When I started this course there were a fews things that were very hazy in my mind and that I didn’t really have a clear idea about –  things I had heard mentioned and always wondered  what they were. These were Delicious, Tag clouds, RSS Feeds, podscasts and Library Thing. Thanks to 23 Things I now understand that a ‘tag cloud’ is not referring to todays weather, that Library Thing is not the character from the Adams Family who has decided to take up residence in a library. I have also deciphered the mystery behind the mystical letters ’RSS’. Now it is all clear to me and I can go forth into the world far more technologically adept than before. Most of the other Things I had some idea of, even if I hadn’t used them extensively. I was happy to learn that there are image editors other than paint and photo shop and now find myself using Aviary quite a bit- as evidenced by the pictures on my blog!  I am also pleased to say that I have now conquerred my fear of Twitter. I still think it’s slightly evil, but thanks to my new-found technological powers I feel confident in defeating the forces of evil that lurk online, in that space we call ‘the web’. (Doesn’t that word make you shudder at it’s ominous and seemingly unboundless power? The use of the definite article definitely makes it seem scarier too).

I have to say a big thank you to every one involved in 23 Things- especially bookbuster- as it has been a great experience and I’ve learnt a lot, whilst enjoying myself at the same time. I think perhaps my favourite Thing that I’ve enjoyed the most is creating my own blog. I had never really had the inclination to do this before, but it has been great fun and provided me with a creative outlet – I think I will definitely keep it up in the future.

As you can tell, I am not very experienced with online games (more with console games), so most of those I came across in the session were new to me. The first game I tried was The Information Literacy Game and discovered that I didn’t know enough about APA referencing style- but, by the nature of this game, you’d think there was only one referencing style in existence. And there I was thinking I could escape APA  forever….. The next game I tried was a monkey balloon game (if that makes any sense!) In this game you were given a course through which balloons move and you had to pop them all with various devices you purchase. The more you pop the more money go got to purchase more popping devices.  Lastly I moved onto Youda Sushi Chef. As I am a big fan of sushi itself, the prospect of playing a game about it seemed promising. Little did I know that 5 minutes later I would be totally addicted (for a short time anyway).  I spent the rest of the session on this one game- I even went home and tired to play it, but my computer was so slow that it wasn’t worth it. That’s one thing that can be said about these games- they are dangerously addictive. In Youda Sushi Chef you run a sushi bar- you have to take orders, make sushi, learn recipes, order ingredients AND keep your customers happy- quite a feat! it would be interesting to try and play with more than 1 person (which apparently you can do) and see how you go.

Another thing I learnt was that I am more inclined towards Role Playing Games (RPG games). I guess this is why I like The Legenda of Zelda so much… you get to become someone else and inhabit that world.

I mean, how awesome is that?!  Shakespeare and Facebook are connected. That’s right folks- you heard it here first.

Anyway, Shakespeare aside, the rest of this post will be purely on Facebook. I’d been on Facebook for a little under a year before we covered it in 23 Things. I was a little relucant to join at first, but eventually I had to, as it was the only way I was ever going to see any family photos, which my sister insists on putting up only on Facebook. The fact that you can adjust your security settings in quite a detailed way made me feel a lot more at ease about using the site.  I think the best thing about Facebook is the ability to reconnect with people who you have lost touch with (i.e. primary school friends etc.) and I have definitely enjoyed being able to do this. Sharing photos is also another good feature of Facebook. However, (as I have discovered) you need to be careful posting photos and tagging people in them- in case they are not happy with them being on there. I knew the basics about security settings and creating private photo albumns, but in the 23 Things session I leant a lot more about what you can do to better organise and protect your personal information and who has access to it. There were some very useful sites and tips, which will definitely come in handy in the future. They answered a few niggling questions I’d been pondering for quite a while. The things that I liked, in particular, were controlling who can see ‘tagged’ photos of you, even if they are not your own photos. I didn’t know you had any say in this, but you do! Very useful , I know a few friends who will definitely be interested in using this feature.

