Entries in the Category "Web 2.0"
Five Weeks to a Social Library
It's finally here... I'm excited to see what this online (free) conference has to offer. Anything I find "exceptional" I'll be posting here.
http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/
Five Weeks to a Social Library Location: Online
Dates: February 12 - March 17, 2006
Five Weeks to a Social Library, the first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries. The course was developed to provide a free, comprehensive, and social online learning opportunity for librarians who do not otherwise have access to conferences or continuing education and who would benefit greatly from learning about social software. The course will take place in Drupal and on a MediaWiki installation, and will also involve a variety of other popular social software tools. The course will make use of synchronous components, with one or two weekly Webcasts and many IM chat sessions being made available to students each week. The course will culminate in each student developing a proposal for implementing a specific social software tool in their library.
The course will take place between February 12 and March 17 and will be limited to forty participants. However, course content will be freely viewable to interested parties and all live Webcasts will be archived for later viewing. The course will cover the following topics:
- Blogs
- RSS
- Wikis
- Social Networking Software and SecondLife
- Flickr
- Social Bookmarking Software
- Selling Social Software @ Your Library
Web 2.0... The Machine is Us/ing Us
Impressive...
World Usability Day
The evening started off with some light snacks in a conference room off the library, which I believe is part of the new construction gong on at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Very nice location.
Also interesting was the amount of people from Kent State that I went to school with, including my advisor! It was just like old times... Hard to believe those 4 years went by so fast. I digress.
The evening was was non-traditional with different areas designated for certain talks. 10 minute reminders were given for you to change locations and join different discussions.
The most appealing was a discussion by Chris Braunsdorf(sp?) from Progressive Insurance, discussing usability with Web 2.0. Since it was more free-form, here are just some bullet-point take-away's from the talk.
- A Step Backward: One point was made that I hadn't considered before, how the web was a step backwards in terms human-computer interaction and usability. We had gone from the likes of DOS to Windows based operating systems. Things were becoming more usable and dynamic, then when the web appeared and we were thrown back to single flat pages with long menus of pages. Just now are we getting back to the more dynamic and interactive behaviors that we've been used to on computers, on the web.
- Follow the leader: It's obvious that companies like Google, Yahoo ! and Flickr have all taken the lead using Web 2.0 technologies, and for us smaller guys, we often have to just follow the lead when it comes to figuring out how to create sites using these interactive web technologies. How people have come to learn how to use these sites is the same understanding and expectation they'll bring to your site.
The example provided was that of the Delete key on the keyboard, and how Apple proved through usability studies that it was most efficient on the left side. However Microsoft placed it on the right (presumably without any studies as to why), and that's the way it stayed. So what's always the BEST may not be what works in the long run.
- Better Use of Space: It's easily understood just how valuable screen space is when dealing with the web. (scrolling=bad). But using new dynamic technologies such as Flash or AJAX can prove to be a valuable space saver. Now with the ability to right-click with web-application specific options, dragging & dropping, roll-overs, and pop-ups that aren't really pop-ups, the options for space-saving is greatly increased (but then so does the challenge grow for developing a more usable site)
- Platforms: Of course the discussion had to lead to Flash versus AJAX. While I have never programmed in either environment, from this discussion I've gleaned that each has their highs and lows. AJAX (a favorite of Google) is open source and Java-based. However it carries a heavier "weight" as compared to the proprietary Flash. You can get more info here, including a list of alternatives (though it's an AJAX site).
- Standards: Chris kept mentioning "standards" throughout our discussion, so I decided to ask him if he'd seen any of these standards published anywhere. He hadn't, but he was able to point us to a great resource over at Yahoo! Developer Network, the Design Pattern Library. In case you're curious at what a "pattern" is (from IAWiki):
Patterns are optimal solutions to common problems. As common problems are tossed around a community and are resolved, common solutions often spontaneously emerge. Eventually, the best of these rise above the din and self-identify and become refined until they reach the status of a Design Pattern.
He equated the lack of documentation of these standards as an example of the shoemaker's son going shoe-less.
