LIBR 246-04/13 Web 2.0 (Fall 2010)

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To be honest, I wasn't aware of how pervasive social software was until taking this course - I heard all about YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, but I didn't think much about them. How wrong I was. Once I became aware of them, I started paying attention to the news headlines in the technology and business section, and wow, social media do come up a lot as major topics of discussion and analysis! Especially now, with Facebook becoming more visible than ever, with The Social Network movie and the recent announcement to integrate all e-mail, messaging, and blogging into a single portal that is Facebook. Whether you like it or not, social software is definitely an integral part of the Internet future. I realized embracing Web 2.0 technology is not the same as becoming completely dependent on it, which is what I was afraid of. But I learned that technology is only as good as how it is used.

For my personal use, I found RSS to be the most useful, as long I keep tweaking my RSS reader, which I neglected to do when I kept on adding RSS feeds without organizing them into some coherent order. But Twitter was a delightful new discovery for me, because I had previously avoided Twitter as much as I could, thinking wrongly that it was for people who had short attention spans. For professional use, I still believe RSS is most useful, allowing library professionals to go through many blogs, journals, and other online sources in the most efficient manner possible.

What surprised me the most during the course was how much I came to enjoy the screencasting exercise - It was the one exercise I was dreading earlier on, because I thought I wasn't able to make a decent screencast, especially since I have never even upload a video to YouTube! But the screencast became the exercise I enjoyed the most, especially because it was the most challenging for me.

It was ironic that the hardest exercise (to me), the screencast, became my favorite one. The reason was probably because it was really hands-on, and forced me out of my technology comfort zone just a little bit. More exercises like the screencast would be greatly appreciated.

Using Drupal wasn't as difficult as I thought, since I was familiar enough with using Angel and Blackboard. It was a nice chance to try a different course management system. Navigation became easier as I browsed through the different tabs and links on Drupal. I like how Drupal seemed more user-friendly, since it was possible to browse a bit without having to log in at first.

I feel like there is still so much to learn about Web 2.0 technology. My experiences I gained from this course are only the beginning. In other words, it is still an on-going process.