Information is Not Knowledge

eBooks. Now in Sound!

2011-09-23T17:56:00.000+12:00

If you are like me, you will probably be a bit tired of reading my posts about eBook readers. At least, I have been a little tired of writing them! Don't panic, I hope this post is a little more interesting and I hope I have approached the topic from a slightly different angle this time. Anyhoo, here is a brief clip of me ranting about various aspects of eBooks. I hope you enjoy!

Mining the Treasure Troves of New Zealand's Digital Content

2011-08-19T21:14:00.001+12:00

Our friends over at DigitalNZ have a nifty wee widget generator that one may customise to search digital content from a variety of New Zealand sources. So, here is one I knocked up to search for content related to passing of the Homosexual Law Reform and Civil Union Act; two acts that have dramatically featured in New Zealand Queer politics in recent times. Search: Legal Queers

eBooks: LCD or eInk

2011-08-05T01:37:00.001+12:00

There are two basic types of eBook reader currently available: LCD and eInk. Many of us will be familiar with LCD displays that are found on things such as cellphones, calculators, and laptops but we may not be so familiar with eInk - electrically charged particles moving in a liquid to display different images. Unless of course we have a Kindle, Kobo, Nook, or similar device. The iPad -

Websites in Academic Research

2011-06-07T23:51:00.043+12:00

It is the height of banality to state that the internet has fundamentally changed how we research; banality often hides truth. When young people get to be college age they usually have had extensive experience using the internet but often lack research skills. Much of our job as university-educators focuses on supplying these skills. One such skill is to use the internet for research or, more

Unit 1: A New Way

2010-11-10T16:35:00.001+13:00

What is in This Unit? And introduction to Web 2.0 using a brace of excellent videos. Objective By the end of this unit, a learner should: Have a general understanding of what Web 2.0 is and what it means for how we live our lives. Since about mid-2005, there has been a shift in how we use the internet for...well, pretty much everything really. The two videos below give some idea of the dramatic

Digital Literature, Networked Fiction, and a Static Web

2010-06-07T19:26:00.000+12:00

This year, I was rather excited to take a special topic on digital literature. The course outline seemed interesting and the topic seemed imbued with "newness." Yet, my hopes were quickly dashed. The entire paper was predicated on the concept of a static web. Although there was some emphasis on the phenomenon that we all read a networked fiction differently because our path through the fiction is

Remix Culture (Class 13) - John Egenes

2010-02-16T22:10:00.000+13:00

Changing connections/relations between musicians (producers) and listeners (consumers). Musicians always relied on connections between each other but there was a traditional separation between musician and audience. Digital culture has allowed rapid transfer of artists' work as well as greater communication between performers and audience. Yet audience wants to have more control; the invisible

TOS and Privacy (Class 11) - Andrew Long

2010-02-16T22:04:00.000+13:00

Happy User Strategies 1) Simplicity. Empower users who may not be very technically savvy. 2) You need to set guidelines on how to behave also privacy policy on how information shall be used. 3) Posting/asking questions stimulates community. 4) Explaining status of your service - let users know what is happening pref. with personality. 5) Transparency. Ensure communication is open so users know

Going Mobile (Class 22) - Chris Edwards

2010-02-09T11:16:00.003+13:00

The wristwatch as a mobile ICT device... Increasingly, we are seeing convergence of functionality - one device to do all. Yet the bundling can make the devices less reliable. WiFi not a good networking technology because it has a very short range but it can be supplemented by cellular communication networks. Telecommunications Protocols Primary: 2G, 3G - GPRMS, UMTS, WiMAX etc - give roaming

Social Media for Not for Profits (Class 21 ) - Nathan Brown

2010-02-09T10:11:00.003+13:00

National Technology Development Co-Ordinator - new role to reflect change in on-line sexual behaviour. NZAF is a community-led initiative to respond to the pandemic. Better treatment means people live longer with the disease so infection rates go up. Also that the disease has dropped off the radar. Social Media can put it back on the radar. After 25 years of the pandemic, new HIV infection rates

The Deep Web (Class 18) - Chris Edwards

2010-02-02T11:07:00.008+13:00

How do we browse those things that are non-browsable. Deep/Invisible/Hidden/Dark Web Centres around the notion of searchability - it is not indexed by search engines so it is unlikely to be found. So, how do we find things on the dark web? Traditional browsing, social bookmarking, word of mouth, blogs. Libraries as analogy. They are highly organised and can be browsed or found via an OPAC.

