Hi All,
I've been trying to post replies on people's blogs since we started this course, but for some reason I cannot do so using IE at work.
Wednesday 10 October 2012
Problems posting replies - change your browser?
Monday 8 October 2012
Keeping up to date part three - alerts
I've often wanted to use these but never got round to setting them up.
I found JournalITocs incredible easy to use. The registration was quick and easy and i've already added a number of journals. I also added the RSS feeds to my Reader.
I do love Google Reader. It's so easy to mange the feeds. I can see that this could be quite addictive. At first I was wary of adding too much as I still need to find the time to read the feeds. But I soon realised that if you manage your feeds you can still keep up to date without feeling overwhelmed with information. If I just want to know about what's happening in the library world, I'll just look at my library feeds, etc.
I also found Google alerts very easy to use. I'm not sure how much I would use this, or how useful i would find it. I set up a couple of alerts for personal interests to go to my gmail account. I don't always remember to check this account as it's not my main personal email account. I also think i might get a bit fed up with receiving multiple alerts, but as I haven't received any yet it's too early to say if I think this will work.
From a library perspective, I think the Reader and the Journal alerts will be much more useful.
One last point, I've spent a lot of time on this section as I don't want to fall behind. I'm really enjoying the course and learning a lot, but it has to be said you do need to commit a fair amount of time to this.
I found JournalITocs incredible easy to use. The registration was quick and easy and i've already added a number of journals. I also added the RSS feeds to my Reader.
I do love Google Reader. It's so easy to mange the feeds. I can see that this could be quite addictive. At first I was wary of adding too much as I still need to find the time to read the feeds. But I soon realised that if you manage your feeds you can still keep up to date without feeling overwhelmed with information. If I just want to know about what's happening in the library world, I'll just look at my library feeds, etc.
I also found Google alerts very easy to use. I'm not sure how much I would use this, or how useful i would find it. I set up a couple of alerts for personal interests to go to my gmail account. I don't always remember to check this account as it's not my main personal email account. I also think i might get a bit fed up with receiving multiple alerts, but as I haven't received any yet it's too early to say if I think this will work.
From a library perspective, I think the Reader and the Journal alerts will be much more useful.
One last point, I've spent a lot of time on this section as I don't want to fall behind. I'm really enjoying the course and learning a lot, but it has to be said you do need to commit a fair amount of time to this.
Thing 2 Keeping up to date part 2
I found this section really interesting. I've had a personal Twitter account for a couple of years but never used it to it's full potential. We also have a library Twitter account @wshlibrary.
So, I skipped the first bit about setting up the accounts, but I did read the LSE document and the 100 ways to use twitter document, both of which were very informative and I shall be using a couple of the ideas.
What I was really interested in was the extended bit and, in particular, setting up a twitterfeed. I registered for the service (it's free) and set my feed up within minutes. It was very straightforward and I'm beginning to realise that most of these web 2.0 tools are incredibly easy to use.
I suppose that's the main advantage to this course, it breaks down your fear of using new technology. Sometimes, when you read about new applications, it sounds so complicated, but when you actually sign up it's very easy. Frankly, I'm not that interested in how it works, just that it works.
Off to get to grips with alerts now, but also wanted to add I'm loving the RSS feeds coming in to my Google reader. It makes it so much easier to keep up to date, and to find interesting topics on which to tweet.
So, I skipped the first bit about setting up the accounts, but I did read the LSE document and the 100 ways to use twitter document, both of which were very informative and I shall be using a couple of the ideas.
What I was really interested in was the extended bit and, in particular, setting up a twitterfeed. I registered for the service (it's free) and set my feed up within minutes. It was very straightforward and I'm beginning to realise that most of these web 2.0 tools are incredibly easy to use.
I suppose that's the main advantage to this course, it breaks down your fear of using new technology. Sometimes, when you read about new applications, it sounds so complicated, but when you actually sign up it's very easy. Frankly, I'm not that interested in how it works, just that it works.
Off to get to grips with alerts now, but also wanted to add I'm loving the RSS feeds coming in to my Google reader. It makes it so much easier to keep up to date, and to find interesting topics on which to tweet.
Thursday 4 October 2012
Thing 2 tasks 1 and 2
I'm running a little behind this week, but I've just completed tasks 1 and 2 by setting up several RSS feeds to my Google reader account.
I found this incredibly easy. The instructions on the 12 Things blog were very clear. I was a bit surprised by how many sites do not have an automatic feed through to google, making it easy to add them to my reader, but it was very easy to copy and paste the URL in to the reader.
I can see this as being really useful. We currently don't use RSS feeds as well as we could on our library website, but this will be remedied soon. I seem to spend most of my time whilst doing the "things" making notes of stuff to add to our website.
I'm really looking forward to the next thing on twitter. I've had a twitter account for a few years but I've never really taken to it. I think that's because I am a little uncertain about what kind of online identity to present.
We also have a library twitter account and this is also under-used, so I'm hoping to put that right after the next thing.
It's good to be back :-)
I found this incredibly easy. The instructions on the 12 Things blog were very clear. I was a bit surprised by how many sites do not have an automatic feed through to google, making it easy to add them to my reader, but it was very easy to copy and paste the URL in to the reader.
I can see this as being really useful. We currently don't use RSS feeds as well as we could on our library website, but this will be remedied soon. I seem to spend most of my time whilst doing the "things" making notes of stuff to add to our website.
I'm really looking forward to the next thing on twitter. I've had a twitter account for a few years but I've never really taken to it. I think that's because I am a little uncertain about what kind of online identity to present.
We also have a library twitter account and this is also under-used, so I'm hoping to put that right after the next thing.
It's good to be back :-)
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