Reflecting on 23 Things

This program has been a lot of fun.  It’s given me something quasi-educational and productive to work on during slow days on the phones and in the community office.  I was familiar with many of these sites on the list before now, but not all of them.  And I’ve learned quite a few new things about the technologies I was already using.  I was already pretty technology-obsessed going in to 23 Things, and I fear this has made it even worse!  But since I’m a tech trainer, I suppose it is all part of my job.

I have to admit, as “tech savvy” as I claim to be, I didn’t even know what “Web 2.0″ meant until a conference I attended last year.  I had heard the term bandied about quite a bit and figured it must be something very complicated.  When I found out it just meant Facebook, blogging, et. al., I thought, “What??  I already use all those things!” and promptly put Web 2.0 among my skills on my resume.  After completing 23 Things, I feel even more equipped to make use of Web 2.0 technologies – and hopefully, as a tech trainer, teach others how to use them, too.

Thing 23

I think the most important thing to remember in developing new ideas for Web 2.0 use in the library is to avoid “technolust.”  New technology is not always a good thing; you have to ask yourself if it is really better than the old way of doing things.  In some cases it is, in some cases it isn’t.  Technology should only be adopted if the library sees a true need for it and is committed to following through (i.e. you shouldn’t start up a blog and then quit after two or three posts).

I think education also has to be a very important aspect of the Library 2.0.  It’s all well and good that staff members have been learning Web 2.0 skills through 23 Things, but we now have to figure out effective ways to pass that information on to our patrons.  I’d love to see a modified version of 23 Things introduced to the patrons as something akin to a summer reading program.  There could be prizes and tech training sessions to help with completion of the program, just as the staff had.  We could also do a series of classes in the community office; I know right now we have Open Source Mondays, which covers some aspects of Web 2.0, but it would be fun to set up a 2.0-centric series of classes.  This is something we could market especially to young adults, which is a demographic group that does not usually attend community office classes.

I think the key is to identify ways in which Web 2.0 can improve the lives of our patrons and then help them learn to utilize these technologies.  Without that practical element, Web 2.0 can seem like just so many neat technological toys.

Thing 22

Podcasts are just one more technological thing that I think would be useful and enjoyable to me, but I just can’t get into them.  I download them and they sit on my iPod unlistened to for months until I finally delete them.  I’ve recently become more interested in talk radio (NPR, etc.), especially to listen to in the car on the long rides to Kent, though, so maybe I’ll give podcasts another chance.

iTunes has always been my go-to location for finding podcasts.  It eliminates the extra step of loading the podcast into iTunes after I’ve downloaded it; also, you can subscribe to a podcast through iTunes, so it will continually download new ones for you.

Here are some of the podcasts I downloaded for (eventual) listening on my iPod:

The Quick and Dirty Tips Series – Get-It-Done Guy, Make-It-Green Girl, Modern Manners Guy
NPR’s Most Emailed Stories
New York Times Book Review
The Burlesque Podcast

That ought to keep me going for awhile.  I’m also interested in how podcasts are being used for educational purposes.  Obviously, you can download language learning or instructional podcasts, but I’ve seen them used quite a bit in my online courses at Kent.  I’m not sure what differentiates a “podcast” from a plain old mp3 recording in this case, but that is the term used to describe the downloadable lectures.

Thing 21

Ahh, YouTube . . . that site is truly a black hole of procrastination.  Click on one YouTube video, and you will inevitably come up for air an hour later, wondering where all your time went.  I usually try to stay away from YouTube, since I’m so busy right now, but I will wander once more into the digital abyss for the sake of Thing 21.

I have actually used YouTube for scholarly purposes before.  When I was writing my thesis on burlesque, I watched a lot of videos of burlesque performers on YouTube, either to see new acts or to refresh my memory about performances I’d seen in person.  This is a video of Miss Immodesty Blaize, Miss Exotic World 2007 (I was there when she won the pageant):

I watched this video and others over and over again, analyzing every detail, when I was writing the section of my thesis on the divine Miss Blaize.  I wish the video quality were a little better, but something is far better than nothing in this case.

Mostly, though, I use YouTube for viewing frivolous things such as movie trailers, music videos, and cute\funny\stupid “viral videos.”  Here just a few for your viewing\procrastinating enjoyment.

“Business Time” by Flight of the Conchords:

The new Harry Potter trailer:

And finally, an adorable sleepy bear cub:

Thing 9 (Out of Order)

I think I kept putting this one off because, even under the umbrella of the 23 Things project, I feel guilty playing online games while at work!

