Just a brief reflection on this week. I have really, thoroughly enjoyed exploring new tools and websites this week, there have been some really useful resources. I am just gutted that I have been hampered by a painfully slow and occasionally non-existent internet connection.
This week I have:
- discovered de.li.cious - a tool I shall certainly keep using - a really useful way to have your bookmarks always available and to share bookmarks with friends, colleagues and the world.
- pondered the inclusionist/deletionist debate on wikipedia and come down on the side of the inclusionists. At least until we hold public elections for Wikipedia admins :-)
- Started the journey from a non-blogger to a reluctant blogger to a reflective blogger to a ...?
- Started using Google reader to get feeds from blogs. Great to have them all in one place. Saves time, just need to make time to read the content now.
- refreshed my info finding skills.
- Explored Open Educational Resources, bookmarked them so I can learn everything about everything someday :-) and planned repurposing some content on the OU's OpenLearn platform.
My initial reaction to many of these resources was "How come I haven't come across that when searching in Google?". Which is ironic I think. Hopefully these resources will all make me a much more targetted and productive searcher and indeed content provider) and reduce my dependence on Google for finding things.
When the internet was much smaller and the users consisted largely of IT professionals (when I were a lad), I found search engines much more productive and content much more reliable. This week has made me realise that I rely too much on Google, their search engine algorithm is no longer very relevant and I reckon the future of search could well be in user generated algorithms, from bookmarking and tags, generating and policing our own content.
I love those cartoons of yours!
ReplyDeleteGabriele