Blog Reflections

Reflecting on the Experience of Blogging...


What did I learn from this experience?
I learned what a blog is- prior to this course, I didn’t know what a weblog was! This was an experiential, exploratory style of learning that was new to me. It was more unstructured and open ended, though the learning outcomes were clear, the path taken was very innovative and very challenging.

I learned how to create my own blog and comment on others. Though my blog wasn’t very pretty- no photos (until today...)or video clips, I’m proud I was able to set one up and post comments on others. I did learn how to hyperlink a URL, and really enjoyed reading and commenting on others blogs.
I learned what an RSS feed is, and how to use it to track other folks blogs, as well as other websites I check often. This tool turned out to be a personal favorite- I use it to track blogs, the weather, the news, etc. Even though much of the technical talk on the sites I found in my research was beyond my understanding, how to use an RSS feed and personal portal were a much needed lesson I learned through exploring the web for information about them.
I also studied independently re: social bookmarking, and how to use this service to organize information and sites that may be of interest in the future. Like the RSS reader, this is a tool I now use daily to keep track of websites I may need access to. I’m still learning how to “be social” and share bookmarks with others, but I expect as I continue to research specific topics, social bookmarking will become more and more useful to me.
I learned a great deal from other’s blogs. I was able to read about many web2.0 tools I’d never have time to explore independently, such as wikis, e-books, clickers, gaming, and more! I could also observe how my “blog mates” designed and utilized blog features creatively.


What can I do to improve my blogging (with or without the constraints of this assignment)?
Learn how to insert pictures (done 12/05- it's about time!)and video. I enjoyed reading other bloggers who have done this, and noted that this is a major function for many folks- a way for them to scrapbook and update family and friends all at once. Great idea, but I don’t keep home photos organized anyway… what makes me think a blog will help? I should also learn how to improve the overall design. Appearance of the site, layout, etc.
I need a topic to blog about. I see many people (outside of this class) blog just for fun, and write whatever comes to mind. I’m unable to devote the time or energy to that kind of journaling. I am glad that we had specific topics to research and write about in our blogs, as it gave some structure and focus to the assignment.

I sum, I enjoyed this assignment very much. I found it difficult to keep up with, especially before my RSS was set up to help me stay up-to-date with all the blogs. The small group format for this type of assignment is essential, and I got to know the bloggers and their topics quite well by the end of the semester. I will miss this informal information exchange when the semester ends, as I learned so much. Thanks and best wishes to Andrew, Mehkta, and Patrick!

Review of Social Bookmarking

My last blog post this semester will be a quick summary about Social Bookmarking. I started with the Wikipedia definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking ) : "In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine." Then, early in November, I watched a “how to” video by commoncraft (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU ), and set up my own del.icio.us page. My next challenge, and one I continue to work on, is my tagging system, or folksonomy. I used a couple resources to better understand tags: Guy & Tonkin, 2006 (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january06/guy/01guy.html ), and Pandia’s Search Engine News ((http://www.pandia.com/sew/327-social-bookmarking.html ). I also discovered ways to market new sites or products through social bookmarking services, which finds bookmarking sites and certain tags on each, and then targets the users of these for promotion of the marketed site/product. I continue to be amazed at the many new ways Web2.0 is being used, and how savvy web marketers and advertisers use these ways to find potential customers.
Through this blogging exercise, I have explored RSS feeds as well as social bookmarking, in addition to discovering ways blogs can be created and used. These experiential lessons have been very helpful as I increase my web2.0 use and fluency.

