Category: LIBR559M

Posts specific to the course requirements for LIBR 559M.

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LIBR559M LIBR562

Back to the Future! or I needed a break.

So, this will be my first post since I completed my Social Media class this summer. It has been a while. In fact it has been a month. I needed the break. Now I return, fresh, interested, enthused, and enrolled in new classes. Of course new classes also encourage reflections on past courses so before I move forward, how about a quick look back.

I spent a large portion of time during my six weeks of two online classes griping about how horrible condensed, online classes are. Case in point is my “How do they do it” post. I even wrote Vista a breakup letter on facebook after officially finishing my last bit of my last online course. (Unfortunately, every course in my program is supposed to make some use of the online learning portal, but it’s more like still having to see the ex occasionally because you still share the same friends.)

But now that I have some distance I would like to mention a few things I found I liked about online classes, and what works well in online classes.

Things I liked:

  • Allowed me to make my own schedule.
  • Forced me to make a regular daily work schedule and stick to it. I am now much better at doing work a bit every day, whether I have to or not.
  • Gave me some flexibility as to where I could do my work, as long as I had wifi, decent workstation, and limited sun glare.
  • Used many types of media including journal articles, news articles, websites, videos, recorded interviews, recorded presentations.
  • Made me use and understand many different online tools.
Things that worked well:
Here are a few things my professors have implemented in online classes that I found effective.
  • Study buddies: Sounds funny, I know, but having a study partner throughout the entire course was really helpful. We could split up the work and pool resources to make the weekly work more manageable. We could get together to complain and sympathize about the course (sometimes just knowing some else is in the same boat makes a huge difference). We knew someone was there and this really went far to combat the isolating nature of online classes.
  • Assigned discussion posts: One of my instructors assigned a small group of students to each discussion topic every week. This meant that instead of having to post to every discussion, I only had to post to the few I was assigned and just read the rest. This took the pressure off discussions somewhat. It is more realistic as well. In a class of 40 students, does everyone pipe up and talk on every topic? Nope.
  • Clear, detailed course schedule: Students want to know what they have to do when. Beyond our anxiety prone natures, we are balancing more than one class and have to plan and schedule accordingly. This applies to in-person and online classes.
  • Making use of all the functionality of an online portal: Slide shows, recorded presentations, links to resources (if possible), quick feedback, and more! There is a wealth of information and a myriad of ways it is presented. All this selection can accommodate way more learning styles and aid retention.
  • Making a space for students to communicate outside teacher supervision: Teachers talk about students in staff meetings and the staff room. Students need somewhere to talk about teachers and the courses outside of instructors’ hearing. For an online course, this means some sort of online space. Trust me, if anything, this will make happier students, not a mutiny.
These are some of the positives of online classes. The only plus of online condensed classes: it’s a short stint in hell, you only have to survive six weeks. I will not take another online condensed class unless I have no other option and it will have to be a pretty interesting course for me to take a regular online one. Despite the positive aspects, I think I’ve done my time.
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LIBR559M

Aggregators Part two: Netvibes or Engage!

Finally, the long awaited sequel to my post on aggregators!

So the second aggregator I tried was Netvibes. Netvibes is a web application with customizable widgets for users to gather all their social media together into a “Dashboard” or homepage. From their webpage:

“Get your own personal dashboard to monitor all your favorite blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and all of your favorite interests. Just type in a topic and get your free personal dashboard now.”

They also offer some pre-designed dashboards built around particular interests. There is a personal and a business version of the application, the personal version is completely free. Kansas State University professor Dr. Michael Wesch uses Netvibes as an interactive teaching tool to engage his students, educate them with and about new web tools and social media applications, and have them collaborate on a variety of projects.

I spent over two hours customizing my dashboard, but I have to admit a lot of that was due to me trying to decide what theme I wanted for my title bar and background. I have two pages, the main dashboard and then one just for academic/ work. Finding and adding widgets was simple and intuitive. There are lots of options and you can add almost all common social media feeds and applications.  So far I haven’t found something I wanted to add but couldn’t.

