LIBR 246-12: Web 2.0 and Social Networking Tools (Fall 2008)

Welcome to the LIBR 246-12! I look forward to working with all of you as we learn more about social software tools and how to use them in libraries. This page is designed to help you get familiar with the course expectations and the technologies you will be using to complete your weekly expectations.

1. Weekly expectations

2. Weekly participation

3. Assignments and exercises

4. Grading Criteria

5. Elluminate sessions

6. Introduction to Drupal

7. Introduction to the class Wiki

8. Introduction to del.icio.us

9. Introduction to Bloglines and Google Reader

 

Weekly expectations

There is a page for each week's course content. You can access them all from the Course Calendar. Each week, there will be certain common elements that you can expect to find:

1. Objectives - What you should learn that week.

2. Lecture - There will be a lecture each week (other than those weeks in which we have a live session) which will be linked from the course page for that week. You can find all of the lectures on this page in the Forums.

3. Readings - Each week there will be a list of required items that you are expected to read that week. Some of those readings will come from your textbook and many others will be on the web, linked in the classroom.

4. Examples - these will include examples of technologies or library applications of certain social software tools. You should visit these and study them as they are a critical part of your learning in the course. Often seeing concrete examples of libraries using social software is more valuable than any readings.

5. Things to do - these are activities that you should do that week in addition to the readings. Most of these things are covered in the next two sections on this page.

 

Weekly participation

Every week, you will be required to complete several activities:

1. Blog - In most weeks, you will be required to write at least two blog posts. On will be a reflection about what you learned that week. There will be several topics that you can choose from and often you will be given the option of reflecting on the topics of your choice. The other post will be a brief description of an article, technology, blog post, or other interesting resource you've found that's related to that week's topic. The goal is to get you to look outside of the class readings for interesting resources and to share those discoveries with the entire class.

2. Comment on your classmates' blog posts - You should comment on at least two of your classmates' blog posts weekly. Comments will be due two days after the due date for the blog posts themselves.

During the class, you get one free week where you don't have to write your reflection post, your resource description post, or make any comments. You can choose any week you want, but please email me and let me know that you've chosen that week to take off. The free week does not include skipping assignments, exercises, or Elluminate sessions.

Assignments and exercises

There are ten exercises assigned throughout the course that require you to utilize the technologies covered that week and, in most cases, reflect on what you did. You can access all of the exercises from the assignment page. There will also be reminders in the Things to Do area of the weekly pages.

There are three additional assignments due during the semester:

Blog Critique: Due September 13, 2008

Social Software Dynamics Paper: Due November 8, 2008

Group Project: Due December 4, 2008

All exercises are due on Saturday evening by 11:59 pm PT. Policies regarding late assignments are discussed in the Greensheet.

 

Grading Criteria

Your written work in the class will be graded based on the following criteria:

1. Quality of information - Does the information support their argument?

2. Critical thinking - Is the student reflecting on the topic or just reiterating what they read? Is there real insight?

3. Use of resources - Does the student reference class readings or outside readings (if applicable)?

4. Quality of writing - Is the writing clear and professional in tone? Are there no grammatical and spelling errors?

5. Successful completion - Did the student follow the instructions for the paper in terms of topic and length?

All non-written exercises will be graded based on whether or not the exercise was completed according to the instructions.

 

Elluminate sessions

We will have four required Elluminate sessions during the seminar. They will take place 9/4, 9/25, 10/30 and 12/4 from 6:30-8:00pm PT. Please visit the Greensheet for more infomation about the required hardware and training you'll need to participate.

 

Introduction to Drupal

What is Drupal?

Drupal is open source "software that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a great variety of content on a website" (drupal.org). When you visit http://sociallibraries.com/libr246-12/ you are looking at a Drupal site. We are using Drupal in this course because it allows multiple people to have their own blogs on a single site. It also allows us to create static pages for the course and forums.

You are going to be using Drupal for creating blog content. You will be able to create content for your own blog and will be able to read the blogs of your fellow participants. This will be a space for you to reflect on what you've been learning.

Using Drupal to Create a Blog Post

You can log into our course site by going to http://sociallibraries.com/libr246-12/ and entering your username and password into the login box on the left-hand side of the page. Once you've done that, you will see that the menu on the left has changed a bit and you will see a link to create content. You will click on that link when you want to create a blog post. You will then need to click on the blog entry link.

