Paul found this

If you have a couple of minutes to watch this it helps to put Web 2.0 into context.

Step 2 - The Workshop

So, "Blogs, Wikis and Social Networking" is a workshop put on by Netskills, and this one I attended was held at Tapton Hall, University of Sheffield (good facilities including free parking, good food, shame about the fire alarm going off in the middle of lunch!). On the basis of this course I would recommend Netskills training - excellent trainer, good content, very useful booklet, and not too long a day.

Sessions :

1. Intro to the workshop
2. Introducing the blogosphere
3. Exploring the blogosphere
4. Advanced blogging and introducing wikis
5. Practical work with blogs and wikis
6. Social software : networking and sharing
7. Social networking in action

Session 1 - Intro to the workshop

Using a combination of PowerPoint slides and live Internet sites the workshop was introduced. there was going to be some presentation from the trainer and plenty of opportunities to test out the technology talked about; some group work as well. The workbook is self explanatory and includes useful information about the technology, gives lots of sites to look at and some description of how Internet users are making use of the tools.

Session 2 - Introducing the blogosphere

Some definitions were given including Web 2.0, social networking, "blawg", "Plog", "Blogopotamus". The funnies I will leave you to explore (http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html) but the discussion on the way that Web 2.0 is providing access to users having their own impact on content was interesting. This is being discussed in various Intute groups, so this is a good time to find out more and consider how we can make use of it. We even need to try and anticipate what Web 3.0 might look like. See the bookmarks for examples of blogs - http://www.netskills.ac.uk/resources/blog/bookmarks.html

Some tools for creating blogs were introduced - we already know about WordPress as we use it in Intute, I am using Blogger here, and there are others. There is a comparison chart if you are interested in the different tools - some features were noted such as subject content, purpose, and design.

Session 3 - Exploring the blogosphere

This is where we got the opportunity to explore existing blogs such as Pepys Diary, and other educational blogs; Guardian Comment, and other media blogs; corporate blogging such as http://www.butlersheetmetal.com/tinbasherblog/; blogging activism such as http://conservativehome.blogs.com/; and tools for searching blogs such as Technorati. Note : the Intute : Social Sciences blog regularly hits the top of the Technorati list because other people link to it and use it.

Session 4 - Advanced blogging and introducing wikis

Further features of blogs were introduced including multimedia blogging, the use of mobile phone technology, sidebars, and tools to publicise your blog or get others to link to your blog. Then we moved on to Wikis, their use and purpose. Although in SET we have decided not to included many Wiki entries because we cannot guarantee the authority of the information, it is useful to know about the format of web tool and to use it with discretion in researching a topic.

Session 5 - Practical work with blogs and wikis

This is where my blog started as we created our first entries using Blogger. Its quite a nice tool to use for blogging and has quite a few features for customising or tailoring to a style you like. The features and settings are straightforward. Comments can be added by users. The ability to enhance your blog was explored such as Tagboards, Templates, Sideblogs, and Counters. I ran out of time but the workbook includes information for multimedia blogging and adding webfeeds, a couple of things I would like to explore for the SET blog.

Wikipedia was the main wiki we looked at but if you use the Netskills bookmarks (and library bookmarks) you can explore many others.

Hidden at the end of this section in the workbook is an appendix called "publicising your blog" which I hope to follow up on soon.

Session 6 - Social software : networking and sharing

This session introduced some concepts which were new to me such as "mashups", but more talk about Web 2.0 and sites such as YouTube, Myspace and Facebook were more familiar despite not using them at work. We need to keep an eye on these developments even when we can't find an actual use for them in Intute : SET. Many of our users will be very familiar with these social networking tools and we may want to consider whether we need to incorporate elements in order to keep the interest of students.

Session 7 - Social networking in action

As the day was drawing to a close we had a short amount of time to look at some of the sites identified under this heading, eg. Frappr (friend mapper), Furl (social bookmarking), and LibraryThing (catalogue your own books). The Mashups section has links to sites which use a number of tools in one, eg. Google Maps Mania, which uses blog, map and multimedia technologies together.

We ended with a group case study session which was interesting but not that relevant to Intute.

Don't forget the 2 bookmark lists if you want to look at loads of examples of sites and tools. I have a few action points to follow up on, eg. blogs to catalogue for Geography/Environment, blog tools to try and make use of for the SET blog, and new technologies to keep an eye on in case we can make use of them somewhere in Intute. Please drop me a line if you'd like to discuss any of this - you know how to get hold of my by email or Messenger, or the good old telephone.

Step 1 - Feedback from Blogs workshop

I just have a few minutes before I head off for the afternoon, but I do intend to write some notes on how the workshop went. In the meantime here are 2 lists of bookmarks which we used during the practical sessions and I will refer to some of those which I found particularly interesting or useful.

Bookmarks - academic, information, Web 2.0 related
Library bookmarks - similar but more related to the Library World

Of course, just the fact that I have started this Blog is some proof that I have been on the course, otherwise I don't know where I would find the time - one of the biggest issues to come out of the training - you need to put quite a lot of time into keeping your blog busy!

So, more to come - keep watching!

It all started at "Blogs, Wikis and Social Networking Workshop"

Having worked at Intute for almost a year, its time for some staff development. This workshop seemed to fit the bill as SET are pushing ahead with the Blog. We need more inspiration and we are hoping for some from today. I'll let you know!