Here are my two pages:

 

I have been using my Netvibes dashboard (which I titled “Engage”) as my homepage for a week and a half now. I have had to make an adjustment to my normal routine when I sit down to my computer and open my browser, but I am enjoying it. It does the one main thing I really wanted which is it has on one page all the sites I check regularly and it tells me when they’re updated. I can read my RSS feeds within the dashboard, or go to the site which is nice. Most of the time I still click through to the main website to read the updates.

So far my only real problem with my netvibes site is that there is no help section for when I’m having trouble with a widget. I haven’t managed to get my gmail calendar widget to update yet and Netvibes has no support to help me figure out what is wrong.

I can definitely see using this type of application to create a class or office homepage. I think it has a lot of possibility and it doesn’t take too much time to set up (if you don’t fiddle with colours for hours). Keep in mind though, it is more of a portal rather than a one stop shop. It is aptly named a dashboard. It will help you get you where you want to go, and hopefully do it faster and with less distractions along the way.

Engage will be my homepage for a while longer.

 

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LIBR559M

Aggregators: Worth the Time? or A comparison of Symbaloo and Netvibes, Part 1

What are aggregators? They are not domesticated alligators used in “back to nature” agricultural programs. They are applications and tools that allow a user to collect information from disparate sources and present it in one place. My colleges Alison Dodd and Michele Ramos have a very good definition of Aggregation on the HLWiki Social Media Glossary:

Aggregation refers to collecting content from multiple social media sites (such as Facebook or Twitter) with the goal to organize and simplify users’ social networking experiences. While individual sites may offer unique features specific to that site, social networking aggregation collects the content that is produced on several sites and delivers it in a less overwhelming way. Aggregating content is performed by using tools to draw information from different sites into a single space. Aggregation services provide tools and widgets — either downloadable or web-based — that function to consolidate friends, bookmarks, messages and profiles in easy, digestible formats. Aggregation is done by an application programming interface (API). Some examples of aggregation include FriendFeed, Flock, TweetDeck, SocialNetwork.In, SocialURL, Digsby, Trillian/Adium, YooNo, and OrSiSo.

As someone who, prior to this unit, didn’t even use an RSS feed (such as Google Reader) I found the introduction to all these different aggregators extremely interesting. But how useful would I find these applications personally and as an LIS student? So I took two of the aggregation applications presented in the module Symbaloo and Netvibes, set up accounts and tried them out.

This post will focus on Symbaloo:

Symbaloo is an aggregator that colourfully and graphically presents your personalized bookmarks, RSS feeds, and some commonly used web applications like Google search and Wikipedia search. It is presented as a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) portal or a launch pad. There is a nice demonstration of the platform here.

The application is very simple and easy to use, but it does take time to customize the webmix for your personal use. I spent over two hours working on my “desk” webmix for all the bookmarks and feeds that I use regularly. I didn’t spend much time trying to make it pretty, but  a user has some options (tile arrangement, colour, icon) to customize the look of the interface to make it graphically appealing. This is what my personal webmix currently looks like:

My Symbaloo

I enjoyed making the webmix, but I don’t find it particularly useful for myself. I have my frequently used bookmarks well organized within my Safari browser and my less used bookmarks I currently collect on delicious. Sites that I check everyday are shown in my top sites display every time I open up a new tab in my browser.

For RSS Symbaloo works moderately well. If you click on the feed tile, the five latest posts will (usually) show up in the centre of the webmix, but it only displays the title of the post and the date it was posted. You have to click on the post to read it and there is nothing indicating if there is a new unread post.

The widgets that allow you to interact with different applications (like Google) from the centre box are few and most of them are already integrated into many browsers. Many of the widgets don’t work well and some not at all. I was excited to see a CBC Radio widget, but unfortunately I couldn’t get it to play.

