Tuesday 13 September 2011

And the winners are..

Congratulations to everyone who has completed the 23 Things City programme!
I'm delighted to announce that the winners are

People's Choice award for favourite blog: For Your I.A.s Only
  
23 Things City Evangelist: Twinset & purls
Most Surreal Blog Simon CUL ILS 23 Things 
Most Improved Pater's Patter
Best Story teller 23 cacharricos for the Quixotic Tale post
Best office 2.0 post - E-Literate for the Wedding Prezi post and hilarious prezi
Best Information searching post - Why did the librarian slip on the library floor? for Googling/Binging/Yahooing post
Best new find Paper Cuts for Interactive Librarians post with a new Cool Thing
Funniest blog: For Your I.A.s Only
Judging was difficult as all participants had some great posts, some funny posts and some great creations with surveys, prezis and images.

We've also created a highly commended category for those of you who still haven't quite finished, and are just needing a bit of extra time. Please do keep going as we loved your blogs!
 Highly Commended, but not yet finished:
I hope all participants have enjoyed the programme - please do keep going as everyone who completes will receive a certificate and a mention in Library news.
This blog will remain available so you can continue to work your way through all the different Things. We'll also be posting updates and news and 23 Things City will run again in future if you missed it the first time around.

Rowena

Monday 5 September 2011

Correct finish date

OK well I just need to clarify that the finish is Friday 9th september, and not friday 5th september as stated in a previous post. Right day, wrong date.
Judging panel meets on the following Monday, but we do need some time to check through all your blogs, and I have a holiday to take as well!

Rowena

Week 13 final week

Just a quick post to remind everyone that you have this week to catch up and finish, as we'll be judging the prizes next week! Don't forget to register your completion and vote for your favourite 23 Things City blog!

Good luck everyone!

Rowena

Wednesday 31 August 2011

Week 12 - follow the blog via your iphone or ipad

I've used the free bloapp tool to turn this blog into an app for your ipad or iphone.

Just go to itunes to download the free bloapp app
Then either search for 23thingscity or follow the link from this QR code with your iphone or ipad2
The app will keep you up to date with this blog, and the 23 Things City programme, but unfortunately it can't use flash, so things like prezi won't work on it.
See the Ned Potter's blog for more info about bloapp
Rowena

Tuesday 30 August 2011

Week 12 - Catch up time

Well done to those of you who have completed 23 Things within the original 11 weeks! If you haven't finished, don't worry as everyone finishing by 5pm on the 9th September will be eligible for the prizes**. After this date everyone finishing will still be able to collect a certificate.

When you've finished, register your completion and vote for your favourite 23 Things City blog.

We're also asking you to let us know what your favourite and least favourite Things were. This will help us when revising the programme in future.

**The prizes are £10 Amazon vouchers - there are six of these to be won, so get blogging!

Chocolate Galore
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sifu_renka/144255591/

There may be some other treats for everyone finishing by the 9th September - I can't actually promise any cakes, but this does look very yummy!

Post updated to reflect correct finish date of the 9th september

Rowena

Monday 22 August 2011

Week 11 - The Final Hurdle

Week 11 - The last Thing!

Well done on completing the 23 Things programme! We hope you've found it useful and fun, and that you'll continue to use some of the Things and concepts in future.
Don't worry if you haven't finished by the end of this week, as to give everyone a bit more time to finish, we've decided to extend the finish line a bit.
Everyone finishing by 5pm on Friday 9th September will be eligible for the prizes. After this, anyone completing the programme will till get a certificate. And please don't worry if you won't be at City at this time, we'll get certificates and any prizes to you. Remember you'll need to blog on all the Things (not including the Cool Extra Things).




We nearly made you watch a YouTube video of Cliff Richard singing 'Congratulations' but here are some nice 'reach for the stars' pictures from the Smithsonian instead!
(if you're really desperate you can watch Cliff if you want!)




http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2941504714/sizes/s/in/photostream/

Thing 23

Summarize your feelings on 23 Things City on your blog, and add  your blog to the UK Librarians wiki (if you didn't do this as Thing 17 in week 7). You will need to create an account with the wiki to add your blog.

