Week 7, Thing 17: Editing a wiki

It wasn't hard at all to add my blog to the list on Maryland Libraries Sandbox. I decided to edit the Favorite Vacation Spot page and wrote about the Outer Banks. Here is the link. I'm used to adding and editing things on my two blog pages, but it was kind of weird to be able to edit a whole page that had other peoples writing on it. Overall, my experience with using wikis was pretty good.

Week 7, Thing 16: Wikis

As I went through the discovery resources for this exercise and looked at some of the wikis that are used for library purposes, the most interesting thing to me was that the very thing that makes wikis so appealing and easy to use can also be harmful and cause problems. The fact that (unless it is restricted) anyone can edit and remove content from articles would have me wary about the credibility of a source like this. In my experience at Carroll Community College, teachers are hesitant to allow articles from sites like Wikipedia as a research source. However, I do like the idea of using wikis in collaborative group efforts. To have one place where people can post and edit progress on a project and share ideas is great, especially when those people may be spread apart geographically. Like all things technology related, wikis have a good side and a bad side.

Week 6, Thing 15: The future of libraries

I couldn't help but read all 5 perspectives on Library 2.0 from the OCLC. It was very interesting and provacative reading. Technology is definitely advancing quickly and libraries must keep up in order to stay relevant. Reading these articles reminded me of the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson. Change is hard and many people like to stay right where they are. I know, because I am one of those people! However, you must change ("move with the cheese") in order to keep up with the times. I liked reading all the different ideas people had for Library 2.0 even though some of them seemed really far out there to me. It will be very interesting to see what libraries look like just 10 years from now.

Week 6, Thing 14: Discover Technorati

I had already explored Technorati quite a bit and blogged about it in Thing 9 because I found it to be one of the best search tools for finding blogs. When I used it to do the keyword search for "Learning 2.0" a lot of the results that came back weren't relevant. However, I did find some blogs from other 2.0 users in different states that I wouldn't have found otherwise. I enjoyed looking at the Popular page on Technorati's site. The top searches weren't as interesting to me as the list of blogs that people had favorited. Not surprisingly, that list was similar to the top blogs list. I clicked on one blog called Engadget. It's a blog about all kinds of new technology. Some of the top tags that Technorati used to define Engadget included home entertainment, breaking news, microsoft, cellphones, and portable audio. I enjoyed looking through the various posts and found two very interesting ones that caught my attention: One is about Gateway's new laptops and another talks about lightning and iPods. This is why I like Technorati. It helps you find topic-specific blogs that would be hard to track down otherwise. Tags definitely help!

Week 6, Thing 13: Tagging and Discover Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us was a very interesting website. I explored it a little bit and tried typing in different keywork tags to see what came up. I liked the fact that you can find articles and websites that other people have found helpful and have gone through the trouble of posting it for everyone else to find. I think Del.icio.us would be very helpful as a research tool and I'm definitely going to keep it in mind when I need to look things up for future school projects. I wouldn't need to wade through all the search results that Google comes up with when this tool allows me to use keyword tags to find things exactly related to what I'm looking for.

Week 5, Thing 12: Rollyo

Once again, Rollyo is another thing I've never heard of. Hmm... and I thought I was computer-savvy, too. :) It was a little difficult for me at first because I wasn't sure what kind of search engine to create. But, since I love NASCAR, I thought I would just make one that would search all the main sites I go to for NASCAR news. I called it "Going In Circles." Here is the link:

http://rollyo.com/nascargirl24_48/going_in_circles/

My main search engine is Google. It's the one I use all the time because it's convenient and it has good results. However, a personalized search engine by Rollyo is very useful because you can search for a specific subject and get more concentrated results. Not sure how often I'll use it, but it's neat to have.

Week 5, Thing 11: LibraryThing

I absolutely loved LibraryThing! I never knew there was such a website. Believe me, I will be cataloging books long after this 23 Things project is over. For some reason, it is very entertaining to share what you love with other people and find out that they like similar things. My catalog is very small right now, but I think that it will take me no time at all to fill it up! This is definitely one of the most fun "things" I have done so far. Please feel free to take a peek inside my library (more additions will be coming soon!):

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/NASCARgirl24_48