Information Issues

Friday, September 28, 2007

More on wikis

Hi,

In class last monday we talked about wikis and started working on the class wiki for our group projects. A couple of you sent me cool links about wikis that I wanted to share:

An article about political candidates and Wikipedia entries

An blog post about New Zealand using a wiki to have the public edit their policing law.

Great stuff, thanks for letting me know about these!

I also found another Commoncraft video that helps explain how a group can use a wiki:

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Introducing the Class Wiki

Hi class!
Here is a sneak preview of the class wiki at http://informationaccess.wikispaces.com/. We will be talking about wikis on Monday and we will go through steps to edit the wiki together. Only edit the class wiki now if you want to.. it is not required for this week! You also do NOT need a wikispaces account to experiment with the page.

Some facts about our class wiki:

It was created for free at Wikispaces. Right now it has advertising links on the right side, I will be upgrading it though so those won't show.
It is set up as a public site now, meaning anyone can edit the page.
Like this blog, it has WYSIWYG editing which should be familiar to you. Some other wikis require the use of wiki style which is a simple language.

enjoy!

Week Three Class Recap

Ok, this is coming a little late, but here is a list of some of the sites we discussed at the beginning of class this week:

Microblogging: Very short blog posts or "status updates". We looked at Twittervision which "geolocates" people with Twitter accounts.
Photoblogging: Photobloggers often use a site like Flickr to share their photos online, or to incorporate photos into a special type of blog. Here is a directory of photoblogs.
Moblogging is creating blog posts "on the go" using your mobile phone's text and photo messaging service.
Liveblogging is when bloggers cover sporting events, political conventions, conferences etc. in real time.
A Tumblelog is a "stream of consciousness blog" with no set theme, such as this one.
Vloggers or Videobloggers use a video service like YouTube to create video posts. A famous example was the online video diary of lonelygirl15, who turned out to be a paid actress.
Podcasts are syndicated audio files that you subscribe to and that can played back on computers and personal audio devices, like iPods.
RSS & AJAX are web standards used to publish feeds of frequently updated content like blog posts and podcasts, so they can be subscribed to.

The videos we watched in class were:
Andrew Keen on CNN
and
Blog the Vote on PBS/ NOW

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Using the html editor in blogger

If you want to make a hyperlink in your post, highlight the word you want to make into the link. Then click on the icon on the toolbar that looks like a green ball with a figure eight near the top. Enter the URL for the website you want the word to point to.

If you want to add a picture to a post, click on the icon in the task bar that is a blue square with a tiny mountain scene.

If you know HTML, you can also do these tasks by using the Edit HTML tab at the top of the edit window.

Oh, and once you publish a post, you can always go back and edit it by clicking on the pencil icon.

Make sense? :)

Blogs - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hi class,

If you are having any trouble with your blog or RSS Reader, post a comment here or email me.

Also, you do not have to use your real name on your blog and you don't have to share it with the class. I do think we would all benefit from seeing each others' blogs, but if you don't feel comfortable with that, just tell me and I will only view your blog myself and not post it here.

In class we looked at select blogs from Technorati's list of the top 100 most popular blogs.

Here are some other ways to find blogs:
http://technorati.com/ (I like to search a keyword and then click on the "blogs" tab)
Minnesota blog directory
Blogs at the U of MN

OR.. just go to the website of your favorite newspaper - many columnists have blogs.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Google and your digital self

Google has an "official YouTube" channel and they just released this video, which shows how GMAIL email is delivered:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKAInP_tmHk

A little different than what I taught you in class.. :)

Reminder on your work for the next class period:
Experiment with Googling yourself and the town you grew up in. Try to find yourself on Google Maps or Google Earth, perhaps look up the place you live on Zillow or yourelf on Switchboard (see links below). If you enter an address into Zillow, it plots your house on a map - click on the address line to get a "birds eye view and more info". I'm not sure if it works for apartment buildings, so you may have to look up the house you grew up in or something.

Also, do a brief search in Google Scholar and compare to a brief search in the library databases.

Here are links:
Google
Google Maps Fun tip: use the find businesses tab to search for pizza places near your house.
Google Earth (this one is a free download and is optional for class.)
Zillow Enter your address, then find the "birds eye view" by clicking on your building link.
Switchboard Try to find yourself in the white pages.
Google Scholar
Library Databases (Use search for articles or search by subject link)

Week one class

I enjoyed class on Monday, I can tell this is going to be a fun group of people.

Here is a link to that video I played at the end of class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

Some other sites that were mentioned included:
The Way Back Machine at the Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/index.php

Hobbes Internet Timeline:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/

If I've forgotten any feel free to comment and I'll add it...

Saturday, August 18, 2007