Session 3: Wikis

I was familiar with the concept of a wiki but wasn't aware about the techniques of writing or editing on wikipedia. e.g. How to make the text bold or in italics, superscripts and subscripts etc. Now I do. I can see the value of a wiki for writing academic papers in which colleagues are needed for a collaboratively-produced article. Of course it's also good for the reasons as outlined in the videos, such as compiling a camping list or possible locations for a trip. I haven't set up my own wiki yet but I think I know how to do this now using Wetpaint or one of the other free wikis as suggested.

Colourful nudibranch

Session 2: Online Photosharing

I am a little familiar already with Flickr having used some of the images from Creative Commons for an online learning resource that I am developing. I especially like Richard Ling's photostream as he has some great photos of marine environments and coral reef communities.

I wasn't aware of the slideshow feature of Flickr so that is one new thing I've learned. The tutorial was helpful too. I didn't know about the ability to type a word in the 'spell' section and have Flickr find creative images of each letter in the word.

This is an image from Creative Commons, by Doug Deep. http://www.flickr.com/photos/douga/225129382/ It's of a nudibranch or shell-less mollusc. Sea hares, nudibranchs and slugs are all shell-less molluscs. Nudibranchs are sometimes referred to as Spanish Dancers. As they move through the water, their outer body sections ripple and curl like veils in a dance.

Well I've read a few posts and realised that mine is pretty boring. You're probably wondering why I've called myself Mermaid Minx. Answer: no idea! I've been doing a lot of research on coral reef organisms so maybe that influenced me.
I love reading and watching movies. I've discovered another blogger -Manic Movie Fan - so we have something in common.
Obviously this medium is designed for sharing information with people of similar interests and allows all viewers to read the posts sent by everyone else. It seems so much better than e-mail.
I suppose blogging is meant more for academic pursuits and Facebook for social networking. I think I'm getting into the swing of things now!

Session 1: Creating a Blog

Well I've done it! Created my first blog, that is. The most time-consuming aspect was getting a name that had not been taken. (There must be a lot of Get Smart fans out there as Cone of Silence and other aspects of the show were taken!)

I'm looking forward to increasing my Web 2 skills and being able to incorporate them into my work. I am a novice at most of the things listed in the survey so I can only improve from here. I will be doing some blogging during National Science Week in August so this is a very useful tool for staff and part of our commitment to life-long learning.