#19 Discovering Web 2.0 Tools

Throughout the course of this Learning 2.0 program we’ve explored just a small sampling of these new internet technologies and websites that are empowering users with the ability to create and share content. But given time there are so many more we could explore.

For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to select any site from this list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees and explore it. With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you (like Books or Personal Organization) and then simply select a tool/site to explore. Be careful to select a tool that is Free and that doesn't require a plug-in or download. The majority of these free, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

Discovery Exercise:

• Select any site/tool from the list of Web 2.0 Awards nominees.


• Explore the site you selected.


• Create a post about your discovery. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting?

Web 2.0 – with so much to explore, just start with ONE. :)

#18 Web-Based Apps: They're Not Just For Desktops

The availability and use of online productivity web-based applications (think word processing and spreadsheets) has exploded over the past two years and for good reasons! These powerful applications provide users with the ability to create and share documents over the internet without the need of installed desktop applications. Some experts speculate that this emerging trend may mean the death to Microsoft Office and other software-based productivity tools, while others think web-based applications have their place, but not in the office. But no matter which side of the office suite platform you side with, on this both sides seem to agree; web-based apps have their place.

One large benefit to web-based applications it that they eliminate the need to worry about different software versions or file types as you email documents or move from PC to PC. Another bonus is that they easily accommodate collaboration by allowing multiple users to edit the same file (with versioning) and provide users the ability to easily save and convert documents as multiple file types (including HTML and pdf). And, you can even use many of these tools, such as Zoho Writer and Google Docs* (formerly known as Writely) to author and publish posts to your blog. It’s this type of integration with other web 2.0 tools that also makes web-based apps so appealing.

For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to take a look at a web-based word processing tool called

Zoho Writer, create a simple document and then document your discoveries in your blog.

If you're up to the challenge, you might even export your document as an HTML file or publish it through Zoho to your blog.

With Zoho and web-based applications, the possibilities are endless.

Discovery Exercise:

Create a free account for yourself in Zoho Writer.

Explore the site and create a few test documents.

Try out Zoho Writer’s features and create a blog post about your discoveries.


Optional: If you're up for the challenge, try using Zoho’s "publish" options to post to your blog.

* Note: You can also explore Google Docs (formerly known as Writely), Google's online word processer, as an option for this exercise. On Oct 11th, Google relaunched Writely (which it acquired in Spring 2006) as Google Docs.

I've created a document Zoho Doc for you to see how easy it is to create and share.

# 17 Playing Around with PB Wiki


"Sandbox" is the term that wikis often use to describe the area of the website that should be used for pure play. For this discovery and exploration exercise, we’ve set up a whole JPL Learning 2.0 Favorites wiki* that’s for nothing but play! The password/invite key to this wiki is learning

For this “explore-and-play-with-wikis” exercise, you are asked to add an entry or two to the PBwiki Learning 2.0 wiki. The theme of this wiki is simply “Favorites” : Favorite books, favorite vacation spots, favorite restaurants, favorite anything …all you need to do is play and add your thoughts. To mark your adventure on this site, you should add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page.

Discovery Resources:

• PB Wiki Tour - Find out how this collaborative tool can be used


• PB Wiki Tips

Discovery Exercise:

1. Access the JPL Learning 2.0 wiki and create a login account for yourself.


2. Add your blog to the Favorite Blogs page. That's how we'll know that you've been there. Just click on Edit at the top of this page add your entry to the bottom of the list.
   • Place your cursor at the end of the last entry in the list
   
   
   • Press ENTER on your keyboard. This will add the next bullet in your list
   
   
   • Type the name of your blog
   
   
   • Highlight the name of your blog and click the "Insert/Edit Link: Icon in the edit tool bar
   
   
   • The link type is URL
   
   
   • Type (or paste) the url to your blog in the URL box
   
   
   • Click ok. Your blog is now linked to this wiki page


3. OPTIONAL: Add a favorite or two to a few other pages (Favorite books, favorite vacation spot, etc). And, if you feel up to the challenge, you might even want to create a separate page for book review or short travel essay and link up to that.


4. Create a post in your blog about the experience. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog entry.

* NOTE: The JPL Learning 2.0 Wiki was created using the free version of PBWiki, a tool that lets you create webpages that anyone can edit.

