Week 10 - da end!

Hi Guys,

We've reached the end of the scheduled program activities and our final 3 tasks. As always - if you're running behind just continue at your own pace until you finish.

This week we focus on social media and a reflective activity to explore the age old question of "What have I learned?"

*** After a couple of interruptions and a large cup of coffee*** Where was I?

The social media activity is interesting. A lot of the well known companies have been transforming from start up's to large ad funded media companies. Some of the companies have gone from trendy to old news and some people use a range of tools for different things.

As a Blogger (if you think of yourself that way - or if you intend to continue) - it would probably be a good idea to use a range of tools for audience cultivation and engagement.

At any rate - consider investigating some of the social media options out there. There are a range of options like FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest to name a few. While I find the privacy discussion around social media tired - I understand that people have a valid concern about online materials. It is valid to screen what you put online.

For the final task finish up by reflecting on what you've learned and what you think about the program in general and your experience in blogging. Bear in mind that doing this as a hobby or professionally is quite different to the fairly flat and non-interactive experience that we've had in this program.

A large part of blogging is sharing a passion or your life with others and welcoming the interaction. When you actively encourage people to comment and participate - some of them actually will.

I hope you have enjoyed yourself.

~ Jake.

Week 9

Happy O-week everyone.

As I was walking in I saw one of the colleges with all their new students dressed up and skipping around the campus. I tried to get a photo but they were a little far away for my iPhone. I guess we'll all have to do without that image.

This week's tasks are related to mobile technology. During O week we talk to our students about the various technologies that can help them with their studies. These include things like cloud storage and mobile device security like the 'Find my iPhone' and Android 'Device Manager?' (or similar) feature. 

I find it hard to stay on top of apps that might be relevant to students in the various app stores for the devices that they own - this is especially true since there is no effective ratings mechanism inside the app store for example.

At any rate - I hope you enjoy your investigations of the mobile environment and stumble across something interesting to blog about.

All the best,

~ Jake

Week 8

Morning All,

This week is about online video services and content in both streaming and downloadable formats.

I have to admit that YouTube is probably now my most used site on the Internet. I like watching vlogs, cooking shows and generally investigating things (e.g. Chinchilla dust baths. Who knew?!)

I have also had the flip side experience of uploading videos as part of my work... Sometimes I feel like this could be a great way to make a living provided that you were happy to work at it for a long time and be focused on a concerted and engaging media strategy to build a community.

Anyway! Over to you and the tasks. I hope you discover some interesting content.

~ Jake

Week 7

Dear All,

Week 7 of the program and soon O-week. It's easy to forget over the Christmas break that this is a busy University... soon the masses will descend and remind us...

Anyway - week 7.

Tagging, folksonomies and the blogosphere... but what does it all mean? I hope you find some interesting content as always. I have to admit - at the moment i'm pretty obsessed with the vlog-o-sphere (primarily on YouTube).

Enjoy ~ Jake.

Week 6

Hi Guys,

Welcome to Week 6 of the program.

This week is about communicating and technologies that can help facilitate that. We have suggested you investigate Skype, SlideShare and finally Prezi. These are all well established tools that students are UQ use regularly.

As usual you have the option to branch out and investigate a range of other mediums. You could explore new blogging technologies for example. You could also look into Instagram (photo sharing) or the Snap Chat App.

*Massive Yawn* I'm very much looking forward to my cup of coffee to get this day started - so i'll leave it there.

Have a great week.

~ Jake

Week 5

Hi Everyone,

I hope you enjoyed your long weekend. This week's task are about online books in their various forms. eBooks and Audio Books have been popular as our mobile devices have improved and the books have come down in price.

One of the benefits of online books for me has been the opportunity to read some of the classics which I've never come across. A lot of these old books are out of copyright and can be downloaded for free from the various app stores.

Why not give that a try along with the other tasks on books.

Enjoy

~ Jake.

Week 4

Dear All,

Happy New Year. From the depths of last week, and from a colleague mentioning that someone is now following her Blog!, I remembered that I needed to write a post and get the program going again.

