blogs, wikis and more: web 2.0 demystified for learning and teaching professionals

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

UKOLN is supported by:

Blogs, Wikis and more:

Web 2.0 demystified for learning and teaching professionals

Eastern RSC event Wednesday 25th February from 11:00 - 12:00.

Marieke Guy

Research Officerwww.bath.ac.uk

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)


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Introduction to UKOLN

• UKOLN is a National centre of expertise in digital information management

• Library and cataloguing background• Located at the University of Bath• Funded by JISC and MLA to advise UK HE and FE

communities and the cultural heritage sector• Many areas of work including:

– Digital preservation: DCC– Metadata, registry work– Repositories: eBank, Intute, SWORD, DRIVER– Dissemination: Ariadne, International Journal of

Digital Curation– eScience: eCrystals….etc.


www.ukoln.ac.uk

Introduction to Me

• Been at UKOLN 9 years• Now a remote worker• Member of the Community & Outreach Team• Currently working on:

– Good APIs project– Chair of the Institutional Web Management

Workshop – Cultural heritage work

• Previous roles/projects include:– JISC-PoWR, JISC Standards Catalogue, QA Focus, SPP

Project Manager, ePrints UK project manager, Public Library Focus work, NOF-digitise, Web Magazines


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Workshop Programme

1. Presentation on Blogs, Wikis and more– 20 minutes

2. Do It Yourself - A chance for you to try out some of the tools– 20 minutes

3. Presentation/Discussion on Challenges of Web 2.0 for learning and teaching professionals– 15 minutes

4. Final Feedback Any final feedback, questions, comments etc.– 5 minutes

Will use this logo when it’s time for questions


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Workshop Resources• All resources (and more) linked with Delicious tag:

http://delicious.com/mariekeguy/rsc-eastern-200802• Wiki for you to work on• Slides at:

http://www.slideshare.net/MariekeGuy/blogs-wikis-and-more-web-20-demystified-for-learning-and-teaching-professionals


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So…What is Web 2.0?• Marketing term (derived from observing 'patterns')

rather than technical standards - “an attitude not a

technology”

Web2MemeMap, Tim O’Reilly, 2005

Characteristics Of Web 2.0

•Network as platform•Always beta•Clean URIs•Remix and mash-ups

•Syndication (RSS)•Architecture of

participation•Blogs & Wikis•Social networking •Social tagging

(folksonomies)•Trust and openness

Characteristics Of Web 2.0

•Network as platform•Always beta•Clean URIs•Remix and mash-ups

•Syndication (RSS)•Architecture of

participation•Blogs & Wikis•Social networking •Social tagging

(folksonomies)•Trust and openness


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BlogsFlickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cecio/259559422/


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Blogs• A blog is a Web log, online diary• Professionals are increasingly using blogs to describe

what they are doing• A social phenomenon of the 21st Century• Key characteristics are openess, collaboration and

syndication • There is a need for information professionals to:

– Understand blogging and related technologies (e.g. RSS, Technorati)

– Be able to find resources in the 'Bloggosphere'– Explore how to use blogs to support business

functions (support users, staff & organisation)


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Why Blog?• Community of learning and teaching professionals• Long tradition of sharing experiences and knowledge• New issues – need to find new communities• Blogs can be a timely way to

– Offer advice and commentary– Make new connections– Record discussion over time– Also provide a different view to email discussion

threads


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Reading BlogsW

eb

2.0

Bloglines – a Web-based Blog reader. You are informed of changes since you last viewed the page.

