Thing 10 -- Wikis

First of all, if you want to see a great short video explaining how a wiki works (mom?) watch this YouTube video by Common Craft. Wish I had thought of this!

I have used and/or started about 4 or 5 wikis in my day and it hasn't really caught on with me as an every day thing or a super useful tool. I think my problem involves the number of people involved. One of the first wikis I was involved with failed because there were only 4 of us, and we communicate very well over email. Another one failed because the purpose was not clear. Another one failed because well, the purpose was also not clear. And if I can complain just a little bit, I have too many passwords, and the wiki ones are frequently forgotten.

I love wikis don't get me wrong. I am determined to make one successful. Success=participation by many folks on an ongoing basis. I also think wikis are hard to customize. You need to know stuff that I don't know yet. I like to make websites so I guess I would rather do that and make it look pretty. But that defeats the wikiness of the whole thing, because then I am the only one who can edit and who wants that? Boring!

Thing 9 -- Online Collaboration Tools

This 'Thing' is all about exploring online collaboration tools such as GoogleDocs and Zoho. We have made use of both in my library so far. We are currently using Zoho Writer to write a script for a library orientation video/slideshow we are producing. We have used GoogleDocs to store presentations to be given off campus. I think I prefer Zoho. It has so many editing tools and I like the tabs at the top that correspond with each document. There are over 18 applications and most of them are free!

I wish I had this in grad school. It would have been so slick for group projects instead of the old fashioned emails going back and forth with highlighted text.

Lazybase

I went back to try Lazybase and the page is working, but I wouldn't say it is working well. There is a script error each time I try to add new information. I don't fully trust that my information will be kept safe. I don't really care if it is not secure, I just don't want it to disappear. I thought this would be a good tool for my library to keep track of stats. We have a big cupboard full or paper that we could get rid of if we electronically recorded our stats every month. What? Excel? Never heard of it.

Thing 8 -- Share Your Creations

I made this slideshow using PictureTrail.
You can increase or decrease gaudiness as you see fit. I could see this service being very helpful for more personal endeavors. I made the slideshow as small as I could but as you can see the right side is cut off. Perhaps another tool such as Slideshare would give me more flexibility and customization.

The photos in the slideshow are different textures that can be found in the library where I work. Do you recognize any?

I really wanted to try out Lazybase (an online database creator) but the page is not loading for me. I will try later.

EFolio is also mentioned in this thing. When Christian was in grad school for education, they had to use this as a resume/cv/portfolio tool. I am not sure if it actually came in handy for him, but it seems like a great idea. Instead of reworking your resume all the time you can just update this. Or maybe you would have to do both?

Someone said...

...that my blog is not really the best in the world because I have not posted in a long time.

To be honest, I got a little tired of 23 Things and have had a lot to do at work with higher priorty.
So I was thinking about what I could do yo make my blog fun and well, the best. So here is a video that I want to share with all of you

Love it!

Thing 7 -- Communication Tools Continued

Text Messages: Had to upgrade to the 400 a month plan. I don't send/receive 400 every month but it is better than paying 5 cents a piece!

Web Conferencing: I was introduced to web conferencing and webinars in my current position. Every time a database gets an upgrade, or we are considering purchasing a new one, we usually participate in an online webinar. Some are good and some are really, really bad. But most of the time they are amusing. For example, during one webinar a participant realized that they could use their mouse to doodle on the shared conference screen (I think this was not supposed happen). I started moving my mouse to see if I could do it too...I could. Other people started doodling too and before we knew it we saw.......b....o....b....a....m....a. Hee hee it was very funny!
Other misadventures have included barking dogs (several), door-to-door salespeople knocking during a presentation and of course, technical difficulties. I think tools like this are saving people time and money. Not as much need for expensive travel to business meetings. With this method, documents and presentations can be shared. Participants can comment and take part, but also be anonymous if they want to be (mute button). I have not participated in an OPAL offered conference yet but it is on my to do list.

Thing 7 -- Communication Tools

Email: Think I got this one down. A lot of our business takes place via email here at the Medical Library. We receive/send literature searches, article requests, questions, automatic updates, professional listservs, class registrations and much more via email. I help a lot of people every day and sometimes I don't even know what they look like because all of our correspondence has been over email. We were actually just talking about email at a meeting this morning. We were trying to think of how we could keep stats on the work we do over email...any ideas?

IM: Never really understood IMing. It seems like email is a fast enough way for me to have an online conversation with someone. It is almost instantaneous, right? In any case, I installed GoogleTalk and then realized I don't have anyone to talk to!!! Lonely. I invited my co-worker to join too. And then we can talk through a wall.

Time to go home, more tomorrow!