Week 4- Instant Messaging

Funnily enough, I was at home IMing some friends, when I decided to check my work email. And come to find out, Week 4 is Instant Messaging!!

I've used IM for years, so i suppose I can say I'm an old hat at it. So, I stopped by and said hello to the askvbpl person. I did find the articles interesting... so many adults using IM and the studies they've done using it in the work place.

All in all, IM has become an important way for me to stay in touch with people I've known for years, or most recently, people I went to college with who all moved to different places to start our careers. It's easy, and convenient, and practically part of my daily routine!

Week 3- Wikis

Though I'm an avid user of Wikipedia as a jumping off point to start research, I've never actually edited it. It is both really neat and also kind of scary. How many people just make things up that sound as though they could pass for fact? I suppose that's why it's only a starting point...

The most interesting thing I found while reading the article however was using a Wiki as a writing tool in a classroom. I was a secondary education minor in college and I had never encountered someone using a Wiki as a way of students building on the writing process, but I think it is a brilliant idea!

As far as in the library, a lot of times, there are discussions at staff meetings and emails get sent out before hand about things that may come up during staff meetings. Suggestions, questions, or concerns people may have. Then, the minutes are typed up and distributed to the staff. I don't work on Thursdays, so I don't get to attend staff meetings. And other staff members may miss them, etc... So, I think a Wiki would be good for staff meeting purposes. The article sort of suggested this. Questions, concerns, etc... could be posted and people could respond, and then at Staff meeting, the minutes could be transcribed in the Wiki and everything would be available for everyone to see, even if they were not there.

Week 2 - RSS

I thought this was really easy to set up. I enjoy that Google makes everything so user friendly ;)
As far as adding feeds, searching through "ADD Subscripton" was really simple and I found some interesting stuff. Such as, I have a mail subscription to Psychology Today magazine, and I read a lot in the magazine about the blog they have where readers can write questions, or they take polls and things. So, I got to subscribe to the blog which had some really interesting stuff that isn't regularly published in the magazine itself. Plus, I got to add some other online periodicals that I check on a regular basis and this should save me some time!

Week 1 - Blogs

Well, I think creating a blog is just as easy as they say it is. I also think the whole Learning 2.0 concept is really great. While I was attending JMU, I had to create a blog for one of my Education classes and write posts in response to our homework assignments. So, the whole process was a little familiar.

All in all, I think this can be a lot of fun, and at the very least some new things to try.