Mashups (Class 17) - Stephen Cranefield

2010-02-02T10:26:00.002+13:00

What is a Mashup? Data from multiple sources brought together to create useful information but it is more of a "quick hack." Creates a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source. Usually created using APIs.

How do we Provide a Good User Experience?

2010-01-29T14:22:00.002+13:00

When thinking about providing a good user experience there are many, MANY obstacles to cross. However, what is a "user experience," leaving aside the "good" part for the moment. According to Eric Weiss, a user experience is "the sum of a series of interactions." I feel this is an apt description. Yet there is one caveat: how these interactions are viewed is entirely open to personal subjectivity.

Web APIs and Cloud Computing (Class 16) - Stephen Cranefield

2010-01-28T11:07:00.006+13:00

A way to automate data workflow from one app to another. Two Types of API Web Services Form of middleware relayed via XML. Rest APIs Simple and scalable - most common for Web 2.0 REpresentational State Transfer Architectural pattern - Resources, relevant to your applications, have URIs. We use standard set of operations to a URL to instruct server what to do with the resource we want. Cloud

Communities and Tribes of Second Life (Class 15) - Mark Aitken

2010-01-28T10:08:00.006+13:00

Second Life? Persistent virtual world - things don't dissappear when you leave. Non-goal oriented environment - but people do make/add missions etc. Sim - simulated world. Major users - 25-44 y.o. Variety of uses: Second Life is the container in which people do things... Heavily populated by gen X, residents create content. What is a Tribe? Members banded around social activities rather than

Grab the Spoons! The Viruses are Attacking!

2010-01-22T15:21:00.001+13:00

Let's begin on a light note - below is a selection of recent viral videos recut and put to fantastic music: Viral information can be described as information which is able to "convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them." Although the strict definition of an artifact which is able to replicate itself does not hold for viral information, we do not need

@ophil in RL

2010-01-21T11:27:00.004+13:00

Context What, exactly is, free||style? Need the slashes to be able to trademark. What are the implications of free? What opportunities can be found by thinking about free in a different way? What does it mean to be free - not just non-financial. Also breaking free of the normal business-context. Where is the value? How can you get people to understand value before experiencing it? With experience

The Need to Post

2010-01-20T11:01:00.000+13:00

Random provocation for the day: is the need to be connected satisfying an addiction?

The Power of Free (Class 9)- Presenation by Phil Osbourne

2010-01-19T10:19:00.004+13:00

Phil Osbourne's Power of Free talk at TEDxDunedin. Freemium for use in business - freemium is becoming a marketing tactic. Marketing has progressed from agent of firm to representative of customer within organisation. Different representations of "free." Experience value without paying a price - avoiding user-pays. Value being the feelings customers attach to a product. How do we want to

Keeping the Peeps (Class 10) - Andrew Long

2010-01-18T11:04:00.001+13:00

How do we keep people in our community? What is the lifeblood of community? "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata." Typical Community Members Newbies, guests, visitors: rejuvinate the community over time. Regulars: do all work and make up bulk of community members. Regularly contribute and therefore shape the community by modeling/reprimanding certain behaviour. Leaders: energy and skill to take

Webs of Miasmic Joy (Class 5 Cont. ) - Chris Edwards

2010-01-15T21:40:00.000+13:00

How the Web Works Client/Server architecture: the server hosts documents from which clients request documents via a URL. Once a document has been received by client, the server disconnects [right about now I am struggling to push Celine Dion back into her wee box...]. URI-uniform resource identifiier. URL (locator) is a subset of URI. URLs are good when they are: descriptive and meaningful (makes

