Week 10!

Dear 23 Thingers,

We've reached Week 10!
Before we celebrate - there are still a few tasks to do.

The first couple are around Social Media - Twitter and Facebook.

I'm afraid I don't have much use for Twitter. My life isn't fast paced enough to Tweet things a couple of times each day - however it can certainly be an interesting way to follow the movements of famous of interesting people.

My FaceBook use is really limited to chatting with family and uploading photos. I also view most of my social media stuff through an adblocking web add-in because otherwise a lot of these sites are just one big billboard.

There are also other social sites which you can investigate such as PInterest or LinkdIn.
Here are a couple of links that I was kindly sent by a 23 Thinger on social media:

http://mashable.com/2012/05/23/linkedin-beginners/

http://mashable.com/2012/05/16/facebook-for-beginners/


Finally there is a reflection task where you ask yourself "Have I learned something?" I hope you have!

Good luck with your life long learning!

~ Jake

Week 9

Almost there guys!
We at week 9 of 10! Mind you - if you're working at your own pace make sure you keep going to get it all done.

This week is about mobile technology.

For any of us that have a relatively modern smart phone - one with internet access - we probably use it frequently to access information on the go.

For example: as I got up this morning and I looked out the Window and saw *shock* blue skies. I thought to myself - "fool me once Brisbane" so I opened the weather app on my phone to check what the day had in store.

This is probably a bad example for two reasons:

1. The app didn't load any weather - maybe my phone wasn't connecting to the Wi-Fi properly.
2. It's the default Apple Weather app so you'd do better consulting a blind fortune teller.

Anyway the point stands - mobile technology is handy.

Although we've been periodically referring you to useful apps as we've gone through the program there are a few more things to think about. One very important one is unsecured Wi-Fi and protecting your accounts online.

I hope you have a great week!

~ Jake.

23 Things Week 8

Well! It took a fair amount of work but O week is done and dusted.

This year like always we tried a few new things. For example: I made a Large Prezi called 'new to UQ' which ran in the Library Conference Room. You guys have already looked at Prezi in past weeks.

Coming from a PowerPoint last year it was fairly difficult to convert into a viable Prezi and i'm not sure how effective it was. We had to go down and periodically wake the Conference room system back up as well...

We also had quite a high number of attendeeds to I.T. classes. More than 900. We aren't sure what was different this year - but at least some of that can be attributed to students having access to technology and being aware that the materials are available online.

On a personal note i'm still contemplating whether I want Windows 8 on my laptop or whether I should buy Windows 7 and wipe my new laptop. The latest irritant was opening the Skype App and it wanting to roll my skype account into the windows account it uses for my laptop. I don't see how what accounts I have is any of their business. They seem to feel differently.

Finally on to the 23 Things tasks: Videos and Podcasts

There are a lot of freely available resources online. I would suggest looking at YouTube since you'll be familiar with it. YouTube can teach you a lot of things or just let you listen to music. Try searching for something you'd like to learn... you'll be surprised when you find the thing that you're after. Lately i've been using it to look at various Yoga poses. It's nice to be able to follow your interests so easily.

As for Podcasts - their use is really for consuming on the go... whether on a road trip or on the train.
ITunes is a good one. There might be an afternoon radio show you'd like to re-listen to or download a series of discipline based materials from UQ's own ITunes channel on ITunesU.

I hope that you stumble over something interesting.
All the best ~ Jake.

23 things - week 7

Hi Guys,

Welcome to week 7 and O week!
I'm using the comparative quiet of the early morning to sneak in this blog post.

I'm short on nerdy/tech stories this morning - so I might have to get right into the tasks and report back anything quirky/interesting the new students ask during the course of the week... oh and also i'm wearing one of the 'Love the UQ Library' shirts today... ^.^

This week's tasks are on portable bookmarks and the blogosphere. I tend to delve into blogs for recipes mainly... how about you?!

Have a great week!

~ Jake.

23 Things week 6

Hi Guys,

As always - I hope things are good.

Work is at that frenetic pace that you only see just before O week... that wonderful time when the campus swarms like someone kicked a very large and beautiful anthill. Somehow I always manage to forget to bring lunch at least one day that week - if i'm REALLY lucky it's market day.

What tech stuff have I been upto? Oh wow... do I have a boring story for you!

I have a hotmail account which is probably more than 10 years old. The only emails that it receives now other than subscriptions is spams from other very old hotmail contacts which have been hijacked.

I have been gradually transitioning subscriptions and related accounts away from this account so I can eventually close it down. At the same time FaceBook had a login bug which always wanted to take you to the 'Incorrect Password - Retry' page which was making me feel like one or more of my accounts might have been accessed by someone other than me.

