Technically Random

The latest in the Educause “7 Things You Should Know About … ” series.

7 Things You Should Know About Second Life

Second Life is a virtual world with tens of millions of square meters
of virtual lands, more than 13 million “residents,” and a thriving
economy. Large numbers of colleges and universities—or, in some cases,
individual departments or faculty—are active in Second Life, not only
for academic purposes but also for campus visits, recruiting activities
for prospective students, and fundraising. Second Life lets educators
easily build and modify learning spaces to test how different
strategies for a physical space affect learning, and a similar approach
can be taken toward educational activities in those spaces.

I have an account in SL and spent way too much time trying to make my avatar look even remotely like me (although for some people, maybe that’s not the goal). I haven’t explored very much but I do know there is a Second Life Library Project. Right now my first life is leaving me barely enough time for sleep and a small guilty dosage of bad television.

This from the Chronicle Wired Campus:

Wired Campus: Twitter Ideas for Libraries - Chronicle.com

The Web site College@Home has put together a nice list of ideas for libraries interested in using the instant-blogging service Twitter.
More…

I’ve resisted Twitter so far because I’m trying to reduce the number of distractions that keep me from… well… work. I can see though how it could make it easier to do some things. Just yesterday I was trying to help diagnose a IP authentication problem with a new database. It seemed to be working from some subnets but not others. I was going through my IM list looking for people to help me test but it would have been much easier to send out something over Twitter so that whoever was available could to respond or not.
Maybe it’s time to jump in.

A lot of months ago (OK, maybe three, who knows) I signed up to be on the beta list for Twine.  I had no idea what it was at the time, the marketing hype made little sense to me so I pretty much just forgot about it.  Well, last week I got my invitation and I signed up.

So far, I’ve played and poked a little, I joined the Library 2.0 twine, I read some posts from people who are saying that it’s “addicting.”  Then I got the flu and couldn’t look at anything but the insides of my eyelids for a few days.

Now I’m back in, still looking around with this uneasy feeling that there’s some fundamental semantic web coolness about Twine that I’m just missing.  Is this the one social thingadoodle to bind them all?  Maybe I’m not getting it because I’m not, you know, social.  Maybe it’s because I’m one of those people who needs to see each line before I can see the whole picture.

Whatever the case, I’ll keep poking around and maybe, at some point, the picture will come into focus.  Until then, I’ve got some invites if you want to come and play.  Drop me an email or comment on this post if you want one of the invites.

- Corey

The latest in the Educause “7 Things You Should Know About …” series.

7 Things You Should Know About Ning

Ning is an online service that allows users to create their own social networks and join and participate in other networks. No technical skill is required to set up a social network, and there are no limits to the number of networks a user can join. Users of Ning social networks have access to functionality similar to that of more well-known social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace. Various features allow users to read news or learn about related events, join groups, read and comment on blog entries, view photos and videos, and other activities as set up by the network creator. RSS feeds let users subscribe to updates from specific parts of the social network.

I’ve played around on Ning a little and joined the Library2.0 Ning group/network.  Seems like it could be an effective way to set up micro-issue social networks or a single use network for a project.

- Corey

There’s been some talk going around about library applications in Facebook.  At the Web 2.0 Workshop last summer we talked a little about library and research-related tools that have Facebook apps, such as JSTOR and Books-I-Like.  An article appeared in the Chronicle last week on searching the catalog in facebook, discussing the worldcat.org tool. Mostly this article re-iterated the question: will people use Facebook as a tool for research?  Do they want library tools there in the first place?

Over the weekend, Gerry McKiernan posted the results of a survey to his blog, Friends: Social Networking Sites for Engaged Library Services, on Library Outreach and Social Networking sites.  In part of the survey, students are asked whether they would want library tools available in their MySpace or Facebook.  Take a look at the post for the results . . .