The rest of the night was spent seeing what my former colleagues were up to with the Usability lab down at Kent State. This was just getting completed when I was attending classes there. It was pretty amazing to see what they could do with eye-tracking using their Tobii device. That along with what they can do within their controlled lab environment is pretty impressive. You can read more about it at the Kent Stater Online.
For more information on World Usability Day or Usability in General, check out the Usability Professionals' Association (http://www.upassoc.org/).
Digital Library as a Third Place
An interesting piece.
From: http://mchabib.blogspot.com/2006/10/digital-library-as-third-place.html
Digital Library as Third Place
posted by Michael C. Habib @ 4:51 PM
A few days ago, Peter Bromberg of Library Garden posted a version of an essay called "Library as Place". I had the good fortune to meet Peter at Library Camp a few weeks ago, and I wholeheartedly agree with the arguments of his essay. However, I feel it is important that we, as librarians, look beyond the walls of the library when discussing library as place. We need to expand our vision to include digital library as place. We are already doing this implicitly by incorporating social tools such as blogs and wikis into our websites. However, by explicately acknowledging this phenomenon, we can utilize what we already know about the physical library as place when building online communities. In fact, I originally created my Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model to demonstrate the parallels between physical and virtual library places. It was only after completing the model that I took the additional step of recognizing the virtual library places as Library 2.0.
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Basic v2
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model Basic v2
(green = third place)
When discussing library as place, Peter brings in the concept of "third place". It is exactly this version of physical library as place that my model hopes to parallel in the virtual world. Peter explains:
By our very nature we offer people a "third place" (not home, not work) where they can come to explore, imagine, think, learn, play, and reflect. Our function as a "third place" has never been more important to our continued health and relevance. If libraries are to survive and thrive we must redouble our efforts and refocus our energies to ensure that we are not only "third places" but destinations of choice.
Taken in a different context, isn't this exactly what we are trying to transform our web sites into? MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr are wonderful examples of the online third places that people spend their time. What is different about the virtual world is that it is easier to incorporate the library into other third places. For example, if a patron is on your library's MySpace page, then it could be argued that they are both at MySpace and your Library.
For those who are having trouble conceptualizing of the web as a place, lets look at the example of Second Life instead. As a 3D virtual world, Second Life is more obviously a place. The Second Life Library 2.0 is also the most obvious example of digital library as third place. If a patron is at their house on their computer in Second Life at Library 2.0, where are they? If they are focused enough, they are at the Second Life Library 2.0. Where we are is often more mental than it is physical. By embracing this concept, we will be able to build more compelling physical and virtual places. How might we go about this? Peter asks the following:
Why would someone in our community choose to spend their time here rather than somewhere else? Related questions might be: What does the library look like, smell like, feel like, and sound like? What do our signs communicate? What kind of environment are we offering to the community and how do library staff contribute to the creation of a friendly, welcoming environment?
Outside of smell, couldn't we apply all of these questions to our websites? To conclude, the next time you find yourself discussing "library as place", please ask how the discussion would apply to the online world.
5 Weeks to a Social Library
In case you've missed this... I plan on checking out the archive footage when it's made available.
-----------------
Five Weeks to a Social Library
Cost: FREE
When: Between February 12 and March 17, 2007
Where: Online
Who: 40 librarians interested in social software and it use in libraries
(Course content will be freely viewable to interested parties and all live Webcasts will be archived for later viewing)
The course will be taught using a variety of social software tools so that the participants acquire experience using the tools while they are taking part in the class. The course will make use of synchronous online communication, with one or two weekly Webcasts and many IM or Skype chat sessions made available to students each week.
By the end of the course, each student will develop a proposal for implementing a specific social software tool in their library.
Applications for course participantion are currently being accepted (deadline Dec. 1, 2006). The application process is designed to ensure that the course will benefit those librarians who have the most to gain from learning about social software and who would not otherwise have access to conferences or continuing education.
So all of you medical librarians who complain that you do not have time or insitutional support to attend conferences or continuing education should be very interested in this, because this class is for you!
