed images.
I must get broadband (at home). Dialup is not a goer with these applications. To really become familiar with these and the ongoing 'Things' I need to be able to 'play' and practice out of work time. What surprised me most was how creative working with most of the applications are. I really enjoyed adding images and dialogue and felt proud of my (amateurish) finished products.

Thing 26: Little bits of the Internet, on your desktop

Widget, widget, who's got the widget?

You will, at

I successfully copied the Twitter widget to logger, however cannot see it??

Widgets interst me - I'm not really clear about how to use them only means you can linkeasily from any page to the tools you want to use. Makes our website seem very staid and static. I think we must investigate how to introduce widgets/search boxes for a whole lot of resources to facilitate access from our users media (Facebook, igoogle, etc)

Slideshare

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Reflection on Best Trained Dog - You're The One That I Want

How easy was that to add this cute video clip to my blog! I still get a buzz from clicking on

Publish Post and View Blog

And then scrolling through my blog to see my new post. This time it was extra exciting - just a click and there's that crazy lady and her dancing dog choreographed to Olivia Newton-John. Amazing!

Dog Training from YouTube

Dog show where dog and owner are moving to 'You're the one that I want' from Grease

Making Hats Wiki

Well I've begun a wiki called MakingHats

Its in a fledgling state at present - though I've added a few images and some links. I'll return to complete my wiki when I have more time.
Earlier in th eyear I made two wikis - one to use when I presented a lecture on Library 2.0 in Information Studies 201/511 (can't find it! grrr. It was very simple and mainly provided a link to my PPT. This meant I didn't have to worry about usb etc. I could link to it in the lecture theatre + give all of the students the link to th ewiki (and PPTs).
My other wiki was less successful - it was for writing a joint conference paper - we found editing a bit tricky and in the end resorted to emailing one another versions (not good). I think in future I would use Google Docs.

My friend Ziggy

This is my friend Ziggy at Short Beach (Bremer Bay)...he really wants that ball

it is good to be able to personalise my blog entries and not hard. Again I am surprised by the ease of creating a product that while still amateur is quite engaging. This ease must raise the bar on expectations or our students. What we offer on web pages and in info literacy sessions has to have at least this (basic) level of engagement doesn't it?

Flickr

Earlier this year I added some photos to Flickr.These were taken during the summer at beautiful Bremer Bay on the south cost. I will link to a few

Ziggy chases waves on Short Beach after the big January storm. The surf was really high and much of the beach eroded. It was pretty exciting running down to those receding waves.


It's taken me a few attempts to add the link to my photos on Flickr. Hope this works. I'll try and add some more photos on my next post.

I've just viewed this post and successfully linked to the Ziggy photo on Flickr - of course I don't need to post links to my other 9 Bremer photos on Flickr - they are already there for scrolling through. I love Flickr. Though would probably use the Google product Picassa because it's part of the google suite.

Del.icio.us Lives Up To Its Name

The Firefox add ons to get back to My Del.icio.us and to easily tag sites make it quick to build up tags. I am interested in making vintage hats (odd for a dog but there you go). I've found some essential looking sites and immediately tagged them (sorry was too enthused to tag 23 Things).

Generating an Image...Reflections on 23 Things

Being time poor for Thing 14 I quickly selected a dog image (Lassie sprang to mind)and within 5 minutes here is Jago's friend sitting in my blog! This phenomena does describe my progress so far - I never cease being surprised at what I can do; it's all incredibly satisfying and creative (especially for someone like me who lacks artistic skills). I can devise quite an attractive product which presents information in an appealing way. Good grief if I can do this so easily (must admit I am aware that I am completing these tasks in a superficial way - just skating the surface of what could be done...again it's th etime factor). At least I know what is possible and I will use many - Google Docs I love; generating images - what potential for creating cute communications (well....at least I'll enjoy creating them)

Lassie Image

Google Docs

Today I created a rather scrappy document using Google Docs. I used Google Maps to 'find' the Blue Duck cafe in Cottesloe - we're heading there this evening for the Library Christmas 'do'. Shared my document with Ross and then discovered I could publish with a URL or post the document to my blog! Learning that it's so easy to produce and publish.

Many weeks later

Only my second post though I have completed a few 'Things'. I had anticipated that finding time to work on each task may be a problem and this has turned out to be the case. Spose it didn't help being on leave for 4 weeks during most of October; I had completed Things 1 - 7 before going on leave though hadn't found time to blog about them. Since returning I've done a few more - FAcebook and Twitter but still have 'catch ups ...lots

First post...some goals

Well here goes...my first post. Not being a blogger this is a bit hard but I suppose you get used to it judging on all those millions of compositions out there in blogspace. My immediate learning goals are to become competent with these new tools and to really try to engage with everyone in our shared journey. Along the way I hope to develop sufficient confidence so I can easily blog my reflections (eek). Obstacles will be finding time and also going on leave for three weeks from 4 October. I hope to keep up.