Relevance to me as a future information professional

I approached each week’s technology focus with an open mind, and this meant that I did not limit my use or understanding of the applications in terms of library and non-library suitability. However, after exploring the features of many web 2.0 technologies I did engage in research about how the main ‘category’ of technology could be used (e.g. social networking and bookmarking). Most are used socially as well as for scholarly purposes, but not everything that can be used in a library context must be to do with books or educational materials. I enjoyed the flexibility and creativity with which information professionals can incorporate wikis or blogs into their service portfolios, and use social networking sites to maintain and promote library services online.

The web 2.0 applications that have been of particular professional relevance to me are:

• RSS feeds (learning to make a blog or post available for subscription, subscribing to feeds)
• Blogs and wikis (ways to update information and have a current presence, or create a group forum for working on a project)
• Social bookmarking (being able to tag and share recommendations)
• YouTube videos (there are so many explanatory resources online about computing topics)
• Maps and mashups (locating library facilities and creating resources online; also making a mashup by drawing on data from external sources to enrich services)

I also found it beneficial to learn about and ‘play’ with sites like Twitter. Even though I, personally, cannot see the relevance of this social ‘updating’ site to library context. It was interesting to discuss issues like this with my blogging group, as well as seeking other perspectives from professional literature.

This assignment has increased my confidence when it comes to technology. I have to admit that I thought I was technologically incompetent, and had to overcome personal barriers in order to freely explore and experiment without holding myself back. It would be wonderful if this assessment task could be continued in the future, as it seemed to help us to define and work within the transformative space between ‘student’ and ‘information professional’. There is still much to learn, but I am further along that journey than six weeks ago. It also helped me to build on my collaborative skills. The girls in my group and I assisted each other with understanding and using the different web 2.0 technologies. An example was how my recent post helped Katie, in particular, to consolidate her idea of what a mashup is through looking at examples.

Evaluating the experience

From my perspective, this assignment has been both challenging and immensely rewarding. I have to say, that I knew almost nothing about any of the technologies that I have learnt to use/navigate through the web 2.0 tutorial. I initially felt that it was too much, too fast and that we were thrown into the deep end. I struggled throughout the assignment in terms of having to spend a lot of time understanding, using and then blogging about my experiences with the technology. In regard to the learning outcomes of this assignment, I believe it was a success in terms of my ongoing and self-directed learning of new technologies and skills.

The small tasks each week were an excellent way to learn. I felt that each week’s tutorial task had just the right amount of content (theory), and guidance (the suggestions for what to blog about). The only downside that my entire tutorial class found was the intensity of the web 2.0 tutorial in conjunction with the other course-related work. The workload became difficult to manage because we did not finish all of the tutorial tasks in class. This meant that we had to catch up with these tasks, stay up to date with readings, while maintaining our progress through web 2.0.

Possible improvements that could facilitate better learning outcomes for next year’s students would depend on whether the course co-ordinators would prefer depth and breadth, or a more broad and superficial focus on current technologies. The assignment effectively engaged us in contemporary technologies through the weekly tasks, but the time constraints have meant that my understanding and ability is at an introductory (low/medium) level rather than a high level of skill. Basically, if students are expected to demonstrate a higher level of skill and understanding than we have (collectively) shown – changes should be made to the work load of the course so that the tutorial tasks and web 2.0 assignment clash less in the early stages of the semester. Similarly, focusing on fewer technologies in greater depth could assist students in learning at a deeper level.

Thinking in terms of assessment

We have been advised to look at the assessment criteria for our blog assignments in order to reflect on our own learning. I would say that our group has fulfilled the collaborative and interactive elements of this assignment almost without thinking about them. Personally, I have read each post contributed by the members of my buddy group, and tried to comment on those where my feedback could be helpful or relevant. I only commented and interacted on the blogs of my buddy group, but I did discuss issues with people from other blogging groups and view their blogs through the ‘student blogs’ part of the Blackboard site. As a group, our communication was both positive and constructive. For example, the latest entries on the topic of mashups illustrate how we have engaged in online discussions, suggested resources from individual research on the subject, and presented our own ideas (attempting to synthesise definitions) in order to improve our collective understanding of what has been confusing us.