The course will cover the following topics:
Blogs
RSS
Wikis
Social Networking Software and SecondLife
Flickr
Social Bookmarking Software
Selling Social Software @ Your Library
Participation Requirements:
Each participant will take part in a weekly small group chat (either via VoIP or IM) with four other participants and a facilitator and will have the opportunity to chat with social software experts throughout the week. They will also attend at least one of two live Webcasts offered weekly. There will be weekly readings, podcasts, and Webcasts for the users to peruse and discuss. Each user will have a blog on which to post reflections on what they are learning and will be able to read and comment on other participants' blogs. The final assignment for the course will involve developing a proposal for implementing a social software tool at their library.
Applicants must be self-directed, passionate about using social software to benefit their library, and willing and able to invest the time required to take part in the course. While it is not necessary to have had exposure to social software tools in the past, general comfort in the online medium is strongly recommended.
Users must have the following items to participate:
An AOL Instant Messenger account (free).
A Skype account (free).
Windows 2000 or XP or Mac OS 10.3 or later.
A recent version of IE, Firefox, or Safari.
A headset or microphone that connects to your computer (not sure if we will be using this -- we'll keep you posted).
A reliable and relatively fast Internet connection. While broadband is not required, it is strongly recommended as it may not be possible to fully take part in the course without it.
Time to invest in learning, discussion and reflection.
Berners-Lee calls for Web 2.0 Calm
Great article about Web 2.0 overload. No mention of Libraries 2.0, but I think they could easily be included... This also reminds me of the older discussion asking if e-Business is different than regular old Business. A logical extension, or a complete subset with a significantly different structure?
Berners-Lee calls for Web 2.0 calm
OUT-LAW News, 31/08/2006
http://www.out-law.com/page-7248
ANALYSIS: Five years after the first internet bubble burst, we're now witnessing the backlash against Web 2.0 and a plethora of me-too business plans, marketing pitches and analyst reports exploiting the nebulous phrase.
By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco for The Register.
Tim Berners-Lee, the individual credited with inventing the web and giving so many of us jobs, has become the most prominent individual so-far to point out that the Web 2.0 emperor is naked. Berners-Lee has dismissed Web 2.0 as useless jargon nobody can explain and a set of technology that tries to achieve exactly the same thing as "Web 1.0."
According to this transcript, Berners-Lee was reacting to an IBM developerWorks pod cast interviewer who'd categorized Web 1.0 as connected computers and making information available, and Web 2.0 as connecting people and facilitating new kinds of collaboration. Those who remember the empowering effects of Netscape and the moment email became more than just borrowing your mate's CompuServe account at work will also recognize such blanket assertions of historical revisionism for what they are.
Berners-Lee's words come as the hype around all things Web 2.0 reaches a zenith. Entrepreneurs hoping to become the next Google or Salesforce.com acquisition, marketing types desperate for a home run, analysts segmenting the market to sell research, and opinionated bloggers have, at the latest count, attached the phrase "2.0" to 12 other "concepts" or technologies.
We have: SOA 2.0, enterprise 2.0, grid 2.0, VoIP 2.0, voice 2.0, BPM 2.0, Office 2.0 and – outside of pure technology – advertising 2.0 and marketing 2.0 (both – naturally – taking advantage of Web 2.0's social networking technologies), business development 2.0 and – subverting the genre – hidsight 2.0 and lunch 2.0.
There are two common problems with Web 2.0 and its derivatives. The first is the desire to characterize Web 2.0 as unique technology with unique consequences for business.
Web 2.0 relies on technologies that have been around for years. Berners-Lee pointed out the things that drove Web 1.0 also underpin Web 2.0 – the document object mode, HTML, http, SVG, web standards and – because he's old school "Java script of course." Free Software Foundation chief legal counsel Eben Moglen recently concurred at this month's LinuxWorld, saying Web 2.0 owes its existence to software and development methodologies already established in open source.
"The phenomena of the empty buzzword called Web 2.0 can only exist because of the real layer for free and open source software underneath," Moglen said, letting the Web 2.0 crowd down gently.
Web 2.0 is, in Berners-Lee's definition, purely a blog and wiki thing. Reinforcing that idea is Andrew McAfee of the Harvard Business School, who is actually credited with creating the phrase Enterprise 2.0. Enterprise 2.0 wraps up wikis, blogs, RSS and Ajax, according to McAffee. While the ingredients that makes this stuff have been lying around for years, what makes things so different is the way it's all coming together right now. Services are affordable, services are morphing to create social networks, and tools are helping filter blog and wiki content.