Bloglines – a Web-based Blog reader. You are informed of changes since you last viewed the page.

http://www.bloglines.com/myblogshttp://www.bloglines.com/myblogs

• There are lots of dedicated blog readers

• You can sign up for RSS feeds to be alerted to changes

• Try not to be distracted by adverts etc


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L&T Blogs• Lots of Individuals creating blogs: Terry Wassall ,

Alan Lavine, Brian Lamb, Scott Leslie, Stephen Downes

• Lots of themed blogs: e-learning, e-publishing, technologies, research, green issues

• Lots of institution/school/college specific blogs• Some subject specialist blogs• UK academic librarians and information professionals

bloggers list (lis-bloggers) – still relevant• Hot Stuff 2.0 – great list of library related blogs (over

800) collated by Dave Pattern

Visual Arts learning http://www.accessart.org.uk/wordpress/

RSC blog http://rscmediablog.blogspot.com/

Intute - http://www.intute.ac.uk/blog/


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Doug Belshaw - http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/


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Using Blogs• Blogs are very interconnected with each other

(bloggers discuss other blog postings, blogrolls etc.).• This can help to provide feedback; measure impact;

engage in discussions; etc.• Web Monkey extension can give blog comments on

your pages• Technorati can help find blog articles, etc.• A search for “university learning teaching” returns 26

hits, some student blogs, • The comments field can allow you to engage in

discussions• Time for you to establish a blog?


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Ideas for Blogs• A news blog (course announcements etc.)• From the Teacher/Lecturer’s Desk

– Blogging about your daily work, provides transparency and openness

• L&T Resources blog (links to applications etc.)• Special projects blog/ Task groups blog

– Group of learners in a class, encouraged and facilitated by a teacher, group of relatively dedicated life-long learners

– Use with syndication technologies to enable groups of learners and teachers to keep track of new posts

• Reflective blog (use as a ‘try it out’ experience)• Professional Development blog

– Chronicle your daily activities, identify progression, achievements, use it for annual appraisal


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A Few Issues…• Institutional Issues – e.g. Can you have a corporate

voice, do you want one?• Technical Issues – e.g. What software will you use?• Barriers to making the decision to blog e.g. Do you

want all your thoughts to be accessible to all? What about an internal blog?

• Barriers to getting started• Gaining momentum e.g. A huge number of blogs are

not read and become deserted by their writers• Keeping your momentum! e.g. Will you be able to

come up with content?• Stopping?• Right person for the job!


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Gaining Momentum• Participate: embed yourself in the community, social

networks e.g. Ning, Facebook (need to be aware of privacy issues, ownership of data, dangers of data lock-in)

• Identify and follow other blogs• Get a great feed reader like Google Reader• Link, a lot, especially to other blogs• Comment, and use your URL when you do• Be fairly shameless in self-promoting:

“I like what you’re saying but over on our e-learning blog we’ve taken a different approach..”

• Spread the URL around


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Keeping Momentum• Use Technorati, Google Blog search, etc • Start to embed these in people’s lives by reporting• Make sure you post regularly, and with high quality:

– Don’t post because you haven’t done one in a while...– Do post because you’ve got something to say

• If you’re losing momentum, maybe there’s a reason?• Do some evaluation of your blog: ask readers• Look for co-authors. Guest posts. You may be surprised! • if it’s getting stale, try some alternative approaches:

– Interviews, podcasts, surveys or polls– Video or other media embedding, live blogging

• ...be creative, and copy other people

Wikis

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/1627257/


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Wikis• Wikis are collaborative Web-based authoring tools –read

state and write state• They can be used for:

– team work and collaborative papers (avoiding emailed MS Word file around)

– Note-taking and social discussions at events– As an easy way to set up a group Web site– A great e-learning tool

• Uses a simple markup language (wikitext or wikisyntax)• Ability to compare previous versions of a page, revert back

and track who edited the page• Many allow users to discuss issues prior to making

changes• Increasing popularity in the public sector


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Wikipedia• Easy to create• Provides high-

profile information (Google-friendly)

• Allows the community to enhance and develop content

• Does your institution have an entry?

• Who will edit it?