Also, to be honest, I’m not that interested in online games.  I’ve gone through phases in my life where I’ve been pretty addicted to video or computer games (Knights of the Old Republic being the most prominent example), but for the most part they leave me somewhat cold.  I found a few fun ones while doing my 23 Things research, though.

First, in honor of the upcoming election, a very silly Obama vs. McCain (or Clinton) fighting game:
http://www.freearcade.com/ElectionMadness.flash/ElectionMadness.html

Second, a flash version of one of my favorite PC games from my childhood, Commander Keen:
http://www.play.vg/games/148-Commander%20Keen.html

Finally, I also wanted to add my recommendation for the online trivia games at www.freerice.com, which I learned about through a colleague’s 23 Things post.  When you correctly answer trivia questions on this site (I liked the vocabulary and world capitals ones), you supposedly “earn” grain of rice which will be distributed to starving people around the world.  It sounds a little too good to be true, but it’s nice to think that you could potentially help someone just by clicking through trivia questions on a website.  And it’s educational, too!  This one I actually don’t feel guilty playing at work, because I think it sharpens my librarian skills (i.e. knowing obscure facts that no one else cares about).

Thing 20

Since I have a Mac, I decided to go to Apple’s download page to find widgets instead of using YourMinis.  I have a few widgets already, which came pre-loaded on my laptop’s “Dashboard”, including a calculator, a clock, and a weather forecast display (though it leaves something to be desired – the information is not always the most current).  I’d like to get a better weather widget anyway, so I’ll look for that and then see what other useful widgets I can find to download.

So many of the widgets, on Apple’s site and YourMinis, seem pretty frivolous – do I really need Chuck Norris Facts or a Whoopee Cushion widget displayed on my computer?  Many of them also seem to only replicate tasks, like checking my email or Wikipedia, that I would just prefer to do through my web browser.  I found several that seemed worthwhile, though. 

WeatherBug Local Weather – seems to be a slightly more fully-featured (and hopefully more accurate!) version of the weather widget I have now

TV Show Tracker – keeps track of when the next episode of your favorite TV show will be aired

Roman Number Converter – despite having taken Latin in college, I am still horrible at figuring out the Arabic versions of Roman numerals.  Now I can use this widget instead of looking it up online every time.

BMI Calculator – another thing I tend to look up online a lot.  I’m doing a fitness challenge with a family member right now, so it would be nice to have this information at my fingertips.

I was trying to find a widget that was just a basic dictionary, but didn’t see any listed on either Apple.com or YourMinis.  For the most part, it seems to me that widgets are useful and convenient, but not that much more convenient than just going online to find similar tools.  I might use a few widgets from time to time (probably the calculator is the one I use the most), but I don’t want to let them clutter my Dashboard.

Thing 19

I’ve been curious about Twitter for a while, so when I saw it on the Web 2.0 Awards list, I thought I’d take this opportunity to check it out further.  It seems like more and more people I know are using Twitter, but I’ve never understood the appeal.  We already have cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging, Facebook status updates . . . how connected do we really need to be with our friends, family, and colleagues?

After browsing through the Twitter homepage, I can’t say my opinion has changed at all.  I’m a fairly techno-savvy person, admittedly addicted to Facebook and Gmail and text messaging, but I do have limits and I think Twitter might be one of them.  I don’t want to know what other people are doing every minute of every day – you could waste so much time each day just reading Twitter updates that you wouldn’t accomplish anything yourself!  I even think Facebook status updates more than once or twice daily are excessive (though I’m sure I’ve been guilty of sometimes changing my status more frequently than that), so Twitter just seems like extreme overkill.  And possibly kind of creepy – I know you have control over who receives your updates, but think of the stalking possibilities!

I can see that Twitter might have some interesting uses, though, professionally and otherwise.  It would be a very good way to distribute a last-minute message about a changed meeting time or something of that nature to colleagues (though that would, of course, require everyone in your office to be on Twitter themselves and signed up for your updates).  Another great application I can think of for Twitter is live-blogging events.  I read some Twitter-based live blogs during Fashion Week this year, and it was much more engaging than an after-the-fact post.  The off-the-cuff style made it seem like the next best thing to really being there, and I think readers got more unfiltered reactions.

So, in general, I think Twitter is great for providing up-to-the-minute coverage of events or quickly distributing small bits of important information, but I can’t see incorporating it into my daily life.  My own life is boring enough; I don’t need to read about every minute of my friends’ boring days, too!