Register your completion so that the 23 Things Team know that you're ready. All completed blogs registered by 5pm on Friday 9th September will be eligible for the prizes!

We'd also like you to vote for your favourite 23 Things City Blog, as one of the prizes will be the staff award or people's choice. Don't forget to nominate your favourite 23 Things City blog on the completion form

Rowena

Post updated to include correct finish date

Monday 15 August 2011

Week 10 Reflection and catch up week

Week 10 Reflection and catch up week

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrjoro/89187454/
No actual Things this week, just a chance to catch up as we near the end of the programme.


Don't forget that you'll need to have blogged on all the Things (not including the Cool Extra Things) to receive your certificate and be eligible for prizes!

Even if you've decided that a particular Thing isn't really for you, please do blog your thoughts as to why you didn't find a Thing useful, or if you feel that you don't need to use it now, but would do so in future.
If you're already familiar with a particular Thing then blog about
how you've used it and how you might use it in future for home or work

To give everyone a bit more time to finish, we've decided to extend the finish line a bit.
Everyone finishing by 5pm on Friday 5th September will be eligible for the prizes. After this, anyone completing the programme will till get a certificate. And please don't worry if you won't be at City at this time, we'll get certificates and any prizes to you.
Of course if you're on track to finish at the original date (end of week 11) that's great!

The finish line is nearly in sight!


Rowena

Monday 8 August 2011

Week 9 Search Engines beyond Google

Week 9 Search engines beyond Google

We all use Google, and all use it every day. There are lots of tips to get the most out of it, but have you ever used any other search engines? Those of us old enough to remember the early days of the web (hey anyone else remember the Netscape/Mosaic web browser face off?) may remember that you searched mostly via subject browsing and directories. You may also remember searching via subject sites from
BUBL. This is no longer being updated, but brought together sites classified using Dewey so that you could browse for topics. Google soon swept the board though. But wait a minute, my laptop defaults to searching via Bing! Should I try another search engine?

Thing  21 Look at some other search engines and search tools
This week we want you to take a look at some other search engines, and to blog on which ones you prefer, and what you would use in future. If you find a new search engine, please share it with other 23 Things participants via your blog.

There are lots of different search engines out there, but the main rivals to Google are

Bing: http://www.bing.com/

Yahoo: http://uk.yahoo.com/
Ask (was Ask Jeeves) http://uk.ask.com/

Try running the same search across each of these and see how results compare. Have you found useful hits which you didn't see on Google? Are there useful features you like on these other search engines?

University of Berkley has a useful search engine comparison guide which also includes the Exalead search engine
SearchEngineLand has useful guides to using Google, Bing and Yahoo

You can see some very extensive lists of other search engines from the SearchEngineList and from internet guru Phil Bradley

Other search tools enable you to focus on specific types of data or on particular subjects. These allow you to cut out some of the less relevant or less academic results. Here are a few for you to consider - don't forget to blog about ones for other subjects so as to share with other participants.

Wolfram Alpha Not a general search engine - rather a 'computational search engine' so great for finding statistics, mathematical equations, data, musical chords etc. You can check their subject examples for a suprisingly wide range of topics

Scirus for scientific information including journal articles, researcher information etc

TechXtra for engineering, mathematics and computing


 Open Access Repositories

Most universities have set up archives of research content available as open access institutional repositories. As you will know, we're in the process of setting up our repository at City.
Repositories can contain full text access to pre-print versions of journal articles, theses, working papers etc. Much research is freely available, although sometimes there will be time delayed embargoes. This can mean that you will find different versions for example you may find the authors finished word document rather than the actual typeset and published article.



Many of the hits you may find via Google Scholar are mined from open access repositories, but you can search repositories via Opendoar a world wide repository listing and directory. An alternative is Oaister which is now part of the WorldCat family. You can always go directly to a University's homepage and search to see if they have a repository. This can be especially useful if you're looking for a thesis from another country or are looking for further information on a project associated with the university in question.

Thing 22 Meta Search engines and comparing search results from different search engines

It's important to compare the different number and type of results you've found between different search engines. Does the quality of result vary? Do different search engines offer different types of materials e.g. images or data? This will help you reflect on the nature of the web - can we ever search everything via a single search box? How much stuff is not included in search engines?