My holiday was nice. I spent it in North Queensland. My tech related goings-on were pretty much limited to catching my siblings in unplanned photos with my (admittedly poor) iPhone camera and putting them on FaceBook.

"Don't put that on FaceBook... so - and - so might see it..." (disgruntled sibling) to which I would suggest my privacy settings were sufficient to prevent it... although upon reflection - i'm not sure they are....

Anyway -- this week's tasks.

At this point - you may be ahead or behind - it doesn't particularly matter - but we're officially doing Week 4 (Tasks 7 and 8) - on RSS and Dashboards for content aggregation.

The point, as you will discover, is that sometimes you stumble across something useful or interesting and would like to be able to find it again later - or to be notified when the person contributes further. This is the essence of these tasks.

In a lot of ways - these are ideas which precede push notifications from programs or perhaps more casual Internet use. At any rate - I hope you enjoy yourself and get a few subscribes of your own somehow.

All the best,

~ Jake.

Week 3!

Morning everyone. Happy Monday.

Only 16 days to Christmas. That's two weeks and two days for those of you playing at home. The thought of a holiday is going to get me through to the Christmas party, and the weekend thereafter, on Friday afternoon. I hope all have a fantastic week.

Do anything nerdy or tech related on the weekend? I had to buy a new router for the Internet at home. The net has been dropping out constantly and interrupting my tech habits. In short I was une vache enragée. I suspect i'm still going to have to speak to my ISP about the issue - lucky I needed the router anyway. Ain't technology fun. 

To the "things" ... 

This week's tasks about images and sharing.

Task 5 talks about Flickr and Picasa. These are tools for sharing images. These are actually relatively old technologies compared to newer social media and app tools.

I would actually suggest looking at Instagram instead. Many popular bloggers and social media personalities use Instagram as their image sharing tool of choice direct from their mobile. There are even services online now that will print and frame and send you pictures from your Instagram.

For the Pixlr task - if you are having trouble you will need to update your browsers flash player. Then take a picture of something, style it using the tools, and upload it to your blog.

I hope you enjoy. Good luck with your Christmas plans.

~ Jake.

23 Things - week 2

Dear All,

It's week 2. More excitingly it's 3 weeks to Christmas. I read an interesting article (or blog post) the other day comparing the iPad Air and the new iPad Mini in terms of which would make the most desirable Christmas present... I can't remember which they ended up wanting more... If it were me - I guess I'd prefer an iPad mini. [Same tech specs/slightly smaller]

Has anyone come across any gadgetry that they'll be giving people (or would love to receive for Christmas? Why not put a post about it in your blog!)

Now - back to the work related stuff.

Ye olde' week 2 tasks 

You can come at these tasks from a couple of different angles. If you're not familiar with Google: it's history, products and exploits - you can base your investigations in that space. If you're up to speed on Google and would prefer to base your investigations on web functionality - why not investigate web search technology, location based technology and online collaboration software?

These tasks are here because Google is an Internet behemoth and our customers use Google services extensively. 

• Google search has dominated Search and advertising for years.
• As Hotmail became old news - it became standard to have a GMail account for your emails. 
• YouTube is owned by Google and has become a mecca for pop culture. 
• Google Maps set the standard for location based and directional services.  

So - either follow the tasks as they're written or mix it up. Either way. Have fun!

Welcome to 23 Things - week 1

Hi Guys,

Welcome to the 23 Things Program. The program nominally runs over 10 weeks - but is self paced. You can complete a couple of activities a week - or just do an activity whenever you have time. There is no pressure to finish the program - some of you may be doing it for a second time. The pace is up to you. :-)

Basically this is a program which (hopefully) introduces you to new technology and then encourages you to blog (or vlog) about your experience. The idea is that you reflect on your experiences and interact with other participants to understand how your colleagues approach the same task.

After reading this post - you might want to go and look at the tasks (as linked above) or want to create your blog (task 1). Since this program is work based - you may like to create a new one if you already have an active personal blog. We have suggested only two blog platforms - Blogger and Wordpress - but you're welcome to do some research on the newest and shiniest - you could create a Tumblr for instance. 

