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

1. How has your view of social software changed since starting the course?

I don't know that it's changed so much as just grown to accomodate a much larger than I ever imagined world of social networking tools.  I also have a MUCH better understanding of the advantages (and the challenges!) of their use and how they might fit particular end-user needs.  I think I'm also more aware of trying to really keep the focus narrow and make sure to have a plan for ongoing maintenance as some of the sites I visited had not been updated or had any recent content in some time.

2. What technology did you find most interesting for your personal use? What technology did you think would be most useful professionally?

For personal use, I still love Facebook for keeping up with the lives of friends and family and social bookmarking for keeping track of all the web links in my life.  I really love the wiki concept and the open source content management system (like Drupal or Moodle) to be the most intriquing for my professional use.  I think wikis are a quick, easy, and effective solution for organizing resources for classes - both by the librarian or by the classroom teacher.   And Drupal and Moodle make excellent online environments for organizing all a classroom's resources and facilitating a collaborative environment.

3. What surprised you during the course?

One thing that surprised me the most was screencasts.  I did not expect creating one to be so challenging.  It took far, FAR longer than I ever expected to create the one I did for class.  I really hope to use screencasts for tech support and instructional purposes, but now I know I need A LOT of practice and still need to unearth an easier solution than the one I made work.

4. What suggestions do you have for improving the learning activities (exercises, assignments, blog posts, readings, examples, etc.)?

I would love to see you write a revised edition to your book.  I know social networking is an ever-changing world so that is difficult to do.  I think your supplementary readings helped cover recent topics very nicely.

5. How did your experience using Drupal differ from your experience in Angel classrooms (or classes using other traditional course management systems)?

As I work in an educational environment, I think Drupal was one of the highlights of the course.  I've never liked Angel and Drupal was such a welcome change from that.  It is amazing how just having an image attached to someone's words makes them more identifiable and fosters a feeling of connectedness that I find mostly lost on Angel.  The blog format makes it so easy to follow specific class members and review new posts in threads. 

6. Looking back, how would you sum up your experience?

This has been a fun, interesting, and informative experience.   I loved getting the oppotunity to test-drive so many new applications!!