Post #4 – Reinforcing Web 2.0 June 28, 2007

I’ve learned a lot in this class. But I have to be honest…when it comes to technology, I don’t pick it up that easily.  That’s why I agreed to go to this ISLMA workshop with my friend.  She knew nothing about Web 2.0 except for what I tried to show/tell her.  So there we were today, about 22 school librarians playing around with blogs, wikis, RSS, and social bookmarking.  The two leaders were middle school librarians from Libertyville and Lake Bluff.  Thankfully it wasn’t all new to me and I felt rather knowledgeable.  It was nice to have the opportunity to play around with the tools. 

The blog we made was from Blogger through Google.  I found it very helpful to compare that blogging tool with what we are using on WordPress.  I think they are VERY similar.  We then explored wikis.  Never having explored an individual wiki before, this was interesting, but definitely more time consuming for me.  I’ll have to get back to this and possibly link it to my school library blog.  As an introduction to wikis, we saw this short video called ”Wikis in Plain English“ - it’s worth a look!  We used the Google RSS feed reader.  I have to say I did find a difference with this and the one we have on NetVibes.  I like the NetVibes format much better.  It is simple to see what is read and what has not been read.  The only thing that Google has is the starred items that you want to save.  This is helpful and very easy to use.  I know.  You are probably thinking that NetVibes has a way to do this too.  Probably.  I just haven’t experimented enough with it yet to know how.  The leaders shared some of the feeds they have subscribed to.  Not to make LIS753 points or anything, but…they said that Tame the Web has great stuff and that Michael Stephens is on the cutting edge of Web 2.o.  (I am not making that up!)  We then had some time to explore del.icio.us.  It’s interesting to see the power of the tags, as well as to see what others have bookmarked.

At the end of the day, the two leaders shared some final fun Web 2.0 tools.  Michael first introduced me to LibraryThing.  I got excited about it all over again today.  There is also an avatar creator that looks great. 

Reinforcement of all of these tools really helps me (not of the Millenials). What I found most beneficial at this workshop was that I heard ways other school librarians were using Web 2.0 in their schools.  And as an added perk, I made contact with the two leaders and asked if I might come observe them sometime!