Final Reflection

When I look back to how I felt about this subject in week 1, I remember being excited to see that every week had such a variety of topics to learn, it seemed that it would never get boring or dry. I think that in the end this assumption turned out to be true as I really enjoyed myself with many of the tasks, and learnt a lot from the reflect tasks. 

The format of the learning and the assessment was certainly very different to what I am used to but in the end I really enjoyed it. I have a tendency to leave things to the last minute so being made to work on a bit every week to make deadlines forced me to spread my workload out more which has helped immensely with my stress levels and the quality of my work.

It is hard to pick which week’s activity was the most interesting or useful to me as they all contributed to my learning. I particularly enjoyed the play activities based on multimedia. The mash-up activity was particularly fun for me as it allowed me to be a little creative as well as learn about new technologies. While I don’t think I’ll be using instagram much in my personal life I did have fun playing around with it. 

After I graduate from the masters I would love to work in a public or state library setting so I think that the most interesting week in regards to this was week 4. I had only ever heard the names Bundlr and Storify before and knew nothing about them. They surprised me however in how useful they were for creating collections of media to cater for a specific community or interest. I particularly enjoyed using Bundlr as it was easy to use and allowed me to create a collection based on an interest of mine. It is easy to see how this could be used to create a collection that would coincide with an event at a library or even just a general collection that would be of interest to people in the community.

In terms of the actual content I really enjoyed the week on gamification as both the play and reflect activity allowed me to gain a better understanding of the topic. Again it allowed me to be creative and this engagement helped me with learning the topic. 

I actually quite enjoyed the ability to comment on people’s blogs as it allowed me to get a better understanding of the topic by reading other people’s views. Having people comment on my own blog was also useful because I could hear people’s insight into my own and gain a greater understanding of the topic. 

I think that overall the most useful thing about this class is that it has prompted me to give a large variety of social media tools a try. While I may not end up using all of them in my life or my future career being exposed to them gives me a greater understanding of how people interact online. It also gives me the skillsets to use the ones I do adopt.

Week 11 Play Activity

For my mashup I decided to take an old photo from the State Library of South Australia (SLSA) archives and introduce a modern item as a contrast between old and new. I ended up finding an image of the ABC Radio studios and added in an iPod:

The image of the iPod is a cartoon representation and is under creative commons licensing.

Original images can be found at:

http://png-5.findicons.com/files/icons/1701/ipod_video/512/ipod_25.png

http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/mpcimg/68500/B68322.htm

Week 10 Play Activity

I would design a gamification system based on encouraging children to read more fiction. It would be based on the type of reading competitions I used to do at school, although I would go further than just offering rewards based on who read the most books as that could get dull very easily and gamification must be interesting for people to continue to participate.

I would maintain interest through the use of  badges. For example awarding badges for reaching a certain number of books read on a given topic; a student could win the "Space Cadet" badge for reading a number of science fiction stories or a "Historian" badge for reading history books. This would maintain interest as instead of competing for a number of books read in a given week there is a tangible and lasting reward. By maintaining a collection, a student can feel more satisfaction from what they have achieved. This also promotes self satisfaction for a child as they are working towards a goal that does not revolve around competing with other children that may just be faster readers than them. I personally think that working towards personal goals promotes self esteem more than competition.

Overall I think by steering the game away from mere competition to something individual you are allowing a student to feel satisfaction by what they have achieved at their own pace. There will obviously be children that will compete on number of badges, but if that is not the point of the game, then instances of this should be minimised.

Week 10 Reflect Activity

The type of organisation I hope to work in after graduation is a public library. I think that the best idea for gamification would be a form of treasure hunt. It would be easy to incorporate a system of hiding information throughout the library, with QR codes attached. The QR codes would link to text providing educational information based on a theme regarding the local area and then a clue as to where to find the next bit of information. The library staff could also be involved by having it necessary that participants in the game ask staff certain questions. I think that this would provide an engaging and attractive system to encourage people to learn more about where they live. It could also be expanded to more location neutral topics such as science.

The main issue with this of course is that not everyone has a smartphone that will be able to read QR codes. The obvious answer is to have the library provide devices that are able to do this. While this would be an extra cost there would be the added benefit of introducing many people to newer technologies, particularly the elderly community who have not taken to new technology as readily.

From personal experience I do know that gamification can work when done correctly. Valve Corporation recently introduced a gamification system for their Steam software; an online digital distribution software for video games. This system rewards you for playing games that you have bought with virtual trading cards. I got quite caught up in this and collected a large number of cards and I know others who have also done this. While this was done to promote profits for a business it is easy to see the concept does work and could be easily adapted to educating people in a library.

