Thing 21: Creating Infographics

When I got this first I planned on making an infographic to use in my biblometric presentations, but I ran out of time. I had only heard of the term Infographics recently at the presentation conference, but I realized that I had seen them around in libraries and other places.

I have been looking forward to creating infographics. The original plan was to make three infographic handouts on how Researchers, Organisations and Librarians used Bibliometrics.

I made a rough timeline for some of my presentations and I decided to turn this into an infographic.
I used easel.ly to create my Infographic. I scrolled through the templates and selected one to use. I changed the background colours and in put the information and pictures I wanted.

In the future I may do the three I originally planned to do.

Part 21: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks:

Thing 20: Presentations

Presentations seemed to be a hot topic when I first wrote this.

I had just attended a conference on presentations run by the LAI’s Career Development Group (CDG) group “Abstract to Audience: a guide to Conference presentations”. It was on in the NLI on Friday 2^nd October 2015.I found it very interesting and I got a lot of tips and demonstrations. One of the speakers even had us doing a workshop which was interesting because we had to design a presentation on paper.

I have had to do three presentations on Bibliometrics in the following weeks. They were two very different settings. Two were for work (same presentation) to the researchers and one in college to my class.

For the work presentations the talk was more focused on how and what researchers need/want to know about bibliometrics. The one for my information organisation class and was focused more on what librarians need to know and how they would go about doing this.

I was thinking of using the experience I have gained doing the Teagasc  5 year bibliometric report as a case study but ran out of time to make these slides so I adapted and added to what I already had.

I ended up using mostly the same slides for all the presentations. I planned the core of the presentations on paper, then I did a rough layout of slides. I then went onto Pixabay and Unsplash two picture websites suggested in the Presentation Conference to source pictures that can be used in presentations. I finalized content and practiced the presentations but forgot to check the timing. Next time I will be sure to check the timing before hand.

In the conference they said not to use bullet points in the presentation, so I tried to limit the number of bullet points I used. They also suggested to use animation and different shapes to make it interesting.

For the College presentation a did a last minute switch around of my slides moving my time line before the definition. If I had to do another presentation I would change the order back.

To view slides follow the links below:
Bibliometrics Measuring Impact- Researchers
Bibliometrics Measuring Impact- Researchers 2
IO_Bibliometrics Measuring Impact- Librarians

I had done two presentations before this in one for my chemistry thesis and one at a convention intro to manga, two very different settings.

The presentation for my chemistry thesis was very nerve wracking. I had to talk for 15 minutes discussing my final year chemistry project. I discussed my methodology, results and conclusions. I remember I was given very difficult questions that were outside the scope of my project which my supervisor had to answer.

The second presentation was more relaxed and enjoyable. I was giving my view about manga and recommended reading.For the first presentation I was more prepared, my slides were meticulously planned with a speech too. For the manga one I had random slides and no prepared speech.

Part 20: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Option 2:Talk about a presentation you have given and share the slides.

Thing 22: Mobile Things

I am pretty sure I have only mentioned the Blogger app in passing.

I have an Android phone and you can download the app from the Google Playstore.

 

When you open the blogger app you are shown a list of all blog posts both draft and published. You can create a new blog post by clicking the pencil Icon on the top right of the screen. You can take a picture to add to your blog by clicking the  camera icon.

 

You can toggle between the All, Published and Draft tabs to view blog posts at various stages of completion. To edit a draft just click on the post you want and click on the pencil Icon to continue editing.

 

When you are finished editing you can either save the post again for later or post it. You can edit the various elements (Title, Content and Tags) by clicking into them.

 

I was able to access more options when I hit the menu button on my phone. This brought up a list of useful options and extra functionality for the Blogger app. If you are unable to access the internet you can still create, edit and save your blog posts in the Blogger app. When you connect again hit the Refresh option and it will sync to your online account and update your posts. Another handy option I found was View blog, which allows quick access to your blog page.

If I did not have this app I would not have been able to finish my Rudai 23 posts. On the bus to and from work I would type up my posts on to my blogger app. I found it very handy as you do not need access to the internet to type and save a post.

Part 22: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Option 2: Review any mobile app you like that you have not reviewed before.

