LIS 9763

Aww, our last week.  Here are my attempts at answering the questions posed for this week:

   1. Has your view of social software changed since starting this course? If so, how?

I think that before this course, I felt that social software tools probably WERE useful, but I can't say that I knew how exactly to use them all, or really, how best to use them in a library.  I think they also seemed informal, or not really professional before this course, but now I feel that they can be used in a professional way, and for some great purposes.

I cannot believe how quickly this semester flew by.  There is still time to talk about web 2.0 and social software on a grander scale though, so let's do that.

Some quick notes from the articles this week:

Transparency - Certainly a good idea, and from the reading we saw that this even incorporates USING social software tools internally, such as blogs, to get information out to staff and allow them to have their voices heard.

Due to the extreme crappiness of this week's assignments of the world, I'm going to be taking my second blog holiday.
 
Marketing, I'll still see you next week, don't you worry.

As a gigantically nerdy gamer, the idea of this week's topic makes me think "YAY".  However, as a library student the idea of applying games and online worlds to libraries and education kind of makes me confused.  I'm working through the readings, and I suppose it really is an excellent way to learn, but how do you get people to play educational games?   Usually they are of the lamest variety.

Blog holiday!
 
I normally make my blog posts on Monday mornings, but this week is going to get a little too intense, and thus I believe I will take my very first blog holiday!
 
It pains me to do that to Facebook, but with co-op interviews on top of assignments, my brain is like "Nooooooooo can't handle!"
I'll be back in action for gaming and virtual worlds, because that is of such importance to me :)
 
 

I wish there was a common craft video for folksonomies, I love those.

I wanted to say first and foremost, after reading some of the articles this week, I GET IT.  For the first time, I do get what a folksonomy is.  It's classification built from the ground-up, by many individuals just tagging things like we do here in lis9763.  I never really gave thought to the tag clouds, but they're really interesting and representative of what lots of people are doing and what people are thinking at any given time.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090122/forbes_twit...
I saw a story all about Twitter on CTV newsnet this evening, so I thought I'd share.  The TV report on it discussed how Obama even has a Twitter, and that other politicians are using it as well.  The news article also mentions the pros and cons. Enjoy!

Oh tagging and social bookmarking, how good an idea you truly are.  But how do we get everyone on board?

The Bokardo reading says a lot of what I feel about tagging, but especially when it is mentioned that users won't tag things if they don't feel that they have to or if there is no clear incentive.  Even then, people may not tag.  In some cases, as with my livejournal, I thought about tagging and how it would be useful for organization and finding memories - but in the end I never bothered.

Long, long ago, in a land far far away... ok not really, but a few years ago (in Hamilton) I attempted to create and edit Wikipedia articles.  That was my very first experience with a Wiki and it wasn't altogether positive.  I would get frustrated because even though I followed the instructions and help files, it still wouldn't always cooperate, so I would be likely to just give up.