For these reasons I don’t think I will continue with Symbaloo for my own personal use but there are a few ways I could envision using this professionally:

  • Webmixes are hosted in the cloud so if I was switching workstations frequently I could quickly and easily access all my bookmarks.
  • Webmixes can be made public, searchable and tagable. Webmixes would be a great way to share a collection of resources with your network in a friendly and appealing way. For example I found this great webmix for online children’s books:
  • Webmixes are very simple and visually appealing so they would be great portals for younger users. Here is an example of a webmix created by Melissa Techman, school librarian and tech lead, for students in kindergarten to grade two for curriculum related webpages.

Next up: Netvibes.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to…

Aggregators: Worth the time?

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book review LIBR559M

A chance to explore LibraryThing! or an exercise in frustration.

Okay so this weeks social media topic is creation and the mission for this week is to create something using social media. Yay creation, but wait, you mean on the computer. So my crochet monster stuffy doesn’t qualify? Oh well.

I took the opportunity to explore another social media utility I have recently joined but haven’t yet had a chance to really explore: LibraryThing. I joined LibraryThing back in June after discussing it and Goodreads in class and among classmates. I love the idea of having a complete list of the books I’ve read, reading and writing reviews, creating a wish list (accessible anywhere there is internet, because I always forget my list on the fridge at home!), organizing collections, etc. Really, what librarian-wannabe wouldn’t like something like LibraryThing? I chose LibraryThing over Goodreads because I was informed by friends it was more “librarianish.”

Things I have done so far on LibraryThing:

  • Read reviews
  • Added books to My Library (not realizing that I really should have been adding them to My To-Read list)
  • Applied for early review copies of books (because who doesn’t like free books). I asked for any book available for Canada.
  • Received and read 1 advance copy of a romance ebook.

Today I moved up the social media participation ladder to critic by posting my review of Santa Fe Fandango by Elinor Groves (advanced copy). This was good for many reasons:

  • I like creating.
  • I have to as part of the agreement for advance copies and it will help me get more advance copies.
  • I was forced to use more of the applications tools, including the help wiki.

Why did I have to use the help wiki? Why was submitting my carefully crafted review (structure stolen from/ inspired by Gene Aubaum’s reviews on Unshelved.com) an exercise in frustration? Because of how LibraryThing insists on adding books to My Library.

To add a book to My Library LibrarThing searches external catalogues like Amazon.com and Library of Congress for records matching your search criteria. You pick your book out of the results and LibraryThing imports the record into your collection. Simple right? Think again. An advance copy, even though it has an ISBN isn’t in any of those catalogues yet! But other reviewers have already created a record for this book so I should be able to add it to my library from the book’s main page, right?

This should be simpler.

Wrong. Clicking the “Add to My Library” button takes you to the search page. So I have to add it manually and so did the other 14 reviewers which means there are 15 separate records for this books. Can we say redundant? Why can’t I search and add records from within LibraryThing?

But, after cursing the application, I created the record (more creation!) and added my review. I guess it all works out in the end. The good part about social media applications like LibraryThing is that they are changing, updating and improving and I can have a say in how that happens. I just have to find the right forum in which to do so.

After all that, here’s the review:

Santa Fe Fandango by Elinor Groves

Matti Glover is a sensible artist making a living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She spends her days working on advertising for local businesses and her evenings painting and spending time with her best friend Bram Daniels. When Bram has to go out of town on business, Matti gladly moves into his beautiful, gated community home in order to take care of his beloved cats. Pheasant Hill often plays host to celebrities but Matti is still shocked to see non other than Antonio Reed, the new hot film star and Matti’s favourite actor, walk through the main building. After she safes him from a gaggle of rambunctious girl scouts, Matti has a chance to get to know the real Antonio Reed, if she can keep her own fangirl inclinations in check.

Why I picked it up: I was just finishing my first semester of my masters program and could really use some fun light reading. I requested it as an advance copy reviewer and got it!

Why I finished it: If you are female, replace Antonio with any of your favourite male actors and you’ll be hooked. Nobody likes to admit it but we’ve all had this daydream at least once. Besides, the setting is beautiful and the writing is liquid.

