First, I have to follow up on my last post about Delicious. In the "I have to see somebody doing something before I realize its usefulness" department: just after that post, I went to a meeting of local library colleagues. One of them is developing library subject guides using LibGuides, a newish tool for developing library subject guides (that I wish we'd look at.) In his subject pages, he's using Delicious tag clouds to provide links to useful websites by subtopic (it's not live yet, so I can't link to it.) Now this is an application that makes sense to me. I do have a couple of reservations - I'm not sure I want the "group mind" to prioritize recommended websites (although I'm interested in trying it out), and I don't have too many guides where "websites" is a category. I tend to group things by content (industry overviews, demographics, etc.) But it's an intriguing idea.
Twitter. You know, I'm just not a Twitter person. Maybe if I had more current mobile technology, and/or were online more. I don't have the dexterity to text on my cell phone to begin with (not to mention trying to read the small display.) I don't have an iPhone, or a BlackBerry. My cell phone is a Nokia, no camera, with a font that's about two sizes too small for my eyes. I can't remember where the backspace key is. Maybe this sounds lame, like I'm some klutzy antique who just can't figure things out. But it seems to me than some responsibility for usable interfaces falls on the designers of these technologies, and why do I keep hearing stories about people who hate their cell phones.
I'm not going to do mobile twittering. I could do email, but I'm still a day behind on my recent work email (the price of taking a real day off), and I'm three days behind on my personal email. Doggone it, it's the gardening season! I've been in the garden, not online!
I've looked at some of the Twitter options, and examples. I like the idea of Twilert, that gets you updates on product availability. I can think of several times recently I could have used that (I wonder if I could get to a store in time to get an item before it's sold out?) And TwitterSnooze, which lets you "hit the snooze button on your verbose Twitter friends" (I could something like that in Facebook.) So I'm at the Denial/Presence, "I don't get it, but I have an account" stage of Twitter. What do I think Twitter is? I think it's a scene from the radio play "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy," where our hero Arthur Dent is vainly trying to communicate something, and no one quite gets what he's saying.
But one thing I can say about these last several weeks of looking at new tools: sometimes the "killer application" has to hit me on the head, by seeing somebody else do it, or by letting it percolate in the back of my head until the connections are made. Sometimes I really do Get It.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thing 28: Customized Home Pages
Before I blog about today's topic, I have a Twitter addendum. After I logged off the other day, I listed to more news on the radio about the flu outbreak. A reported noted that MANY people were following the government's public health presence on Twitter, to keep up with the latest information. So for many folks, Twitter is becoming what the radio (or television news) has been for past generations: a way to get current, reliable information where they are. Since I'm not "there" in Twitter very often, no wonder I don't get it!
On to Thing 28, customizing a home page. This covers iGoogle, PageFlakes, My Yahoo!, and other productivity tools. I looked back in my blog, and we first focused on this in Thing 13. I looked at the three, and liked PageFlakes the best, so I opened it up. (I discussed in my earlier post what I liked about PageFlakes over the others, but basically it could tell the difference between St. Paul and Minneapolis, and displayed better.) It took me a minute to remember how to navigate, but it was pretty easy. Had to add that Facebook widget right away! I would like to get more on top of podcasts, but I need to learn more about the relationship between my home laptop, iTunes, and podcasts before I get started. I think I'd like to dink around with it a bit more, but I'm going to do some blogging before fun. ;^)
But wait - this is interesting. I looked at the link to the blog post about PageFlakes, and discovered that there's a teacher edition of PageFlakes that can be customized for educators. How cool is that! I like what's in the example - a to-do list, research link (Google, Google, always Google - funny how it isn't "Link to My Library"), educational bookmarks, etc. When you have your "work" hat on, this makes more sense that all of the entertainment widgets in the regular PageFlakes (I'm not that much into modern entertainment.) I want to look at this more later.
On portals and customized pages: we have been talking at my institution about personalized library experiences for a long time. We'd look around the web and see it done at other institutions; why not here? Either our IT folks didn't get it (for the library experience), or we didn't have the software tools we needed to make it happen, but we made little progress until just recently. This semester the university did a beta trial of a student portal, and over Easter break it was opened up to all students. The library had been consulted on our presence last year, and the subject librarians ranked databases and other content that students could pick. Then, as it came closer to going live, it sounded like we wouldn't have access to it right away (we weren't students, after all!) So our library tech folks made the case that we couldn't help students with library-related portal questions if we couldn't see what they were looking at, so we were given accounts. And I think we're using Google Analytics to get some good data on use. I don't have a good impression yet on how it's going over with students, but I think they'll be comfortable with using it.
Portals for library staff? I think I've pondered in other posts about coming up with a go-to place for my colleagues. We've had Outlook Public Folders, shared network folders, a commercial wiki, a staff presence in the Blackboard course management system. Now we're beginning to talk about Sharepoint, and our tech students are using it already. We need something to get people into the same shared space, which is something of an uphill battle (not all staff seem to be OK with email, for that matter.) We need some big nudges.