Thing 19: The Legal Side of Things

C-Clones or Creative Commons posted on Flicker by Kristina Alexanderson in the Troopers of 2012 Album: https://goo.gl/RfI9Qs.

After reading the Thing 19 post I started to wonder if about my own posting and re-posting on social media over the years. I was on social media when the debate about source attribution broke out on Facebook and Tumblr. Art work from DeviantArt and Facebook was being re-uploaded onto other peoples Tumblr blogs  and Facebook without mentioning the creator. Some sites were even collecting some of the artwork and were selling it.

I have to admit when I was younger and first started off I was totally unaware of copyright on the internet. I did start off uploading one or two of my favorite pics to use as my avatars or so I could share them with my friends but then I discovered re-posting. Until the source attribution debate broke out I had never bothered to check if the original post was properly attributed to the source. Now all of my posts and re-posts will have links back to the source. For posts that I want to re-post that don't I will hunt down the link first. A handy thing you can do now, is reverse image search to find the source of an image.

For Rudai I was still very cautious about what I posted on-line. You might have already noticed that I always put links in when I am referring to something else. For my post for Thing 4, I wanted to  share an article I had read in The Economist (a magazine I read in work). I  also wanted to use a time line picture used in the piece. I had taken a picture of the time line to use in my blog but I wanted to  check out the copyright before I posted it. After looking around I was still unsure about the copyright issues around blogging so I decided to err on the side of caution and input a reference to the article instead of posting the picture.

Which turned out to be the correct ting to do. I just completed the Network Resource Management module of my library course which had a legal aspect and I am more aware of Irish copyright law. But we only had enough time to touch briefly on Creative Commons.

Part 19: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Write about the concerns/issues raised in the Thing 19 post OR about a website which offers Creative Commons or Public Domain content and what it has to offer

Thing 15: Advocacy for Libraries

There were a lot of different issues that I came across that Librarians were advocating for.The strongest issues I came across were Literacy, Privacy and Librarianship.

There was a general concern about the high percent of illiteracy in this modern world of technology.
The advocacy campaign that I became aware of was the Right to Read campaign. This campaign is a European wide campaign to reduce the literacy problems across Europe. I attended the Right to Read Conference which was promoting the campaign in Ireland.

The most influential speaker for me was the Princess Laurentien from the Netherlands.

She also showed us an animated video called The Story of Lisa, which showed the cycle of illiteracy. This had a profound resonance with me because I could not read until I was ten and it had me thinking what could have happened if my mother had not kept trying.

The 8th of September was the International day of literacy which saw this interesting video Do not Read This. It highlights how much literacy is so much a part of everyday modern life.

There was talk about the greater need for privacy and better privacy laws. One of the talks I went to was about online privacy and the Library Freedom Project. This talk was run by the A&SL section the speakers were Philip Bradley and Alison Macrina from America the founder of the Library Freedom Project. What stood out for me the most is that American libraries put signs in their windows to inform their users of CIA data requests.

The third was advocating the skills of librarianship. There was a discussion of what could be done and the suggestion of a promotional video was talked about. A few days after that conference Christopher posted a video from the 1970's Do you want to be a librarian?  on LinkedIn. The video is a promotional video for librarians which is still relevant for librarians today but with an expansion of new roles and a loss of some of the traditional roles.

When I further research I discovered that Librarians are good at exploiting video as a media platform. I also came across several modern videos used for promoting and advocating for libraries.

This video captures the mystery of libraries. The Wonder of Libraries

These two videos show that librarians have a sense of humor and are not afraid to try new things Librarian Rhapsody and UCC Library Student Card.

I quite like all of these videos.

Yesterday I was shown the TEDxDublin Talk by Helen Shenton in my Library Management class. I think this is the perfect answer to the question "Do we even need libraries anymore?" it not only answers the question but shows you how they are needed. 

Part 15: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Look at some library advocacy campaigns, write about your thoughts on the subject, if you have ever been involved in one and thoughts on how effective they are

Thing 16: Collaboration Tools

I am looking forward to using more of the tools covered in this Thing 16. I  will have ample opportunity in this semester to do so because a lot of group assignments are planned. Before this I used Skype for group projects before. Now I have more tools to add to my Collaboration repertoire.

