23 Things Week 3: Online Meetings

In the past month I participated in 4 live webinars to learn about the updates to Alexandria, the library circulation system I use at school.  The update includes major changes to the look and to the functions of the software, so the webinars have been extremely helpful in preparing for the change.  The presenter was able to show several screens at once from his computer to demonstrate how to move through the various functions and how different tasks were actually performed in very similar ways.

These particular webinars, while live, were not interactive, although questions could be asked by email.  While this was initially disappointing, it was probably for the best, considering the amount of detailed information being presented and the fact that I had never participated in a webinar before this series.

I think online meeting applications will become intuitive for users and work more seamlessly with other applicatons in the future and that will make them become even more useful.  I expect that it will become a commonplace way to communicate in both our personal and professional live.

For the 23 Things project I watched an archived webinar, "Twenty Five Technologies to Watch and How",  http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/viewvideo.php?vid=20080131.wmv originally presented Jan. 31, 2008 by Stephen Abram, VP of Innovation at SIRS/Dynix.  It was a little overwhelming, but I was pleased that I had at least a passing knowledge of nearly everything he discussed.  I just haven't spent much time think about the broad applications/implications for libraries.  His focus was on  public and academic libraries , but the effects of new technologies impacts even elementary school libraries and how we interact with patrons and the broader community. 

One thing discussed in the webinar was how Streaming Media is beginning to replace DVDs.  That hit home because my school has just acquired several Smart Boards and at a recent faculty meeting one of the teachers commented that she wouldn't be needing the TV's and videoplayers anymore.  She has replaced VHS tapes with DVDs which can be projected through the computer on the Smart Board.  Other teachers are realizing the wealth of streaming video available through YouTube and others sources.  It struck me that the need to weed the library's video collection is more urgent than I  had realized.

Other areas of discussion that struck me were:

Open Identity - the ability to sustain online identity safely without the need for multiple logins and passwords.  I NEED that!!

Presence Management - the need to understand our multiple roles and to distinguish between personal and professional online identies/activities and to manage when and how our various identities overlap.  This is exactly the issue I was concerned with last week with regard to Facebook and other social media.

Avatars - cartoon or other symbols to represent our online identities.  Abarams suggested that in the future we might all use multiple avatars to represent our multiple roles and to manage our online presence as mentioned above.  We are having students created avatars and/or screen names to protect their identities while allowing them to post to blogs as part of school writing assignments.

I feel like I have just glimpsed the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg with the assignment for this week.  Thanks to the 23 Things organizers for all of their work and for the well written and well organized lessons!