Managing Identity on the Web (Class 8) - Stephen Cranefield

2010-01-15T12:07:00.000+13:00

IAMS: tools for accessing social media. You can put forward to the world any identity you wish - an option you cannot do so easily in the real world. "The Web doesn't forget" - search engines cache content so deleting, for example, a tweet will not remove it from public view - it can take many, many years for something to not be found again.. One identity can have multiple user accounts so how

Audacious - Ryan Priemus (Class 7)

2010-01-14T13:05:00.000+13:00

What is Audacious Mobile business coaching on campus. Food for Thought Programme - meet with an expert for price of coffee or lunch. Start-up Lounge (School of Business). NBR Audacious Programme. Mobile Coaching Meet where student is comfortable to bounce around ideas and asses expectations/capacity. Also provide resources to help with business planning. Previous Audacious Winners Medikidz -

Social Capital - Erika Pearson (Class 6)

2010-01-13T12:51:00.000+13:00

Virtual Communities, Tie Theory, and Social Capital Virtual communication - communicating through a medium other than verbal language. Virtual Community (Rheingold) Aggregate of agents - you cannot be a community of one. In public - anyone may join. This may be nuanced so you may need to log in or not. Share a code - common form of semiotic system. Jargon, hash-tags, language. Time - it takes

Webs of Cyberspace (Class 5)

2010-01-12T18:24:00.000+13:00

Levels of people/ideas, documents (WWW), and computers(as in physical networks). Giant Global Graph (networks of people and the communities they make). Over-laid all is the Semantic web. Location independence: Point of access and point of storage is immaterial. Increasingly, there is little distinction between remote and local. Code can be viewed as a formalised language of communication between

Brushing off the Dust and Joining the World

2010-01-08T20:45:00.000+13:00

Libraries. Boring, dusty, places of quite contemplation right? Well, not so much any more. The Library of Congress - the world's largest library - have become one of the best users of social media to broaden its reach and to provide greater access to its digital collections. Although these digital collections are available on their website, in January 2008 they set about posting their photos

Completion of Class 2: A Further Primer on Social Media

2010-01-08T15:20:00.000+13:00

Twitter and 3rd Party Sites API = filter allowing 3rd party sites to access the data on their terms. *find 3rd Party Site that uses API to re-present twitter data and post in wiki Audio-Visual Sharing Location organisation allows greater discovery of your content. Wikis Tend to get dis-organised: hence not a good institutional DAMS (Digital Asset Management System). Discussion Fora Require

Facebook, Twitter, & Leftovers

2010-01-07T16:40:00.000+13:00

Social Media usually synonymous with Social Networking-sloppy speaking people! The Daily Show - Trend Spotting: Social Networking. Speaking of connection and isolation... Allow you to have different strengths of relationships and to manage these more easily. Data mining has become much easier to allow visualisation of data. Open Source app development allows users to generate the site they

COMP113 Class 2 Social Media Primer

2010-01-06T13:36:00.000+13:00

Diff between social media and web2.0? Immediacy-c.f. "Internet is for Porn" Web 2.0 "The author is dead"-Social Media highlights the inadequacies of traditional copyright because now much copyright is held by a group of people and it becomes difficult to identify who actually OWNS something. Passive Interaction <> Active Interaction From passivity to prosuming Web 2.0 focuses on tech.-there

Blogs to Communicate with Our Members

2009-09-30T04:21:00.002+13:00

OUSA is looking at instituting a blog on its homepage to improve communication with our members. It is hard, however, to point out to people the amount of work that is required for a blog to be useful. At this stage, the powers that be envisage the blog will be updated weekly. However this is nowhere near often enough to keep people engaging with the blog. Indeed, when Twitter was offered as an

Such Dramatic Changes?

