Week 7, Thing #16: Or What Am I Missing

What's the difference between a wiki and a blog? Why use one vs. the other?

I THINK I know the answer to that but I'm worried I must be wrong because I seem to be more concerned about this than most people.


To me, a blog is software that enables a person to post thoughts/opinions/essays, and have others respond. I might post a book review and have my peers give their comments on the book. In another blog I might send a committee the minutes from a discussion and ask them to comment on what steps we should take next. All of these I have done with students. The common thread here is that I post and others comment. This is what I see in many of the sites provided as examples.

To me, a wiki is software that enables groups to edit the same document. Wikipedia is the most known, but also most appropriate example of this. The whole is more than the sum of the parts is the theory here. When people work interactively, they are inspired to create something that wouldn't have been created had they simply added parts, or posted comments. Many of the wiki examples I see do not contain this critical aspect of peer editing. Instead, many wikis are blogs posted on a wiki site. I find the history and discussion tabs of a wiki to be the most underrated and underused aspects of the wiki software, but they are the most unique and fascinating. Again, to me, a wiki should more resemble a google doc than a blog.



In online adult classes I have taught, my students are very, very reluctant to criticize, change or comment upon a classmate's work. My HS students are less reluctant. Asking them how it feels to have their work peer edited, they comment that they appreciate having someone help them.

Sometimes it's difficult to tell if the wiki site has been created as an edited site by a group of members b/c without a membership you aren't permitted to see the editing--ie teacherlibrarian. So I can't always comment on specific sites. Some sites are a collaboration without much editing, but that is better than the blog response wikis I see so often. For example, the St. Joseph's site is collaborative but probably not much discussion, debate or editing is done. That's ok by me because the end result is a collaboration. I find the same in the albystaff wiki.

I like the discussion in the student wiki example This shows these students were collaborating and debating.

If I look at the history of the blog and only one user (usually the teacher) has posted, then I think the wiki is underused.

I agree that even for simply commenting the wiki page flows better than the blog page which can be harder to navigate. I can understand why someone would use wikispaces over blogger for that reason alone. I just wonder if I'm the only person who makes that distinction between the two types of software, and thus activities.

All that said, I'm impressed with any class using either wiki or blog software. I'm just splitting hairs.

Week 6, #15

Everything Old is New Again?

When I read Dr. Schultz's article outlining the Library 1.0 to Library 4.0, the above cliche came to mind. In the end, what patrons/students really need and want is personal attention.

Dr. Schulz said people will want "...the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library."

Maybe. I almost can't imagine the world giving up its technology. How many of us are willing to live "off the grid"?

Her point about superstar Avatars was interesting. Will libraries be more competitive against each other with the ease of online access? And what about money concerns? More digital divide when the next wave of "3-D" technology hits, or Library 3.0, as she calls it.

What we have to consider is not just the change that the technology is making in our libraries but the change technology is making in the society, particularly in face to face interactions. I recently read a fascinating article about the changes social networking is making in teenage behavior: Subrahmanyam, Kaveri, and Patricia Greenfield. "Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships." Future of Children 18.1 (2008): 119-46.

Think about these statements from their paper:
--the anonymity of social networking increases negativity, and negative comments, esp. racism
--teens can safely use social networking (hereafter called SN) to try out new roles, part of their development
--technology is having a substantive effect on family relationships, with parents losing much of the control they previously had
--the majority of teens get at least 11 text messages per day, and are more comfortable texting than talking f2f
--harassment is quite likely to come via electronic means rather than in person, often through texting
--most SN reinforces existing relationships rather than establishing new relationships, esp. with older teens
--SN changes the emphasis from family communication to peer communication

As Rick Anderson said in another article, if we don't change with society, we hit icebergs. Mr. Anderson made astute observations about serving the public. I agree that more and more people will expect access to all materials online. However, this seems to me to be generational and research-oriented. At our public library, circulation continues to increase each year. The 40+ users and the 8- users are the ones I think who still use books almost exclusively. Mr. Anderson, probably because he works in an academic library, ignores the patrons who use the library for pleasure reading. Kindle is seemingly popular but it hasn't overwhelmed the library patrons. Users will still want children's books and fiction. I'm presently using microfilm to do genealogy research. Sure, I was it were online (and someday soon it will be) but I still accept that I go to the information. It will be some time yet before our collections disappear. I can envision Digital Books on Demand...... As a school librarian, I've known for decades that teaching is my main role. And it will continue to be that. The Flickr one button he mentions will change tomorrow, and I will be needed to teach patrons where the new button is. I believe that most libraries have already accepted that we will "go where they are" (the third point)in providing 24/7access to as much info -- and library help-- as possible. Most of us are not as oblivious at the Titanic Captain when it comes to icebergs. Maybe it's because we've had much better advice.