I had only viewed documents Google Docs before. But just recently I set up some Google Docs for me and my partner for my first group assignment of the semester. The document automatically saves to the cloud as you work on it which is a plus. The only drawback is that there are limited formatting and presentation options for text compared to MS Word.

I have added to the  Thing 16 Google Doc.

I had thought I had never used Doodle before. I had chosen what days I was free for proposed dates a few times. 

Part 16: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Add some information to Rudaí 23 Google Doc OR Set up a Doodle meeting

Thing 18: Communicating through Photographs

I downloaded and joined the Instagram app and got immediately distracted by all the nerdy groups to follow and look at. I commented on a post from the American Library Association of two young sci-fi fans holding signs about reading and Library of congress which was of a gorgeous illustration of Moses. My username is "clairwalton".

Flicker Photo (Share alike (Creative Commons) posted on Twitter by Kristina Alexanderson)

Troopers of 2012 Album: https://goo.gl/RfI9Qs

I really like how the photographer caught the reflection of the figurine in this photo.

It turns out I did not need to add my phone number to my Flicker account, not sure if I had one before but I was able to sign-in using my Yahoo account. I found it much easier to find library groups on flicker than Instagram. But all the photos I wanted to post were copy righted so I found one that was under creative commons and I couldn't help but post.

I also found a nice picture of Trinity College's Long Room posted by Pablo Fernandez on Flicker.

I am no longer working in a library anymore I was working in a research library when I was in Teagasc and the library did not use a photo aggregation site. but they did take photos of their events and publish them on their website and LinkedIn page.

Instagram and Flicker would be useful in for a library to promote and document events run in the library by sharing promotional materials and event photos. They could also be used to promote special collections and exhibitions.

Part 18: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Open a liker account and download a creative commons picture to use in your blog And Open an Instagram account and find a library account and start a conversation by commenting on one or two images And Think how to use these applications in a library settings

Thing 13: Professional Organisations

I actually had just gotten my confirmation of joining the LAI the day before the Rudai post for Thing 13 was posted.

I first went to the Library Association of Ireland's webpage. On their page there is a tab for membership and under this there is information on the types of membership and how to join. I wanted to join mainly to be added to the mailing lists of several of their groups to be kept informed about the library events being organised. At the time I was in a library jobbridge and had yet to start my library course so I was unsure what type of membership I should sign up for. There are several different options for the type of membership. I went to their website and filled out the online application form.

I also joined some library associations groups on Linkedin when I joined.


Part 13: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Look at Library Accociaton's website and write about thoughts on becoming a member

Thing 12: Attending Conferences

I was really lucky with my Jobbridge in Teagasc because my supervisor Maire Caffrey told me to go to every conference and seminar I could while I was on my Jobbridge. This meant that attended an awful lot of conferences in 2015.

I was advised not to limit myself to a certain library sector, so I attended conferences and seminars on many different subjects and in many different areas.

As I was encouraged to attend all the conferences, workshops and seminars. I attended as many as I was able. To attend the conferences I just had to inform my supervisor that it was on.

I am going to talk about the first seminar I went to.

"AISHE Seminar: Biblometrics and publications impact"

This seminar was held in the Maynooth University Library on the 5th of May 2015 and was run by AISHE (All Ireland Society for Higher Education). I was told to sign up to this using eventbrite  on my first day of my Jobbridge because I was going to be working with Bibliometrics.

I was very nervous attending this event because I had only started my Jobbridge on the previous Monday. I had not yet started my Library course and at first I felt like I should not be there. But the attendees and organizers of the event were very friendly.

I found the topics covered at the seminar very useful because I worked on a Bibliometric report and helped set up their Incite platform.

The seminar started at 09:30 and ended at 15:30. There were a total of five speakers spaced though out the day.

In the morning the topic of bibliometrics was introduced to us, with various definitions, procedures and metrics used. This was followed by an introduction and demonstration of MyRi Project an online bibliometric education resource site. We were informed that the website was in the middle of having its content updated.

We had a a short break and then had a practical session. We got to use the InCites and Scopus platforms.

After lunch we were introduced to Alternative Metrics Altmetrics and the various platforms were discussed and a live demonstration of the "Altmetric" platform.

As an added bonus at the end there was a talk about the impact that open access and institutional repository was having on the researchers at Maynooth University with two amazing case studies share with us.