I found that my group fostered a productive and supportive atmosphere which encouraged experimentation. This factored into my own willingness to persist with tasks that seemed daunting or difficult (e.g. Google Maps and social bookmarking difficulties). Whenever I encountered a problem I would research and test solutions, either by using the internet or in the case of my delicious difficulties (with the add-ons on my IE7 browser) contacting the site itself. Other people would comment on my posts and advise possible solutions to my problems, and relate their own experiences with the technology/software. This was a mutual process that my group members and I would engage in – try, try again, blog about it, get advice, keep on trying…evaluate the problem and/or the usefulness of the application.

Since all of the technologies and applications we have been introduced to through the web 2.0 tutorial have been unfamiliar (and some…darn intimidating!), my focus has been on understanding first and applicability second. This was necessary for me, as I could not discuss the potential value of these technologies in a library context without adequately understanding the functions and features of each application. This assignment aimed to equip us with the knowledge and skills to be better information professionals, and I feel I am in an improved position to suggest possible resources in a library and help users of the resources to try and problem-solve their difficulties. On a personal level, this has been a fantastic confidence building experience for me. Despite only briefly exploring these new technologies, I feel like I know ‘what is happening’ in the web 2.0 environment. I did not even know what web 2.0 was before I started.

My blog has, seemingly, become organic in the way it has changed and developed through what I have been learning. You probably cannot see all the ways I have grown in my knowledge – I know I still have a long way to go – but I have become far more tolerant of myself experimenting and making mistakes. This is a far more forgiving medium for learning than prescriptive exercises from a textbook, as each person can work at their own pace and choose from a variety of options within a task.

An unfinished journey…initial reflections

I have been thinking about how I could encapsulate all that I have learnt about web 2.0 technologies into one final blog entry. However, I do not believe that this is the intention of the final blog reflective task. For me, this has been a personal journey of discovery that will not end with a mark being given to me for my blog at the end of this assignment. I will continue to learn and grow in my skills-base as an information professional long after this course is over.

I feel that doing this task through the medium of a blog established a platform upon which to build a familiarity with contemporary web 2.0 technologies and applications. For example, through personalising and managing my blog I learnt how to:

-manage privacy settings, time settings, choose basic layouts, and become a follower of my buddies’ blogs

-add gadgets to give my readers access to other information that would enhance their experience when reading my blog (e.g. RSS feeds from library blogs through the ‘blog list’, subscription to YouTube Lee Lefever’s channel, etc)

-use Google Reader (as Blogger is part of the Google network of applications) and share items on my blog, subscribe to my buddies’ blogs and receive updates from other library/technology blogs and websites.

I found the social interactivity of this group assignment to be invaluable to my learning process. I would not have made half of the progress in my individual learning if my buddies had not been there to explain, give technical advice or simply to understand my frustrations. I still feel like a novice when it comes to this technology, and most of the applications we have been exposed to will require a lot more time to learn and actually apply to a library setting.

All mashed up...

It seems that mashups are our confused tech. topic of the week. I thought that I would try to find some information about them by seeking to answer a few key questions.

What is a mashup? What is its purpose?

'A mashup is a web application that combines data from multiple external sources' (from the web 2.0 online tutorial: Week 6A task)

'Mashups are an exciting genre of interactive Web applications that draw upon content retrieved from external data sources to create entirely new and innovative services.' (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-mashups.html)

Mashups seem to be created in order to fulfil a need (see examples), and combine data sources in new and innovative ways to make information more accessible and convenient for users. The data or content for these mashups can be in the form of RSS Feeds, which are like what we subscribe to on Google reader, and similar applications.

What are some examples of mashups?
http://www.programmableweb.com/ Search this site for mashups. It also has a mashup of the day, as well as information about the new mashups that have been put on the web.

In the YouTube video that I have embedded below, the video's creator explains in simple (Loretta-friendly) language about what a mashup is - and he gives examples! I have listed a few of the examples that are mentioned in the video (with links), in case you are interested.

• AnthemsOnMap
• Map your buddies (a mashup of Facebook, Google Maps and Amazon)
• Twittervision 3D
• Cloudme.com (searches Yahoo, Flickr and YouTube by using these three APIs at once)
• Tuneglue (very cool, creates a sort of visual web of music and similar artists)
• VDiddy (combines many APIs)
• Yahoo v Google (compares the results of both search engines, leaving you to take the best ones)
  
  
  

As he says in the video, mashups utilise the functionality of other APIs, and lots of these mashups seem to be map-based in their core concepts. Mashups ( to be legitimately considered a mashup) should have more than one API involved.