Thing 18

It might seem like I am making all these posts way too quickly, but I’ve been working ahead some and then saving the posts so I can publish them in order.  With the exception of Thing 9, online games – but don’t worry, I won’t forget!

I am obsessed with organizers, planners, schedules, to-do lists, etc., so you would think I would be much more interested in sites covered by Thing 18.  I guess it’s because I already have a pretty involved personal system of organization, I don’t want to introduce anything else to the mix. 

I already use iGoogle, as my homepage on my personal computer.  They very recently changed the interface to include tabs, which I hate (it pushes everything about an inch to the right on the screen) but will have to get used to.  My iGoogle page includes my Gmail account, Weather, Google Reader, and both entertainment news and actual news.  I’m not sure if having your email, RSS feeder, etc. so immediately accessible is actually a time-saver or not.  Whenever I return to my homepage, I see automatically if I have new messages or blog posts to read, which can easily distract me from whatever my original purpose was.  It does save time in that you don’t have to log into your email account separately, but I’m still dubious about the overall efficiency.  I would never stop using iGoogle, though – I love having my email and everything else right there when I open up my web browser.

I love the idea of things like Google Calendar and Remember the Milk, but it concerns me to have my schedule and to-do list only accessible online.  What if your internet goes out?  I’d much rather have these things saved on my computer, but I like the idea of backing them up in a more accessible\portable format.  My new solution is to sync everything onto my iPod Touch so I can take it with me wherever I go, no internet required.  I use iCal for my schedule and a new Mac program (still in beta) called Things for my to-dos.  If you are a Mac user, I highly suggest checking out Things – it is by far the best task management software I’ve ever used. 

Some of these online services (Google Calendar and Backpack especially) have great applications for group work, since you can share them publicly.  That’s not something I have a lot of use for at present, but I’m glad to know more about these tools so I can consider them in the future.

I think the key with productivity tools, electronic or otherwise, is to ask yourself if they are really making you more productive or just giving you one more thing to deal with.  For example, I have been guilty on countless occasions of spending more time meticulously entering tasks into my to-do list than it would actually take to just do them.  I’m not likely to change, since I think organization is the fun part, but it is something worth considering.  I think technology in general has made us more productive, but it’s also just given us a lot more to do.

Thing 17

I started a Del.icio.us account awhile ago but have so far neglected to use it.  I don’t bookmark sites all that frequently, and bookmarking them through Firefox is just a habit by now.  After reading more about Del.icio.us for Thing 17, though, I’m resolving to use it more.  Tagging is a wonderful tool for links, and really any other kind of organizing.  Instead of just placing links in a labeled folder (which is what I do now), you can tag them with multiple terms, allowing for a lot more flexibility.  I wish I’d had Del.icio.us when I was doing online research for my thesis last year! 

It’s also wonderful that you can access your links from anywhere and share them with others.  I’m thinking I may use Del.icio.us when doing Internet-based research for my assistantship supervisor.  Then I can just share any links I find with her through Del.icio.us – much easier than copying and pasting the list into a Word file and emailing it.  I wonder if online tools like Del.icio.us are the wave of the future as far as bookmarking links – maybe someday no one will bookmark through their browser anymore!

Thing 16

I already have a Facebook account, and also a MySpace account.  I actually can’t stand MySpace – I find it too disorganized and just generally not aesthetically pleasing – but I created an account when I was working on my master’s thesis so I could “friend” burlesque performers.  Most current burlesque artists have MySpace pages, though some of them have been moving over to Facebook recently.

I thought a good use of Thing 16 for me would be to explore the more professional uses of social networking sites.  So I’m going to join WebJunction and LinkedIn, and also refine my Facebook limited profile to make sure it is appropriate for work contacts.  I try to keep my Facebook page very private (it’s set to friends only) and free of objectionable material, but giving it another once-over can’t hurt.  Facebook can be tricky, though, as I’ve learned in the past.  For example, I joined the Cleveland network when I moved here and didn’t notice that for at least a month, it was set to the “default” settings – so everyone on the Cleveland network could see my entire page!  Again, I don’t think there’s anything really objectionable on there, but there is a lot of private information I might not want to share with strangers.  Just another social networking cautionary tale . . .

My public LinkedIn profile:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/a/801/9b
My WebJunction profile:  http://www.webjunction.org/web/10633081/

And please feel free to friend me on Facebook!  I’m listed under my full name (Emily Layne Fargo).