Meta Search Engines

These search across several search engines so that you don't have to repeat your search in each one - although I find that results do vary. Try running your search in one of the engines directly, and then compare the number of results you find running the same search using one of the meta engines – do you get the same number of results or not?

http://www.metacrawler.com/  searches google, bing and yahoo and will state if results are exclusive to any of the providers
www.dogpile.com Dogpile seems similar as it searches google, bing and yahoo and will state if results are exclusive to any of the providers. The design is quite cute with dog images though! You can search the UK version and compare results


http://www.zuula.com/  Zuula searches several different engines in addition to google, bing and yahoo. You can see results by each provider in results tabs at the top of the screen. You'll see very wide variation between the different sets of results – you may also discover some odd results 
Try searching for your name in Zuula. How do the results compare? Why do you think that is? Is Google still your favourite search engine?


Rowena

Cool Extra Thing - Google Fun
There are lots of fun things you can do that use Google. Here are three of them (warning some may be addictive)

A Google a Day
On this site they pose a question every day and you have to use Google to find the answer. The questions are not always easy.
http://agoogleaday.com/

Let Me Google That For You
Do you get fed up with people asking you a question they could just as easily google for themselves?
Let Me Google That For You shows them how they could have done it.
You enter the question and then send them the link.
http://lmgtfy.com/
Here's an example of the results: http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=What+is+23things+City%3F


Google Search Stories
This site allows you to record a story using Google Searches.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories?blend=1&ob=5

Here's a Toy Story one (warning may contain spoilers) and here's one I prepared earlier.

Have fun!
Helen

Monday 1 August 2011

Week 8 - Multimedia

Week 8 Mulitmedia

We looked at images in week 3, but this week we're going further and looking at a range of multimedia. The early days of the web were much more text based, and images could take a long while to load. We've come a long way from the days of the Cambridge Coffee Pot (am I the only person who remembers this? Please blog if you remember it!) when people logged in from across the globe to see a scratchy black and white live image of ... yes you've guessed it, a coffee pot! (It was exciting at the time!)
But this does illustrate how important and captivating dynamic content can be.

Thing 19 YouTube and Information Literacy

I'm sure most of you will have looked at YouTube, whether for checking out your favourite band, performer, tv clip or even just to look at cute videos of sleepy kittens! (OK yes, I admit it, I like looking at videos of sleepy kittens!) We've used videos from Youtube in the 23 Things City programme to help explain some of the different Things.

So this week, whilst providing a bit of light relief, we'd also like you to  consider how libraries use YouTube, or how they could consider using it in future. What about using YouTube for education more broadly? Uploading videos to YouTube means a much greater audience for Library information and also enables people to check out videos on their mobile phone or ipad.

This video from the Library at the University of Sydney is one of our favourite YouTube videos as it's a great way of getting information literacy across to students - making important topics fun, using a variety of visuals and using student to student learning. Have a look and then blog on your responses to it.


What is Information literacy? Why is it important for Libraries, students, researchers and the population in general? There are various definitions for you to have a look at from CILIP and SCONUL and other key information is available from the Information Literacy website

Here are several other videos on information literacy topics

A cartoon from Latrobe University Library



A short film on Reading List Fever from the University of Liverpool Library


And a Doctor Who inspired video on learning Dewey from an academic librarian, llordllama. As a fellow Dr Who fan, I love this, but it may give you some food for thought on copyright and on content across cultures. And come on, Librarians are heroes, not Daleks! We know how to save the world!


Have a look at these and then comment on your blog. A huge variety of styles and techniques are on show in the various library and information literacy videos available. These include slides set to music, talking heads, comedy sketches, cartoons, silly stuff, puppet shows, documentaries, lectures, send ups of tv programmes and films etc, some use professional actors, others use students or librarians. I find some are very entertaining and get the point across well, whilst others are dull, and some of the music is terrible! What works best? Do you have a greater understanding of Information Literacy now you have watched these videos? Did you learn more from watching the videos than you did from reading the definitions and looking at the websites? Does this make you want to be a Subject Librarian?!?