I hope this has helped everyone, it certainly clarified my understanding of mashups.

YouTube delight

I am very surprised how I have taken to YouTube as a website! I always avoided it because I thought its main demographic was teenage boys who wanted to share random videos about themselves (remember that boy who wanted people to "LEAVE Britney alone!"). But YouTube has become a favourite site of mine, and I really like having my own account. It lets me share videos with friends through my inbox, save videos to my favourites when I view them, subscribe to different channels and have videos recommended to me based on my predilections (on the customised homepage). This morning I discovered two new things:

1) I can create a playlist (which I made into a Library and Technology videos playlist) and move videos there from my favourites, or save a video I like straight into it after viewing. That is, as long as I am logged in to my account at the time.

2) I saw on my home page a link to YouTube Edu. This is fantastic because it lets you search the videos and channels from colleges and universities affiliated with YouTube. They had some interesting lectures on web 2.0 and libraries. Check it out if you're interested (they are a little too long to embed, they would slow the blog down...).

Below is a mocumentary about a (fake) application called Flutter, it really shows that people are thinking and talking so much about the possibilities of Twitter that the mocking inevitably follows! Seriously, though, it shows that the possible advantages of a new technology need to be balanced with the possible downsides of using it (suitability and purpose). I know that we blogged about whether twitter could truly be useful for libraries or whether this is just trying to adopt a new fad. The jury is still out on that one, in my opinion.

You inspire me too!

I decided to re-examine the template, layout and style options for my blog, as everybody this week seems to be getting a new cyber-look! I perused the available templates, but I quite like this green version of the tick tack template that I currently have. Instead, I changed some of the font colours of the headings and post titles. It's a subtle change, but it adds a little colour where there was grey.

A bit of a shout-out of appreciation: thanks for always sharing your ideas, tips and strategies for getting through both the content and the blog set-up of this course. It's been invaluable to me and I appreciate that everyone is always so open-minded and helpful. Almost a shame that this assignment will be over soon...well, maybe :-)

Trouble using delicious browser buttons

I know it's off the topic for this week, but I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me in regards to my trouble using delicious. I (finally) got access to broadband from home. Yay! But, I have been trying to save bookmarks using the tag icon on the internet explorer toolbar I downloaded from delicious and it keeps needing me to type in my password and log in each time. I don't mean to be showing techno-rage here, but it has the temerity to display on the screen 'saving bookmarks would be much easier with delicious browser icons'!!!

Please let me know how you would go about sovling this problem. I have even tried downloading the toolbar again. No change.

Thanks.

Mashups: Helpful videos and a mashup I use

I found two YouTube videos which helped me to further understand what mashups and APIs are: the first has a lot of technical language (which went a bit over my head) but it illustrates how the people who use APIs for data exchange with other sites (like Amazon.com and YouTube) can use this to make money from people who use these applications (e.g. a search) through their site.



The second video is from YouTube itself, and shows the viewer how to create data and player APIs on your website. It turns out that the video bar added to my site is a type of data API! Another type of data API would be having a search function for YouTube videos on your site, or a way to upload data from your site to YouTube. I used the player API function to make the ‘skin’ of the player match the green colour scheme of my blog.



According to Programmable Web I already use a mashup in the form of my Facebook profile. This mashup has become very useful to me because I can link to my favourite YouTube videos through the ‘box’ I recently created on my profile, and I am discovering many other ways to add data to my profile from external sources. The Programmable Web article http://www.programmableweb.com/api/facebook/mashups has a list of the applications available through Facebook which can be added on to your profile page, and thus create a mashup. I searched through the applications available from my own account on Facebook and even found one called ‘flickr2facebook’ which is a bookmarklet that can add a Flickr photo straight into your Facebook album. I think that mashups are valuable tools for web users because it makes data available to access in one place, even if the data is from multiple sources.