On to Thing 28, customizing a home page. This covers iGoogle, PageFlakes, My Yahoo!, and other productivity tools. I looked back in my blog, and we first focused on this in Thing 13. I looked at the three, and liked PageFlakes the best, so I opened it up. (I discussed in my earlier post what I liked about PageFlakes over the others, but basically it could tell the difference between St. Paul and Minneapolis, and displayed better.) It took me a minute to remember how to navigate, but it was pretty easy. Had to add that Facebook widget right away! I would like to get more on top of podcasts, but I need to learn more about the relationship between my home laptop, iTunes, and podcasts before I get started. I think I'd like to dink around with it a bit more, but I'm going to do some blogging before fun. ;^)
But wait - this is interesting. I looked at the link to the blog post about PageFlakes, and discovered that there's a teacher edition of PageFlakes that can be customized for educators. How cool is that! I like what's in the example - a to-do list, research link (Google, Google, always Google - funny how it isn't "Link to My Library"), educational bookmarks, etc. When you have your "work" hat on, this makes more sense that all of the entertainment widgets in the regular PageFlakes (I'm not that much into modern entertainment.) I want to look at this more later.
On portals and customized pages: we have been talking at my institution about personalized library experiences for a long time. We'd look around the web and see it done at other institutions; why not here? Either our IT folks didn't get it (for the library experience), or we didn't have the software tools we needed to make it happen, but we made little progress until just recently. This semester the university did a beta trial of a student portal, and over Easter break it was opened up to all students. The library had been consulted on our presence last year, and the subject librarians ranked databases and other content that students could pick. Then, as it came closer to going live, it sounded like we wouldn't have access to it right away (we weren't students, after all!) So our library tech folks made the case that we couldn't help students with library-related portal questions if we couldn't see what they were looking at, so we were given accounts. And I think we're using Google Analytics to get some good data on use. I don't have a good impression yet on how it's going over with students, but I think they'll be comfortable with using it.
Portals for library staff? I think I've pondered in other posts about coming up with a go-to place for my colleagues. We've had Outlook Public Folders, shared network folders, a commercial wiki, a staff presence in the Blackboard course management system. Now we're beginning to talk about Sharepoint, and our tech students are using it already. We need something to get people into the same shared space, which is something of an uphill battle (not all staff seem to be OK with email, for that matter.) We need some big nudges.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
More Things: Thing 27
Thing 27 is Twitter. I have heard a lot about Twitter for at least a year. We watched a YouTube video on it at home a few weeks ago, spoofing it and the "Fail Whale." I admit to being one of the ones who so far doesn't "get it." Who wants to know what I'm doing in odd minutes of the day? It sounds to me like a cross of Marshall McLuhan (everyone's famous, for 15 minutes) and Dickens/stream of consciousness narration (BTW, I really dislike novels written in the present tense. Seems to be a recent trend in literature, and it just rubs me the wrong way.)
So I got on to Twitter yesterday, and tried to find some people/personalities to follow. I searched for a friend that I know is on Twitter. I searched by her professional name. Searched her married name. Searched several combinations - no luck. I am not impressed with the searching on Twitter. Signed up to follow a writer I've heard of, a public radio reporter I've heard of, my library. Also Weird Al Yankovic and the More Things feed. This morning I found my friend (firstnamelastname all squished together), and am following her. Big whup. For the benefit of my one follower (so far), my Twitter username is mdhageman.
Our library just started using Twitter a few weeks ago, I believe (I happened to see this in some meeting minutes, I don't it was announced widely.) They're thinking of using it as a "here's what's going on" notification - "cookies in the library have arrived!" Since we sometimes have food left over after events, they could tweet about that - could have tweeted about activities during the recent Library Week. The trick is that I've read recently that college students are underwhelmed with Twitter - I'm not sure are students are there. We'll see.
I really don't think Twitter is my thing (until they improve the searching, at least.) I like the social networking features of Facebook (and similar sites) that make it easier to find people you know, or are interested in, and have more of a context (here are their photos, here are groups they've joined, etc.) And Facebook changed their status field to say "What are you doing?" - just like Twitter.
I have to admit this is difficult as I listen to more news about the swine flu; it sounds like the first case may have come to Minnesota. Stay healthy, follow common sense. And wash your hands.
So I got on to Twitter yesterday, and tried to find some people/personalities to follow. I searched for a friend that I know is on Twitter. I searched by her professional name. Searched her married name. Searched several combinations - no luck. I am not impressed with the searching on Twitter. Signed up to follow a writer I've heard of, a public radio reporter I've heard of, my library. Also Weird Al Yankovic and the More Things feed. This morning I found my friend (firstnamelastname all squished together), and am following her. Big whup. For the benefit of my one follower (so far), my Twitter username is mdhageman.
Our library just started using Twitter a few weeks ago, I believe (I happened to see this in some meeting minutes, I don't it was announced widely.) They're thinking of using it as a "here's what's going on" notification - "cookies in the library have arrived!" Since we sometimes have food left over after events, they could tweet about that - could have tweeted about activities during the recent Library Week. The trick is that I've read recently that college students are underwhelmed with Twitter - I'm not sure are students are there. We'll see.
I really don't think Twitter is my thing (until they improve the searching, at least.) I like the social networking features of Facebook (and similar sites) that make it easier to find people you know, or are interested in, and have more of a context (here are their photos, here are groups they've joined, etc.) And Facebook changed their status field to say "What are you doing?" - just like Twitter.
I have to admit this is difficult as I listen to more news about the swine flu; it sounds like the first case may have come to Minnesota. Stay healthy, follow common sense. And wash your hands.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
