Thinking about sites for students

I looked at three sites: Backpack, Digication, and Notecentric. Of the three Backpack struck me as the most useful. Perhaps because it had the best "tour". Backpack strikes me as a very flexible and user-friendly organizational tool. Notecentric also appears to have a lot of potential for sharing information among students. It is a Facebook application, but that shouldn't be a limiting factor, since Facebook is free and practically every student I know already has an account anyway. Digication was a bit more confusing. There was no tour of the site, and no obvious explanation of it's usefulness. How do people find out about these sites and know what to do with them? It's a mystery to me. I'm glad the krl2pt0 site will be staying up--I'm sure I'll come back to it in the future to find some of these sites, or just for a refresher.

twittering thoughts

Twittering thoughts: looks like e-mail with ADD!
Did a lot of following followers to their followers to their followers....stumbled across restaurant impressions/movie suggestions/dog food dilemmas/Barack Obama/and lots of people goofing off at work.
Saw a couple sites that could be actually useful: a research library posting their new journals, etc. and Barack Obama (or his people) posting his appearance schedule.
Can't imagine why I'd want to spend time on this. Better to go outside and live life!

Facebook Thoughts

Interesting article about libraries in social networking software. She made a comment:

I wonder if they have a false sense of security. And if all that is true, how would they feel about librarians building presence in MySpace and Facebook or even posting comments on their profiles.

This is the reason I have not created a Facebook site. I feel like I might be invading my children's private communications with their friends. Like listening in on a second phone line. I have been shown the pictures of their underage friends at drunken parties and feel sure that parental lurking would not be welcomed by all. Perhaps I am merely enabling their false sense of security?

I did not realize that photos or notes could be tagged with a name and show up on another person's profile. So a less cautious friend could post indiscreet material that shows up on your website! Could be trouble.

Libraries, certainly, may not have the same stifling effect as a parent, being considerably more impersonal, but it needs to be considered. I do like the idea of links or portals to the library from Facebook, etc.

Wiki2 Thoughts

Wow! That was easy! (Where's an EASY button when you want one?)

I added a page called "Local Organizations" to the Poulsbo homepage on the wiki. Then I linked to the URLs of several organizations in the Poulsbo area.

This is certainly something that the public could participate in by adding information about or links to their own organizations.

Fun!

Wiki1 Thoughts

I noticed, while looking at the Stevens County Library's Wiki, that their most popular pages were the booklists. They had lists for Manga and for Washington Murder Mysteries. And virtually all of the most recent changes/additions were for the Manga reviews. What a great idea! I think booklists with patron reviews for lots of different subjects could be a big hit...Easy Reader books, books for boys, books for Spanish learners, etc.... something everybody could contribute to any time they read a book!

YouTube

I have watched a few YouTube clips in the past, most Yahoo featured clips, but I've never searched for clips before. This could be dangerous! There is the potential to waste a lot of time just watching video clips. The potential impact of YouTube is tremendous in so many areas--politics, social justice, learning, not to mention family connections and humor!

LibraryThing

I opened a LibraryThing account a while ago when I first heard about it. I think it has the potential to be a great resource--especially for my husband who likes to catalog his large personal library. (But I think he actually prefers the old paper card method.) It's fun to be able to read the reviews of books I have read. I even submitted one review of my own. A great tool with lots of potential uses--another blogger mentioned using it as a way to keep track of books read. I may try doing that as my New Year's resolution!