Search for some other library related videos and share your favourites with other 23 Things City participants via your blog

Rowena

Thing 20 Podcasts


Go podcast crazy!
Confession time...I don't really listen to podcasts! Oops... however I'm hoping I will inspire myself while researching for this week's Thing 20. I might even have a go at creating one, though alas my media career floundered on the fact that I am neither graced with a voice for radio or a face for tv.  

So the basics.  


What makes a voice recording a podcast? 

Despite many audio and visual sources being available on the internet, the term podcast really only comes into play when that content can be subscribed to or syndicated, or downloaded automatically (e.g. via RSS) when new content becomes available.

Podcasts can be listened to via your PC or downloaded onto your smartphone or ipod/mp3 player. If you are an Apple user then there are thousands to choose from on iTunes or iTunesU which contains a City University, London guide to podcasting; if you want help in creating your own. For those visual learners out there, here's a Common Craft YouTube clip on Podcasting:



So how do I find podcasts that interest me?
You can use one of the podcast directories (PodcastAlley or the wonderfully named Podcast Ferret ) or take a look at podcastnation where you can submit your own. A quick straw poll of colleagues highlighted the following but of course there are many library-related ones available if you're feeling swotty.

Randoms
BBC has loads http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts - Radio 3 Composer of the Week
Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time
Joshua Rozenberg's Law in Action
Dilbert Animated Cartoons
Alexander McCall Smith's online novel Corduroy Mansions(Telegraph)
David Mitchell's Soapbox (Guardian)
National Gallery monthly

Library ones
Library of Congress - featured podcast series include Digital Preservation Slave Narratives and Music and the Brain
British Library - talks, lectures, discussions as well as those focused around current exhibitions. I liked: Educational standards: not as good as in my day and Who owns the future of the story?
Goldsmiths has a podcast tour of their library to help new students,  whilst other universities Oxford Brookes) use podcasts as guides for their services.
There are loads of reasons why libraries might find podcasts useful - in the public sphere, things like storytime and author talks can be great, academic libraries generally tend to focus on the areas mentioned above: tours and guides. http://skills.library.leeds.ac.uk/podcasts.php?PodcastEpisode=2 from the University of Leeds also have podcasts on essay writing and critical thinking for their students.

The article Higher Education and Emerging Technologies: Student Usage, Preferences, and Lessons for Library Services discusses how students find podcasting an effective learning tool and academic librarians have been amazed by their popularity when they created one!


What do i do with them? 
Click on the orange RSS logo to subscribe or pull into Google Reader. 

How can I create my own? 
Audacity is the tool of choice for many but I decided to give Audioboo a go. I downloaded it as an app for my iPhone, registered an account and clicked record. Here's the result (apologies in advance for the cheesiness of it, amazing how you can't think of anything to say when faced with a big red Record button!)


Podcast roundup (mp3)


So it's over to you! Why don't you blog about the great podcasts you've found? Or maybe about where you think City University could be dipping its toe into podcasting - what should we be using the medium for? You might even fancy creating one yourself? 

Image credit: iPod - Podcasting by D'Arcy Norman (flickr)

~~Emily & Verena~~


Cool Extra Thing Music Playlists

Crystal Palace Orchestra playing in Brisbane about 1929
There are lots of music related social media sites available. All allow you to share songs using Facebook and Twitter, along with other sharing sites.

Spotify and Last.fm are two of the most popular sites. They are both free to join and have subscription options. Spotify requires you to download software to your computer and a lot of Last.fm's features are now subscriber only which is why we haven't looked at either in detail for this week but here's a Last.fm playlist (notice the songs are often only samples).I've also created a collaborative Spotify playlist  (only works if spotify is installed) which if you have Spotify feel free to add to.

Amongst the great free sites available Grooveshark appears to be one of the most straight forward to use. You can upload your own music, play music and create playlists to share with your friends.
Creating an account is easy. You either click Become a Member or login using your Google or Facebook Accounts.

This is how to create a playlist:


Once you have created a playlist you can either play items from it or share it with friends using the share playlist option.
This is a Grooveshark Playlist.

This week create a playlist using any social media music service and share it with the other 23things participants via Twitter, email or your blog.