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Wiki Issues• Vandalism, spam• Wiki etiquette• Searching (more tagging needed), archiving

(ephemeral), organisation of pages – no heirarchy• Mark up – no standardisation…yet – training

implications• Stopping your wiki from becoming an unmaintained

storehouse of out-of-date information!• Organisational Culture - Freedom to move away from

usual design, protocols, habits• Resources - Staff training, time, costs• Remember that Learning is inherently social


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Potential for Learning• Students • Group project work and peer-to-peer activities

– Course collaboration– e-portfolios– research

• Comments section, suggestion box• FAQs, Commonly asked questions (reference or

general)• Good for reflection on written work - critical

assessment and peer review• Workshops• Integration with Moodle

Social Web


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Social Networks• Sharing and community are what Web 2.0 is all about• Some of the most famous networks are MySpace,

Facebook, del.icio.us, Frappr and Flickr• Learning and teaching is a social network in itself so

the implications for it are huge• Elgg - http://elgg.org/• Tagging – allows users to add keywords to items

– Created by groups/communities who are the resource users

– Natural language – common understanding– No hierarchy, feedback

• RSS Feeds


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Sharing - FlickrW

eb

2.0

• Web 2.0 includes community-building

• You can help support your community-building by making it easy to share photos at events (e.g. this seminar)

• Simply suggest a tag and encourage delegates to upload their photos with this tag

• Flickr Commons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/westmontlibrary/176505152/http://www.flickr.com/photos/westmontlibrary/176505152/


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Sharing – DeliciousW

eb

2.0

Who else has bookmarked this resources? What are their interests?(I may have similar interests) How many have bookmarked my resource?

Who else has bookmarked this resources? What are their interests?(I may have similar interests) How many have bookmarked my resource?

• Another aspect of sharing is sharing bookmarks

• This can be used to:– Manage your

bookmarks– Allow others to

contribute resources– Allow lists of

bookmarks to be repurposed

– Carry out impact analysis

http://del.icio.us/mariekeguy/rsc-eastern-200802/http://del.icio.us/mariekeguy/rsc-eastern-200802/


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Sharing - Slidesharehttp://www.slideshare.net/MariekeGuyhttp://www.slideshare.net/MariekeGuy

• Many other resources can be shared e.g.:

• Slides• Photos• Maps• Video• Travel info• Events info• Music • Etc.


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Web

2.0

Google Maps/Mashupshttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2007/maps/

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2007/maps/

• Web 2.0 provides valuable opportunity to provide mapping & location services:– Embedding Google

maps on your Web sites

– Developing rich services using this

– Providing location metadata / microformats which can be processed by simple browser tools

http://www.talis.com/tdn/competitionhttp://www.talis.com/tdn/competition


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Creative CommonsW

eb

2.0

Openess is a key aspect of Web 2.0: open source; open standards and open content can all help to bring benefits through maximising usage of services

Openess is a key aspect of Web 2.0: open source; open standards and open content can all help to bring benefits through maximising usage of services

• Creative Commons offers copyright holders licences to assign to their work

• The licences aim to clarify the conditions of use and avoid many of the problems current copyright laws pose when attempting to share information.

• CC maximises impact of work


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Facebook

• The Facebook platform provides access to (a) Skype (b) Twitter micro-blogging service (c) mini-

questions

• Facebook:– A social networking

Web site– Had the largest

number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 30 million members worldwide

– Ranked between top 10–20 Web sites

– Seventh most visited site in the US


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Podcasts• Podcasts are

syndicated MP3 files• New items in a

podcast can appear automatically in your Podcast client (e.g. iPod) or RSS reader

• Resources can be accessed via iTunes

Web

2.0

http://www.podanza.com/podcast/...http://www.podanza.com/podcast/...

The University of Bath won a European award for its podcasts from guest lecturers, etc. We can regard this as maximising impacts of the ideas and promoting the University, at little cost

The University of Bath won a European award for its podcasts from guest lecturers, etc. We can regard this as maximising impacts of the ideas and promoting the University, at little cost


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CommunicationW

eb

2.0

• Realtime discussion is a key part of the Web 2.0 and the .net generation (IM, SMS…)

• Can be used by patrons, chat reference services with transcript

• How much effort does it take to provide an instant messaging service for your library?