Courses like this will help librarians keep pace with change, even if that change isn't so different.

Week 6, #14: Technorati

Technorati is the key to finding information in blogs--if you assume that finding information in blogs is a worthy activity. Yes, authority helps, but is authority a popularity contest or an accuracy measure? But that's a discussion for later.

When I searched initially, I included a quotation mark around my search string. Very librarian-like, right? I found nothing that way, in blogs or in blog posts. Removing the quotation marks changed the search, as it should. I guess sometimes you have to unlearn. I found 8 hits under blogs and 19 hits under blog posts. I expected to find more so I will need to review what I did and see what else I could/should have done.

I have used the ping aspect to add my blog to the technorati rolls, and added the HTML code for the tag. This is an interesting aspect of student blogging. If you had a blog for your class, say a book discussion blog, would you consider tagging it? My initial reaction is no for privacy reasons. If a student had a personal blog, he/she might want to tag it for technorati, but depending on the age of the student, that would definitely require plenty of parental dicussion.

The idea of having students use technorati to review election blogs is a great idea. Students could comment on the factual content, the structure of the argument presented, a comparison to traditional editorials, etc. Then they could create their own blogs. However, the blogs I saw doing a general search were very diverse. The teacher might want to use Technorati to find a list of blogs, or preapprove student blogs to keep the focus workable.

Looking at the top 100 blogs I was not surprised to see Huffington as number one. This blog has come closer to legitmizing blogging than any other blog. Another "unsurprise" is the number of technology blogs in the top 20. Tech geeks who blog would be the most likely to read technology blogs. I wonder how many of our computer teachers have their students read blogs?

Tagging is a mixed topic for me. The librarian in me likes the idea of search terms but the librarian in me (I can't help it!) feels frustrated by the lack of a controlled vocabulary. I wouldn't be surprised to see a controlled vocab in the future. After all, isn't that what is happening when the software shows you commonly used tags?

I did a search on Technorati and then put the same info into Google. If I did a general search with one or two search terms, the blog didn't appear. If I put very specific info in the google search, the blog did appear. Conclusion? Google can find the same info IF you already know the story, but otherwise not.

[School Library Learning 2.0]

Yummy, Or Delicious or something like that

If you have been seeing this message for over a day...." What? It could take more than a day to import bookmarks? Other than that first scare, Del.icious.us was a useful site. I imported my bookmarks, added the popular tags and added the delicious (I just can't keep typing those periods)button to my browser.

I've tried Delicious in the past but didn't have the time/motivation to stick with it. The biggest use for me personally is to have my bookmarks available whenever/wherever I go. Having school bookmarks at home would simplify life (without the hassle of exporting/importing.

I could use delicious to prepare bookmarks for a class or assignment. I would create an account for the assignment or class, then add what I wanted. Students could also add, or maybe I should have them create all the bookmarks from the beginning.

Tagging could get students thinking critically about searching and word use.

I'm going to have to simmer these ideas & think of the drawbacks or concerns.

Week 5, # 12: This Could Be the Golden Snitch

Granted that title is pretty extreme but for librarians Rollyo is a tool with potential. For HS students, this is too good to be true--the best sources searched with one click. The sites were selected by the teachers so no argument on the quality of the source. Pretty magical.

At first, I wasn't impressed. The "sponsored links" gave me pause for concern. It reminded me of those early free Geocities sites. Searching by domain is already easy so that wasn't an advantage.