Helen

Monday 25 July 2011

Week 7 Sharing

Week 7 Sharing
This week we'll be looking at how Web 2.0 tools make sharing easy, quick and fun.

Thing 16 Slideshare

Slideshare rather reinvigorated the humble PowerPoint; suddenly giving you a way to show off your presentations and snoop around other peoples! Michael Arrington (founder of TechCrunch) calls it "the YouTube of PowerPoint". 
Essentially it's a presentation sharing website where users can upload, view and share presentation files. You can also easily add audio or video (e.g. YouTube) files. 


Why use it? 
Go on, create a buzz!
  • Create some buzz around a paper you're doing at a conference 
  • Get ideas for presentation style 
  • Catch up on a conference you were unable to attend
  • Networking - find others with a similar interest/expertise
  • Raising your profile - brand awareness
  • Somewhere for students to view your teaching support materials
  • To experience the warm glow that comes from sharing your work with others;-) 

How do people see it? 


Once you've created an account people will be able to just access all your slideshare presentations in one place. Mine, for example, can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/lawbore [imaginative huh?]
You can also embed specific presentations within your website or blog [see below!] which is a way of both getting more hits to your presentation as well as brightening up your blog/website! 
The presentation below offers an interesting study of what's on slideshare - from most popular fonts to average number of slides per country of origin. Very enlightening! 

SlideShare Zeitgeist 2010
View more presentations from Rashmi Sinha

How does it work? 
  • Upload your own presentations by clicking the Upload button
  • Give each of your presentations tags to make it easier to find - this also means yours might appear in the Related Presentations section alongside someone else's work. 
  • Embed in your website or send other interested parties the direct link
  • Support other slideshare users by 'favouriting' the presentations you like best! 
  • Peer review by commenting on other presentations
  • Like Twitter, you can follow slideshare people you're interested in.
  • Try to get onto the Slideshare front page; I was on the Hot on Twitter section a few weeks ago. Very exciting;-)

Over to you!
Explore slideshare and think about how it compares to zooming wackiness of prezi last week; do you think there is a place for both tools? Which do you find communicates best to you?  Have you found any slideshare presentations that you admire? 


Image thanks to Aaron Molina via CC licence via flickr.com
~~Emily~~

Thing 17 Wikis


Wiki Wiki
Used under attribution licence from Kables.
 Wikipedia, wikileaks and wikianswers are names we hear all the time. The term comes from the Hawaiian for fast or quick but in internet terms it means “a website in which the contents are contributed and edited by visitors to the site.” (wiki. (2005). In The Macquarie Dictionary. Retrieved  from Credo Reference)
Interesting fact - The first wiki was created in March 1995 by Ward Cunningham and was called WikiWikiWeb.



How do wikis work?
Wikis are live documents which allow editing and addition.
Commoncraft have a great Wikis in Plain English video which explains how they work.




I don't want to create an huge encyclopedia so why use wikis?
Whilst Wikipedia is probably the best known wiki they don’t need to be as ambitious and certainly don't need thousands of contributors.
I've used them to keep track of who is updating helpsheets, build up FAQs and sign up to events.

Examples of wikis

A Million Penguins - a colaboratively written novel.
Blogging libraries Lists of blogs by libraries
Examples on wikispaces
Library Day in the Life project (Coincidentally running this week)
The Student Room Wiki
UK Library Blogs Lists of library and librarian blogs in the UK
Wikipedia

You can create your own wikis using sites including http://www.pbworks.com/ or http://www.wikispaces.com/ or within communities (https://my.city.ac.uk/communities). 


Your task for this thing is to add your blog to the UK Library Blogs site and/or sign up for this weeks Library Day in the Life project, instructions for how to do this are on the wikis.
 