Who I’d give it to: My roommate who is in the same program as me and needs a break just as much. We both enjoy a guilty read once in a while, especially when we can share it with someone else.

 

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LIBR559M

Creating social capital through collaboration or getting together to make it worth your while

So topic of the week in Social Media class is collaboration, more specifically collaboration with social media. We also worked in groups on a wiki entry. Our group did a wiki entry on social media for youth services:Social Strategies for Youth Service Librarians.

While doing research for the wiki I rediscovered a youth services program using social media and involving collaboration, (or maybe cooperation in some cases. For the difference see Jessica’s excellent post.) The program is TeenRC. It is a social networking site for teens that revolves around reading, writing, literature and other materials. It was developed and is administered by dedicated youth services librarians, but it’s content is teen created. Teens create a catalog of books they have read or would like to read, they can write reviews, share their own writing, have discussions (not just limited to literature) in the forums, and there are regular special events like author visits and interviews, or contests.

It seems like a fantastic site with a lot to offer but libraries have tried to run sites like this before and since without success. Either the administrators lose funding or interest or the teens don’t join. One of the things that really makes this site work is the number of libraries collaborating on the project. There are 332 participating libraries with TeenRC.  Not all of those libraries have creative control over the project of course, but they are involved and this means the site is available and suggested to a much larger audience. If you can get a small number of teens to join from each of those libraries you end up with a pretty good user base. If they like it, they will spread the word and you will get more teens joining in. And they are more likely to like it, the more people that are on it because social networking sites grow in social capital as they grow in size. This make a larger social networking site more valuable to an individual and more likely to stick around.

Now I’m only brushing on social capital which is a complex sociological theory and I can’t find the article I originally read about social capital and social networking sites (if anyone has a good link, post it in the comments!). As I understand it and remember it, social capital is the value we derive from our social networks (online, offline, professional, social, familial, etc.). The larger and more connected our networks the more value they have. The strength of the connections is important too, so there have to be a balance between quality and quantity. (Think of the person with 1000 facebook friends, does he really know all those people, does he get anything beyond a number on his page from them.) For a social networking site to be of value it have to have many subscribers, thereby offering it’s users the opportunity to expand and strengthen their social networks.

The same rules apply to libraries trying to use social media in programming. You have to use existing social media with enough social capital, or at least potential, or it won’t offer the user anything and the project will flop from lack of users. Or in the case of TeenRC, create your own social networking site, but collaborate with others to ensure a good start up group size and encourage growth from there. The collaboration also means reaching people geographically distant with is one of the great affordances of online social networks.

I really like TeenRC. I haven’t really gotten into the site because to take full advantage of it you have to be registered and to be a registered user you have to be a teen, but I like the idea and I will follow it’s development. I hope it continues to grow and change and live.

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LIBR559M

The Social Media Panopticon or I’m feeling watched and alone.

My undergraduate degree is in criminology and you can bet we spent many hours in that program discussing different theories and studies of surveillance. So when the subject of surveillance in social media came up I was definitely interested. The discussion though has had the side effect of making me feel surveilled in my online activity. I feel watched by friends, colleagues, my professor, future employers, future students, and maybe even the government!

It started with Anders Albrechtslund and his article Online Social Networking As Participatory Surveillance. Albrechtslung suggests classical theories of surveillance,  like Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon and the theories of Michel Foucault, fail to cover the widespread participation in social media. He supports an expansion of current surveillance theories to incorporate a more horizontal structure instead of top down. For support, he illustrates how through social media people voluntarily open themselves up to public scrutiny. Even just the information you have to enter to create an online profile for facebook or twitter impressive. Then once you have that account, you participate in sharing details of you life to the world, without really thinking about it.

This is the crutch of the matter. We do it without really thinking about it. When we share something on facebook we don’t think about the world reading it, we see it as sharing it with our friends. I knew, but didn’t really think about, all the ways in which the things I post online could be used. My words can be taken out of context and used in ways I never intended, my birthday party photos used against me at a job interview, my profiles scanned for criminal tendencies.  Sure I knew these things were a possibility  but not until recently have I really though about it and now I am feeling it’s full effect.

