I just don't see how any of these things can be done in one hour - a ridiculous under-estimation. I finally have sent a Google doc to Rosita but have yet to receive a reply - it is after all 7.30pm! Loading image was ok but inadvertently sent her the images twice. Google docs could be useful as a communication tool within a restricted group, but it could all get a bit hectic when more than one person was modifying the document at the same time. No doubt there is a way around this which I'll discover in due course.
Finally set up an iGoogle page but I have now lost it. I could scream at time I waste with all of this! Can't someone who enjoys all this "STUFF" just recommend half a dozen of these 23 things which would be truly useful which I can then explore - it would be so much more productive!
Verticordia nitens
4 comments:
I admire your perseverance with tasks that are obviously frustrating for you. You are having a go at something outside your comfort zone - which makes what you are doing much, much more commendable than someone who is already familiar with much of this stuff and breezing through. Or who is unfamiliar and refusing to engage.
The one hour estimate is for the average person completing each Thing. Some people are more familiar with how information access is changing and will rip through it, some are less familiar and will need to take more time to catch up.
The 23 Things is not about the individual Things at all.
It is about learning generic skills that many of our staff do not have. Skills that involve understanding and being able to apply tools that are being used to create, store, organise, retrieve, access and communicate about information, education and research.
It is about having enough basic skills to be able to quickly learn about, contextualise and understand *for yourself* the implications of new tools that arise tomorrow, or the next day - just like we have done with new dictionaries or journals in the past. And - because you already know your users well and what their information needs are - being able to show our users how to apply them to make their lives easier.
It's about being fluent enough in these new literacies to use these tools to save yourself time.
We work as information professionals. We are paid as information professionals. We need to keep our skills up to date to justify this.
At the risk of repeating what Kathryn has said, not all things will be useful that is for sure.
The main thing I guess is being familiar with their existence so they don't get baffling in the future.
Some things I find useless to me, but just the other day I had someone and I was able to recommend the use of google docs and a webcam session to sort out their distance issues.
Both things were really not my cup of tea.
I often find also that things like this are frustrating until you actually put them into a meaningful context, mind you in saying that I still find twitter kind of retarded :)
If you need any help just let me know, we can nut some of the stuff out together.
I have found out where Igoogle hides - under My account- amazingly obvious after all but all that *$*#*% time wasted.
Please don't presume to know what is in and out of my comfort zone - others can only speculate about that.
Keeping our skills up to date?? How much more useful it wd be to be working on a libguide instead of this endless list of things.
:) True. No-one can decide what is or is out of you comfort zone. I'm sorry if the comment was out of turn. It is just the impression I'm getting from this and your other posts on this blog.
Many of the 23 Things can be used to make your LibGuides more interesting and more relevant to people who are using modern tools. But you need to know how these tools work - specifically and generically - before you can enhance your LibGuide this way.
Check out this slideshow, LibGuides and Evolving Learning Spaces, about how one library is integrating Libguides into Facebook (slide 20), using Twitter badges (slide 21), Social bookmarking (slide 22) and Web browser tweaks (slide 23)in their LibGuides.
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