If you are feeling adventurous you could make a video blog. In this case you'd want a Google/YouTube account. (Be careful - videos take a LOT of time to make at first).

After your blog is up and running - send me an email with the address and also register the blog on Libnet and track your progress as you go by virtually ticking off activities.

Good luck in getting started with the program. I will look forward to your blog emails and be in contact next week. Let me know if you have any questions.

~ Jake.

Week 10

Hi 23Thingers,

It's Week 10/10.

This is the final week of new activities. From here on out - all you have to do is gradually work through anything you haven't finished yet until you're done.

This week's tasks are about social media. Blogging I would argue - is already social media - but there are others worth knowing about depending on what you want to achieve. FaceBook is good for finding and connecting with people or inviting someone to a party (if they're reasonably active). Twitter is good for following a person's latest thoughts or activities closely. PInterest is a way to see what people are interested in. G+ is a platform similar to facebook but with different ways to share your media and then there is YouTube for people who like vlogging.

Once you've spared some time to think about social media - there is a final reflective task - where you ask... 'what have I learned...'

How about I go first...

I've learned that if you highlight a number of rows in Excel and then click 'Insert new row' - you will get as many new rows as you had highlighted.

I've learned that trying to make your website user focused is an interesting challenge...

and i've learned that the lotto ticket readers, that you can use yourself, at the newsagent may tell you to approach the counter if you a) have a win or b) you're ticket can't be read.

I hope your learnings are more profound than that and that you enjoyed the program.

All the best,

~ Jake.

Week 9

Hi 23-THNGS-PPLZ,

Week 9! As in 9 weeks out of 10!
The tasks the week are around Mobile technology.

The first is really getting up to speed on wireless security - but I guess you could widen this to Internet security in general and look into 2-step authentication for your webapps.

The second task is about apps. On this topic - I spent a good part of my weekend playing the new plants VS zombies app. It's pretty much the same as the first one - but the game play has been reworked to encourage you to spend real life money.

Got any interesting insights on apps?

Have a great week.

~ Jake.

Week 8

Dear Everyone,

Welcome to Week 8.
This week is about video and audio content online.

The activities are pretty simple - consume some online material and mention it in your blog. As I mentioned last week - I really like YouTube. There's always something interesting or funny to watch. As for podcasts - I sometimes listen to Michelle, Tim and Marty (Nova) via their website if I want to listen to their show again.

Anyway - i'm going to keep this one short - I really need to tick a few things off of my Monday to-do list. Perhaps I should write a "to-done" list (as someone I watch on YouTube once said..). to "trick yourself into being productive"

~ Jake.

Week 7

Hi Guys,

How are you all? I was reminded late yesterday afternoon that I'd forgotten to blog! I would claim that this was intentional - so you'd experience the trials and tribulations of being part of the blogosphere - however - truth is that I had a crazy Monday and forgot.

Anyway!
This week is about portable bookmarks and the blogosphere in general.
I have to admit that I've been right into watching lots of YouTube vlogs lately. There has been a whole lot of extra content - because a lot of the popular personalities got together for VidCon in the U.S. I think i'm trying to crack the code of how a lot of the vlogs aren't about anything in particular - and yet hundreds of thousands of people watch week after week.

As always enjoy ~

Jake.

23 Things - week 6

Dear 23 Thingers,

We're in to week 6! This week is about communication tools. Skype, Slideshare and Prezi - or your favourite web or mobile app which does something interesting in this space.

I first heard of Skype back at Uni when I was studying. One of my lecturers mentioned it as a way of making long distance calls overseas. It could only do voice calls. Since I didn't have anyone overseas to call - I didn't adopt it properly until my first job where it was used as an office instant messaging system.

Here at UQ I use it for training, meetings and other functions. What's your experience?

As for Prezi -

I sometimes think, for a movie or a product, "what was the single line/phrase/idea that led to this product?" In Prezi's case - this phrase would be "It's not PowerPoint".

Prezi is a presentation tool which uses a mindmap layout as a way of examining an idea.When you attend a speech or conference you can see the immediate interest in audience members who haven't seen a prezi before. You can also spot the presenters who haven't practiced enough. Let us know what you think.