Long story short I had to do a big password reset and this time I am making sure they're all different. Isn't that fun. Ultimately you need a strategy to ensure you can memorise a whole bunch of difficult to crack passwords. One strategy which I discussed with a colleague is to have a passphrase that you can customise per application using a series of random letters and numbers.

I think we're all going to need to be more careful about security as 'who got hacked and when' stories become more prominent in the tech section of newspapers.

Anyway -- off to the lighter 23TWk6 Tasks!

This week is communication tools. I'm sure skype isn't new to anyone but worth brushing up on. Did you know that it's Integrated into Windows 8 and is replacing windows messenger?

I have recently gave a Prezi training class preview to Librarians - if you couldn't make one of those, you can look at Prezi's online materials and templates for some inspiration!

Good luck and have a great week!

~ Jake.

Week 5 - Huzzar

Hi Everyone,

I hope that your blogs are coming along well and you're enjoying the program.

My interesting technology thing this week is about a MOOC I was signed up for. Since MOOCS are topical at the moment - you probably know all about them - but if not here goes. A MOOC is a Massive Open Online (or Online Open ... who knows) Course.

MOOCs are supposed to democratise education and provide high quality courses in places where it would be otherwise unaffordable or unavailable via the web. You can read more about them on wikipedia.

Anyway, I had enrolled in a course talking about converting course materials to workable online courses. I hadn't even had time to sign-in and take a look at the materials when the course started to experience problems...

You were supposed to sign up for a group but the Google Spreadsheets solution had already been crashed due to some kind of incorrect use. Then you were supposed to post to a discussion board as a method of signing in... but that made you feel behind the 8 ball because there were already pages and pages of groups...

Then there was the extreme slowness of streaming the lectures - even from here at the Uni where the Internet is super fast. At any rate - by the weekend there was a notice that the course had been suspended so they could improve things. My colleague said they had gotten some 40 thousand enrolments... Probably a large contributor to why the course wasn't working...

I happily unenroled. ^.^ Another colleague taking a MOOC in digital culture says it's much better. Glad to hear it.

--- Anyway to the 23 Things

This week is about online books.

We have provided a few links for you... If you happen to have an iPAD as part of your work - I would recommend looking up iBooks and some of the classics freely available through project Gutenberg.

Happy Reading!

~ Jake.

23 Things week 4

Hi Guys,

I hope that things are going well and that you're finding a few minutes here and there to do some 23 Things stuff.

I just took a look at a few of your blogs and am glad to see that you're enjoying discovering new things. With regards to those tech blogs i've actually come to regard a lot of their content as *not news*, for example: "10 reasons that X technology may be doomed!" However you can also get lots of information on emerging technologies or an overview of tech issues that you didn't know existed.


In other *not news* I decided to buy a nice headset for my new laptop. I'm wondering whether there is a subwoofer somewhere in there :-) it's got good bass. Also if I install the driver software I can apparently have my voice transformed into 5 other voice styles including 'Troll'. Howz that for nerdy? I wonder whether I would be allowed to make a few Captivates for Oweek using one of those voice overs?

Anyway... to the 23 Things stuff.

This week is all about the concept that you can subscribe in various ways to web content that you are interested in and things you might like to get more of. RSS is the basic version of this and I think that we picked Google Reader as our tool of choice since you already have a Google a/c.

The second activity is NetVibes. I picked this app to be demonstrative of the concept - but previous groups said that it wasn't all that useful. So I would suggest trying PInterest Instead. You might notice when you're surfing around that some sites include Pinterest in their social media widgets.

At any rate - I hope that you enjoy this week's activities - or a random tech-tangent as you prefer.

All the best,

~ Jake.

23 Things Week 3

Hi Guys,

I hope that the new year is still treating you well. For those of you just tuning in - I tend to try and write something technology-ish at the top and then get on with the 23 things tasks a little lower down.

Technology-ish

I have had a couple of new tech experiences lately. The first was seeing crowdsourcing/crowdfunding in action. I watch a couple of YouTubers (people who create YouTube web series as their job) regularly and recently one put up a video asking her viewers to support a tour she wanted to do. The tour aimed to go across the USA where she would meet her fans and make new clips of her show and VLOGS for her second channel. She hoped to raise $50,000 dollars in one month by giving a small incentive or prize to those who supported the tour. She had raised $50,000 in 6 hours and the promotion still had 30 days to go.

Imagine raising in excess of $100,000 from a group of people that by and large you hadn't met.

The second experience was Windows 8. I can't say I'm a fan of their start screen. I also seriously dislike their idea that I shouldn't have a close button for apps and a convenient OFF button for their operating system. [Yes I know all the workarounds] Shouldn't we be a little concerned about Power consumption considering that we still burn things to generate electricity? Anyway that's just fossil fuels for thought.

23 Things-ish

This week is about images on the net.

First things first - I'm most interested in hearing about the tools you use. Aside from Picasa and Flickr which are still around - you can do photos with FaceBook/Instagram/Twitter and others.

