Online Application & Tools - Learning week 8

#19 (week 8) - Web 2.0 tools

Looked through the list of Web 2.o Awards nominees, found the new technologies are amazing. Really have no time to discover every site, just quickly browsed some sites, and chose Care2 is my favourite site.

Care2 is a philanthropy site to care people green living, health, human rights and so on. From my point of view, I think the health and the human rights are very important for human, so I found this site is very useful, got lots of good information from it.



#18 (week 8) - Online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.

I think I am good at word processing, spreadsheet, sometimes I saw web-based or online word processing/spreadsheet, wonder what are they, and how do they work?!

I know them now from doing this task. Web-based applications allow you to many of the things, such as: creating a word document, spreadsheet or presentation; editing, collaborating them; sharing them with anyone. But how we can create a online word processing. It is very easy, you can use a web-based word processing tool called Zoho Writer.

Zoho Writer is an online word processor to write, edit, collaborate, share documents. I set up an account (it is free), and created few documents at work place. I could read them at home without using a Floppy Disk or a CD to copy some files, it is so handy. Not completely master its all functions now, really want to discover them later on.

Wikis - Learning week 7

#17 (week 7) - Sandbox Wikis

Had a look at Learning 2.0 Favourites wikis, found they are useful, it is nice to know some favourtie books, and favourite holiday spots, favourite restaurants, favorite anything... Added my blog to favourite Blogs page.

Also it is very good to know we can use 'PDwiki' to create a wiki. PDwiki is an easy to use web page that multiple people can edit contents on it, it is free. Now I know how I can make my own wiki now.

Wikis - Learning week 7

#16 (week 7) Wikis

If you you want to make your group or your own website, and you don't know 'Front page' and 'HTML", you can image how hard it is. But you can easily do it using a Wiki. A Wiki is a collaborative website and allows a group of people to collaboratively develop a web site with no knowledge of HTML or other markup languages such as front page. Anyone can add to or edit, delete contents in a wiki. Absolutely there are lots of benefits of wikis such as easy to do, open share ideas, good communication tools, quickly get information and so on. There are also some disadvantage about wikis, it could be out of control, as everyone in a group can edit their ideas, comments, and the information in a wiki could be overloaded or not reliable. I think there should have some rules to ensure the quality and reliability of Wikis.

It is interesting to read wikis on libraries. Wikis would be very useful tools in libraries. Maybe it is a good ideas to set up a Auckland City Libraries wiki and let every staff to share knowledge and information, and teach some new skills.

Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati - Learning week 6

#15 (week 6)

So enjoyed to do Library 2.0, it is amazing to see what library will look like in future. Libraries are the whole world in future, if you go to the libraries, you will master the whole world. Libraries do not only provide some books, information, but also are conversations of people, ideas, and artefacts in dynamic exchange.

Library 2.0 is different from Library 1.0. Library 2.0 just gives us new ways for library services in the future. The library in the future will use advancing technologies, such as web logs, wikis, myspace, tagging, and personal cataloguing, digital collections of journals, books, blog, etc. There are also many benefits of Library 2.0, Web services would be easy; bibliographic services would be better; more education to the patrons, etc. No doubt, the libraries would have very good future by using Library 2.0.

#14 (week 6)

Took a look at Technorati, did a keyword search for 'Learning 2.0', there were 9051 results about Blog posts, 659 results about Tags, and 806 results about Blog Directory. Also claimed my blog using Technorati, the directory is as follow:
http://www.technorati.com/people/technorati/anniecui

Looked at popular blog, searches and tags, found it is interesting. It is good to know some blogs are popular, like Boing Boing; some searches are popular, such as: google, face book. When I searched by tags only, it narrowed down almost 3/4 of blogs.

#13 (week 6)

Tags are simply words which can be used to describe the bookmarks. Unlike folders, we make up tags when we need them, and we can use them as many as we like. Tags play an important role in the library management nowadays.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking manager that allows user to bookmark a web page or a blog and add tags to catagorize users' bookmarks. Looked through Del.icio.us, it is not easy to find out how it works and how to add tags on the web page. As Del.icio.us is good at social network, had a look at others have tagged similar links, it is intersting.

Play Week - Learning week 5

#12 (week 5): Roll your own search engine with Rollyo

Rollyo is a very good tool to create personal search engines. Search engines are very useful nowadays, they are getting popular. Rollyo can put a group of websites together, create our own search engines, and it is much easier to search same subject.

View my search roll for kids education:
http://www.rollyo.com/editroll.html?sid=325654

Play Week - Learning week 5

#11 (week 5)

LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog the books easily. Looked around it and really enjoyed to add some of my favorite books to my LibraryThing account, actually it is very easy to do.

It is very interesting to read LibraryThing Blog, can get some common knowledge and information about the Library thing. Also it is good to know libraries can use LibraryThing to add tag-based browsing, book recommendations, ratings, reviews and so on to our OPAC, it is likely that LibraryThing is a very useful tool.

View my LibraryThing Catalog:
www.librarything.com/catalog/anniecui

Play Week - Learning week 5

#10 (week 5)

Played around with Image Generators - The Generator Blog, Letter James , FD Toys; found they were really fun, none of them are difficult to use. The tooth fairy is my favorite image that I downloaded from 'the generator blog', and I quite like this plate image as well: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFM0bcwlhtf_JyJEsqZ6PIFWEtfjIZ6nyx9AHBO7MzXvr_aNXitcHVJ14ilAG_4UsBK44JkoNHXQD1VMNepYcqDkH2BwVe3WEU90s8oQghiNC7FBZjIn-HqM59z9b5ab2NkKWC1GRPFQ4eUfWL/s1600-h/delftware1.jpg.