• Try Gabbly.com• What about Skype?

http://www.gabbly.com/http://www.gabbly.com/


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TwitterM

icro

Blo

gs

• Twitter:– Best known of the

micro-blogging applications

– Web application, with desktop & mobile clients

• Uses:– Community-building– Support from your

peers– Marketing– …


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Do It Yourself (20 Minutes)• Time try out some of the applications that have been

mentioned• Try to keep in mind how this could be applied in your

working environment• Any problems just communicate in the chat area

http://rsc-eastern-200802.wetpaint.com/page/Tasks

http://rsc-eastern-200802.wetpaint.com/page/Tasks


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Discussion (10 Minutes)So what are the challenges of Web 2.0 for information professionals?

1. The top 5 challenges for the learning and teaching community?

2. Possible ways that you can meet these challenges

Best to write thoughts in notepad, refresh wiki page, paste onto wiki then save

http://rsc-eastern200802.wetpaint.com/page/Challenges

http://rsc-eastern200802.wetpaint.com/page/Challenges

http://rsc-eastern200802.wetpaint.com/page/Meeting_Challenges

http://rsc-eastern200802.wetpaint.com/page/Meeting_Challenges


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Web 2.0 Backlash• When significant new things appear:

– Enthusiasts / early adopters predict a transformation of society

– Sceptics outline the limitations & deficiencies• There’s a need to:

– Promote the benefits to the wider community (esp. those willing to try if convinced of benefits)

– Be realistic and recognise limitations– Address inappropriate criticisms, avoid the chasm

in the Gartner curve


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Learning and Teaching 2.0• E-learning 2.0• Web technologies are shaping education• It has been said that the impact of Technology is often

overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long-term.

• Users will bypass processes and institutions that they perceive to be slow, unresponsive, unappealing and irrelevant in favour of a more direct approach to services offered by others that just might be 'good enough' for what they need to do.

• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/digitalrepositories/web2-content-learning-and-teaching.pdf


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Safe Experimentation

• Are you interested in using Web 2.0 in your organisation?

• Worried about corporate inertia, power struggles, etc?• What you need is a deployment strategy:

– Addressing business needs– Low-hanging fruits– Encouraging the enthusiasts– Gain experience of the browser tools – and see what

you’re missing!– Staff training and development– Address areas you feel comfortable with– Risk management strategy– …


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Staff DevelopmentD

ep

loym

en

t C

hallen

ges

http://podcasts.alablog.org/blog/_archives/2006/4/12/1881517.html

http://podcasts.alablog.org/blog/_archives/2006/4/12/1881517.html • There's a need for your

staff to:– Understand what Web

2.0 is about– Learn how to make use

of Web 2.0• This is all subject to

constraints of lack of time; resources; etc.

• The Learning 2.0 Podcasts Web sites provides a useful resources for learning about new tools, techniques, etc.


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Some Low Hanging Fruit… • Librarything provides a

good example of a Web 2.0 service:– Catalogue your books– AJAX interface– Exploit data provided

by the community– Export capabilities– Other books you may

like– Implications for reader

recommendations– …

http://www.librarything.com/http://www.librarything.com/


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Other Ideas• RSS feeds, create them and use them• Wikipedia• Secondlife, Cybrary city• Slideshare• Bookmarks - delicious, citeulike, connotea• Mashups• Folksonomies – different ways of organising

information • YouTube – video, streaming of video• Ask your students what they are doing


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Risk Managment• Take a risk management approach to your evaluation of

Web 2.0 technologies (as we do with IWMW)– Establish Agreements– Use well-established services: Google & Delicious are

well-established and have financial security. – Notification: warnings that services could be lost. – Engagement: with the user community: users actively

engage in the evaluation of the services. – Provision of alternative services– Use in non-mission critical areas: not for bookings! – Long term experiences of services: usage stats– Availability of alternative sources of data: e.g.

standard Web server log files.– Data export and aggregation: RSS feeds, aggregated

in Suprglu, OPML viewers, etc.


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Conclusions• Web 2.0 can provide real benefits for our users,

however organisations tend to be conservative• We therefore need:

– Advocacy– To listen to users' concerns– To address users' concerns e.g. risk management– A change of culture

• We can all benefit by adopting Web 2.0 principles of openness and sharing. So let us– Share our advocacy resources, risk management

techniques, etc.– Develop your own social network based on

openness, trust, collaboration, ..


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Questions?