# 16 So What's a Wiki?

A wiki is a collaborative website and authoring tool that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. Wikipedia, the online open-community encyclopedia, is the largest and perhaps the most well known of these knowledge sharing tools. With the benefits that wikis provide the use and popularity of these tools is exploding.

Some of the benefits that make wikis so attractive are:

• Anyone (registered or unregistered, if unrestricted) can add, edit or delete content.


• Tracking tools within wikis allow you to easily keep up on what been changed and by whom.


• Earlier versions of a page can be viewed and reinstated when needed.


• And users do not need to know HTML in order to apply styles to text or add and edit content. In most cases simple syntax structure is used.

As the use of wikis has grown over the last few years, libraries all over the country have begun to use them to collaborate and share knowledge. Among their applications are pathfinder or subject guide wikis, book review wikis, ALA conference wikis and even library best practices wikis.

Discovery Resources:
Use these resources to learn more aboout wikis:

• Wiki, wiki, wiki - from PLCMC's own Core Compentency blog


• Wiki’s: A Beginner’s Look – an excellent short slide presentation that offers a short introduction and examples.


• What is a Wiki? – Library Success wiki presentation


• Using Wikis to Create Online Communities – a good overview of what a wiki is and how it can be used in libraries.

Discovery Exercise:

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at some library wikis and blog about your finding. Here’s a few examples to get you started:


• SJCPL Subject Guides – a pathfinder wiki developed by the St. Joseph County Public Library system


• Book Lovers Wiki - developed by the Princeton Public Library


• Library Success: A best practices wiki


• ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki – an example of a wiki created to support a specific event


• The Bull Run Library wiki - a public library wiki and also a Learning 2.0 participant


• Other library wiki examples


1. Create a blog post about your findings. What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?


2. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post

So what's in a wiki? Find out by doing some exploring on your own.

#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0

Library 2.0 is term used to describe a new set of concepts for developing and delivering library services. The name, as you may guess, is an extension of Web2.0 and shares many of its same philosophies and concepts including harnessing the user in both design and implementation of services, embracing constant change as a development cycle over the traditional notion of upgrades, and reworking library services to meet the users in their space, as opposed to ours (libraries).

Many have argued that the notion of Library 2.0 is more than just a term used to describe concepts that merely revolve around the use of technology; it also a term that can be used to describe both physical and mindset changes that are occurring within libraries to make our spaces and services more user-centric and inviting. Others within the profession have asserted that libraries have always been 2.0: collaborative, customer friendly and welcoming. But no matter which side of the debate proponents fall, both sides agree that libraries of tomorrow, even five or ten years from now, will look substantially different from libraries today.

Discovery Resources:

OCLC Next Space Newsletter – Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web it take libraries?
Five perspectives:

• Away from Icebergs


• Into a new world of librarianship


• To more powerful ways to cooperate


• To better bibliographic services


• To a temporary place and time

Wikipedia - Library 2.0
Library 2.0 Discussions (list of great references from Wikipedia)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Read two or three of the perspectives on Library 2.0 from the list above.


2. Create a blog post about your thoughts on any one of these? Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?


3. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post

#14 Getting Not-So-Technical with Technorati

So now that you’ve been blogging for awhile, you might be wondering just how big the blogosphere is. Well, according to Technorati, the leading search tool and authority for blogs, the number of blogs doubles just about every 6 months with almost 113 million blogs currently being tracked by the site.

Yes, these numbers are astounding, but as you’ve already seen for yourselves, blogging is so easy that these publishing tools are being taken advantage of by almost every industry, including libraries.

So how does a person get their blog listed as part of the blogosphere and how can you tag your posts with keywords to make them more findable through a Technorati search? The answer to the first question is that your blog is probably already being captured by Technorati due to the fact that you're already using Blogger, the most popular blogging tool. But if you want to join the party and have your blog officially listed on Technorati and also take advantage of the watchlist and other features, you’ll need to claim your blog yourself. As for tagging posts with Technorati tags? This is easy, too. All you need to do is add a little bit of HTML code to the bottom of your post and Technorati will pick up these tags when it spiders (or web crawls) your site.

Using Technorati you can search for keywords in blog posts, search for entire blog posts that have been tagged with a certain keyword, or search for blogs that have been registered and tagged as whole blogs about a certain subject (like photography or libraries).

Discovery Resources:
Technorati Discover & Popular features

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?


2. Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?


3. Create a blog post about your discoveries on this site.


4. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post.