I took some notes in a note book but the slides were also made available after the event so I could pay attention to what was being said.

I got less nervous as I attended more events.

My advice for attending conferences is to be prepared. Know where the conference is being held and how to get there, if you are going by public transport leave with plenty of extra time for any unexpected delays. Bring a notebook to take notes of the key topics or areas of interest, I was advised to also use it to help keep track of new names. Also be prepared to talk a lot and know what your library is currently doing (and how) eg. events and project.

Some Honorable mentions

Open Acess Week events
Library Week events

"Right to Read Conference"

"Librarians & Online Privacy" an A&SL Talk by Alison Macrina

"Abstract to Audience: A guide to conference presentations" run by the Career Development Group of the LAI

Part 12: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Write about a conference you attended OR one you would like to attened

Thing 11: Reflective Practice

I have already made and posted several study plans but my ability to follow them is pretty lacking these days because random things keep happening so I have to change my plans at a moments notice. So I am throwing out the plan and going for posting any two posts a day, except Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I have  to admit that the completion of Rudai posts on time was dire. The original plan was to  start posting on the second week of July, catch up with the previous posts by the time I was to start my masters and have a weekly post schedule. I think the main problems are I did not want to post out of order  (so even though I had some of the newer posts complete I was reluctant to post) and I tried to put too much content in each one. Another problem is I am a perfectionist and was afraid to post with spelling and grammar mistakes. There were also circumstances beyond my control but I have already discussed this in a previous post.

I have made several study plans and revisions. The important thing at this point is to get at least one post up a day. I have just started my second semester and already I am having to tweak my plans.

I will just have to make some of my posts shorter than I would have liked.

Part 11: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Make a study plan if necessary OR Write about how you are managing your time

Thing 14: Augmented Reality

When I first read the title for this session my brain went straight to Virtual Reality, from the holo-deck in Star Trek to the full world immersion of Sword Art Online or The Matrix.

After several mutinies of Sci- fi nerdyness and daydreaming… I mean…contemplation; I immersed myself in the week’s literature and even read an extra article or two.

You might ask why did I go straight to Virtual Reality?

There are many reasons the main one being that I have had a keen interest in Virtual Reality from a young age and have enjoyed many books, movies, TV Shows, games and Anime/Manga which covered the subject.

I am fascinated by being able to project your own visualized world and share it with others, perhaps one day you will be able to project your inner thoughts and mind and share your own experiences and memories this way. (Using a mix of VR and cybernetics). This might be a way to store memories that can then be used to help Amnesia or Alzheimer’s suffers recover or keep recovery journals.

Are Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality really different?

The simple answer is yes but there are similarities. The main difference is that Virtual Reality is a full world immersion experience (the 3 examples at the start of my post), whereas Augmented Reality is not even though some of the AR technology involved is the same but only up to semi-immersion. (You still see and interact with the real world).

Here are two articles if you would like to find out more of the differences.

Tech Times and Wareable.com.

I also read an article on where augmented reality is today. 

Dueling Realities. 

Back on topic…

I was introduced to Augmented Reality (AR) as a first step towards Virtual Reality (VR) technology.

This was at an Augmented Reality panel arranged by Epic-con, in the conventions second or third year (can’t remember which) which demonstrated a certain companies (Can’t remember) AR technology. They asked for a volunteer from an audience member to try it out. The only conditions being you couldn’t be epileptic, light sensitive or a migraine suffer because not enough research had been done at the time as to the effects on these groups AR might have at the time. The volunteer also had to sign a disclaimer. This reminded me about the main character in The Last Book in the Universe by Roadman Philbrick.

The set up involved electrodes, goggles, gloves and a toy and lots of electrodes.

Exploring AR Applications 

I downloaded and tried out several AR applications. Layar and Aurasma required you to scan images with their logos to access AR content. I scanned a few images I Googled. One of the images allowed me to change a models outfit by swiping.

Aurasma also had image banks, but I was unable to figure out how to interact with them on the phone except for adding to favorites. 

The LibrARi was not available to download on the playstore, I am not sure if this is an iPhone only app. I also tried Anatomy 4D but again I didn't have anything to scan for it.

