29 Things

2008-12-31T11:02:00.000-08:00

During the Spring 2009 semester you'll be exploring web technologies as part of the course. Our 29 things are based on the 23 things course developed for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC) by Helene Blowers. You might find the odd reference to PLCMC for PLCMC personnel which you can ignore. For example, note that we are not giving out laptops (nor any other cool technology) as a reward for completing these 29 Things! Adapt Things that require specific PLCMC tasks to your own learning situation.

Read what the School Library Journal wrote about this course.

You'll be completing your Things independently during the next 15 weeks. The idea behind these exercises is that you'll find out about all these different web technologies by using them. In the course syllabus you can find the schedule for completion of the 29 things.

29 Learning 2.0 Things*

Week 1-Introduction:
1. Read this blog & find out about the program.
2. Discover a few pointers from lifelong learners and learn how to nurture your own learning process.

Week 2-Blogging:
3. Set up your own blog & add your first post.
4. List your blog's location in the Blackboard discussion on this topic and begin your Learning 2.0 journey.

Week 3-Photos & Images:
5. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
(Note: Under the title "Discovery Exercise" #b- Ignore "Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images PLCMCL2 and mark it public," since we are not the users of PLCMCL2. Instead, you can tag your own images from other resources.)
6. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites.
7. Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week.

Week 4-Wikis:
8. Learn about wikis and discover some innovative ways that libraries are using them.
9. Add an entry to the Learning 2.0 SandBox wiki.
(Note: Under the title "Discovery Exercise" #1&#2- Ignore the descriptions related to PLCMCL2, and create your own wiki sandbox using PBwiki.)

Week 5-Skype Things:
10. Read up on Skype
11. Download and install the software and create your own Skype name. Post your Skype name on the Blackboard Learning 2.0 discussion forum.
12. Make a test call to adjust your computer's settings and if all is well call one of your classmates. We'll be using Skype soon to communicate with group members for our reference assignment. Please also read this article: Skype as Conference Tool (The article is posted under title "Week 5-Skype Things"in the discussion board of the Blackboard.)

Week 6-Play:
13. Play around with an online image generator.
14. Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.
(Note:Under the title "Discovery Exercise" #3- You can have blog posts tagged with whatever you like, rather than tagged as PLCMCL2.)
15. Roll your own search tool with Rollyo.

Week 7-Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati:
16. Learn about tagging and discover a Del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site)
17. Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts.
18. Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries and blog your thoughts.

Week 8-RSS & Newsreaders:
19. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines newsreader account.
20. Locate a few useful library related blogs and/or news feeds.

Week 9-Online Applications & Tools:
21. Take a look at some online productivity (word processing, spreadsheet) tools.
22. Explore any site from the Web 2.0 awards list, play with it and write a blog post about your findings.

Week 10-Spring Break!

Week 11-Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio:
23. Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos.
24. Discover some useful search tools for locating podcasts.
25. Take a look at the titles available on NetLibrary and learn how to download audiobooks.
(Note: Under the title "Discovery Exercise"- Ignore this excersixe. Instead, explore MySpace & FaceBook and see how other libraries are using these social networking sites to reach out to users.)

Week 12-Tag Cloud Things:
26. Tag clouds and social bookmarking are common on the Web. You came across them at the Flickr and LibrayThing sites earlier in the semester.
27. It is high time to have some creative fun and create your own tag cloud using Wordle. Check out the Wordles in the Gallery to get inspired. Next, create your own Wordle based on a School Library Media related topic. A nice Dewey Decimal Wordle example can be found here.
28. Include your Wordle in your blog.

Week 13-One last thing:
29. Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog.

* This list of "things" can also be found on the 43Things website. Note: This project is loosely based upon the website 43Things (which allows you to set and track personal goals) and the Stephen Abram article titled 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006).

Information Access & Technology (Spring 2009)

29 Things