What do you think about putting images online? For me it's the most interesting thing about social networking... I mean what is the point of NOT taunting your younger brother if you happen to visit a french patisserie? Maybe that's just me.

Have a great week guys!

~ Jake.

23 Things week 2

Hi Everybody and welcome to 2013.
I hope you had an enjoyable holiday.

So to Week 2 and Tasks 3 and 4.
If you're not here yet - don't worry. Just work along in your own time.

Google Everything.

Previous attendees have commented that there are too many Google activities and they're probably right. I had a look at activities 3 & 4 and updated them just prior to this post to remove some outdated information.

What we'd like you to do in activity three is create a work related google account. This  can be useful for things like G+, Blogging and Google Drive. Once you've got an account take a look through their current list of services and see if there is anything new to you.

Activity four is really an investigation of Google Drive and how it can be used for file sharing and collaboration in an enterprise context. For those who didn't attend my LibInform on the topic - there is a vodcast of the session in the Library Staff Development community in Blackboard. You should also be aware of the UQ/ITS FAQs on filesharing applications for work purposes.

Along the way you should be looking into what apps might be available for your devices. For example: Google Maps and Google Drive apps for iPhone and Android.

At any rate - I hope you find some of this interesting.

Have a great week and all the best,

~ Jake.

23 things - summer edition

Hi Everybody!
*chorus replies* HI DR. NICK!

Welcome to the 23 Things program 'Summer Edition'.
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.

We are planning another revamp of the program based on feedback from previous attendees. One of their comments in particular was that they could like more specific exercises. So what I might do is suggest something specific you could try - you're welcome to branch out and do something you wish to learn about or blog about. The world is your electronic oyster ... as it were.

Anyway - week 1 - which you probably won't look at 2013 ^.^

Starting the program...

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.

You get to choose your blogging medium. As you can see I have chosen blogger which is a google technology - convenient since the program wants you to have a Google account and having one for work purposes is pretty much necessary anyway - see my Libinform on Cloud Services like Dropbox and Google Drive etc.

Then you have to register your blog. That basically involves you sending me the link so I can put it in the attendees pane ---> (it's over there) and adding your name to the relevant table in Libnet.

At any rate - nothing more to say today.

1. I hope you're already on holidays or
2. Day dreaming about being on holidays.

3. Have a great holiday! Good luck starting the program and let me know if you have any questions.


Briefly: it was also suggested we have a mid program catchup / coffee to discuss tech stuff. Let me know if you're keen.

ALL THE BEST! and Happy new year. and Happy 23 things?!

~ Jake.

Wks 9 & 10

Dear 23 Thingers,

This is the final week of the program. Congratulations for getting there.
For some of you - this might be pre-emptive - but never mind! You can continue on blogging until you reach the end.

What are we looking at?
Last week, which I didn't blog about, was Wireless technologies... I hope you found this interesting. At the very least - it's worth being aware of the best ways to utilise free or public wifi signals (CAUTIOUSLY).

This week is... *checks* Social Networking! Twitter, FaceBook etc and then a reflection activity.
Please take the time to consider what you've learned.

Have a great week guys and I hope you enjoyed the program.

All the best ~ Jake.

Week 8

Hi 23 Thingers,

This week's tasks cover online video and podcasts.

There are numerous video services - however Google's YouTube is a standout at the moment. It is interesting because it contains videos about almost everything. It also broadcasts movies and TV content through pay channels.

Youtube can be a fun way to catch up on Internet meme's if you're interested or to learn from a professional in some field - like learning some specific feature of excel.

As for podcasts - that's basically downloadable voice or video content which you can subscribe to.

Have a great week everyone ~

Jake.

Week 7

Hey Guys,
How is life treating you?

Week 7 is about portable bookmarks and the blogosphere... I hope you find this easier than trying to remember your new work password.

Have a great week!

Jake.

Week 6

So - I have a couple of days off. Pretty exciting and also a legit reason to post this update early.

My technology expeditions week this mainly fall into the fail category:

• For starters I couldn't resist spreading a fairly awful YouTube movie... it's called 'Hot Problems' - 2 young girls singing about how life is hard cause they're hot... Truly unpleasant
• Then I changed my work password which resulted in continually typing the wrong password and having to get help fixing my ipad which wouldn't connect to the wireless. I maintain Apple Devices don't 'just work' and that mine was particularly contrary.
• Thirdly i'm going up to north Queensland for my break... which is the technological equivalent of Siberia... maybe if I stand on top of a hill I might get some mobile reception.

All this random stuff aside what are we doing this *next* week... communication mediums?

Skype ... Slideshare and Prezi ...

Skype -- Internet Telephony - useful and fun
Sideshare  -- a presentation sharing medium
Prezi - A PowerPoint equivalent...