Bookmarking with a Purpose

The article this week is “Social Bookmarking Tools for Collaboration and Interaction”, http://www.speakingandmarketingtips.com/social-bookmarking.html. This not only gives a brief history of bookmarking and details of some of the most popular sites, but it also shares information for making the most of bookmarks for marketing your own website:
Making Social Bookmarking an Effective Web Promotion Strategy
There are three things you need to do to make the most of social bookmarking:
1. Tag your web site, blog, squidoo lenses, social networking sites and any other web presence you have on as many social bookmark sites as you can.
2. Encourage visitors to your sites to add them to their social bookmarks.
3. Network with other social bookmarkers and collaberate with each other to promote your sites.
Doing this by individually tagging links to a lot of bookmarket sites was impractical - also setting up links for people to click to add my site to their bookmarks meant having a page full of icons.” (http://www.speakingandmarketingtips.com/social-bookmarking.html )
In searching for more information about social bookmarking, I found another niche: a specialized social bookmarking site for academics, who can tag articles for scholarly journals for later retrieval. Sounds like a traditional file cabinet full of folders with arbitrary labels, that may or may not be easy to locate when you need them. http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2007/kipp_2007.pdf . I like this article because it analyses the tags, which is crucial to making your bookmarking site work for you, so you can easily retrieve what you need when you need it. Hope these articles shed some light on the process for you- they have certainly helped me.

More on social bookmarking services:

I spent some time cleaning up my tags this week, following Guy’s advice (2006). I imported all the bookmarks from my browsers (I always use IEx and Firefox simultaneously, since I organize favorites in each so I can find them) This will work much better once I adjust to the move.
I also followed Patrick’s advice, and got rid of the extra toolbar- thanks, Patrick!
To learn more about social bookmarking, I found a site (a blog, maybe? I can’t always tell) called Pandia Search Engine News with an article entitled Top 5 social bookmarking services (http://www.pandia.com/sew/327-social-bookmarking.html ). Pandia gives some good general information about what bookmarking is, and then tested about 20 social bookmarking sites and looked for the following criteria:
• “A decent amount of users is necessary. Otherwise the whole social aspect loses relevance.
• The service has to have quite extensive documentation, FAQ and/or help pages, to guide users.
• More advanced users will want good import and export possibilities. Import is necessary for bringing old bookmarks from your browser or from another online bookmarking service, export is important for backup copies and to ensure that your bookmarks can go with you to another service if you decide to switch.
• A good bookmarking service should have feeds (RSS and/or Atom) of tags or groups of tags.
• I would want my bookmarking service to have a blog so I can be kept up to date about new features, bugs, bug fixes and more.
All the top 5 social bookmarking services in this article comply with these criteria, except for Bluedot which doesn’t have an export option.” (http://www.pandia.com/sew/327-social-bookmarking.html ). Pandia chose LookSmart’s Furl , Netvouz , Del.icio.us , Ma.gnolia , and Bluedot . So there are some good options available for social bookmarking out there.

As I was poking around to learn more about social bookmarking, I stumbled upon another type of social bookmarking services, which are ways that marketers, or “SEO”s (Search Engine Optimizers) can feed sites into your social bookmarking page, to increase traffic to the marketed site. This is a function of social bookmarking I had not anticipated, but it makes sense.. advertising creatively is a hallmark of the internet, and the “American way”. “Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness! That's where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website.” From Social Marker (http://www.socialmarker.com/) one of these services.
“Social bookmarking submission has developed into a powerful tool for SEO experts. It involves linking sites within the various forums, blogs and message boards on social networking websites, blog sites and content centric sites like Digg. Considered a better alternative to submitting a website on blogs, manual social bookmarking is a simple, convenient and hassle-free way of making sure that your site is noticed and marketed in the right circle.”(from SubmitEdge, one such service, at : http://www.submitedge.com/social_bookmarking.html)
I had never thought about social bookmarking from a website marketer’s view… sites like del.icio.us are a great place to promote your own site, if you can use tags to get noticed by the users at del.icio.us. What a sneaky way to get your add to the perfect targeted audience… As I’m grappling to understand these services, I’ll make up an example: Pretend I’m a craftsman, making custom high-end furniture and shipping internationally. I own a company called woodsense.com (I made that up). I want interior designers and potential buyers to notice me, so I subscribe to SubmitEdge, who puts my company into a bunch of social bookmarking sites with tags that will attract the buyers I’m looking for. Great options for small business owners- but there must be a down side to social bookmarking services… I’ll look for that next week.

I did it...

