Thing 18: Zoho Writer

I'm creating this with the Zoho collaborative online word processor. After reading the Welcome document I decided to play around with various features just to see what they are like. So here goes:

Here's a table.	Works pretty much the same as Word.	It's pretty easy to use.
Although it's not so easy to change the width of the columns.	If you right-click on the table you can go to table properties and see some additional stuff you can do.	But I still couldn't figure out how to change the width of the columns. Oh well.

Next, here's an image. Again with a right-click, it was pretty easy to align it on the right and have the text run down the left of the image. It was a bit big at first so I decided to re-size it and ended up having a LITTLE trouble with keeping the aspect ratio consistent. Grabbing onto the corner "handle" does not insure you will maintain the aspect ratio of the image like (I believe) it does in Word. No matter, as long as you are aware of it you can make allowances.

It doesn't look like you can set it to "float" over your text or be able to be moved around and have your text accomodate it. Word's better for that.

Let's see, what's next? How about an emoticon? Well, that's not very exciting, but it was easy.

I know - I'll insert a link to my blog:

http://cbaileyjpl.blogspot.com/

Guess that's all for now.

Well, now that it's posted I see that the emoticon didn't transfer over. Oh, well. Still fun and pretty easy to use.

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

I thought the wiki sandbox exercise was fun and fairly easy. Added a few favorite movies and added my blog to the Favorite Blogs list. Um, that's all I have to say...

Wacky wikis

I'm a big fan of wikis, although I have to admit I haven't spent a huge amount of time using them, except for Wikipedia, one of my favorite reference resources. I looked at Book Lovers Wiki and SJCPL Subject Guides, and thought they were both fun and extremely useful in a library environment.

Book Lovers Wiki appears to be a site where anyone can post a book review. I can see where this might appeal to teenagers and get them more interested in reading because it allows them a forum for personal expression. The dangers in this type of thing would be of course if someone had a personal grudge or wanted to post something inappropriate, and I assume that library staff has site administrator powers to review submissions before they are posted.

The SJCPL Subject Guides site is even more limited - looks like only SJCPL staff can post anything to the wiki, which isn't even clearly identified as a wiki. Not that this is a criticism - again, this is a very appropriate and useful application of the wiki concept in a library environment.

Wikipedia is often maligned for being an unreliable resource, and maybe that's true in some cases. But think of it this way - imagine interested subject-area experts around the world inputting information about topics they know extremely well without having to go through the hassle, road blocks and red tape of trying to get a book published. These people OWN this information - I imagine they are very protective of it. If anyone posts something inaccurate, inappropriate or libelous, I would imagine that the various people who care about accuracy of the information they posted would correct that as soon as they become aware of it. This is true world-wide intelligence here, folks - what could be more egalitarian and empowering?

Libraries can definitely use wikis for putting out information that might be useful to their users. What if we had a little wiki on our public Web site called something like "Reading Corner" - library staff could list their favorite books along with reviews and recommendations, and allow users to do the same (moderated, of course). It would be fun.

There are probably lots of other ways we could use wikis in the library but I'm running out of time - gotta go to the public service desk, you know - so let me just say I like them and hope we can generate some great ideas with this exercise.

Thoughts on Library 2.0

Well, I think this whole conceptual framework of Library 2.0 is nice but unnecessary. I understand that libraries have to change in order to be relevant in today's quickly-changing world. There are so many new ways to communicate with others and create your own personal statement for the world to see and hear, and the pace of how things are changing seems to be increasing.

I guess my thought is that it's not really helpful or necessary to give ourselves a brand-new name as if everything is completely different. These developments are just the next step in the evolution of the overall concept of library. Calling it by some different, high-tech-sounding name is basically just confusing and potentially intimidating to people, making it even harder for staff and long-time library users to make the transition.

That having been said, I consider myself a fairly savvy user of library technology, having worked in that specific field for seven years, so it's not like I'm some Luddite who doesn't like to see things changing. I just think all the hoopla is much ado about very little. To quote one of my favorite people (no, I will not say who), "It is what it is."

#14: Technorati

Today I spent more time looking through Technorati than I ever have before. I did learn some things but found it pretty frustrating, which has been my experience every time I've tried to look through Technorati previously. It doesn't do a good job of telling you what you are looking at so if you are a new user it can be pretty intimidating to try to find your way around and understand what their postings actually are.

For example, one of the assignments was to do a keyword search for Learning 2.0 in the Blog Directory. I went to the Blog Directory page and did a search for that term. I got a different number of results than when I did a search on the main Blogger Central page but it was only a slightly different number. Neither results pages indicated where my results came from - what grouping I was actually searching. I thought this was confusing and sort of irritating.

I was hoping to be able to see a tag cloud of the most popular tags but all I could find was the 10 most popular tags on the main Blogger Central page - way less than I would find useful.

But speaking of useful, now that I've looked through Technorati much more thoroughly than I have ever done before (and I did this mainly because I HAD to for this assignment, because the whole process was pretty irritating), I still don't think this is something I would be likely to use much. I guess I just don't care what some random person thinks about Obama, or Brittney Spears, or Apple.

I will definitly NOT claim my blog, nor tag my posts so more people can find them. Are you kidding? Nobody gives a hoot what I have to say about Learning 2.0. I guess I'm not much of a social networker! :-)

Del.icio.us

I like the idea of sharing favorite Web sites with others through a social bookmarking site like Del.icio.us, but I doubt I would do this myself. I mean, it's cool and all, but other than photographs, there's not much about myself I really want to share with the world.

I can see how it might be useful if you were doing research, but is it really better than Google? Would I get better search results going to Del.icio.us and searching tags? I don't know the answer to that. I guess if I was working on something very in-depth it would be a good way to be as thorough as I possibly could be.

Generally I'm not really interested in viewing other people's comments about Web sites but I suppose the ability to see who else has bookmarked a certain site and commented on it might be kind of interesting.

All in all, this is something I probably wouldn't use but am glad to know about.

Adding a JAXCAT Search Gadget

It's added now to my blog. I'm not too fond of the way it looks, though - probably will take it off eventually. The instructions were pretty easy to follow although not totally accurate - I wasn't quite sure how to access the dashboard of this account from the blog itself, although I reasoned that "customize" might get me there and it did - yay!

Once there it was pretty simple to add - thanks for supplying the script!

Not that I will actually USE it. Since it offers limited functionality I doubt I would routinely search JAXCAT from my blog page, and I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone else, either. I wish it opened in a new window - anyone using it on my page would be directed somewhere else rather than staying on my page, which I really wouldn't want.

It's still pretty cool, though, and I would have no idea how to create it, so kudos to whoever did!