2009-01-06T16:19:00.003+13:00

I stumbled upon Steve Rosenbaum's article about "5 Trends that Will Change Media in '09." Whilst it is all very well and good to gaze into our crystal ball, we should do so be carefully looking back at what has passed. In particular, the growth of e-books.Other than the legacy of the physical experience (the paper of the New York Times, the Album Covers of old records, the binding of books) the

Spotlight Session Notes

2008-11-27T17:19:00.004+13:00

I realise this post is a little late but there are still some things I need to mention about last week's Spotlight on Teaching and Learning. I found the second day of symposium a little un-inspiring so in this post I will focus on the event of the first day. Obviously, I found the last paper session of the day - Blogs and Wikis in Learning: Sharing the Experience, another Library sponsored

Reflective Blogs: Redux

2008-11-19T17:18:00.004+13:00

This morning's session at the Spotlight on Teaching and Learning went really well I thought. I was a bit apprehensive that I was going to be offering my own humble perspective on how blogs can be mobilised for student assessment. More particularly, I could not offer any information on how this would work from an academic perspective. It turned out that with the other two presentations -

Reflective Blogs

2008-11-19T08:25:00.000+13:00

Whence am I Coming?This paper is informed by both my participation in the Digital Information Literacy Project as well as my experience as a Theatre Studies student and a director of theatre.Digital Information Literacy ProjectSupported by the University of Otago LibraryAction Research based enquiryExamining how Theatre Studies and the Library can mobilise Web 2.0 technologies to increase

DIL Report

2008-11-19T08:18:00.002+13:00

Digital Information Literacy Project Report Neal BarberThroughout this project, I have spent time experimenting with Web 2.0 applications and considering how those applications can be mobilised for Library and/or Theatre Studies purposes. My original aim was to look at the use of on-line tools for both creating and publicising the results of theatre. However, throughout the project I found my

Making Connections

2008-09-10T16:42:00.003+12:00

Apart from becoming rather bogged down with information - or should that be blogged down? - my reading about blogging in tertiary eduction is starting to make some connections. For our Advanced Directing paper, a large proportion of our grade was for a reflective journal. We were supposed to make frequent entries into this journal but were not given much guidance about what these entries were

Power to the People

2008-09-02T14:59:00.010+12:00

Back, Karla and Barwick, Daniel. "High Tech's Double Edge: Creating Organizationally Appropriate Responses to Emerging Technologies." On The Horizon: 15.1 (2007) 28-36. 22 Jul. 2008 Emerald Journals. .Whilst the "emerging technologies" this article addresses are blogs it regards them more from a management perspective rather than a practitioner's one. It is based on a case study of the situation

Should Academics Blog?

2008-08-28T11:10:00.011+12:00

Here I summarise 7 articles which each take academic blogging as their focus. These summaries are mostly quotes from the particular papers with a little of my own commentary - appended in italics. The aim of this post is to provide academics which will, I hope, entice them to blog professionally to:Increase exposure of their programme. Provide a model for students who have to submit reflective

What is Research?

2008-08-26T07:50:00.007+12:00

On the way to work this morning I was thinking - as one does - about the current definitions of research. Typically, there is only one type of research and, therefore, one type of knowledge respected by the Academy. That knowledge comes from books. I do, however, grant that other types of knowledge - e.g. experiential knowledge - is becoming more respected, as in the case of Indigenous Studies.

What to Blog

2008-08-25T14:47:00.001+12:00

I have encountered a problem with one of my blogs. I set up one blog to publicise what I am doing when directing plays. The purpose of this blog is to entice the audience to come and see the show. As such, I don't want to give the audience the impression that things are not going well. This is a particular bind for me because I tend to notice the negative. Consequently, I find myself blogging

Reflective Practice and Blogs

2008-08-15T12:16:00.006+12:00

Now that the opening of The Winter's Tale draws nigh, my attention is turning more towards what I have done. I believe that throughout this project I have been far more self-aware than I have been previously. Part of this greater self-awareness has come from the fact that I have been blogging about my process - this blog - throughout. Having to make my thoughts more coherent for someone else to

To Teach or To Learn?

