Thoughts at the End
I’m going to unimaginatively go through each of the questions one by one…I’m in the middle of the big Course Project for my other class, so all creativity has apparently gone out the window.
1. My view of social software at the beginning of this class was vague, at best. I was somewhat familiar with it both personally and as a tool for libraries, but I didn’t have a very good idea of what exactly a library would do with it. In fact, I remember trying to tell people about this class before it had started, and I wouldn’t really have anything concrete to say about what we would be learning. What has changed dramatically during this course is my ability to articulate the benefits of using social software in libraries.
2. Personally, I was already using Facebook and therefore probably will still use that most of any of the tools we’ve learned about in this course. The new tool that I am most likely to use is probably the RSS feed aggregator. Professionally, however, there are so many interesting options. In the place where I work currently, I would like to implement either a blog or a wiki along with the LibraryThing catalog that our group project was focused on.
3. There were two things that surprised me about this course. One is the level of interaction and real discussion that occurred within it. This was probably the first of my courses that really invited this kind of discussion and collaboration. The other thing that surprised me was the variety of social software available for libraries to use. My view was very limited coming in—I was thinking of Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and SecondLife. I would never have thought of using tools like Yahoo! Pipes, podcasts, and screencasts. It really seems that at least one of these tools could benefit nearly every library.
4. One suggestion I’d have about the course is to maybe have more time to explore the podcast and screencast section. Those took a lot longer to do for many people than expected. Also, it would have been nice if those particularly time consuming projects weren’t in the same week as the Social Software Dynamics Paper was due (not that college students procrastinate or anything). Another is to stagger completion dates for the blog posts and comments. If maybe the blog posts were all due a few days before comments are due, then more discussion would happen in those few days.
5. Well, I’ve already written almost an entire paper (see above) based around the question of why an open, socially-based course site like Drupal works better than traditional course management systems like Blackboard. I won’t go into quite that much detail, but, to summarize… The openness of Drupal was very important to me while taking this class. The first time I came onto the site, it felt welcoming and intuitively arranged. Seeing the most recent blog posts from everybody (not just the instructor) drew me into the course and into the material in a way that never happens in Blackboard. The blogs were an amazing way to interact with and learn from each other. I feel like I learned better and more permanently in this class because of the way it’s set up.
6. This has been one of my favorite classes that I’ve taken in the SJSU slis program. I don’t think it’s all because of the material, either. It’s the connectedness that’s made it different. When I feel more connected to the class and the people in the class, I feel more engaged, and when I feel more engaged, I do better work and learn more. Funny how that is ☺