I started my own del.icio.us page/site, and put half a dozed favorite sites there. Now I have 2 issues to resolve before I go further:
1. Tagging- it seems if I don't use a consistent labeling system, I'll have trouble retrieving the sites I want to access (just like I lose pdf articles and even student files on my own laptop all the time because I forgot which folder I put them in and what I titled them... will this be any better?). To help answer this question, I read Folksonomies: tidying up tags? and am now going to be more cautious of "sloppy tags"(Guy, 2006). The following tips were especially helpful (as quoted from Guy, 2006):"At the moment, although there are no standard guidelines on good tag selection practices, those in the folksonomy community have offered many ideas. Ways in which tags may be improved are presented frequently on blogs and folksonomy discussion sites. In his article on tag literacy, Ulises Ali Mejias suggests a number of tag selection "best practices" [14]. These include:

* using plurals rather than singulars
* using lower case,
* grouping words using an underscore,
* following tag conventions started by others and
* adding synonyms."

2. My other issue: I have a new annoying toolbar at the top of my screen, taking up valuable space that lists the sites I've recently saved in del.icio.us. I need to figure out how to get rid of it, as my igoogle page will lead my to my bookmarks as well, and I need my monitor space back.
So the new project continues, slowly but surely... All the tips and tricks I've received here have been really helpful- I can't wait for more!

How to bookmark...

To get a better understanding of social bookmarking, I watched a commoncraft video by Lee LeFevre which was very helpful.

It walks through the process of setting up your own social bookmarking page, using del.icio.us. From this video, I could answer Patrick’s question. Bookmarking requires no software- it is a free on line service of Web2.0, similar to this blog site in that way. (To be honest, Patrick, there may be some specific software available to do the same thing, but if so, I haven’t found it yet).

According to Lee LeFevre, the tags are important in order to retrieve the sites when you need them. The example he uses involves a math teacher needing access to algebra sites. So the folksonomy we read about earlier by Bryan Alexander (“Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning?”) is pretty clear cut, and easy to re-identify and share (among other math teachers, since they will probably tag sites in similar ways).

This sounds simple and useful, as I have folders full of pdf articles and URLs stored on my computer, and since I don’t label them very well, I still need to search when I need to retrieve some information. The only site mentioned in the commoncraft video is del.icio.us, but I am sure there are others. Because Lee’s videos have worked for me in the past, I’ll go with his suggestion and try it this week. Next week I’ll report how it goes, and look for sites similar to del.icio.us (as well as software, if it exists) and compare them.

Social what?

I've been considering what my next blog topic would be, and have it narrowed down to 2 that, at first glance, seem related: Social Bookmarking and Social Networking. As I explored these applications, I find they are very different, but both interesting.

I'm one of the few people in my world without a on-line social network, unless countless emails, class management systems, and these blogs count. But I don't have a facebook or Myspace page, and know almost nothing about them- I really should learn, just to keep up with my students and my sons.

I also learned of social bookmarking in one of our readings, which seems related (well, it's social and on the web, right?) but very, very different. As I think of how I use the web, I think that a social bookmarking working knowledge could be very helpful. I am starting to collect files of URLs, interesting resources that I may want to return to. I collect folders of pdf articles, too, but they are getting harder to organize and find when I need them. Social bookmarking seems like a good way to keep track of resources, learn of new ones I'd like, and share them without forwarding them in an email all the time. So I'll start investigating social bookmarks in this blog.

I'll start by looking at wikipedia for a definition,so I can figure out where to start. Mehkta's wiki blog must be rubbing off... I start with wikipedia often now!
It says :
"In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine."
This sounds pretty useful for me, and since I need to blog about it, I'll probably learn how to start a bookmarking page of my own, since I learn best by doing, and my blogmates can help me through the process.
If I master this concept, I may move one on to social networking before the end of the semester... fat chance!

RSS summary

This is likely my last RSS blog post, so I’ll summarize what I’ve covered here. I started out completely clueless about RSS feeds and readers, and sought out sites to help explain them, and what is RSS?

Then I discovered the video tutorials re: RSS (thanks to Mehkta), and learned about the theory and purpose of RSS through the first one. Next, I found in the Commoncraft series, a simple tutorial that enabled me to make my own RSS reader. So I did, as well as igoogle, a personal portal. I used both for a week or two, and found that the personal portal worked better for me.

Last week I got an ipod, and learned how a podcast feed is similar to an RSS feed. My understanding of this feature is still really simplistic, and I did not venture into the cyberworld to learn the XML rich site syndicate language, but I have learned enough to apply the technology to my world. I feel I’ve learned quite a bit in less than 2 months, and I hope you’ve learned something, too.