Helen

Thing 18 Using Del.icio.us







The main advantage of using a social bookmarking site such as del.icio.us is that it enables you to access your bookmarks and share your bookmarks from any computer.
Many libraries have utilised this ability to create and share dynamic lists with their users.
Subject guides  at LSE http://www.delicious.com/LSELibrary/anthropology and Dublin city in the  http://www.delicious.com/DublinCityPublicLibraries are good examples. Nashville has created top teen reads and webcomics listings for their users http://www.delicious.com/nashpubya/webcomic

You can display your del.icio.us tag cloud on a website. Take a look at this example by MIT Libraries virtual reference collection http://libguides.mit.edu/content.php?pid=50505&sid=370830 
Not only can you add RSS feeds to your  del.icio.us account but also to individual tags – keeping you right up to date with any changes in subject guides or lists.  
Del.icio.us can be a great marketing tool, the Tate website has a share on del.icio.us link on their website and  OCLC uses delicious to manage and promote their top 1000 titles http://www.delicious.com/oclc2005top1000



Now it is your turn - have a look for some examples of libraries using del.icio.us and share them with us on the blog. You won't need a del.icio.us account to search but do create an acount if you wish to test it out https://secure.delicious.com/register. For more info and links to tools and gadgets you can use try http://www.econsultant.com/delicious-by-function/index.html

Verena

Want an alternative? Diigo is an option worth considering. Wondering what the abbreviation stands for? Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other Stuff.  It offers very similar functionality to del.icio.us allowing users to collect and share bookmarks, collaborate with others and join communities of research interest. You can make your collections public or private and use the clever highlight and sticky note tools. Just to hammer home my SLIDESHARE ROCKS! message, here's a handy presentation I discovered on the joys of diigo:

~~Emily~~

Cool Extra thing - Evernote
The Research Pile
No more piles of notebooks

Do you sometimes feel that you have notes in lots of notebooks and could be more organised? Evernote can help! (As this advert shows)

Evernote is an web application which is also available to download on to mobile devices, desktop PCs, lap tops and just about every computer. This means that you can literally use it anywhere and it will sync with on all your devices and the website.

I have been using Evernote for a while and think it is great. I was always starting a notebook then forgetting it and starting another then never looking at the notes anyway because I couldn’t read my writing or had to scan through so much that I couldn't find what I was looking for but with evernote I am finally becoming a notetaker!

At the recent Business Librarians Association Conference I was able to make notes, download all the pre-conference information and agenda and keep it all in one “notebook” on Evernote. When I came back to the office I could view these notes online and add links to them where needed. I can then share the notes with colleagues. For example these notes on a talk about doing a library video from the conference.

Why use it?

Even if you don't have a mobile device to use it on or a lap top to download it to it can still transform your work.

* You can log on to the web version (http://www.evernote.com/) anywhere with an internet connection and you can share your notes so it is a great way of quickly creating a simple web page or putting a plan together.
* You can clip all or part of a webpage into a note by using the web clipping tool (this is easier to install at work on Firefox than on Internet Explorer).
* This is a note I created linking to a clipping of this page.
* You can create checklists so you can tick the boxes to keep track of what you have done.
* You can tag notes so notes in different notebooks can all use the same tage and be found on a search.
* If you are using it on a mobile device you can add a location so you can see all notes made at that location by you.

Evernote is particularly useful for projects as this video shows:



How do I start?

Evernote have some getting started pages which take you through everything step by step.

So for this cool extra thing - have a go at Evernote and share your note.

If you aren't sure if you'll use it I created this post in Evernote and just had to paste it into Blogger which was the easiest post I have done on here.

Helen

Monday 18 July 2011

Week 6 - Office 2.0

Week 6 - Office 2.0

This week we're looking at a range of tools which are all useful for organizing things, so are all good tools for office life, whilst still being useful for the world outside work.

Thing 13 Prezi


Everyone remembers the first time they saw prezi in action. I saw it at a conference a couple of years ago and pretty wow-ed by it; PowerPoint seemed like a tool from the Dark Ages in comparison.

In a nutshell prezi is a presentation tool that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats - it zooms, it spins, it can handle images and short video clips. For visual impact prezi is king. Here's a quick example I knocked up on Sunday morning:



Other reasons to have a go?

Don't risk killing by boredom! Image dj badly
  • Embedding one in your blog or website can really lift it
  • You can show online or download for offline use
  • Easily shared - you can work collaboratively on them too
  • Easily modified - and once embedded any changes will be automatically done
  • Good content can be killed by a bad PowerPoint but in prezi it's probably harder to create something that doesn't look visually exciting (even if the content is a bit iffy...) Remember we're a shallow bunch.
  •  You can break free of the linear slide tyranny and tell a story in a dynamic stylish way.
  • Access anywhere!