While enterprise software is indeed evolving thanks to blog and wiki technologies - well, at least so far as adding RSS to things like Microsoft Outlook and Windows goes – Enterprise 2.0 simplifies the complex history of, and relationship between, business and technology. Remember the PC revolution? Or what about remote working? Or e-commerce? Genuine milestones in the evolution of business because they fundamentally changed companies' structures and cultures. Yet these rate as incremental product version numbers somewhere between Enterprise 1.0 and Enterprise 2.0, apparently.
It's interesting to note Web 2.0 poster child Wikipedia may expunge Enterprise 2.0 for a second time after the phrase was resurrected from the digital dead.
The other problem if you peak behind the Web 2.0 blog and wiki curtain is that you'll find the man pulling the levers is either an enterprise vendor or an analyst eager to sell to business customers. Of special interest to businesses should be SOA 2.0 and grid 2.0.
Weeding through the philosophizing on these buzzwords typified here and here, you'll find some common themes: essentially that version 2.0 goes further than the original idea and also creates a greater degree of flexibility. Specifically, SOA 2.0 is about an event-driven architecture, not just a "client/server relationship", and uses "deeper semantics" pulled together "mechanically." Grid 2.0 is about sharing networks and storage resources, and data not just raw computing power.
While there is no single definition for SOA, the general thesis from the start was for systems to discover each other and work together reliably. That's why IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and other companies large and small sweated through standards groups and the Java Community Process to devise the WS- specifications and Java APIs for asynchronous communication, secure and reliable delivery of messages, federated identity, and the development of enterprise services busses.
Grids have been around for years, mostly in academic and high-performance computing environments. Groups like the Global Grid Forum, backed by Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Intel, and AMD among others, and Globus Alliance have been working to make grids something businesses can also tap by devising standards, best practices, middleware and tools. The inherent problem with grid 2.0 is the philosophy behind grids has always been about harnessing distributed computing power. In other words, grid 2.0 is grid 1.0 because it re-treads an accepted concept by just adding more stuff.
What's really driving SOA 2.0 and grid 2.0 is hollow, buzzword-based marketing by companies trying to stand out in overpopulated and immature markets. On SOA, we have a general, high-level consensus in the absence of a single standards-based definition. Specifications for both SOA and grid are still being devised, and where specifications exist they are not fully implemented by all vendors.
This has therefore created a vacuum in which vendors and analysts make hollow and partisan marketing claims to stand out. So-far, only Oracle, backed – curiously – by Gartner believe in SOA 2.0. Systems heavyweight IBM, making its own hollow claims of having dominant market share in SOA, its number-one rival BEA Systems, and SOA cheerleader SAP do not appear to share the Oracle and Gartner view.
Judging by its staid LinuxWorld keynote, Intel is the only one banging the grid 2.0 drum. Oracle, the software grid champion, and possibly IBM would – you'd have thought – be among the first to recognize an evolution in grids if one existed. Not a chip manufacturer experiencing growing competition from grid evangelist AMD.
You should thank Tim Berners-Lee. Not just for giving us the web, but for articulating what's gone wrong in the lexicon and thinking of Silicon Valley. Hopefully, his standing in the web community will serve as a rallying cry for right-thinking individuals and true visionaries, and mean Web 2.0 is put in its proper context.
© The Register 2006
NMC Conference Day 1
And so begins another blog... however, blogging for work is kinda like getting to bring your dog to work. It's involving something that you really enjoy but don't feel quite right doing. Speaking of which, when will taking your dog to work become a standard practice? I see Google's now doing it. Doesn't that mean that it's cool and everyone should jump on the bandwagon?
Part of the purpose of this blog is to share what I'm working on, or what I'm learning, with the Tech Team here at the Kelvin Smith Library. Attending this New Media Consoritium (NMC) Conference on campus is a perfect start. And what better way to start than to write about a workshop on Web 2.0 technologies! However, this didn't really occur to me until about 20 minutes into the workshop, as everyone is sitting there with their laptops and the presenter is encouraging people to use their computers as he's giving his presentation. I couldn't believe I didn't think to bring mine. I slipped out and came right back with it.
