You gave us 'Search Smarter...' But I gave you Rick

Okay, in my defence I had fallen behind and therefore only just noticed the 'Search smarter, Search faster' video on the 23 Things blog as I scrolled from week 7 to week 8.  Damn you 23 Things team! You beat me to it!

To make up for this slight oversight on my part, here is a video of Rick Astley.  Because, well, why not?  There's a lot to be said for dancing like your dad.  Not all of it good, mind...

SlideShare

I'm glad I didn't post this earlier today.  I was suffering from technology fatigue having discovered that no matter what I did, the link to Survey Monkey that I included in my last post just wouldn't work.  And still doesn't. I apologise to those itching to have a say on the use of QR codes as a promotional tool. I'm sure you exist in your thousands.  Admittedly the survey consisted of only 4 questions, so not exactly a reliable starting point from which to build our marketing strategy…

After spending some time quietly banging my head against my wrist rest (asbestos rumours and a general disapproval of violence at work make the wall a no-go area for such activities), I spent some time investigating SlideShare.  At first I felt pretty frustrated, concluding that it’s a bit like Wikipedia in slide format; lots of information from various sources and of questionable reliability.  I found it difficult to find something relevant, and being confronted with page upon page of results always puts me off. Especially when they feature presentations such as 'Free Ipad - Legit' and 'Herbal Viagra Guy Almighty'.  However, I work in a library.  I am not intimidated by vast oceans of information.  I took a deep breath, stopped cursing Survey Monkey (yes, there was still a slight preoccupation going on with that) gave my search terms some thought and rediscovered filters.  Aaaah.  I limited my search by language, date, user type (pro) and file type.  The results were somewhat more satisfactory and I was able to see how useful SlideShare can be for sharing information and teaching materials, promoting work and getting ideas. 

I still have concerns, however, about the authenticity of some of the information and would therefore suggest a cautionary approach when recommending it to students, particularly those carrying out research related to drug prescriptions and medical procedures.  This can be said about many sources of information though - the aforementioned Wikipedia and YouTube to name only a couple.  As long as we can get the 'never, ever, EVER cite Wikipedia as a source of information in your assignments' message across, and as long as users know they must always check the source,  then these websites can be a great way to gather information.  For example, the ’Search smarter, Search faster’ video created by the University of Sydney provides an excellent illustration of how YouTube can be exploited as a learning tool:

No time to Cha Cha, Mister Dinosaur, I’m off to make a start on Thing 17.

Prezi, Doodle & Survey Monkey

Okay, I admit, I wasn’t very patient with Prezi.  It looks straightforward but is actually…a bit of a faff.  Well, when you’re racing towards the finish line and don’t have hours to while away on it, perhaps it just seems that way. 

Anyway, it looks impressive.  I watched the one on the 23 Things blog, and the one created by ‘For Your I.A’s Only’.  Both were great – imaginative, visually pleasing and engaging.  Definitely the sort of tool you'd want to use in a presentation, and I intend to put it to good use next time I’m up there preaching to the masses.  As mentioned by the 23 Things team, it has so much more impact than PowerPoint.  I just wish it didn't make me feel the same way IKEA flat-pack furniture makes me feel - frustrated and borderline suicidal.  But that's what you get for not reading the instructions, I guess. I'll come back to this though - and will make a prezi on my experiences of using Prezi.  How brilliantly ironic of me.

On to the next Thing: Doodle.  I found this refreshingly simple.  It took me all of two minutes to set up a meeting and send out the invitations.  I always find it frustrating trying to arrange meetings with people from different areas within the university - we're a busy bunch and rarely around at the same time so this is definitely a useful tool for arranging meetings that involve people from various locations, with varying availability.  Of course, I could send them an Outlook calendar request but is this really necessary when the meeting is just a one-off? In future I'll be using Doodle to make meeting arranging a doddle.

Thing 15: Survey Monkey

Creating visible and easy to use feedback systems is something I've been working on at SHS, and the Subject Librarians are planning to use Survey Monkey during the next round of training and inductions.   It's so easy to use and I like the simple format.  I created a survey on the use of QR codes as a promotional tool:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZPSK3K6 

Overall I found the above tools useful and I know I'll be using them again and again, long after I've completed the 23 Things course.

Twitter and LinkedIn

Okay.  Twitter set up (@clarelou100).  No, I really didn't have a Twitter account until now.  I'll stop for a moment to allow you to catch your breath.  Recovered? Okay, good.  Let's move on.  I know how popular Twitter is, but I've never really got to grips with the idea of sharing my every move with, well, the world.  Do people really care if I’m wearing my novelty 'Tuesday' socks on a - gasp - Thursday?  No. I don't think they do. Or do they? I spent some time looking at friends’ Twitter accounts this week and suddenly I DID want to know how their morning run went, what they wore to their cousin’s wedding, that they ran out of washing up liquid just before the in-laws came round for dinner.  Strange.  Clearly, I’m easily swayed.  So I had a go at posting a few tweets.  I found myself addicted and suddenly almost every thought was Twitterfied in my mind to 140 or fewer characters.  This is cause for alarm.

I can see the wider benefits of Twitter, though.  It provides opportunities to connect with a broad network of people, to get our opinions out there, to link with others who share our interests or views (or not, as the case may be), to engage in professional debate etc. I could go down the social sciences route now and start talking about democracy, the younger generation, election voting, X-Factor, the London riots etc, but you’ve heard it all before and I’m already 6 weeks behind, so we’ll save that for another time.

We already have a School of Health Sciences Twitter account (@CitySHSLibrary) which is updated on a daily basis with health-related news, information on free e-resource trials, service updates, promotions etc and we currently have 145 followers.  I don't know what that means in Twitter world.  Are we the wildly popular head cheerleader or last to be picked for the netball team? I have no idea, but it does mean we're able to connect with 145 individuals/organisations that we wouldn't be able to in such an informal fashion/on such a regular basis otherwise. How many of our users actually have Twitter accounts is debatable, given that a high percentage of them are mature students with families and jobs to juggle, but we are constantly striving to promote social media, E-resources, online account access etc, and the stats tell us we’re making progress.

I've also set up a LinkedIn profile and have added some contacts.  It was interesting catching up with old colleagues and it’ll be useful to be able to get in touch with them should I need to draw on their expertise (or vice-versa, of course!) 

Anyway, 1.5 days to go.  11 Things to catch up on. #Stressed.