I remembered that one of the IT guys in Teagasc had suggested to try the Augment AR app, so I downloaded it a gave it a try. Again like Aurasma and Layar, Augment requires a specific type of picture to be scanned for material. I tested it out all three using AR cards and materials I already had. I found Augments image banks much more user friendly, you could just select the image you wanted to interact with using AR. The image banks even had moving images, my favorite being the dancing skeleton. 

And then I got distracted by the nerdy AR applications, in particular the Vocaloid ones...

The more interactive the AR is the more fun it is. Nintendo are planning on releasing an AR Pokemon game for the mobile phone.

I have not experienced much AR in libraries, the closest being QR codes. QR codes can be used for AR material but I have not seen any myself. I have used AR in gaming before. My 3DS was pre-installed with some AR games one was Face Raiders and one simply called AR Games. For Face Raiders you simply take a picture of yourself and shoot at flying AR heads. The other you simply scan one of the AR cards, depending on the card you played different games. Also the rhythm game projectMiraiDX came with 19 AR cards which has extra playable content as well as extra intractable characters and songs. 

How AR will affect the library…

I can visualize several uses for public libraries and some for academic and special libraries. 

When you scan AR material you get:

1.  A download of the poster, flier or brochure instead of the website link, or 
2. Details that can be added to your mobile devices or Google calendar, or
3. Preview chapters of books (scan covers or barcodes), or
4. Book reviews, or
5. A copy of the page(s) you need in a college text (under copyright), or
6. Animated book characters in the children section, or
7. Promotional videos or animated promotional materiel 

I think for AR to be effective there needs to be a generic AR application that can scan all the different AR object just like the QR scanners. If you want to scan a QR code you don't have to worry what app you have, but for AR you do. For the most accessible it might be best to distribute AR content with QR codes at least for the moment. Unless there is an application that already exists, if anyone knows of one let me know.

I will probably try to create an AR campaign sometime in the future.

Part 14: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.

Tasks: Take a look at Aurasma or Layar apps and try creating a campaign with one of the apps OR Take a look at another AR app such as Anatomy 4D or LibrARi demo.

Thing 10: Live Streaming

Before Rudai I participated in webinars and a few live podcasts. I really only started watching live streaming videos when the stream Twitch Plays Pokemon happened. I then got into watching e-sport events. The latest one was the League of Legends World Championship.

I watched the Rudai Google hangout live and participated in the twitter chat event. I was inspired by the speakers and was motivated to catch up with my Rudai posts at the time. I think I was about six posts behind because of a late start on Rudai. Google Hangouts is like a mix of Skype, webinar and WhatsApp. 

I think streaming live events from the library is a very good idea. It gives another platform for librarians and information professionals to express their ideas. It also gives the library more opportunities to interact with their wider community.

It allows those unable to attend community events to join in off site. For example if a community meeting was to be arranged in a library with streaming capabilities, then the meeting could be streamed to housebound members of the community. There are even some streaming sites with options that allow you to limit access to a certain region or use passwords for entry.

Also after the event there is a recorded video so people who missed the event or did not have time to attend can watch at a later time convenient to them.

Part 10: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks: Take part in the Rudai23 Hangout-On-Air OR Set up your own Hangout-On-Air OR Explore Periscope

Thing 8: Curation Tools

Pinterest is one of the social media platforms that I discovered during college. Unlike other platforms I was not recommended to the site but happened to stumble upon it when looking up pictures of art and hobby supplies.

I have not been on Pinterest for a while but luckily enough I still remembered my password. I  have not gone into much division or classification of the boards I already have on Pintrest and have not felt the need to reorder them because the main use of them is for my hobbies.

I decided that since I was already a Pintrest user for this thing I would try to use the mobile app and compare my experiences of the two.

Overall both experiences for the app and the website were intuitive and easy to use with some small differences. I found that scrolling and pinning from the app was faster than the website. 

In general for both you can search for boards and pins using keywords and once pinned confirmation notice appears at the bottom of the screen. The background of the search in the app was black with white text while it was the opposite for the website. For the website quick menu options appear when you hover the mouse over the pin but in the app you have to click into the pin to pin it. There is a permanent follow button on boards that are in your news feed which is a pin icon in the app. I found it easier to search for boards on the website. Setting up new boards was the same.

I set up three new boards:

Library: random selection - A collection of library related themes with various topics.

Library; Fantasy - A collection of fantasy pictures, reading lists, inforgraphics and quotes.