How is it used at City?

The subject librarians use it in Upgrade and Emily has a couple in Learnmore which incorporate video around mooting - Judges: Scary or Softies? and Saying it Right. Of course we also used prezi for our About 23 Things tab.  We have our own subject librarians prezi account so let us know if you want access to this.

Basic pointers

Signup for an account - follow the links for student/teacher licenses as you get more for your money (Oh did I mention this is £0!). Edu Enjoy is free and you get a whole range of benefits including the ability to make your content private and add a logo. Complete with 500MB of storage space.

You can create your own prezi from scratch or re-purpose an existing one via the Explore tab. If the creator has been kind enough to allow others to use and change for their own purposes it will have a 'Make a copy' button under the prezi panel. Look for the search only re-usable tickbox in Explore.

Get started by simply typing in your title. Double-click anywhere for adding more text and again to re-size. Click and drag to move stuff around.

Stripy! CC thanks to sniggetysnags
Clicking on any object will make the transformation zebra appear (alas this isn't really a stripy horse, just a stripy circle - sorry!) - this handy device has two functions:
  1. To enlarge/reduce
  2. To rotate
Simply click and drag to your heart's content.

Don't rotate too much! CC thanks to akeg










Key Prezi components: 


Creation Wheel - This is the nerve centre of the prezi tool. In the mode shown in the image you're able to write text. Click on the mini circles (Insert, Frame, Path, Colors) outside to do anything extra:


Insert: Prezi has improved this option recently and you can now insert images, YouTube videos, drawings (these are quite cool includes pre-prepared charts, tables, timelines, tree diagrams) and other types of files (e.g. non YouTube videos). Shapes like arrows are also offered.

Frame: Add a frame - can be useful for grouping components together and very handy when you start plotting the path through your prezi ensuring the viewer sees everything in one frame. They can be made invisible too!

Path: Here's how you tell prezi which order you want all the components to run - you plot out the route through via points and they're easy to change as and when.

Colors (grrr....curse the American spelling): allow you to choose a theme - these are pretty limited, which can be seen as a good thing sometimes, but the Wizard will help you adapt the colours in each theme to something less standard.

Want to find out more?

There are some useful Top tips from Ned Potter aka thewikiman, especially around the creative process, Prezi themselves have some useful video tutorials and cheat sheets too. There's a useful prezi created promoting the use of prezi for researchers might offer some inspiration.

Finally the excellent 'How to create a great prezi' prezi!




Think, librarians think!!! CC thanks to laurie.mcgregor
So... let's hear your views on prezi - a step up from PowerPoint or just a bit visually disorientating? Do you think you could use it in your work (or have you already done so)? Have you seen one in action at a conference? If you've had a go you could perhaps talk about the functionality.

What do you think? 




~Emily~

Thing 14 use Doodle to schedule a 23 Things tea chat with another 23 Things participant

Doodle is a scheduling tool which allows people to create a poll of dates and times when a meeting or social gathering can take place. It is a bit like the scheduling assistant in Outlook but you don't need to be in the same organisation and is very quick to use.

You don’t need to register to use this but you can create an account if you want to be able to log in and manage your doodles altogether.

This thing is to arrange to meet other 23 things participants or colleagues for a coffee.

  1. Go to http://www.doodle.com/
  2. Click on the schedule an event button on the main screen.
  3. Fill in the form with the details of the event:
4. Click next
5. Select the dates you want the event to happen on from the calendar and click next.
If you want things to happen at a specific time suggest them on this screen (if it is an all day event leave this blank). You can add as many sessions as you need.

6. Click next and decide if you want a basic poll or one of the other options:
  • Yes-No-Ifneedbe poll – has an ifneedbe option if you want it so people can show a preference.
  • Hidden Poll – only the administrator can see the answers.
  • Participant can only choose one option
  • Limit the number of participants per option -  If you are registering people for a session you can limit how many people can join. This could be useful for hands-on teaching or restaurant bookings.
7. Click next and decide if you will send the invitation or if Doodle will send it using Google or Outlook address books.

