My thoughts on 23 Things

Wow this has been a lot more work than I expected! I am so glad there were five of us in the team - for anyone thinking about it, don't even consider running this programme on your own!
It was great how we [in the 23 Things Team] could each play to our strengths by being responsible for weeks/themes which were of particular interest. I learned from the Things too - Delicious was the big one for me, as I had long heard about it but for some reason hadn't quite got around to using it - now I have hundreds of links tagged on there.

I hope all the participants have had their comfort zones extended and feel more confident when tackling web things that are new to them. If this programme has achieved that, then I think we did a good job!  And if some of these tools are now being used in libraries as a result, that's a bonus.

Using a widget to put my Delicious bookmarks on my iGoogle page

Done and done!

I love how all these sites can interact with each other and make it easy for me to reach the content I've been creating.

Using a Blogger gadget

Yep, it's there on my home page!

ThinkFree Office

I had a go with ThinkFree Office: I logged in with my Google ID and uploaded a document so I could refer to it and edit it from any computer with internet access.
Unfortunately, something went wrong when I then tried to open the uploaded document, and ThinkFree Office suggested I begin again.  No time to do this now, but I'm already a happy user of Google Documents and it's nice to know there are other alternatives to explore.

Google Documents

When doing the preparation for the 23 Things programme, I (as part of the 23 Things team) used Google Documents for online collaboration.


Did you read the summary post on the main blog (http://23thingsoxford.blogspot.com/2009/12/23-things-summary.html)? The link "You may view and print a summary of the programme here" takes you to a Google Document which you can view and print, but not edit.

Wikipedia

I sometimes use Wikipedia as a starting point for finding out about something new.  If my topic is a serious one, I might follow the references to find good sources to explore further, or I might just use the Wikipedia article to give myself an overview before doing more research using resources with more authority control.


If I am trying to find out about something very recent, or an aspect of popular culture, Wikipedia is a good place to start: recent topics are edited frequently and pop culture topics are well represented.


I would not choose Wikipedia as a reference source, though, as the content is very dynamic and it can be hard to tell an editor's credentials.

Wikis

I am a member of the Oxford web 2.0 wiki at http://socialouls.wetpaint.com.  My OxfordStaffDev blog is listed under the section about blogs.


I think wikis can be a good way of capturing institutional knowledge - you can also make wikis private (accessible only to certain people) and use them to share information and work collaboratively.