Reflection

I will begin by stating that I was nervous to begin this course.  I felt that I did not have the skills or experience with social software to be successful.  Furthermore, I generally resist technological change and by the time I got MSN almost everyone else was using Facebook  This course was a pleasant surprise for me, I learned that new technology doesn’t have to be scary and that it might even be fun to attempt to keep up with some of the more popular social software changes.

Onto the questions:

1.  Yes my view of social software has changes since the beginning of the course.  For starters I don’t see social software as some daunting beast that I could never use/understand.  Also I realize now, that social software has more uses that updating your friends on what you ate for lunch.  This course has opened my eyes to the social connections that can challenge ideas, the software that can assist in collaboratively creating content and knowledge as well as the way it can be used as a forum for serious discussion.

2.  My favourite tools for the library are Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and wikis.  I think that bookmarking has interesting potential for libraries but I am not sure that it could be easily implemented and I am also concerned that people would not participate therefore, rendering it a waste of time.  Facebook is an easy forum to advertise events, gain feedback from patrons and foster discussion.  It is easy to set up and manage and with the right balance of authenticity and professionalism it can be a very successful endeavor.  Likewise Twitter is a great way to advertise and remind people of events and resources in a succinct way.  Blogs provide a forum for extended discussion allowing for more space to write out your opinions and ideas.  Wikis I think would be extremely useful for library staff to assist in collaborative projects.  However, depending on the library it may be difficult to get staff buy in.

3.  I think that Mashups, QR Codes and mobile mapping apps have the least potential for libraries right now.  A vast majority of patrons do not have the technology to run these types of software and perhaps lack the know how and if your patrons can’t / won’t use it, creating it as a service is a waste of time.  However, at one point text reference was not useful to patrons and that has changed.  So while I don’t think these tools are useful for libraries now I am not foolish enough to say that they won’t be useful in the future.

4.  My experience with this course was surprisingly pleasant.  I expected to spend the course struggling alone with social software I did not understand.  However, the course was set up with informative lectures and readings and the social software for the most part was very user friendly.  I really enjoyed using blogs, facebook, RSS feeds and wikis.  I can see myself using these tools in the future on both a professional and personal basis.  Mashups, QR Codes and mobile computing apps as well as social bookmarking are things that were interesting to learn about but not something that I can see myself using in the future.

5.  This is the first distance education course I have taken here in the MLIS program at Western.  I really enjoyed the flexibility and was happy with the amount of support I was able to access via chats and e mails.  I would definitely take another distance education course in the future.

For this course particularly I thought that using social software to teach social software was a very logical and innovative pedagogy.  Being forced to use the social software to complete course requirements was an excellent way to ensure that each student received hands on experience and learned real useable skills.

Flexibility on your part Amanda in regards to group projects as well as individual projects allowed for creativity and fostered interest for me in the projects.  I really appreciated this.

6.  Overall the course was wonderful.  I am struggling to come up with some suggestions for improvement.  Perhaps marks could have been given earlier in the course.

7.  See question 5

Its been great reading your posts and getting to know all of you.  Best of luck to you all no matter where you are headed, out into the real world of job hunting, back for another semester of school or something else more exciting.

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