Now this blog won't necessarily be my personal synthesis on everything that was discussed, but more just documentation of my notes, with personal comments thrown in.
Can You Wiki a Vlogcast? Web 2.0 and Rich Media
Peter B. Lewis Building, Room 106
Bryan Alexander, NITLE
Bryan's Blog: Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education
This session explores the intersection of Web 2.0 social computing with new developments in rich media, examining the resulting pedagogical uses. Instructors discuss the different levels of interactivity afforded by syndication, aggregation, and mixing of sound and video files. Emphasis is placed on two case studies: how can podcasts become more responsive to users, as their content is enhanced by emergent tools and practices? How can video be collaboratively edited? New forms of storytelling are also considered.
This session essentially summarized Web 2.0 technologies (social software applications) and Rich Media (photos, podcasts, digital video, etc). Many of the attendees were Instructional Technology / New Media people for various Higher Education Institutions. So much of what was discussed involved how these technologies affect students, faculty and learning.
Bryan first talked about his role at NITLE, where he serves as the Director of Research. Several projects of interest are:CODEX: Faculty, librarians, and IT professionals from participating colleges are developing essential projects and resources to address the rapid growth in the quantity and availability of digital materials and the increasingly sophisticated means of accessing them. Emerging solutions include collaborative databases of media assets and communities of practice focused on effective strategies for digital asset management.
Latitude: Faculty and staff across the disciplines are integrating spatial reasoning into their courses and curricula. By teaching with GIS and other mapping tools, participants deploy powerful technologies to engage their students in complex analysis, modeling, and quantitative reasoning. As a result, students gain the ability critically to reframe and resolve challenging questions with sophisticated geographical awareness.Bryan discussed how this technology is not necessarily new. We can look back over decades to see how technology has affected us. Going back to the original DARPA network, the purpose of technology and a network has always been to connect people to information and to each other. Much of our culture looks at it as man vs. machine, but really we need to look at it from the social aspect of it. So this burst of social software applications is only an extension of our intended use of technology. Web 2.0 has several components:
- Microcontent (URL, picture, text, audio file, etc.)
- Social Software (Wikipedia, Flickr, del.icio.us, LastFM)
- Open Services (cross-silo / inter-domain)
- Podcasting (which now spans everything from academic use to porncasting)
- Web Video (Google Video, You Tube, etc.)
- Mobile Video (iPod, PSP)
- Music (Pandora)
While much of this is readily available on your personal computer, imagine all of this on mobile technology / mobile phones. Then discussion started about how the US is severly lagging on the development and deployment of mobile networking technologies.Point made that Rich Media can be accessible "off-line" through these mobile technologies, while social software can't.
The Black Box Problem. While all these rich media technologies are becoming more and more accessible, they cannot be manipulated or searched as easily as text is. Video and audio are hard to crack. Though this is changing. Audacity is a free open source audio editing tool. There are also blogs that now allow you to post audio feedback. There are also sites such as ITConversations.com that will allow you to enter a section of time from an audio file, where it will then give you a URL that links to just that section of audio. The point being that slowly the "black box" problem is going away.
Gaming was also discussed during this session, as it is throughout the entire conference. There's even an entire conference track based on gaming. Bryan said that if you weren't part of it, then you're missing out. Gaming, while often shunned as being isolationist, is really just another extension of using technology to interact with others. Examples being that many of the more popular games involve working with (or against) other players, and many of these networked games bring in instant messaging or audio conferences. These can be powerful tools for learning and social interaction.
The real meat of this session comes with looking at how these areas of social software and rich media interact.
Two examples stood out:
PandoraFM: A mash-up of the tow technologies, where what you're listening to at Pandora is tracked and published over at LastFM.
smARThistory: A Project from Beth Harris and the SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology
Obviously, there was much more to this session. And I wish I could have better captured the more pedagogical points that Bryan made. Regardless, this is a start. I'd encourage you to check out this article on Web 2.0 technologies here. You can also check out his del.icio.us tags here.
When he found out that I represented a library, he also suggested I check out more information on Library 2.0. Maybe, just maybe, I'll write a blog entry on it.