2008-08-14T12:01:00.008+12:00

During the last session of my DIL project the co-ordinator apologised to me because she was feeling that I was not getting enough out of the project. I, however, was feeling quite to the contrary. Although it was true that I was feeling frustrated that I was not being extended I have since realised I was being extended in a different way than I expected.I had always intended this project to be an

Podcasts Redux

2008-08-04T16:52:00.008+12:00

I have had some further thought on podcasts. There is one good academic reason to mobilise this technology. It is good for a lecturer - particularly in Distance Education who is also lecturing on campus - who can then create a podcast of her lectures to make it easier to distribute to students. However, then she has the problem of on-campus students also making use of this service thereby maybe

Teaching Web 2.0

2008-08-04T16:18:00.009+12:00

At staff meeting last week, my colleague presented on his trip to the Life Long Learning conference. One of the things he mentioned was teaching students in their own Personal Learning Environments - which, these days, are more likely to be web 2.0 based. Instead of bringing the students round to the University's way of thinking - and using their education platforms - we should be bringing our

Podcasts

2008-07-30T08:57:00.005+12:00

In our DIL session on Thursday we discussed podcasts which turned into a conversation about RSS generally. Previously, I was reasonably in the dark about what a podcast actually was. For example, I knew it was a downloadable form of video/audio distribution but that was about it. Now, I think I have a better handle on what they actually are - an automatic distribution of you video or audio.

Blogging Roxors my Soxors!

2008-07-27T02:15:00.002+12:00

I have now had experience in why blogging is such a good idea! Not only does it let you get feedback quickly – or it would if you had a large audience – but it also lets you get things off your chest. Particularly in theatre where you may not have many people to talk over your problems with, you can put it on the web for he world to see. However, you need to be careful that you are not going to

Blogger Things

2008-07-17T11:44:00.005+12:00

I have recently installed Google Analytics on my blogs. This is such a motivator since it really makes you want to think a little more about what you write to entice your readers back. However, my friend and I were trying to figure out how many people had accessed my blog yesterday. After about 30 minutes I realised that you simply needed to alter the date range in map veiw. It is such a simple

Various Sundry Titbits

2008-07-14T14:42:00.008+12:00

I first wanted to post something that was of the utmost importance and I felt I REALLY needed to post - but do you think I can remember what it is?I have been working on reading published articles for academics' blogs to help show the Theatre Studies Programme what benefit they could gain for blogging. The benefits mentioned are all pretty obvious: greater collaboration, quicker publishing time,

Wikis or Blogs?

2008-07-10T16:52:00.005+12:00

I couldn't quite see the difference between wikis and blogs. To me they both seem to serve a similar function. The focus here, however, will be on using these two tools for collaboration.A wiki has an advantage because if you are working on a document collaboratively then anyone can edit the document live. However, you have no record of the original. With a blog, you can post the document and

Video Editing

2008-07-08T08:56:00.006+12:00

Here are the results from my first playing session with JayCut. The video is not very "theatrical" but then it can be seen as more ritualistic - my colleague even mentioned that it reminded him of a wedding.I was searching for videos to upload and came across the following two sites:Internet Archive"The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural

Reflection?

2008-07-02T16:53:00.007+12:00

Well, I have been asked to reflect on what I am doing in the DIL. Last night, however, I realised that because I was not carrying out reflection in action I could not reflect on action since I wasn't even recording what my actions were! Consequently, my day yesterday was not quite as effective as it could have been.I did start working on Wikis and video editing so I will summarise what I

Resources

2008-06-20T15:23:00.004+12:00

Betty's Instructional Technology Blog linked through to this great wiki. One reason it is so fantastic is it has a Video and Digital Storytelling section.

Random Thoughts A Propos S.F.A

2008-06-20T15:08:00.005+12:00

Terry Heaton has a great entry about why we need to understand Web 2.0 concepts from a marketing perspective. Or here about Web 2.0 in higher education. I found both these articles using google's blog search - it looks like a promising lead.

Things to Work On

2008-06-20T15:04:00.008+12:00

These are some things I need to work on/explore:WikisBlogsphere - particularly RSS feeds therefrom and collating these (can you publish RSS feeds in Facebook?). Also searching the blogsphere for new things that crop up.Second Life

Googlicious

2008-06-20T15:03:00.005+12:00

God I love Google! They now have so many great little things to use. Go and have a wee look-see.

Sandboxing

2008-06-20T14:42:00.006+12:00

On the way to work this morning, I had an epiphanical episode about our Web 2.0 sandboxing. If we only restrict ourselves to the two blogs (23 Things and Learn M0re) then we will only know what was out there when the blogs were written. And we need to remember these were written quite some time ago! I can't help but feel that we need to approach the task in a way that will equip us with

Applicatorama

2008-06-20T06:26:00.008+12:00

Just want to have a scope out of what Web2.0 strategies/apps/tools are out there? Well, here is a start. I suggest setting aside QUITE a bit of time for these - there are one or two...