I hope you find these interesting. I vaguely remember that the Prezi tutorial was interesting.

~ Jake

Week 5

Hi Everyone,
Lucky me - I have a few days off next week so i'm posting this ahead of time.

I hope RSS proved interesting and that you're ready for another week of activities. This week covers Books Online. In the past Librarians have found these applications interesting.

If you want to Blog about eBooks or a related topic instead - that is also fine.

Enjoy ~ Jake.

Week 4

Hey Guys,

I hope you enjoyed the PixLr activity. I find that web app fun. I've decided to do some forward planning - or forward blogging, if you will, and get this post done on the Friday arv of week 3...

**It's at this point that I realise I have forgotten something important for Monday morning and have to preprare for it  immediately - so I guess the forward planning was a good idea after all ^.^ **

Week 4 is about RSS and dashboard technology. It's basically about aggregating and delivering content that you are interested in. Quite useful depending on the types of things you like to keep track of online.

Have a great coming week

~ Jake.

Week 3

So it's Week 3 and it's Monday.

The non-relevant stuff you can skip:

I hope everyone had a great weekend. The little of mine that is 23 Things relevant was broken up thinking about a new TV and playing an iPAD game I picked from the app store.  
Obviously I did other things but they're not technical or for the Internet at large to laugh at.

First to the TV... mine was kindly provided by a friend who upgraded. The TV was already well used at the time. Lately it's been giving the screen a yellow tint ... i'm assuming this is a bad thing. Looking at some new ones in a store on the weekend - I realise that the world has changed since the last time I bought a TV. I imagine the new one - once i've researched it will be an LCD - but beyond that who knows...

Next to the iPAD game. I was a little bored and picked a funny looking game called <checks iPAD> Battleheart. It's an adventure game which seems to have borrowed a great number of ideas from a lot of other games that are out. I recently read a tech article that suggests this "me too"ism is fairly rampant in apps.

23 Things related:

This week is about sharing images online. The first task talks about Flickr and Picasa - but you might want to look at Instagram instead. Why?! I hear you ask. Well - FaceBook just paid a lot of money for this piece of software. That suggests you should be watching this space. Also - One of my FaceBook friends who tends to be an early adopter of all things technology and a fairly reliable bellweather has been using this for a while...

The second one is an easy task... PixLr. Basically - you doing some image editing online and then sticking it on your blog. This is supposed to be F.U.N. so try and enjoy it.  Doesn't matter if it's a picture of you or not. I think one of my favourites last time was someone using Miranda Kerr.

As always --  have a great week guys.
I'm having a premonition that mine is going to be busy ... and probably WON'T include a new TV ;)

~ Jake.

Week 2

Hi 23-Thingers,

I hope you had a great easter and are not suffering Monday-itis on a Tuesday.
I had a nice break with some family friends out on Moreton Bay.

A couple of [relevant technology] things which struck me:

• OMG! out of cellular (mobile) range... No FaceBook?! No online newspaper? O_O....
• Wow mobile devices lose their charge quickly - especially when you're playing games or reading an eBook on your iPad
• My iPhone camera is nowhere near ready to make digital cameras extinct as some technological pundits may suggest

SO - on to this week's tasks... all things Google.

Google had basically become the default way to find things on the Internet. They have branched out into a lot of other successes including GoogleMaps and YouTube. Their most recent foray is into Social Networking with the Google+ social network.

Google is an important established technology unbrella that our students utilise heavily. I hope you enjoy your investigations.

Jake =)

23 Things Week 1 and Welcome!!

Well! Here we are again - or at least here I am again (albeit late).

Welcome to the 23 Things program UQL Staff members. This program aims to introduce you to different web technologies. We are aware that a lot of the current crop of "things" fall less into the category of "new" and more into the category of "current".

The program is self paced - so you should try to work through a couple of the things - hosted on the Library website each week and blog about your experiences.

I'm going to lay down a challenge: if you find a task boring - blog about what you'd rather be investigating and why it's cool.

When you've created your blog and registered it (Your week 1 tasks) i'll add them to the right hand pane on this blog - so other attendees can take a look.

Have a great week guys.

All the best ~ Jake.

Week 9

This week we're talking about Mobile devices and technology.

Right off the bat - I recognise that not everyone has a Smart Phone or iPAD. If this is the case - maybe you'd prefer to give your impressions of mobile technology and which ones impress you most.

The Wireless Security task was spurred by a recent holiday. It occured to me that I didn't want to be without the Internet. The WiFi at hotels tends to be unsecured - this means that people can snoop on your traffic if they're within range of that same signal... What does this mean? Using a virtual private network if you can and not entering passwords / private data when using unsecured wireless.

The mobile apps task is really about staying up to speed with apps. There is always something new and interesting.

Good luck guys!

Jake.