One of the benefits of online interactions, including social media, is the freedom to express yourself,converse and connect with others, share. I like sharing. But now I feel watched and the freedom is gone. I want to share my thoughts and feelings but fear how they will be taken out of context and used against me and I won’t have the chance to defend myself. I might not even know it’s happening. And that was the function of the panopticon: each prisoner was isolated and arranged so each individual at any given moment could be observed from the guard post but the prisoner never knew when he was being observed  and so acted as if he were being observed at all times. In the social media panopticon the person in the guard post could be anyone and they can observe not only your current behaviour but all your past behaviour as well. And you don’t know when they’re watching.

So now, living in a new place away from the people I like to share things with, I hesitate to reach out and share like I did before. The effect will fade, I’m sure, but it doesn’t mean the surveillance in social media fades with it. I guess it’s like coming to terms with the millions of cameras on city street corners.

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LIBR559M

I’m Lazy, Who Knew?

Yup, I’m lazy. This isn’t exactly a recent discovery, but it was reaffirmed this week when I joined Google+ and almost instantly started to refer to it as G+ in my speech. I’m just surprised I could so quickly resort to it by a short form. At least I could catch myself typing it.

I’m not sure if “G+” has made it into common usage yet, but I fully expect it will because I’m not the only lazy one out there. In his article Why I Blog, Andrew Sullivan refers to the tendency to shorten terms for the internet as the “monosyllabic vernacular of the Internet.” The trend to shorten everything in online language plus the fact that Google already has “Gmail,” added to the popularity of iEverything, makes me think G+ or something similar will soon become part of the internet vernacular.

I really enjoyed Sullivan’s perspectives on blogging. He mentioned many things I will have to mull over while I work on getting this endeavour going. One thing that really struck me is his emphasis on the immediacy of blogging. I always understood blogs to be a more immediate form of information and news sharing because of how quickly they can be put together and published, but I forgot about the editorial side. Now that I have written a few things that have had to go through a lengthy editorial process I can appreciate the feeling of freedom instant publishing gives an author. It’s also dangerous.

My professor (Dean Giustini) has been educating information professionals about and through social media for a while now. On his wiki, on a section of blogs he states “New bloggers should be cautioned about the pros/cons of blogging… They should be encouraged to proofread their entries before posting to ensure that they take this form of writing seriously.” Okay, so no lengthy editing process, but don’t go overboard with informality. Make sure you do a basic self edit. More evidence of my lazyness, I hate proofreading my own work. I am terrible at it. More often than not I will read over my own errors. Luckily, the format of a blog affords me a huge population of possible editors, whom I’m sure will not hesitate to pick out my errors. If that’s not motivation to do a double check before hitting publish, I don’t know what is. Sullivan makes note of the blogosphere editing, saying, “now the feedback was instant, personal, and brutal.”

Okay, so as I move forward with this venture there are a few things I have to keep in mind:

  • PPP: Personal but Professional and Polite.
  • People will read, people will comment, people will not always be as nice and diplomatic as I strive to be.
  • Prompt. Write today’s thought’s today on things going on now.
  • Point. Would I read it?
  • Proofread.
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LIBR559M Uncategorized

First Post or How I can fiddle with something for two days.

UBC Blogs offers 30 different free themes to choose from. How hard can choosing a blog theme really be? Two days later I have finally chosen, but I am not completely satisfied. But the good news is that I can change it to something better if I find it.

I have only created one blog before this and it was as the final project for one of my core courses. I only used the basic functionalities of the blogging application. I have a lot to learn about how I can customize my blog to fit my needs and personality. I am looking forward to playing around and figuring things out. Things will probably change.

I learned: Just get something down, something out there, you can fine tune it later. (Apparently I have to learn this one over and over.)

PS. The picture in the header is my own, from one of my favourite places in the world, Mayo Lake.

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