Thursday, January 17, 2008

Thing #18 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

I tried to look at some of the tools on Web 2.0 Awards that were in categories that I hadn't explored earlier in the other 17 "Things".

One of the tools I looked into was WUFOO where you can create forms for surveys. They seemed really easy to create and simple to use. I may try to use this for communicating with my faculty to evaluate the library program in general and specifically to evaluate research units we have completed.

Judy's Book was another tool I checked out. I created an account and entered my zip code to see a list of sales, coupons and deals in the area where I live. I can save anything I want to to my favorites according to categories of shopping or specific stores.

I also looked at PANDORA. You can have your own DJ that will help discover new music according to what genre of music you like. It will continue to keep letting you know about tunes that you might enjoy.

The tool that I spent the most time with was Craig'list. I heard heard about it through my niece and daughter who are in their early 20's. My daughter had told me about finding a used sofa that was a really good deal. She is unhappy with the part-time job that she is in right now and I decided to look to see what other jobs were available. She is applying for a nursing school next fall and she would like to find a part-time job in the medical field. I had looked in the classified section of the Dallas Morning News, but all the medical jobs were for professionals. Craig'slist had a half dozen or so that are within reasonable driving distance for her. I was able to e-mail her each of the posts that I thought she might be interested in. (There's nothing like having your own personal research librarian when you're in college, is there? Ha!)

As far as ones that could be used in a library setting, WUFOO seems the most practical. I plan on looking at some of the rest of the tools on the Web 2.0 Awards site later to see other things that I might be able to use at school.

2 comments:

mmw said...

Will you please provide the links to these tools that you mention in this post?

speedreader said...

I haven't played with those specific sites, but after reading your post, plan to check them out. I would like to survey my students as Bookmaid Bits did about computer use and it sounds like WUFOO will let me do that easily. I didn't see the coupon site either..so thanks for that mention also. Your blog is amazing! What a GREAT job you have done..not only with this but in bringing it to your faculty as well. You go girl!