Mashups… another unknown

I did find the articles about mashups to be very technical, but my basic understanding is that a mashup is a website that draws on lots of different types of web content (e.g. pictures from Flickr or videos from YouTube, etc). These require APIs, which are Application Programming Interfaces that are “a set of functions that can be called from an application program to access features of another program” (http://www.gravityfree.com/resources/glossary.cfm). From reading the articles on Blackboard, I would agree that APIs are complicated and require a high degree of technical knowledge to work with. When trying to find some examples of APIs that I could relate to, I discovered the Twitter API is one of the most popular APIs used on the web today. Here is the link to the Programmable Web article on this topic. It includes some information on the latest Twitter applications – you’d appreciate this Amy! Check out Cursebird: Real-time feed of people swearing on Twitter.

http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/02/19/120-twitter-mashups-and-growing-fast/

Apparently social networking sites have led to the development of interesting mashups because people integrate pictures, videos and RSS feeds (among other data sources) into their personal pages. Do you think this shows that people are creating mashups almost without thinking about it, as sites are providing ways of doing this without needing expertise?

I took a look at http://www.gurulib.com/, but I could only gain access to the small portion of public data (without having created an account). It has images of book covers, ads/links to Amzon.com to buy books, links to ‘read a sample’ of a particular book as an e-book, as well as profile pages for members with links to Facebook applications, etc. I am unsure how to figure out ‘where the data is coming from’ as this week’s task asks. But, I would say that integrating the (above) listed data from external sites makes it a mashup. What do you think?

Going further with Google Maps

I went to this Google Maps help site because I wanted to know how to add pictures into my placemarker description. I then typed in the following instruction in HTML language, I was so proud of myself! I actually applied what we learnt in this week’s tutorial, and it worked. (PS: I included the actual command here, but clicking 'publish post' meant that it turned into the actual picture - even though I wrote the command in 'compose' view).



I added pictures of the destinations onto Zagreb, Paris, Niagra Falls (Canada) and Las Vegas. I also experimented with the order of height and width in the HTML language, and discovered that it does not work if you put height before width. Strange, order really is important. I liked the freedom of being able to decide with a few key strokes how big the pictures would appear.

I also found out how to embed a YouTube video into a placemark description. You are meant to paste the 'embed' link into the Edit HTML part of the description box. However, I did this in the Miami description box and it the video kept disappearing when I would try to go out and view the map again (even though I saved it and everything). I have added the URL into the rich text on my map, so you can paste it into your browser and view The Golden Girls clip. If anyone finds out how to embed a video and make it stay there, please let me know.

My Dream holiday desti­natio­ns! map is embedded below. Fingers crossed it will stay there!

View Larger Map

The link to the URL of my map is this http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100839570829396594239.0004668831d927f190d1e&z=2, in case you can't quite click on everything in the embedded map.

Problem solving with the Google Maps task

Ahh, I found out how to get the icons for markers and lines back! It turns out that you have to be in edit mode in order to do anything. It seems simple enough…now.

It also turns out that you just have to be in edit mode in order to drag your placemarks around, too! I feel a little daft, but I’m learning!

I keep, though, encountering problems when I try to draw a line. It keeps ‘grabbing’ my map with the hand and not drawing anything, even thought I have clearly selected this option and the screen is displaying the prompt ‘click to draw a line’.

I did, however, find an easier way to placemark destinations. I searched the name of places, such as Paris in France and then clicked on the option ‘save to my maps’ and this placemark (now) accurately shows the location of this city on my map.

Taking a look at the Google Maps task

I was a bit overwhelmed by this week’s task, as I have only perused Google Maps twice (ever!) and one of those times was in our other course this semester. So, understandably I was daunted. I fount the tutorials on the Google Maps site to be quite helpful, even if they were not entirely related to what we are doing this week, I certainly found them to be comforting.

I changed the Privacy and Sharing settings from public to private, as I would prefer to keep this map between me and people who read my blog (not the whole world). I am glad that Google always gives 'privacy setting' options is easily accessible places, as this enables users to customise the features of their applications (be it blogger or maps, etc).

I found a small ‘box’ in the lower right hand corner of my Google map screen, and this helped me to change the location being displayed from Australia to Europe for my first lot of placemarkers. I was able to place a marker in Croatia, but it did not zoom in like it does on places in Victoria. I could only find a way to placemark the entire country, and then write the places I would visit in the position description. This would not be helpful if I was actually trying to plan a route on a real holiday. I am frustrated. I wonder why this happened. If anyone finds a different way to do this, please let me know. Now the locations are showing up. This is after I refreshed and logged in again. However, I am wondering how to move a placemarker I have set. Now the Croatia one seems to be in the wrong place. Oh well, it is kind of close to Zagreb! I will try to place them more accurately from now on. Now my icons for drawing lines and creating placemarkers seem to have disappeared!

I will come back and attempt this later. Arrggh!