The next step would be to learn about the best Readers, and the advantages of having an off-line reader as well as the more traditional on-line type I have. A more techie article/blog explains about Speeddemon, which is both. To be honest, though, it’s beyond my understanding or interest (for now anyway, but I never thought I wanted an RSS reader or an ipod either…).

a new RSS reader...

I received a gift his week that has expanded my understanding of RSS feeds/readers: my very own ipod! It ‘s like my very first bicycle- it’s exciting and offers amazing possibilities, but I can’t take advantage of all it offers until I know how to use it… and it is a steep learning curve for this “digital immigrant”(Marc Prensky coined a term I use a lot these days).

What I’ve learned (by trial and error, so please correct me if I’m wrong) is that to subscribe to a podcast is the same process as subscribing to any RSS feed. The difference is the reader. Instead of using an RSS reader such as Google reader, the podcast is “fed” each week to iTunes. From iTunes I can “sync” (I think that’s a download) it into my ipod for listening whenever I want. So iTunes is another type of RSS reader, it seems. I don’t see the red RSS symbol anywhere in this process, but the “subscribe” command seems to be synonymous. I tried to find verification of this revolutionary discovery, and didn’t have much luck searching “podcast how-to’s” in google or youtube, so I’m asking my blog buddies- is iTunes an RSS reader?

For example, I want to listen to NPR's "Wait Wait, don't tell me"every week, but never catch it on the radio. I go to the podcast section of the itunes store, and choose it. There are recent episodes listed (which I could download), as well as a "subscribe" box. If I click the "subscribe" box, a text box tells me I will receive the most recent episode, and the newest episode each week will be sent to my podcast library in itunes. Itunes then stores the show for me until I put it into my MP3 player to listen, or I can listen to it directly from my computer. That's just the way the NYT feeds news to Google reader for me everyday. The difference is the name of the RSS Reader, and the format of the information- one is all visual text, the other is all audio. If I had a screen on my ipod, I could subscribe to TV shows, and have a video RSS feed as well. Until this week, I didn't realize the different applications of the RSS technology- it's not just for PC viewing, but for more personal mobile devices, too. How cool is that??

It’s fun to be learning how to use all these new ICTs- I’d never take the time to do this if I weren’t forced to explore them in this class. Some ICTs will be an everyday tool for me, and others I may not ever use again, but at least I know what they are, just in case. Hopefully, like riding a bike, I won’t forget how to use blogs, RSS feeds, IM, wikis, etc. once I’ve practiced a little.

My RSS journey..

Blogging is becoming more fun and interesting. I have learned more about them through our collaborative project, and found this video that explained them clearly: http://www.commoncraft.com/ . I have found that Lee LeFevre’s Commoncraft videos are very helpful. The concepts are clear because the visuals are so simple in them.

But that’s not the topic of the day. The topic is RSS feeds, and what most folks need. I did make myself an RSS reader (Google Reader), as well as an igoogle homepage. Whenever I see the RSS symbol, I click it and get a screen that asks whether I’d like the site “fed” to my google reader or igoogle homepage. I choose my igoogle page, and it is immediately visible when I open my web browser. This is my personal portal, which is not the same as an RSS reader. As Yin explained (thanks again!), “It does not indicate how many new postings or articles have been written since the last time you visited the site. This is what a RSS news reader does, it is smaller in scale than a personal portal but it assembles a reading list and monitors how many postings you have yet to catch up with.”
The personal portal function is revolutionary for me. I got to my blog with one click instead of half a dozen. This is an example of how financial traders use the igoogle homepage for receiving RSS feeds, and is pretty much what I’m doing now (with other blogs, sites): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMpsaSGZs1A
It does not keep tabs or tallies on what’s new, but it does feed continually, so that you see new content as it arrives. If you’re checking the site throughout the day, it works really well to help stay up to date. I tried to create a link between igoogle and google reader, but was told “information temporarily unavailable”- that message remained for many days, until I deleted the link. I found an explanation for that problem at Techlondon (and it has an RSS feed ): http://www.techlondon.co.uk/2007/10/manage-rss-feeds-using-igoogle-and.html .This site also explains some of the advantages of igoogle, so I’ll stick with it, for now. It’s great how much more energy I have to spend on-line now that I’m not searching for everything.

