And I’m not saying that because I spend a good chunk of my day trying to understanding the nuances of the changing web 2.0 environment or how people are harnessing the power of the net in fun and creative ways. I’m also not saying that to defend my professionalism or my age - which despite my youthful looks - is pushing up against the 30-something mark. Whether I’m presenting on this type of information in the workplace, or responding to lectures or presentations about web 2.0, oftentimes I get skeptical looks when I share what I feel to be the power of these interactive and community-driven tools. But then these skeptics give me a once-over, do a double-take, and then they have their “Ah Ha” moment. Silly girl. She only finds these tools exciting because she’s just a kid!
I spend time using these tools NOT because I’m young, but because it’s part of my job. Maybe I just happen to be well-educated in the work that I do and I consider it imperative to know what’s out there and at least be semi-versed in it. Would you believe a year ago when I was living in Kenya I had little to nothing to do with these sites? I determined last fall that this was the kind of career I wanted and therefore I needed to go about learning the industry. And I did.
Continue reading ‘Web 2.0 - it’s not just for kids’
During the Web 2.0 session we gave to our study abroad Academic Directors (ADs) a few weeks ago, we began with this great YouTube video by Michael Wesch, a professor at Kansas State University. Even though the video moves quickly, and for many of our ADs English is their second language, the video was well-received and set the presentation off to a positive and fun start. The entire audience was completely engaged in what we had to say, and hopefully a bit of web 2.0 was demystified in the process.
Note: this was first published for Michaela’s personal blog on August 21. 2007.
No sooner than I had made my last post, Google Maps announced that they’ve added a feature that allows users to build their own personalized maps and post HTML snippets to their blogs or Facebook pages, similar to the Zee Map functionality I mentioned below. It’s clickable AND draggable, and has the potential to feature all the images, text and video your little heart desires. Harrumph.
You can read more about on the blog here.
And here is my quick attempt at playing with this new feature illustrating my fall travel schedule:
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Incidentally, and I’m not sure if it had to do with my slow connection at work, I was disappointed with the speed at which I could update this map. Everytime I tried to add a new place, the map froze and I had to return to maps.google.com to get it to respond again. At least it saved the markers I already added. Also, overall I felt Zee had more features and seemed a bit more simple to use…. For example, I couldn’t seem to figure out how to set the zoom “view” for the user, so I could make it obvious there were more than just a few links on the map. If I went to the intro URL (maps.google.com) afresh, I was able to pick a view just by zooming (not intuitive), whereas if I didn’t type the URL in afresh, it would only create a map of the most recent marker I had added. For now I like Zee better. For now at least…