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



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:

Using Diigo in the Classroom

View more presentations from Steve Yuen

~~Emily~~

Cool Extra thing - Evernote

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

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:

Let's get prezi-ing! on Prezi

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!

How to create a great prezi on 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

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:

Cat (Jason Farmer) http://www.flickr.com/photos/23975475@N04/3504704523/ 

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

Surprise (dameskates) http://www.flickr.com/photos/dameskates/2297579613/

Edge of seat (Brad Montgomery) http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradmontgomery/4319123610/

Yikes (smartblue) http://www.flickr.com/photos/smartblue/4111622772/

RSS (RSS rafa[EU]) http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafaelrf/3531293278/

iPhone (theOOBE) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/peko/351943963/ 

iPad (meedanphotos) http://www.flickr.com/photos/meedan/5356419464/ 

Waiting (Josep Ma. Rosell) http://www.flickr.com/photos/batega/3775180564/