You will then need to choose a title for your blog post and enter that into the title field. Then choose tags that describe the topic of your post -- you can use multiple terms separated by commas. In the body, you will type your blog post. At the bottom of that text box, you will see options for creating links, making things bold, creating headings, etc. With this rich text editor, you can format everything just by pressing a button and without HTML.

Once you've typed up your post, you can click the preview button at the bottom of the page to see what it will look like. As you can see, there is a clipped version and a full version. When people go to your blog, they will just see the beginning of each of your posts and then can click to read more. If you like what you see there, you can click submit. Otherwise, you can edit the post and submit it then.

Please note that your blog posts will be publicly available online and people outside of the course will be able to read and comment on your posts. Don't write anything that you wouldn't feel comfortable sharing publicly.

Forums

In addition to blogs, the course site also contains Forums. These forums are designed for everyone in the course to get help, support each other and socialize. The forums are only visible to those registered for the course, so those outside the class will not see what you write. If you're having trouble with a technology, don't understand something or just want to discuss something further in a more private space, the forums are a great place to do this.

To utilize the forums, click on the Forums link on the left-hand side of the page, then click on the forum you want to post to. At the top of the page for that forum, you'll see a link that says Post new forum topic. Click on that and add your content.

To add to an already existing thread, just click on Add new comment and add your comment.

To Change Your Information

If you want to change your password or add to your Drupal user profile, just click on the my account link on the left-hand side of the page. You will then be able to click on the edit tab to edit any of your information. There is an account settings page and a personal info page. Please do not change your username however, because it will be difficult to keep track of who's who.

Please do upload either an image of yourself or some other image that will represent you during the class. This image will be displayed next to your posts and comments. Images must be no larger than 85x85px and no larger than 100kb.

Reading Your Posts and Other People's Posts

There are a variety of ways to read the blog posts on our site. You will see a link on the left-hand side of the page that says blogs. When you click on that, you will be able to read all of the posts on the site in chronological order. This will allow you to read your fellow participants' blog posts. Clicking on the blogs link will also expand the menu on the left. Clicking on my blog will allow you to see all of the posts on your blog. You will notice that there is a little RSS icon at the bottom of the page. The url of that icon allows you to subscribe to your own blog posts in an aggregator. There will also be an RSS icon for the page with all of the blog posts, which will allow you to subscribe to all posts from the course in an aggregator (see the Syndicate link on the left-hand side of the page).

Commenting on Other People's Posts

When you click on someone's post to view the entire thing, you will see a link at the bottom that says Add new comment. Clicking on this will let you add a comment. Just above the comment box, you should see your username where it says Your name. If not, be sure to login before you post your comment. Once you've written your comment, click Post comment.

 

Introduction to the class Wiki

What is a Wiki?

A wiki allows a group of people to collaboratively develop website with no knowledge of HTML or other markup languages. These people may know each other or they may be complete strangers who are all working together to create and edit a website. Wiki, meaning quick in Hawaiian, was developed to allow for easy and fast collaborative development and editing of a website. Wikis usually start as a blank slate and are developed by the community of users who choose to participate. Anyone in the community can add to or edit anyone else’s writing. In theory, the final content should represent some sort of consensus within the community.

Some wikis are open to everyone. This can become problematic when spammers or malicious people vandalize entries, but they are usually quickly fixed by concerned members of the wiki community. The community enforces behavioral norms, so that it doesn’t become a free-for-all. It is self-organizing group behavior in action. Other wikis are open only to specific groups like librarians, software developers, or participants in a class. These are wikis that are used to fill a specific need, and that need is how to find a way to easily collaborate and share information. Wikis are often used for intranets, research spaces, collaborative projects, creating documentation, and editing texts.

How Do I Edit It?

Wiki syntax is easy to learn, but it is different than what you're probably used to. Wikis have their own syntax for formatting text like creating a link, making a phrase bold or creating a heading. If you clicked edit on this page, you would see towards the top that there are a few buttons for formatting (making things bold, italicized, etc.), but others require you to know the specific syntax rules. It takes a very short time to get very comfortable editing a wiki -- the more you use it, the easier it will be.