If you decided to send out the poll yourself you will receive two emails. One with the link to send to participants and the other is an administrator link so you can change, close or delete the poll. You can invite using Twitter or Facebook.

Once you have closed the poll the most popular date is displayed:
Helen

Thing 15 Survey Monkey

What is survey monkey?
Survey monkey is a free online survey tool. It is very flexible and you can link it to your google and/or facebook account to ask a series of questions.
Ask your fellow 23 things colleagues their opinions or recommendations on a topic related to your blog or find out which is the best venue for your coffee meeting.
Sign up for your free account



Follow the three step principle 1Choose theme, 2 Add questions then 3 Collect the responses

1 Choose your theme from the options in the drop down box,


then proceed to
Step 2 Select the most appropriate question type from the list. Now just type in the text of your question



Don't forget to include your answers, if you opted for a multiple choice question


Keep adding questions until you have asked all your questions, then click on the 'send survey' button at the bottom of the page



You will be given a link to your survey which you can send to anyone of your chosing or post to a webpage, facebook, blog, twitter account, etc.
Now you can sit back and wait for the results to come flooding in. Don't forget to check your responses

and


Happy surveying
Verena

Cool Extra Things (this week we have two because they are both so cool).



Remember the Milk (RTM) is a To-do list which you can access online or on a mobile device and link to Gmail (and if you are still sticking with it iGoogle). For the cool extra thing this week create a list and share it with other 23 Things Participants.
You can also link it to Outlook but you need a plugin which requires admin rights to install.
RTM allows you to create various lists so you can separate your to-do lists. The default is personal, work, and study but you can create more in the settings section.
This is our 23 Things List showing the different weeks as individual tasks. Details of the different tasks are in the notes section and the tasks have been tagged with the initials of the people doing them so we can search for our own tasks:

You can share tasks amongst a team by adding other RTM users as contacts (they also have to add you back). Tasks that have been shared with you appear in your inbox.
It is possible to add a location to a task and these are linked to Google Maps so you can view them all on a map. You have to create the location before you can use it but once it is created you can keep using it.

Watch this quick video showing how to set up an account (or connect to your google account).

To set up an account go to: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/.

Remember the Milk has a great Getting Started Guide and blog which have lots of helpful hints.


Google Docs






Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/) is the ultimate Office 2.0. It is a free service providing wordprocessing, spreadsheets, forms and slide shows. It can be used merely as a back-up you can access anywhere or it can be used as a fully functioning set of programmes allowing collaboration amongst many people spread all over the world. It is possible to import and export via Microsoft Office (although some formatting can be lost) and has a lot of the basic functionality of Microsoft Office.
This short video explains Google docs in plain English (via Common Craft).



Google also have a slideshow on how to get started which takes you through the basic steps of how to use Google docs.

One of the major features of Google docs is the ease of collaboration and you can also publish items so they can be embedded in webpages or blog posts. To do this you need to make sure that they are shared either to your collaborators or to the public by clicking share in the top right of the screen.









If you know the people you want to share this with you can add people in the Sharing settings screen or you can click change next to the Private option. This takes you to a second Sharing settings screen.








Select “Public on the web” to share on a blog or website.
Select “Anyone with the link” to share with anyone.













To get the code to embed something you need to select Publish as a webpage from the share button in the top right hand corner.
Click Start publishing.  Then the box will change to this:


















Select HTML to embed in a page to embed the item in a blog or web page.
If you have access to a website which allows php code you can create searchable databases (but not on Blogger or Wordpress.com). An example of a spreadsheet embedded in a blog page is visible here. It updates when the google docs spreadsheet updates.
Other than the ease of collaboration one of the other features which makes Google Docs different is Google Forms.
Google Forms takes away the need to collate lots of data. They can be used as a registration tool (as we did for 23things) or a more complex survey tool.
This post by Katie Piatt gives step-by-step instructions on how to create a google form.
Helen

Prezi image credits as follows:

What can I do now (Christopher Verdier) http://www.flickr.com/photos/cverdier/4867811579/
iPad (meedanphotos) http://www.flickr.com/photos/meedan/5356419464/