Week 6 - Chat

I do participate in LRC Live Chat at work.  It is a really nice resource for the students to get instant help.  Well....when it works.  There are a lot of variables such as the type of browser the student is using and their connectivity.  I really wish I could get the co-browse function to work.  It would make it much easier to explain the steps I am taking.  I guess we always have the option of emailing the student tutorial created with jing.  I have not yet done this and am hoping this 23 things experiment will teach me how to create these tutorials.  I have used the chat function on  Facebook.  Simple, quick and easy. 

Week 5 - Wikis

I really like the wiki for Library Success.  It gives a good description about what the wiki is about and how to participate.  The rest is broken down into categories.  The Antioch wiki has categories, but too many.   They should have broad categories that you can select and then see all the subtopics.  It looks too cluttered. The ads on the UL Cataloger's wiki were distracting. 

I like the idea of the Book Lover's wiki.  I wonder if we could get students to participate.  Maybe I could work with some of the English faculty to see if they would make that an assignment. I also like their navigator widget on the right hand side.  It might be a nice way to show students other ways to use a wiki and that you can allow only certain people to edit the wiki.  The first page needs to be appealing with an obvious tool to navigate the rest of the site.  I probably should be using more pictures, graphics to make this blog a little more appealing :)

My college is currently using wikis for some faculty learning communities.  It is a nice way for all members to participate and show contributions.

Week 3 -- Social Networks

I have been on social networking sites for about 3 years now.  I tried MySpace but didn't like it and rarely ever use it anymore.  I have found Facebook to be a better site.  I have moved a lot over the past 10 years and it has allowed me to keep in touch with old friends.  I do not have personal information posted and keep the privacy settings pretty tight.  I don't post a lot but will send friends private messages instead.  I really don't understand the need to tell everyone what I am doing at every minute.  Doesn't that take away from enjoying the moment?

I don't think that I will create a social networking site for the library.  I am a fan of my graduate college library facebook page but never seem to look at it, now or then.  I think that these sites are meant to social, that's why they are called social networking.  I don't think students want us in those spaces. I could be wrong so I am monitoring some other college facebook pages to see how they progress.  If I see that it is working and merits staff time, then I could decide to create a page.

I did create a profile on Linked In but have not followed up with that either.  Maybe it's just because I am actually happy at my current job (imagine that) and do not have plans of moving on. What do you think?  Do you have a Linked In profile?  Has it helped you advance in your career?

Week 2 -- RSS

So I am finally working on Week 2.  I am setting up rss feeds for my Google reader.  I am trying to get back into photography so I decided to sign up for different photography feeds.  From the Your Stuff section, you can browse or search for feeds.  I was able to find lots of feeds for photography, tips and techniques, and cameras.  I subscribed to 3 photography feeds, 1 from the U.S. Copyright Office, and attempted to subscribe to the journal Camera Obscura through Academic Search Complete.  I will let you know if the Ebsco feed works.