Books; Art -A collection of various types of drawings with a book or reading element to the picture.

Part 8: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks explore Pintrest of Flipboard or Storify

Today's Posts postponed

Unfortunately I have to postpone Today's planned posts because it took me longer to get home than expected.

Thing 7: Podcasts

I heard about the Librarians Aloud podcast that was starting up at an A&SL (Academic and Special Libraries) meeting. I think it might have actually been the AGM. I was at several of A&SL meetings last year because I was interning in the Teagasc Library and I was invited to attend by my supervisor.

Before the Librarians Aloud I had never listened to a Library podcast, but I have listened to several Anime and Sci-fi ones.

I think the Librarians Aloud project is a great idea, it expands the media platforms that librarians can get their views and opinions to be herd especially in today's society were there is more of a focus on new media over the traditional.

The Librarians Aloud is a monthly podcast hosted by Laura Mooney Ferris and run by the A&SL. I quite enjoyed the music in the casts if I do say so myself.

So far there have been three podcasts.
The first one had Jane Burns discussing her career path. Jane's interview was very inspiring. I particularly liked her descriptions on setting up the databases. I also liked how she had to measure the impact that the work of several voluntary organisations and took down the data in a notebook when visiting them instead f the laptop.

She also mentioned how the databases have to be designed for the user and not how the designer imagines that the data should be organised. There was a great fashion example between two types of shoes a peep hole shoe and a beak-a-boo hole shoe. The difference in the shoe designs were minimal for a normal person but the difference in design was of significance in the fashion industry and there was a need to distinguish between the two designs in the database.

Jane had a lot to talk about but she concluded with the need for older librarians to learn and gain new ideas and knowledge form the newly qualified librarians as well as the need for the newly qualified librarians to gain the wisdom and knowledge of the more experienced librarian. She also mentioned that a librarian is always interested in people and will need the skills to pick up clues that are not obvious.

The second one covered the a Zine Archive. A zine is a self-published and non commercial publications. They are essentially magazines but have a broad subject pool. I am most familiar with fan fiction and comic zines, in particular Japanese ones which are called "Doujinshi". Tom Mahar and Mick O'Dwyer were interviewed in this cast and were described as the "guardians of the Zine archive". I felt really bad for the couple who lost rare books during the floods in 2010.

The final one for the moment was an interview with Niamh O'Donavan and Stephanie Ronan on how Rudaí 23 was run and set up. They also talked about how they became Librarians. They talked about the difficulties to tech for working in public libraries. In particular the divide that was between what was taught in the course and the actual duties of a public librarian. For example singing nursery rhymes to toddlers and teaching basic computers.

I cannot ever see myself ever doing a podcast, but never say never, no one knows what is in the future. I never say myself ever going on Twitter in college and look at me now, I am Tweeting and liking it.

The Thing 7 post on Summertime blog has some interesting podcast suggestions.

Also here is a Library podcast I found in a Tweet.
Tweeted by NPD Ireland: Library Land Pod

Part 7: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks either create a podcast or listen to one and write a review.

Thing 6: Reflective Practice

I have not been keeping up my blogging for the last few months so I was encouraged to keep on at it by the various other bloggers who are just as far behind as me. I have been reading other library blogs but not many Rudaí blogs. So I decided to explore some blogs.

I would like to thank the author of the Summertime blog for their inspirational post about podcasts with great suggestions to listen to, which I will listen to on my way to work.

As I explored other blogs I noticed that the blog posts were a lot shorter than mine, which had me worried that I was doing it wrong because this my first written blog. I was reminded of a comment my partner said to me "doing a typical Clair thing putting in 150% of effort instead of the normal 100%".

I decided to try to write shorter posts. Then I found a kindred long post blog The Circulation of Information: A Library Blog who has manged to find a balance between long and short posts. So I decided to try to do the same with both long and short posts.

I will try to write shorter posts in general and still do longer ones when needed.

I would have left a comment on the blog but the comments were disabled on the tumbler page. I left a few comments on a few of the other blogs I read and will leave more as I read more.

In general I found the blogs interesting with lots of fun facts and hidden gems and lots more to discover. Each blogger has their own take on the different platforms and tools. I have gained a lot more reading material ideas on where to find interesting blogs, videos and podcasts. Thanks everyone.