Creating an Account (this is optional)

The first thing you might want to do is create an account on the wiki so that your contributions will be viewable under your name (instead of your IP address). As you can see at the top of the page on the right-hand side, there is a link that says Log In/Create Account. Click on that link. You will then need to click on a link that says Create Account. You will need to create a user name. Please use your first name and last name (for example, my account is called MeredithFarkas). You can create any password you like and will need to enter it twice. Entering your email address is optional (if you forget your password, you can have it e-mailed to you).

Wiki Syntax

I have created a small Wiki Editing Guide (PDF) that you may wish to print out and keep by your computer as you start getting comfortable with editing a wiki.

You may also want to look at the Wiki Editing Tips Page from the ALA New Orleans Wiki.

These should help you to know how to format text in the most common ways. If you're looking to do something exotic the Wikipedia Users' Guide should have the information you're looking for.

The best way to get comfortable with wiki syntax is just to use it. So please feel free to create your own page on the wiki and mess around!

 

Introduction to del.icio.us

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site, which means that you can bookmark sites on the web and can view other people's bookmarks. When you bookmark something, you can add descriptive metadata (called tags) to the resource so that you can find it later. del.icio.us itself actually has a very good explanation of what social bookmarking and tagging are.

There are excellent instructions for getting started with del.icio.us on their site. You should have a del.icio.us account and be ready to bookmark resources in del.icio.us by the end of Week 5 as it will be a required component of Week 6. You will need to post your del.icio.us username and bookmark URL to the course wiki so I will be able to identify who is bookmarking what.

You can see my bookmarks here.

 

Introduction to Bloglines and Google Reader

In the class, you will sign up to use a feed reader (or aggregator) and have the choice of using either Google Reader or Bloglines. You should have your aggregator ready by the end of week 1, so you'll be ready for Exercise 1.

Getting Started with Google Reader

1.You will need to create an account with Google Reader. If you already have a Google Account (with any of the Google tools) you don't have to create a new one. If you don't have one, you will need to create a new account. Once you have a Google Account, just visit Google Reader and log in.
2.To add a new RSS feed to the reader, click on Add Subscription (located near the upper left-hand corner of the page). A box will then open up where you can add the URL of the RSS feed you want to add.
3.You can choose to add the feed to a specific folder. Click on the box Add to a folder. If there is not already a folder, click New Folder and then enter the name of the folder you'd like to add. You'll then see that the RSS feed you added is located in that folder.
4.To read the content from that RSS feed, just click on the title located on the left-hand side of the page. The content will show up in the box to the right of it.

Getting Started with Bloglines

1. You will need to sign up for an account at Bloglines. Click on the sign up link and sign up (you will be required to validate your account through an e-mail that Bloglines will send to you after you sign up. Then visit Bloglines and login.

2. To add a new RSS feed to the reader, click on the Feeds tab and then chooce the Add link (located near the upper left-hand corner of the page). A box will then open up in the middle of the page where you can add the URL of the RSS feed you want to add.

3. You can add the feeds to a specific folder. Click on Edit at the top of the page and then drag the resource into a folder. To create a new folder, under Edit, click on New Folder and type in the name of the new folder you want to create.

4.To read the content from that RSS feed, just click on the title located on the left-hand side of the page. The content will show up in the box to the right of it.

Finding RSS Feeds

Most blogs and other sites make it pretty easy to find the URL of the RSS feed. With blogs, you will usually see an icon like this or one that says RSS, XML or syndicate in the sidebar. Other RSS-enabled sites are usually similar. Sometimes the link for the RSS feed URL is at the bottom of the page in the footer and sometimes it's towards the top or in a sidebar.

If you are using Firefox 2.0 or higher as your browser, you can subscribe to an RSS feed in Bloglines with a single click. If a Website has an RSS feed, you will see this indicator in your browser's URL toolbar . If you click on that indicator, it will take you to a page where you can choose your aggregator. If you use Bloglines, choose Bloglines as the aggregator to use. Then you will be taken to the Bloglines page for subscribing to that feed. The same goes for Google Reader. You can set your browser to automatically subscribe you to the feed in the aggregator of your choice so that you won't be given the other feed reader options. That will allow you to subscribe in a single click.