Web 2.0 - Week 8 - Mashups and API’s

Write about the Mashup you found on your blog

It took me a while to find a mashup that made any sense to me, but finally it happened. FlightWait shows you in real time what the flight delays are from all major airports in the US. Since the weather is a little crappy in the northeast today, and knowing that a flight to Chicago is in my near future, it is a fun little site to play with. The site uses up-to-the-minute flight information from the FAA and overlays the information over a Google Map of the US.

Rollyo: Browse the results and write something about what these bloggers said about privacy in your blog.

This is kind of fun, too. While many blogs are picked up by Google or other Internet search engines, it is impossible to search by a specific type or genre of blog.

As suggesed, I ran a search on “privacy” in “libraryblogs.” The bloggers run the gamut of writing about the USA Patriot Act to protecting your personal privacy.

In general, one should not be searching blogs for information one might consider authoratative, but this is a cool way to search for something you may have read on a blog, but can’t quite remember where.

This brings to a close the 8-week MLA Web 2.0 course. This is the first online course I’ve taken, and must say that I found it to be quite fun. I learned more than I ever could have imagined about Web 2.0 technologies, some of which I will continue to use, others of which I will drop like hot potatoes. The online format was easier to handle that I would have thought, although I don’t think all CE courses lend themselves to this sort of format.

It’s been great fun and thank you to MLA and to the committee who put this course together. I know it was hard work, and you are all to be commended!

rtm

Web 2. Week 7 - Podcasting & Online Hosted Video

Assignment: Write a blog entry discussing how you felt about the experience of using YouTube and what you think about this service. Do you see any potential uses for Podcasting in the library? If so what and why?

As will all Web 2.0 technologies, there are limitations for use in hospital libraries because of network security issues.  Once those issues are addressed, I can certainly see many uses for both podcasting and online hosted video for hospital libraries.

For example, training users on how to use library resources.  This video from Penn State is not necessarily what one would call a training video, but it give users an off-beat tour of PSU’s ILS:

 
Podcasting would also be quite useful.  Lectures can be recorded for future playback. 

Important hospital information can be disseminated to employees using both podcasts and hosted video.