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
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| Go podcast crazy! |
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!)
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
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
I remember the coffee pot being mentioned online zillions of years ago, but I don't think I ever actually saw it :D
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