As the role of a library is to provide access to information for the local community, this would help immensely in encouraging people to use these services; particularly if tangible rewards are offered e.g. a prize donated from a local business.

Week 9 Play Activity

For this week we were tasked with creating a QR code and inserting into the about page. I could not work out how to do this with Blogger so I have uploaded it here:

Week 7 Play Activity

I only managed to do three photos for the week and it ended up with an unintended theme of guitars. The photos can be found below:

Week 7 Reflect Activity

I see myself using online photo sharing more in my professional life than my personal life. While I have been enjoying this week’s play activity, it ultimately does not really serve a purpose to me. I feel as though if what I was taking pictures of would be interesting to my friends and family, I would just prefer to talk to them about it rather than upload for anyone to see, as most of them would not care. It may serve a purpose for the people who are interested but is largely irritating for those who aren’t.

However in my professional life I think image sharing is a great way to promote yourself and what your organisation is doing. As people tend to follow companies they are interested in they are more likely to appreciate the news of what is happening within that company.  Also as a picture with a small caption can convey a large amount of information very easily and quickly there is less of an issue with information overload. It will allow people who are interested to investigate further while letting people who are not interested simply skip over it with little effort. It is also very easy to create for a smartphone user as the instagram app simply works with your phone's camera. This is already an advantage of the twitter service as whole, but I think pictures can be even more effective than 140 characters; which is why I love how easy it is to integrate an Instagram photo with both twitter and Facebook.

As I hope to work in a library I think something like Instagram would be effective for creating awareness of an upcoming event or even documenting one that has already happened. Not only is this an excellent way to engage with the community it can help to let people know exactly what the library is doing for the community, as I have found there is still a misunderstanding with people in that they think a library is just a place to get books.

Week 6 Reflect Activity

I do have a Google+ account but that is only so I can follow a class group for a subject I am doing. Aside from the people in my class I know only one person who uses Google+ regularly. In my experience it will not be a Facebook killer.

While Myspace was very popular amongst younger people, it never caught on with the older generations, whereas almost everybody seems to have a Facebook today; Myspace never had the sheer numbers that Facebook does. Having said that though, I do not think that Facebook will last forever. There are a large number of early teens that are not interested in Facebook. It seems that beyond the fact that kids don't like the idea that their parents are on Facebook, they are choosing not to participate due to the most complained about aspects of Facebook; inane status updates and people trying to create unnecessary online drama. Regardless of whether another social media site will replace Facebook or not remains to be seen, but I think we are already starting to see the beginning of the end for Facebook.

I personally believe that Twitter will come out even more popular than before. Even though Twitter can have it's share of inane posting, it does not seem to attract the same kind of drama that Facebook often does. Also if you are wanting to post pictures through instagram you don't have to worry about people tagging you, which was a concern voiced in the previously linked article. Twitter also seems a lot safer for people that are worried about their online privacy as less information is divulged in a Twitter profile.

One reason I personally still use Facebook is because it allows me to follow what is happening with movies or bands that I like; Twitter also allows this. For me at least I think Twitter will be the next big thing for social media. Judging from what is happening with Facebook already, I think that will be the same a for a lot of people as well.

Week 5 Reflect Activity

Many libraries provide instant messaging and VoIP reference services, how would you feel about communicating with patrons this way? Do you think users would have different service expectations when then use these tools?

As I have personal experience using the instant messaging system run by the State Library of Queensland, I do think I would be more conscious of how the patron feels during the interaction. If a reference librarian is spending time looking for the information that the patron has asked for it can seem like the user is being ignored, due to the limitations of not being in the same physical space. If I was to run an instant messaging service I would think that it is important to constantly tell the patron what I am doing so they don't view my silence as ignoring them.

From personal experience I have found that something as simple as an emoticon can be enough to overcome the impersonal nature of instant messaging. While this would obviously not be a substitute for face-to-face interaction it can ensure that a friendly message is not misunderstood as being rude. However due to the fact libraries will have to uphold an image of professionalism care must be taken to ensure that emoticons are not overused. Despite this a simple smiley face could make quite a difference as it is always a good idea to smile during a face-to-face interaction within a library.

I do think that due to the above issues, library users would have lower expectations of instant messaging as it is widely understood that it is a much less personal form of communication. This does not excuse the fact that the librarian using the service must also be aware of these limitations so they can deal with the issues and make the experience the best they can for the patron. Overall instant messaging has its benefits but simple considerations should be made to at least minimise the drawbacks even if it is impossible to remove them altogether.