google reader

OK, I think I've finally done it. Because the workings of RSS feeds and readers are new to me,and I'm so cautious with what I'm doing (I read all the popup ads because I need to make sure it's not something important...), it took me most of the morning to open a google account and put my IDE 611 blog group into my subscriptions (I must admit, I subscribed to a few other sites to see how it worked). I'm still learning. Google reader has another how-to video that was pretty simple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y
I still have a ways to go... I can't get this URL to appear as a direct link! Anyway, I know the difference between a RSS feed, which is the information- the subscription address you need to get automatic updates from the website. The reader is where they go, so I can see everything new in one place. I'm hoping this will make web navigation easier, and save a bunch of time. The best part will be that I can see new blogs on my blog buddies, and know when to post, instead of trying to remember to "go and check" once or twice a week. I'll keep you posted!

RSS makes sense

OK, I watched the videos that Mehkta suggested on Youtube, and now I’m hooked on Youtube tutorials! Because I am so slow to catch on, it took this video to really make it clear why I need to learn about RSS feeds. This one gives background and context to the RSS concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irnGua_yhvk&feature=related
Now I get it. I grew up with card catalogs, and even used one for my Masters thesis- I am definitely a “digital immigrant” (Marc Prensky, 2001), so this technology comes to me much slower to me than to most people. But now I finally get it. I don’t have a way to manage information well, and am constantly feeling like I’m missing something. I need an RSS feed! It will customize news, blogs and notes just for me- so I only get the information I want from the Web, just as Andrew said. And I won’t have to spend hours of aimless “surfing” to find the information that interests me the most- sounds great.
My personal challenge will be to make my own RSS feed/reader (sorry, I’m still not sure of the right terminology) this week- I’ll let you know how it goes, but I’m guessing it will take longer than the 2 minutes it takes the guys on the videos. For instance, I don’t have my own website, so I’m wondering where to put this information I want to funnel to me. I think I’ll use this article, as I do best with a written guide: http://www.mygtdstuff.com/2008/04/simple-guide-to-rss.html Wish me luck!

RSS

RSS- Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary.. ..I’d never heard of it before this class, and I never had that “computers101” class, so I’m hoping you guys can help me understand. I found this link to be helpful, but I have a long way to go, as I don’t know what XML means, either. I'll post when I know more...

“RSS is an XML-based vocabulary for distributing Web content in opt-in feeds. Feeds allow the user to have new content delivered to a computer or mobile device as soon as it is published.” (http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid8_gci813358,00.html – accessed 9/07/08)

OK, I'm starting to catch on to blogs. This week's assignment and readings helped quite a bit. In some situations, like Kevin's example of ESL students, I can see where practice writing to a larger audience would be great practice, and the feedback/comments would be encouraging and motivating for the student.
As always, the pedagogy drives the technology used in teaching/learning situations, and not the other way around. As much as I enjoy "playing" with the new tech tools, software, etc., I'm cautious about introducing it into a classroom (or virtual classroom), until I'm sure it will be worth the time invested for students to learn the technology. My content areas (nursing theory, history, etc) are my main focus, and I'm concerned that students get so caught up in learning the tool ( a blog, video-conferencing, even the learning platform is confusing to some students), that it distracts from the learning objectives. Is anyone else feeling conflicted about this? I'm thinking that just because we can, doesn't mean we should... any thoughts?

Week #2

Week 2, and I'm learning alot about blogs, though I'm still not sure about navigating through my own yet. I see the value of an organizational blog to elicit public opinions and share happenings, news, resources with interested people.

elliemae's blog

OK, I'm feeling the generation gap... I've never blogged before, and I'm not sure how this differs from a discussion post, except that, theoretically, anybody can view this, not just classmates...? That makes me vaguely uneasy. Maybe fear of the unknown...
Anyway, you folks that are used to this genre: what's the practical purpose, for instructional or social purposes? Do any of you use this outside of a class assignment?

elliemae (Ellen... which name do I sign?)