Task 17: YouTube

YouTube is a fantastic tool for teaching and learning. It's so much easier to learn how something is done when you can see it right in front of you, pause, rewind and watch again. Youtube seems to have videos on just about every topic (and then some) from teaching students about Boolean searching techniques to teaching yourself how to stitch a french knot.


Not only is YouTube a great place to learn new things it is increasingly becoming a place where creative types can show off their stuff, subverting traditonal channels of production and traditonal formats.
It's really inspiring to watch the ways in which people are able to use new technologies to create new formats. Web television is particularly exciting, covering a variety of genres from cooking and talk shows to sci-fi and musicals it's all there somewhere. Shows like 'Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog' and 'The Guild' are good examples of this.  Many web shows encourage viewers to comment and contribute, creating a more interactive enviroment than traditional television. They even have their own awards night for web shows, The Streamys.

In particular at the moment I am more than a little addicted to a web series called 'The Lizzie Bennet Diaries' which is an awesome, beautifully adapted, modern take on Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice'.

Task 16: Technorati

My experience with Technorati was a positive one. Searching for blogs and posts provided an easy way to find information on a specific topic and the Technorati authority ranking, which rates blogs on a scale of 0 - 1000  based on popularity, linking and influence, seemed like a good way to organise search results (though there did seem to be great dispairties between the ranking of many blogs , either very high or very low with few in between, and a large number of results on the topic I searched had a technorati authority of  1). The ability to examine tags also seemed like something that would be of great use and the 'Top 100' would be a good place to browse.
I found 'the state of the blogosphere' to be particularly interesting, providing insight into the way the use of blogs has grown and altered over time.

Task 15: Delicious

Delicious seems like a great way to share links with others and find new links yourself. I like tagging even if it's sometimes difficult to understand why someone has tagged something under a certain heading. Looking at what others have bookmarked and tagged is interesting but, for me anyway, can sometimes lead down a virtual rabbit hole (a rabbit hole in which all burrows eventually lead to Kevin Bacon apparently).

Task 14: Prezi

My high school Modern History teacher once banned the use of Powerpoint from all class presentations. She decided that sitting through fifty or so of the same static slides, irritating transition effects and sounds that in no way related to the topic was boring and she wanted to encourage us to think more 'creatively'. If only we'd had Prezi then, it's a far more dynamic and interesting way of doing things than just putting a few words on a slide and clicking through. The transitions are simple, effective and look really professional.

I'd never used Prezi before and this has definitely converted me. While it looks a little more complex than Powerpoint or slideshare I think any extra work would definitely pay off, unlike my teacher's ban which for the most part resulted in the less than creative use of OHTs and butchers paper.

Task 13: Slideshare

Slideshare seems like a great way to share presentations with anyone and everyone as well as discover presentations on topics that interest you. Integrating social networking and all kinds of new tech stuff it's kind of like Powerpoint on steroids.

Task 12: Skype

Put on your self lacing shoes and slip on that jet pack the future is here people! Well sort of. Watching films like Back to the Future, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Blade Runner or Total Recall a sure fire way to tell that you were in future land was the video call (well that and those flying cars we're still waiting on).  They could talk AND see each other! I know!

Skype lets you make calls, text and video chat. I've never used the video function but I have made a few Skype to Skype calls when a relative was travelling and found it really useful and way cheaper than using a land line or mobile.

Facetime is a similar app for mac and though I've never really had a reason to use it yet it seems pretty cool too.

Back to the Future Part II, in the year 2015 video calls are the norm (but for some reason the fax machine still plays a big role too?)

Task 11: LibriVox

LibriVox looks like fun. You can download podcasts of books or stream them. I wish I'd known about this when I was studying English, it would have made trying to read three or four books a week a little bit easier. I could have multitasked and listened to one while I was at the gym or on my way to Uni. Still, I'm pretty excited about being able to listen to all 38 hours of Anna Karenina in the car to and from work. That should keep me occupied for a bit! Bring on the tragedy... and the long explanations of nineteenth century Russian agricultural practice...

Task 10: Google Books

I have mixed feelings about Google Books. I love the fact that libraries around the world are able to use it to faciliatate access to their collections where there would otherwise have been little access before. It's exciting to be able to look at something held in a collection on the other side of the world. It's great that people have the ability to find books that are now out of print or otherwise unavailable commercially.
What I don't like, personally, is the controversy that surrounds the project. The whole Google vs. the Authors Guild thing sits uneasily with me. While I agree that it's fantastic and really handy to be able to preview a copyrighted boos online before making a purchase, as Amazon does with it's 'Look inside' feature (in the same way we would have traditionally browsed in a bookstore) I feel as though Google initially overstepped the mark, went beyond the acceptable and put a number of people and communities offside unecessarily. Though I understand how useful and exciting the concept of Google Books is I think it will take a little time to be completely at ease with it.