I’m not surprised that UWA has now ventured into Facebook – it can be a handy communication tool and, since so many now use it so often, it can be used to reinforce information and resources available to students/prospective students.

Well, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for another Shakespeare reference, could I? During this session I was introduced to the term meme. What does Shakespeare have to do with memes you ask? Well, it might be pushing it and, as I have such a limited knowledge of the concept of what a meme is, it could also be wrong, but couldn’t we see Shakespeare’ s phrase as a meme? It’s definitely culturally significant as it has become a a turn of phrase akin to a saying or figure of speech. It has been appropriated in many different ways and we recognise it, even if we don’t know that the phrase originated with Shakespeare. The Wikipedia definition says the term meme is related to the greek term meaning “something imitated” and I guess you could argue that it fits into this definition. But enough about Shakespeare…

Before 23 Things I had little or no idea of what a meme was or any motivation to find out.  So I guess I have now added a new word to my vocabulary! It was interesting to look at some of the memes on the web- I mainly looked at Balloon Boy and caught up with all the controversy I had missed out on by not watching the news enough…

I found an interesting podcast on philosophy, with some interesting topics (part of an online learning programme) . I also subscibed to Will@Warick a great series of lectures from a Shakespeare conference and another series on Medievale history. The strange thing is, it says the files ‘could not be found’ when I try to play them. They worked on Friday, so I don’t know what went wrong….

The other ‘Thing’ we looked at was Twitter. And there I was thinking that I could avoid it forever… I’d done so well, and then 23 Things foiled all my plans… I don’t mean to be negative, it wasn’t as bad as I expected, but I still have my reservations. I guess Twitter is kind of like Facebook status updates, but without any of the other Faecbook features/applications.  It was interesting to see what other people in the world are twittering about -on our workshop day it was all out Balloon Boy! I managed to find other 23 Things participants on there and I had a look at Kevin Rudd’s twittering, but I was surprised to find it so dry and (I hate to say it, boring). Maybe I caught him on a bad day, but perhaps he doesn’t write all his own tweets anyway…. One thing I was uneasy about was the fact that anyone can follow you without you first approving them. About a week after I signed up there was some strange person following me, but then they stopped…

It was a bit of a challenge to make sure I tweeted every day for 7 days, but maybe this week I’ll manage it!

After wikis we learnt about Flickr and image genterator/editors. I enjoyed this, since I like playing around with images anyway. I’d never signed up to Flickr before, although I’d used the site many times. It was easy enough though and I enjoyed coming up with captions for my photos. I like the fact that you can control your security settings, which is fairly important to me. I chose pics from the last few years of the Balingup Medievale Carnivale- knights, shining armour, inquisitive pirates and the like…. 

It was interesting to learn that there are web-based image editors like Paint etc. (I never knew this!) And there are some  cool effects that you can get.

I was already familiar with the concept of image generators, but there are SO many out there!  I chose one that appealed  me…

http://www.hetemeel.com/dictionaryform.php

I used the image editor Aviary and Paint to come up with my picture and then inserted it into the image generator to get this:

I hope you like it!

Now that I’ve had my Shakespeare hit for today, I’ll get onto the business of blogging…

Last session we looked at Wikis. I knew about Wikipedia, but wasn’t really aware that there were many other such sites on the web. I’ve never actually edited a Wikipedia page, so it was good to explore how you would do this and look at the history of the different ‘versions’ of some entries. Of course, I looked mainly at the Wikipedia entry on Shakespeare (but I can’t help it, I’m totally addicted!)

I also logged onto the 23 Things UWA wiki and learnt how to add and edit content, which was surprisingly easy. In thinking of something that ‘I wish I’d known when I started work at UWA’ I had great difficulty.  Being a student beforehand meant that I had to rack my brain, unfortunately so hard that I couldn’t come up with anything. So, I chose something I wish I’d know when I was a student- this being the difference between the Reference and Reserve collections. Such knowledge would have saved me a great deal of angst in my first few weeks and got me onto my readings a lot sooner. Anyway, I will have to try and do some more editing on the wiki, to practice.