OPTIONAL: If you're up for a challenge, learn how to tag your posts by with Technorati tags so they can join tag searches. Create a post about something. It can be anything you want and add the HTML code to the bottom to tag it as “JPLL2.” You may also want to consider claiming your blog and creating a watchlist.

NOTE: When adding HTML code, you'll want to make sure you're in Blogger's Edit HTML window.

# 13 Tagging, Folksonomies & Social Bookmarking in Delicious

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e.Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want.

In the past few weeks, we’ve already explored a few sites – Flickr and LibraryThing to name two --that allow users to take advantage of tagging.This week, in addition to exploring Technorati tagging, we want to also take at popular social bookmarking site called Delicious).

Many users find that the real power of Delicious is in the social network aspect, which allows you to see how other users have tagged similar links and also discover other websites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ filing cabinet, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's filing cabinet helps to build an expansive knowledge network.

For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a look at Delicious and learn about this popular bookmarking tool.

Discovery Resources:

• What is Delicious? The about Delicious page


• Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English from Common Craft. (click pause to let the video load before viewing)


• Otter Group Delicious tutorial (8 min video)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look around Delicious using the PLCMCL account that was created for this exercise. Note: In this account you will find lots of resources that have been highlighted or used throughout the course of the Learning 2.0 program.
   
2. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?


3. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?


4. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post when you have completed Thing #13

OPTIONAL (at home challenge): If you’re up to the challenge, create a Delicious account for yourself and discover how this useful bookmarking tool can replace your traditional browser bookmark list. You might even want to explore Delicious’ latest addition, a network badge.

# 12 Add a Jaxcat Gadget


This one is just for fun. With all of the cool tools out there on the internet these days you can create gadgets and widgets for just about anything. Using the Google Gadget Application we've created a gadget that will put a JaxCat search box on your blog and your iGoogle page.

Discovery Excercise:

1. Print out these instructions, if you'd like.


2. Copy the code from this document completely. (You'll be pasting it later)


3. Log in to your Blogger account (in a new browser window, to keep these instructions handy).


4. On your blog dashboard, find the name of the blog you want to add the search box to and click on the word layout to the right of the blog name.


5. Click on Page Elements. (Look in the upper left part of the window)


6. In the page layout area, on the right-hand side, click on "add a page element".


7. In the pop up window scroll down, choose HTML/JavaScript, click "add to blog".


8. Paste the code you copied into the Content area of this pop-up window. This is what it should look like. No title is needed. (click image to see a bigger picture):
   


9. Click save to return to your page layout.


10. Save your blog template


11. Click View Blog at the top of your screen. You may have to refresh your page to see your JaxCat search box on your blog.


12. How else can a search box to our catalog be useful outside of our library's webpage? Blog about it! If you do, post a comment to this blog letting us know.

Your search box should look like this:


Add the JaxCat Gadget to your iGoogle page:

1. Log into your iGoogle page. You have one if you created a Google account when you created your blog.


2. Go to the JaxCat Search Gadget home page.


3. Click add it now.


4. Click Back to iGoogle home to see the gadget on your page.

From the JaxCat Search Gadget you can also customize the search box (including sixe and borders) for your blog or another web page. Click the "Embed this gadget" link and follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

#11 A Thing about Library Thing


Are you book lover or cataloger at heart? Or do you enjoy finding lost and forgotten gems on the shelf to read? Then LibraryThing may be just the tool for you. Developed for booklovers, this online tool not only allows you to easily create an online catalog of your own it also connects you to other people who have similar libraries and reading tastes. Add a book to your catalog by just entering the title -- It’s so easy that you don’t even need MARC record training to do it – or connect with other users through your similar reading tastes. There are lots of ways to use LibraryThing. You can even view your books on a virtual shelf, add a widget (see sidebar for sample) to display titles that are in your catalog or install a LT Search box on your blog.

So why not join the ranks and create your own library online. With over 65,000 registered (BTW: LibraryThing also has group forum for librarians users and over 4.7 million cataloged books, you're bound to discover something new.

Discovery Resources:

• About LibraryThing


• LibraryThing Tour


• LibraryThing Blog

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look around LibraryThing and create an account.


2. Add a least 5 books to your library.


3. Blog about your findings and be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog.


4. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post so we know you've completed Thing #11.