Have a great week guys!

~ Jake.

23 Things - week 5

Hi everybody!

I hope you had a relaxing weekend and instagrammed a few photos of the fun things you were doing in the wonderful weather on Saturday to really get into the spirit of last week's image tasks!

A beautiful Saturday morning as seen from a café on the North Side.

So - this week is all about books! Feel free to take this week's blogging whereever you like... for instance - if it were me - I'd probably blog about the fact that i'm still reticent to buy an eBook in favour of a paperback (unless I already have the paperback).

I'd probably also talk about the convenience of audio books and investigate sites like audible.com which i've heard a bunch of YouTube people advertising.

Have a fantastic week everyone and happy blogging.

~ Jake.

Week 4

Morning everyone!

It's week 4 of the program and week 1 of the semester 2 teaching period.

This week we're investigating content aggregation in two different ways.

The first is RSS - which is a comparatively old technology which helps you keep abreast of updates to your favorite websites and blogs. You usually use a program called an RSS reader. Since Google Reader is now defunct you'll have to have a look at alternatives (linked into the activity).

The second thing is dashboards. Basically you add things you're interested in to a page and they update whenever there is something new to report.

I hope you find this interesting enough to blog effusively about.

My small tech thing this week is that I dropped my phone on the weekend. So glad I paid the extra $40 for a strong case or it would have been bye bye iPhone!

Have a great week.

~ Jake.

23 Things - week 3

Dear 23 Thingers,

I hope that life is treating you well.
It seems that O week is back. It's one of those bi-annual events which reminds me that my life is passing. It's also one of our busiest periods of the year and times when it's important to get information out to new students... This semester the major change is the public printers. I have had to spend  a lot of time developing/rewriting web pages... in the hope that students will be willing and able to help themselves - apparently that's called information literacy!

Another fun tech thing I did recently was use the net to learn how to make a weaved pie crust.

Apple and pear pie... made possible by the Internet?

So! What are this week's tasks?
Images and sharing. It seems that even people who aren't fussed on technology like uploading and sharing images. There are a range of technologies that allow you to do this. I hope that you enjoy doing some investigating and look forward to reading your blog entries.

Have a great week guys.

~ Jake.

23 Things - Week 2

Dear 23 Things pplz,

Welcome to week 2.
Congrats to those of you who have successfully created their blogs. Do you enjoy the feeling of having an outlet for expressing your opinions onto the World Wide Web? Experience tells me that this is a personal thing - but most of us are wary of sharing too much. At any rate - take the experience for what it is.

On the technology front: I just downloaded an iPad All called 'How to Cook Anything (or Everything?)'. My colleague quipped that I should see if there is a recipe for squirrel. Maybe later.

Anyway! Back to the topic.
This week's tasks are related to Google products. A lot of us use Google for 2 things
1. Search
2. Gmail

but there is lots more available.
On the work front you should be aware of Google Drive - for sharing or collaborating on files. On the social media front there is Google+ and a range of handy apps for mobile devices including Google Maps and Google Goggles.

Over to you!

23 Things - Week 1 - Welcome!

Hi Guys,

Welcome to 23 Things. 

This is a self paced program that runs over 10 weeks. You can complete a couple of activities a week, as suggested, or take your time. No-one is going to pressure you to finish it - it's up to you.

Basically we want you to explore technology and blog about your experiences. As activity One will explain and as you may already be aware - Blogs are like an online journal. The idea is that you reflect on your experiences and interact with each other to understand how others have approached the same tasks.

After reading this post - you'll probably go back to the Week 1 activities and create your blog. To make things easier - we've suggested 2: Wordpress and Blogger... however it's your choice. Have a read of this article for more choices. You might prefer to use a social media profile rather than a blogging platform. Alternatively you might prefer to Vlog (Video Blog) - in which case you'll probably want a YouTube account.

After that you should register your blog by sending me an e-mail and set up a progress table in Libnet (as described in 'Registering your blog').

 Anyway! Good luck getting started with the program and I look forward to hearing from you as you get your blogs up and running. Let me know if you have any questions.

Happy 23 Things.

~ Jake