Evaluation of a "Wiki"

I have chosen http://librarytechnician.wikispaces.com to evaluate as this part of the course.

Using "The Commons"

City, public library - Originally uploaded by The Library of Virginia

As discussed in my previous post "The Commons" contains a variety of photos. The above photo is just one example of what can be found on the site. It is titled "City, public library" with the date of February 6, 1956. It can be found using through using the commons website. A direct link to the photo is http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/2899334394/

Flickr and the Library of Congress

In January 2008 the Library of Congress launched a pilot project with flickr to ensure better access to their collections and the ensure they have the best possible information about their collections.

The photos will be part of their collection online with no copyright restrictions.

"The Commons" http://www.flickr.com/commons was launched at the same time as the pilot project. This part of the project allows people to tag the images to help with the quality of information held for the bibliographic description of the photos.

A summary report after nine months of the project can be found at http://www.loc.gov.rr/print/flickr_report_final_summary.pdf. .

There are many links which describe tagging and also links to Flickr and the Library of Congress to describe in detail how the project is organised.

Library of Congress, 2008 My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven viewed 23/03/10 http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2008

Using Flickr

Library
Originally uploaded by donno50

This is a photo taken at the Campbell Street, Polytechnic Library in Tasmania. It was uploaded to Flickr and was organised with 6 other photos under the user name donno50 to provide a set.

Evaluation of "Hey Jude" blog

The "Hey Jude" blog can be found as part of the "Hey Jude" website at http://www.heyjude.wordpress.com. It is the first navigational tab under the heading.

The blog was created by Judy O'Connell and looking through the "about" and "portfolio" tabs on the "Hey Jude" website it is obvious that the blog is one of authority due to her qualifications, participation on boards and the large amount of publications she is responsible for.

The scope and coverage of the "Hey Jude" blog is extensive. It relates to current issues and information is presented through a variety of forms. The intended audience would include anyone interested in Web 2.0 and the use of technology in the classroom and libraries.

The blog has regular posts but there are not too many that an RSS feed from the site becomes too much.

Overall the blog is an excellent source of information.

O'Connell Judy, 2006 Hey Jude viewed 18/03/2010 http://www.heyjude.wordpress.com

"Hey Jude" Website

The "Hey Jude website can be found at http://www.heyjude.wordpress.com. The site was created by Judy O'Connell in 2006 when she was working as an Education Consultant with Catholic Education (a diocese of 80 schools) in Sydney. In 2008 Judy O'Connell was appointed Head of Library and Information Services at St. Joseph's College, Hunter Hill.

There is a lot of information on Web 2.0 directories and the best ones for student use. It is noted that there are education versions available sometimes which result in ad free online tools. There is a link to GoWeb2.0 the web application index. A tab "Toolkits A-Z" lists toolkits for education. There is an endless amount of choices and a couple I found intersting were "Crazytalk" which allows you to make a picture talk or sing using your own voice. There is also "Build Your Wild Self" where you can create an avatar and "Blockposters" which allows you to make giant posters of any size from any image.

Another tab option available helps find free images online.

An interesting part of the website which is also mentioned in the blog is the Flat Classroom project for 2010. It looks at flattening the classroom walls through using web 2.0 to join 200 students from 10 classrooms across 6 different countries. There is a video of Judy O'Connell explaining the project which is well worth watching under the navigational tab "my portfolio".

The site has a lot of information. There are numerous links to related sites and the navigational tabs are self explanatory. There is a search box and several entry points to contact Judy O'Connell by email.

I would highly recommend looking at this site but would advise leaving time to cover all the elements it contains.

O'Connell Judy, 2006 Hey Jude viewed 18/03/2010 http://www.heyjude.wordpress.com

Using Technorati to choose a blog to evaluate

In order to choose a blog to critically evaluate, the Technorati site was used. The address for Technorati is http://technorati.com/. I have not previously used this site but found it useful as there is the option of selecting the level of authority when searching through the directory. These ranged from any authority, high authority, medium authority and low authority. A search on "library literacy" with an authority level of medium, returned 8 blogs (search conducted on 15th March 2010).

The Hey Jude website was chosen for the evaluation because many of the tags for the site were of interest. Some of these included: information literacy, innovation, library 2.0, reading, reading and literacy, school library, techtools, education, innovation and school library.

The Technorati website also allows you to click on the writer of the blog and this highlighted that Judy O'Connell was the author of the site and listed four other sites that have been claimed by her. These additional sites were also based around schools, emerging technologies and web 2.0.

The site was listed with a green arrow going up and an authority number of 450.

In an attempt to find out how this number is generated I clicked on the "Welcome to the New Technorati"heading and then the Technorati Authority FAQ.

The site explained that it was redesigned in October 2009 and authority is now based on a scale of 0-1000. 1000 is the highest authority. Authority is based on: linking behaviours, categorisation and associated data. Previously the authority was calculated over a 6 month time frame but now it is over a short finite period.

Technorati was useful in the search of blogs as the authority was rated. This eliminated searching time.

The flashing adds were annoying but this is just becoming part of the many websites now. While in Technorati I did click on the "Ads by Google"heading. This said that the ads by Google appear on sites that use Google's AdSense program to show ads. Sometimes these will be based on the content of the page that is being viewed and other times it will reflect the interests based on the participating websites that have previously been viewed by the user.

Varifying this Blog

This is for the varification of my blog through Technorati. The code is CPYRWSZ5CKW3.

Hey Jude : Learning in an online world

The URL for this site is http://heyjude.wordpress.com/ The site discusses digital media and literacy and how this is impacting on early childhood and how children learn. At first glace it is very interactive site and contains many videos on various related topics.

Articles on Copyright

On Wednesday February 24th, 2010 there were two articles in "The Australian" that were related to this current topic (on pages 28 and 29).

The first was by Colin Steele with the article "Who will own what we read?" He spoke about a "revolution in communication unparalleled since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century". The article discusses access to information and who controls this information. It discusses the question of who will own Google ten years from now and the implication this may have. This question is raised as in January this year founders of Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that between them they intend to sell 10 million shares in Google during the next five years.

The second article by Lawrence Lessig titled "Copyright deal is a cultural disaster." This article looks at the Google launched project in 2004 to scan 18 million books to make them accessible on the web. The accessibility would depend on the type of book and would go from "snippet access"to full access.

This Authors Guild of America and the Association of American Publishers were against this happening and said it violated copyright law regarding digital technology.

Although Google scanned the works to index them the plaintiff said without the permission from the copyright owner, Google was a pirate.

Google settled the lawsuit (the settlement was 165 pages long). This allowed Google to "pay for the right to make up to 20 per cent of copyrighted books whose author could not be found available to the public for free; and beyond 20 per cent, the public could pay to access the full book, with the funds given over to a new non-profit body charged with getting these royalties to the authors who want them."

The article discusses people who have attacked the Google settlement It looks at the two extremes. One, the abolition of copyright and secondly licensing everything. In conclusion the article mentions that we need an approach that recognises the errors of both sides.

Steele, Colin. 2010, "Who will own what we read" The Australian Wednesday February 24, p. 28

Lessig, Lawrence. 2010 "Copyright deal is a cultural disaster" The Australian Wednesday February 24, p.28-29