Week 4 Reflect Activity

I feel that while librarians could use online curation tools to create collections of web content it would ultimately have a limited scope. It could be useful for a library to collect web content relating to the local community; although with so many people already curating their own content I do not see it being a worthwhile use of a librarian's time. A quick Bundlr search for Brisbane came up with a number of collections. When this work is already done by members of the community it would be a better use of a librarians time to utilise micro-blogging tools such as Twitter to make people aware of web content collections that are already available. This would lessen the prospective workload for a librarian in providing easy access to web content for library users in their community.

I do however think that the tools would be easily used by libraries by simply setting up an account. For example I chose to use Bundlr in this weeks play activity and found it very simple to set up an account and then embed my collections in a web page such as this blog. If a librarian decides that it would useful for them to curate their own web content, it would be very easy to set up an account and allow all librarians to access and add to the collections. I could see this being relevant when a public library runs a particular event. If there are any photos or footage from the event it would be easy to collect the information in one place for people who are interested. By using a site such as Bundlr it may be possible for interested people who do not regularly check the library's site to come across this information. Then it would also be a simple matter of linking to the content via the website or Twitter.

Overall I think a library could make use of technology that curates web content but it is only really worthwhile if the content is related to the library specifically.

Week 4 Play Activity

Week 4's play activity was to use a curation tool. I chose to use Bundlr as it was recommended and I found that I liked the user interface. I chose to collect amateur videos of heavy metal bands that have played in Brisbane. I wanted to give a window into viewing the band from within the crowd, as professional videos almost never show this. Because of this the sound and video quality varies greatly in the collection but this could not be avoided. This was an interesting experience for me as I was personally in the crowd for most of the videos.

Week 3 Reflect Activity

As I hope to work in a public library once I have graduated from my degree, I decided to follow a number of public libraries on twitter to see how they utilise microblogging. My initial opinion of organisations using twitter was that it was a bit of a gimmick designed to appeal to a younger audience, however I quickly discovered that tweeting or microblogging can be quite effective at delivering information to a wide audience.

After observing the tweets, I found that twitter was mainly used to promote upcoming events or relay news regarding the library. These tweets would often link to another blog post that would elaborate on the  tweet. I found this to be a very effective use of Twitter's basis on shorter messages. In my opinion tweeting is a very good use of technology to overcome information overload, as people can quickly see if they would be interested in the story or event before reading a larger blog post on the topic; much in the same way newspapers use headlines.

Beyond the use of twitter to relay news and information, I have often found that a tweet will link to something that is not related to the library. Instead the article is something that could be of interest to someone who would follow a library on Twitter. While this does not relate to the library specifically it is a means to engage with the community.

Due to these observations I have made, my opinion of twitter as a tool for organisations has become much more positive. I can see that it is an incredibly valuable tool for organisations to share news and articles of interest in a world that is becoming overloaded with information. It also allows organisations to connect with their audience which can be a very positive experience for both the organisation and the community.

Week 2 Reflect Activity

My online identity has always been very small. I tend to be a very private person in the real world and that has been reflected in how I treat my online persona. My Facebook profile has strict privacy settings applied and I have a relatively small number of Facebook friends. I use twitter but do not actively post on it, preferring to just keep up with news that is relevant to me. I have recently signed up for Google plus in order to follow the community based around a subject I am currently studying at university; it remains to be seen how active I am in using Google plus.

I have never created a blog before for the previously mentioned privacy reasons. Creating a blog in a professional sense however does feel more appealing to me. Uploading my reflections, from coursework, for the world to see will be a great first step into blogging; the blog is not a public diary, which is what I find a lot of blogs to be.

My biggest hesitation is that once a blog has been created anything that is written on it will now last forever. Even if the blog is deleted, sites like the “wayback machine” can still provide information that has been posted online. As this blog is purely professional I am less worried about this and am somewhat looking forward to seeing what it is like to keep up a regular blog.

The act of regularly writing for a blog could also be a way for me to remain motivated in my work as well. I have written short stories in the past and I have often thought that if I were to write stories for a blog format that would help to motivate me to write more.  

In the future this may lead to me starting a more personal blog however it would most likely be written under a pseudonym. 

Week 1

I have spent a lot of time reading other people's blogs however this is the first time I have made one of my own.  Hopefully having to create a blog for INN333 will prompt me to start another one after the unit is over, as that is something I have been meaning to do for a while. I am hoping it will be a good experience and am looking forward to giving this a go.

Week 1 has been exciting and nerve wracking as I have never done this weekly journal type of activity before as part of University assessment. It is probably a good thing however as it will actually make do work every week instead of leaving everything to the week before an assignment is due.