Part 6: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks 1. Look at the other participants blogs. 2. Leave comments on a few blog posts. 3. If someone comments on your blog reply to it. 4. Write a blog post about the other participants blogs.

Thing 5: Online Networks [Part 2]

Twitter

One of the main reasons for doing Rudaí was to get on Twitter. I had been meaning to sign up to Twitter a few months before Rudaí 23 started, to follow library events, but I had been putting it off on the long finger.

Originally Twitter only had a text box and no photo uploads, it was one of the platforms that was suggested to join when I entered college but it did not appeal to me at the time.

In the beginning I still found it difficult to write in a causal and concise manner. This is why I was both terrified and excited about Twitter. Now I am confident enough to Tweet and can keep up with twitter chats, to a certain extent.

I signed up to Twitter a few hours before the Google hangout. I was in the middle of computer problems so I only got to complete the first two steps of the sing up process before my browser crashed.

Twitters data capturing capacity is a little worrisome. I had only entered my name, email address and preferred handle in the sign up process and when I signed in after restarting my browser it suggested my brother and some of my college friends to follow.

Normally when signing up for new social media platforms it will give you the option to select or invite friends from your email or Facebook account but to do this a permission request normally runs and asks for password confirmation. Twitter seems to have skipped this step and to have automatically completed the last few steps in the sign up itself, handy but a bit unnerving.

Years ago I had browser crashes before when signing up to platforms but usually when you re-enter the platform there are either redirect to where you left off if it was an essential part of the sign up or prompts on the site where to go to complete the missed steps.

Tweeting was not as bad as I had feared. After a few posts and re-tweets I became comfortable with the platform.

I Tweeted from a conference for the first time when I was at the “Right to Read” conference. I found this a bit difficult because I was not able to type fast enough, so I took notes and typed the tweets in between speakers.(#right_to_read)

It turns out I like Twitter chats but I get lost about half way through an hour session and feel like I am playing catch up with the questions in the second half.

I participated in a chat run by Rudai (#Rudai23) and one run by the SLA (#slatalk). I followed the (#interlibnet) Twitter chat while waiting for the SLA talk to start. I look forward to getting involved in more chats in the future.

I subscribed to several lists but haven’t had the time to explore and utilise them. I look forward to revisiting lists sometime in the future and maybe creating some of my own.

Part 5: 23 Things Course Rudaí 23.
Tasks Facebook: Join Rudai23 Facebook group and say hi, follow a Facebook page that you like
Tasks Twitter: Set up Twitter account, follow @rudai23, tweet with #rudai23, subscribe to a list. #thing5

Catch up: All Things Part 2

Rudai 23: Where I am at

My original plan for catch up was thwarted by several technological problems and a few college and work deadlines. This the first computer screen time since my exams and college assignments finished.

To sum it up my phone bricked itself, with a motherboard malfunction. I was told the data was irretrievable after bringing it to a phone repair shop. This hurts more because I had just downloaded the Blogger app to transfer the posts to Blogger because I was having phone backup problems.

We were having connectivity problems when we moved into the new apartment which were a combination of router, wireless card and computer performance issues, we went through three routers before the router issue was resolved. The wireless card issue was resolved by testing setting changes. I haven’t had enough computer time to know if the performance issues have all been completely resolved but the laptop is now usable.

As the saying goes disasters happen in three’s. I lost one of my college assignments to the final technical glitch which was a MS Word save error. Which made my college deadlines very tight. One evening when I opened the document, it was blank. In the folder with the file appeared what looked like a MS Access file with a weird name but you could not open it. I can only assume that the file was corrupted and because I was not using my own computer to work on the file I did not have my usual backups. One of my colleges in work said that a similar thing happened for her thesis.

On the work front, I just finished my Jobbridge in Teagasc and started a new Job in Kildare County Council.

Lesson learnt; the golden rule is to save the unpublished posts to the cloud.

New Plan

This weekend I hope to retype all lost posts. I still have notes for some of them because I used hand written notes and paragraphs for some but others I typed the notes and posts straight to my S memo and unfortunately all that data was lost.

o   Finish last bits of tasks for partially completed Things.

o   At least one post a day.

o   Try for two posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Post Schedule