So I have been up to my elbows in group projects and papers lately, and therefore snoozing in the blogosphere. The one thing I am feeling is that due to other time committments such as work and school, and the fact that there are just not enough hours in a day, blogging has become one of those things on my ‘to-do’ list that just hasen’t gotten done. I have had an article sitting on my desk waiting to be read and blogged about for almost 2 weeks now. I am actually having to force myself to take the time to read and comment on it, otherwise it is just not going to get done. I have always been a talker, and always seem to have something to say, but when you talk in real life you don’t necessarily have to make time for it, it just happens, whereas in the virtual world of the web, when talking and creating discussion you really do have to consciously make time.

So I was given a magazine recently, put out by the Globe & Mail called “Canadian University Report”. In it post-secondary institutions and trends are discussed. An article in the magazine titled “Classroom 3.0” caught my eye.

What really interested me in this article, is the fact that those students they are talking about…that’s me. I began my first year of university around the time of the birth of Web 2.0 and the time social networking, social bookmarking, and blogging sites, such as Facebook Delicious and Twitter were first being introduced. I went to the first university that aimed to use technology as a primary teaching tool.

The article discusses the “bag full of tech gear” students come to school with (I never left residence without my ipod, phone, or laptop), and a life shaped by the internet (if the article wasn’t in a full-text database it likely wouldn’t have been seen by me…), and the fact that “universities have to adopt the latest technologies in order to fit an education with the new generation’s life and learning style”. Well, I am that new generation, and I have to say, my educational institutions have done a fairly good job of meeting this new ‘learning style’ of mine.

My primary contact method as a student is by email, which I have access to all the time via my phone and computer. My assignments can be turned in digitally or by paper. I can download notes, discussions, class readings, and my research all online. I can receive school updates through my RSS feed and send them to my iGoogle. I think universities are adapting to students, they are providing them with new ways of learning that fit with the tasks they do everyday. Universities are still doing what they sought out to do, which is to help students learn and take what they have learned and apply it to the world when they leave school. Universities bringing in technology, introducing social media and web 2.0 tools, and incorporating these into the way lessons are taught, and the way students participate, is how they will continue to grow, develop, and remain relevant to current and future learners. As Web 3.0 looms closer and closer, universities need to start thinking now, and introducing concepts today, in order to be able to adapt to the students entering the Classroom 3.0 that is bound to develop.

I have discussed before my feelings of information overload. I constantly feel there are so many social media tools available, it is difficult to keep track of them all. I find it even more difficult when trying to keep track of different blogs, Twitter feeds, websites, and the list goes on…. I think the reason people aggregate, is not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to. In order to escape this feeling of information exhaustion, or to save time by going to one web page to see other web page updates, rather than each page specifically, we need to aggregate information in order to save time, and keep track of everything we want to follow regularly. As people, we keep day books and agendas to keep everything we need to remember to do in a day or a month all in one place, we wouldn’t tack up post-it notes all over our kitchens or cars, or maybe we would, but it likely wouldn’t be very efficient. The same goes for aggregators. They make our lives, and our pursuit for information, efficient.

As I am an avid Google user, as well as all of the tools Google has created (Google Docs, Google Groups, etc.), I have created an iGoogle page that I use multiple times a day. I have to admit I love my iGoogle. It is all the best things gathered in one place, perfectly customized to my liking. It is a mashup of knowledge, both useless and useful, perfected. It is such a great utilization of all the Web 2.0 tools I use on a daily basis. Before I really started using these tools (RSS feeds, YouTube, wikis, etc.) I never had the need for something like iGoogle. But the more I use these tools, the more room I have to make on my page. It is just easier to have all the sites I visit, and all the tools I use, all in one convenient place. I was actually late jumping on the iGoogle bandwagon, I know I was for the Gmail one that went by (I used to be an avid Hotmail user, and would never go back). I found out about iGoogle when I got to SLAIS in January. I was shocked I hadn’t known about it sooner. I also found out about Google scholar and other tools Google has to offer. I guess I was hanging out somewhere under a rock during my Undergrad? Anyways, the more I used these tools the more I realized how useful it is having one ‘go-to’ place to find all my information needs and wants. I think it just may be the best thing since sliced bread… And now that I have actually learned about RSS feeds and how they work, my iGoogle page just isn’t big enough!

And iGoogle is not just for personal use. The library I work at uses iGoogle to organize its favourite links, most visited websites, and as a short-cut for Gmail. It’s a great tool when you need to do a quick search, or need to flip back and forth from the e-mail inbox and library catalogue while on the reference desk.

The more I learn about other tools available, the more curious I am. However, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the number of aggregators and RSS readers available today. I am usually all for change, and learning new things, but I can’t help but have a little resistance to switching to a new tool altogether. I do see the value in some of these other tools, but I just don’t feel I have the time… Maybe when my schedule as a student calms down a bit I can dive into the deep end and move out of my comfort zone.