I created my first searchroll on sites I like to use to find the best airfare. All the sites are great in their own way, and about 20% of the flights they list are unique to that site. It really pays to check them all. But I realized that this type of searchroll wasn't practical. It just gave me links to the sites in general when I wanted flight comparison. Kayak and Vayama already do that. Bad design on my part.

Then the obvious hit me. I often provide my students with a list of links suitable for a specific assignment, such as a research paper on American authors. Creating a searchroll for that assignment, I then tried it with Jimmy Santiago Baca. Whew. Great sites filled the page. Confession: My first thought was--this is great. My second thought was--this makes it too easy for my kids. Every now and then that thought pops in my head, but I'm kicking it around.

Next I'm going to make a genealogy searchroll.

Here's my searchroll:

Search American Authors now by typing the author's name in the box that says SEARCH, moving the pull down box on the next line to American Authors, and clicking the word GO:

Select...American AuthorsSearch The Web

Week 5, #11 Hall of Fame

Exploring the Web 2.0 Hall of Fame was, in simple words, fun. There were many sites that were relevant to my personal interests as well as to my professional interests.

Because I've been learning genealogical research, I started with My Heritage. I wanted to compare it to the databases I have learned. Although it would take days to explore this site to its farthest reaches, I can already see that it focuses on sites that are not likely to be found in the large pay-for-use database Ancestry.com. Most of the info is either more current than Ancestry.com (such as phone directories)or a bit off the beaten path (local basketball results from a Jamaican newspaper. But a search engine is not a social network site. I wondered what made this Web 2.0. The Web 2.0 aspect is the ability to contact each other and share data. Family trees can be public or private. In this way, My Heritage is similar to the free Family Trees portion of Ancestry.com. The first six member trees were private --not so social :) -- although you can email to be allowed to view the site. Sometimes you end at a pay site, such as in the obituaries. The message board gave me no hits. The free message board at ancestry.com provides 20+ hits. The social networking aspect seemed to include younger people, more hipsters than Ancestry. Overall, it's a site worth exploring but not up to the quality of the leader Ancestry. Still, as a free site, you could use it with oral history projects, immigration projects, etc.

I love the SEOmoz short list version of the award winners. That should be posted for students and distributed to faculty. Here are some of the other programs I tried from the short list: Twitter (can't feel the enthusiasm other people do; my Twitter circle must be too small & I don't have phone internet); Craig's List (giving newspapers a run for the $$; good for apt hunting if you want to avoid the agencies); Google Docs (many school applications, esp. for group projects); Wikispaces (I've been using that for a while actually); Yahoo Answers (makes Wikipedia look scholarly); Del.i.cio.us (I want to try this more when I have time; great for those who move from lab to lab; may get obsolete if one-to-one laptop program gets prevalent; do I really want everyone to know my bookmarks); YouTube (another old fav; I get tons of great tutorials here for kids/staff); Google Maps and Yahoo maps are pretty standard stuff now.

Next to explore: LibraryThing (I've tried it but need more time) and GoodReads.

Of everything on the chart, I think Craig's List, YouTube and Google Docs are the most well known. Kids are addicted to YouTube. It connects them with their culture, but could be seen as so much more if students were pushed into using it for serious endeavors. I think Google Docs is the application we should teach, but often don't. The wiki programs are the ones most often used at my school.

Week 5, # 10: Do You See What I See?

Image Generators are an easy way to manipulate photos, especially for classroom labs that don't have access to Photoshop. Using an image generator is also faster when you don't have the time to teach a photo editor, even when you have access.

I created the above phone photo using a picture of the Colleseum from our recent vacation (Yup, I've used our vacation in just about every exercise) in the program ImageChef. ImageChef was one of the easiest programs to use that I've tried for quite a while. What impressed me more was the ease of placing the photo directly into Blogger.

The library photo below was also created with Image Chef. I had some problems with the embedding code Image Chef provided. Blogger told me I had to add an end tag, which I had forgotten how to do. I figured it out. Generally, I don't like flashing graphics but having one now and then might be OK.


ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

In HONOR of the return of Mulder and Scully, I used Comic Strip Generator to make an Alien cartoon. This program has many school applications: teaching satire, interpreting characters, analyzing history, mocking the principal (maybe not). Is school supposed to be this much fun?


Made with free image tools @ TXT2PIC.com