Thursday 26 July 2012

Wikiwhat?

Copyright SymbolsIs anything ever really free...? With my copyright head on, I can't just click through terms and conditions with no qualms... so when signing up for a free PBworks account in order to test out wikis, I felt compelled to try and take in some of the T&Cs, wondering what am I really signing up to. If they're providing this for free, is there actually a catch? Who's actually responsible for my data 'in the cloud' - who's keeping it safe and who else can access it? I think all these new resources and tools are great, but does their ease of use inhibit us from actually thinking it all through? For instance, I quickly came across the proviso that the free version of PBworks must be used not for profit - maybe common sense, but really important to know...



I have used the wiki on the Portal and found that fairly intuitive, so was disappointed to find this not so intuitive with PBworks. I seem to have spent ages just trying to add a new page and see a structure to my fledgling wiki. However, I've used the wiki in the Portal pretty successfully, and found that a really useful tool for logging information that our team needs to share but that changes - so stuff it's not worth writing a procedure on but is good to have documented in a share space - more like rolling news or an online noticeboard. For instance there are bits of information about certain publishers and exceptions to the CLA excluded works list which periodically change and it's useful to have the info somewhere for us all to add and refer to.

Having now added my blog to the UK library blogs I feel exposed! It was exposing enough, knowing that other library colleagues might see, but anyone anywhere?! Even though it's unlikely that people will look it feels a big step to actually publish a personal blog. I can see how it would be easier doing it from the point of view of publicising a service. Registering has prompted me to try looking at others blogs again, which has definitely been inspiring... and I resolve to try to be less perturbed by my lack of progress and more positive! 



Slideshare

It seems to me that the value of slideshare is the quality and relevance of the slideshows contained within it. I wonder if the more interesting/engaging presentations have less information in them... therefore making them less useful when discovered in such an arena. I really like the way that most people now use a lot of images and not so much text in presentations, and it seems like good practice is to convey much of the information orally with the slides as simply another input to keep people interested. However this has the disadvantage that when you look at the slideshow in isolation it may not actually tell you very much. So I think the value of accessing presentations via slideshare depends on what the presentation has been designed for and what the user's requirements are. I.e. if it's visually strong and text light then it may not work stand alone, unless it's very conceptual and intended to stimulate ideas perhaps. But it could work well as a refresher for a presentation you attended yourself. So if you missed the presentation, then in this case how much will the slideshow help you?

I think in terms of teaching support materials and online learning the slideshow needs to be able to make sense as standalone materials and then it really does rely on the right mix of text and visuals, so people don't lose interest. I have found it useful to be able to look at people's presentations online after I've been to them in person as part of the process of consolidating learning, so is there an advantage to posting them online rather than them being emailed round? Well I guess not having large files clog up your email... but also looking at the related slideshows could help with expanding learning, even just to the general level of who's talking about what in a certain field, getting to know the big names to watch.