#10 Play Around with Image GeneratorsGenerators? No, we're not talking about those gas powered back-up things. The generators I’m talking about allow you to easily manipulate image and graphics to create fun images like these:



For this discovery exercise, we just want you to have fun. Find a few fun image or text generators to play around with and write a post in your blog about one of your favorites and display the result. Often adding the image you mocked up to your blog is as simple as copying and pasting code that the page provides. If not, you may just need to right click on the image and then save it to your hard drive before using Blogger’s image button to add it to your post.

If you’re having difficulty getting your image added to a post in your blog, ask a co-worker for help. In looking at several staff blogs, it’s easy to see that we have lots of people in the system who have figured out how easy it is to add images to their blogs.

Discovery Resources:
The Generator Blog
FD Toys
Comic Strip Generator

Also try searching for online generators, text generators or image generators!

Discovery Exercise:

1. Play around with some image generators and find one that you like.


2. Post the result of your discovery process in your blog. Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too.


3. Post a comment to this blog to let us know you've completed thing #10. Be sure to include a link to your post.

So take some time and have fun with this exercise. And remember to be tasteful

#9 Finding Feeds

Now that you have a newsreader (your Bloglines account), you can begin adding other newsfeeds that interest you. There are several ways you can locate newsfeeds:

• When visiting your favorite websites -- look for news feed icons that indicate the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site. (Here's an image that contains a sampling of several feed icons).


• Use Blogline's Search tool - Bloglines recently expanded search tool lets you search for news feeds in addition to posts, citations and the web. Use the Search for Feeds option to locate RSS feeds you might be interested in.


• Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:
  
  
  • Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
  
  
  • Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
  
  
  • Technorati - Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in. Additonal Resource: Technorati Tutorial on finding and adding your blog

Discovery Excercise:

1. Explore some of the search tools noted above that can help you locate some news feeds.


2. Create a blog post about your experience. Don't know what to blog about? Here some questions to think about ...
   

   Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?
   Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing?
   What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?
   What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?



3. Post a comment to this blog to let us know you've completed this discovery exercise!

EXTRA STUFF -- Feed icon information:

In Febuary of 2006, the adoption of a standard feed icon among websites and browsers finally began to assist in stopping the madness and confusion caused by so many variations. So far this icon has been adopted by many websites and browers, including Opera and FireFox, where it displays in the address bar:


Internet Explorer 7.0 has this as well. For more information about this emerging new standard, see Feedicons.com

#8 Make Life "Really Simple" with RSS & a Newsreader


You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry, according to a recent survey you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.

Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it? Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.

This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Discovery Resources:

• Common Craft Video– RSS in Plain English – a good over view of what RSS is and the benefits to users.
  Hint: Click the pause button to let the video completely load in your browser before clicking the play button.


• Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds - a good tutorial from Palinet, a library cooperative


• Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) – This online tutorial walks you through how to setup a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 to 3 to set up your Bloglines account. Steps 4 – 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc)


• Adding RSS Feeds to Bloglines - A short YouTube video that created for the original Learning 2.0 project showing how to add feeds.


• Additional Bloglines news feed subcription information (screenshot image)


• Your co-workers - tap into their knowledge or work through your discovery process together. Many JPL staff are already savy in using RSS feeds and bloglines. Seek them out and ask them to show what they know.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.


2. Create a free online Bloglines account for yourself and subscribe to at least 10 newsfeeds to your reader. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions.
   
   Newsfeeds:
   
   
   • L2 participant blog feeds - Subscribe to several of your co-workers' feeds. This is as easy as typing the blog URL into the subscribe field in Bloglines. Try it, it's easy!
   
   
   • Make sure you've allowed site feeds from your own blog. It's in the Settings tab under site feeds.
   
   
   • Then try adding a few other types of news feeds from news sources.
     
     The Learning 2.0 blog feed
     
     Unshelved - Library cartoon feed
     
     One of the blogs listed in Discovery Exercise #7
     
   
   
3. Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)

Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions:

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

How to find your public Bloglines URL:

1. Once you've created your account in Bloglines, click on the Bloglines logo to return to the Bloglines home page


2. Click on "Share" to go to the Blogroll Wizard


3. Follow the instructions to locate the public URL (see screenshot)


4. Important: Be sure to add this as part of your post to demonstrate your completion of this activity.


5. Post a comment to this blog with a link to your blog post.

PS: Once you tackle this discovery exercise, you've tackled the most difficult one of the whole 23. :)