Module 8: Twitter

Finally reached the last Module after eons of time had passed! Anyway am truly a bonafide social networker! I had trudged down the cyber path of connecting with people and had found it an enlightening journey. Twitter is kinda addictive if you don't watch it. People do tend to twit a lot, sometimes almost about anything! I had been following 4 libraries, 4 librarians and 4 individuals as was required. I had been tweeting a little myself. My twitter account name is jologstwit.

At first I was a bit lost with the twitting and was feeling like a bit of a bird what with all the twitting going around! But I eventually got there in the end. Found out what these following acronyms were:

Direct message is sort of like an inbox for your account which is cannot be viewed by everyone on your page.You can also send a DR to soemone that you are following.

# + word or acronym is a hash tag
@+username is someone's twitter name
RT means ReTweets it is sort of repeating what somebody just twitted about somewhat like when you forward emails.

I had also been following WCL on twitter and was amazed at how well we have come to use this resource much to our advantage. It is like real time happenings in the library and most of all it can reach massive number of people at a time through very little effort. I had just been checking the bus timetable today and noticed they also have a twitter thing going on at their site. Twitter maybe a major tool to reach a worldwide group of people but as all social networking goes, must be used wisely and responsibly by all.

That's it for me. Signing off the Web 2.0 Modules. Hope I pass with flying colours! It had been one amazing technological journey. Most social networking jargons had been conquered! Paalam! Adios! See yah!

Module 7 Social Networking

It really is baffling what you can do with today's technology. I had reconnected with my elementary, high school and college friends after all these years via the social networking site Facebook. Of all the four social networking sites that we were asked to look at, I prefer Facebook because for a not very technology savy person like me, it was pretty straight forward and simple to use. I had created an account on Bebo and MySpace using a different name because I wasn't really going to pursue it. Both sites as I see it may be catering more to the younger generation and people who are looking for love. I had found it to be very busy and somewhat hard to navigate around. I did love decorating or customizing my profile by choosing different skins or themes. The designs were really cool.Bebo also have a lifestream which is a way of mapping your activities so you can see what you had planned or had done. Ning was more of for group of people who would like to create an exclusive topic or need. they may all have one central or specific interests that brings them all together. With regards to privacy, there are levels of privacy settings which you can choose from in all the four sites. They can be public,private and fully private. Bebo even has age restrictions option where you can set restrictions on the ages of people who would want to contact you. It would all depend on you on how you'd like to set your privacy so it's all under your control.

I think the library can use these sites to promote our services because people are accessing these sites and maybe we can get hits from them even if only out of curiosity.

These social networking sites are a valuable tool if you use it correctly and safely. It can work for you and against you depending on how responsibly you use it.

Module 6 Multi-media

I am embedding a preschool storytime held at the Johnsonville Library during the New Zealand Sign Language Week in May. We had Nadia from Deaf Aotearoa come in to teach us basic sign language and interpreting the song "Wheels on the Bus". I had set it as private so that I won't get into trouble with Debbie.