CC Licensing

2008-06-19T16:46:00.005+12:00

For information about how to display a creative commons license on your work, visit their page. Or, for general cc info. If you fill in the form fully this gives your work more protection as it embeds your attribution in the page. It also makes it easier for people to actually attribute the work to you since they can actually find who made the work!

Or this...

2008-06-16T16:31:00.004+12:00

Wanted to make your own "trading card?" Well, you can here...This is even more squee!

Freaky Hands

2008-06-16T16:27:00.003+12:00

freaky handsOriginally uploaded by NagymanProbably not really appropriate for this blog but this image is so cool.

Flickr Color Pickr

2008-06-16T16:22:00.004+12:00

Just found this great tool - Flickr Color Pickr. It searches public photos on Flickr for a certain colour. What is fantastic about it is if you need a certain coloured image to match the colours in your document, you can find it easily. Squeee.

Blogging Flickr Images

2008-06-16T16:14:00.003+12:00

Web 2.0Originally uploaded by Daniel F. PigattoJust having a tootoo with Flickr for 23 Things. It is incredibly easy to incorporate images from Flickr into your blog. Or rather, it WOULD be incredibly easy if the system wasn't so slow and responded to your clicks 5 minutes later!I found this image and thought it was rather apt. Although I think that the zen flavour of it is a little...prosaic.

Scariness Much?

2008-06-15T21:08:00.006+12:00

On Thursday, I had my first session for a study led by Otago Polytechnic looking at the digital information literacy needs of tertiary students and staff (more info here.) I am planning to use to project to explore the ways we can use digital information in creating, and reporting on, theatre projects. Whether this may be using digital information in "traditional" theatrical productions or

Further Webbish Fun

2008-06-09T16:03:00.005+12:00

This morning I had an impromptu de.lici.ous session with the Reference Services Librarian. We started with adding an extension for Firefox. The great thing about Firefox is that it gives you a personal profile on your local desktop. This means that you don't have to have access to the server - which is why Internet Explorer may not let you modify it.Having set up the extension, we had a session

Web 2.0 Playing

2008-06-08T01:50:00.007+12:00

At work, we have had some time set aside for playing with web 2.0 strategies. I went to the first session on Friday. Whilst it is fun to just have a play to see what different things can do - I experimented with avatars and flickr - I couldn't help but feel the blog we were using as a guide, see here, didn't seem to take the power of these strategies into account fully. Whilst it did mention the

More about Blogger

2008-06-08T01:47:00.006+12:00

I have just decided to see how useful blogger is when you use different blogs for different purposes. I have since had blogs on different platforms and multiple blogger blogs but under different accounts but have migrated them all onto this account to see if it makes life easier or not. Time will tell...

Twitter is Great!

2008-06-08T01:39:00.005+12:00

I have just discovered Twitter. Whilst it may seem rather pointless to have a blog in which you can only post 140 characters at a time it is a great way to keep people updated on what you are up to. With such small posts, you don't need to set aside much time - as I find myself doing for these posts - but you can quickly scribble something down. And, what is more, it is really fun!

Ho, Hum, Twiddle-Dee...

2008-06-03T12:09:00.006+12:00

Well, how up to date I have been with this blog! I usually turn my attending to web 2.0 strategies late in the afternoon so don't get time to update my blog as the lure of 5pm is just too strong.I have, however, updated my extension (2.0.48) for firefox. Irritatingly, because the extions is pre-release it is not avialble through Addon updates yet. You will need to go here to download it. You can

del.icio.us

2008-05-23T12:43:00.004+12:00

Seeing as though I volunteered to investigate how central library can use del.icio.us as a reference tool I thought I had better start a blog so you can all monitor my progress.Although I have been using del.icio.us for some time I have never really had a good opportunity to have a wee play with it. This project lets me explore and, what's more, lets me get paid for that exploration!My first