This is Delicious!

I am using my Yahoo! account to login to Delicious and my username is THicks24.

I've wondered about Delicious in the past but never made the jump into using it. I have used StumbleUpon and ended up exploring more than anything. I recently lost all my bookmarks on my browser and wish I would have saved them in "the cloud". I usually discover new websites through other social media (Facebook, face-to-face conversations) so I'm excited to see what I find through Delicious.

Lastly, I like a minimal browser interface/toolbar and I'm still getting used to having the add-on taking up space. It's much easier to use than adding sites manually though so I may end up keeping it around...

@TomRHicks

is how to reach me on Twitter. I'm following a couple of breweries, Mo Rocca from CBS Sunday Morning and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, CoeBRAI, Lonnie Zingula, and Lance Armstrong. Lance is very active on Twitter and it's neat to see his comments during the Tour De France, which just finished it's third stage today.

I've only ever wanted to us Twitter to follow others and be entertained. I stayed away from it for a while before I finally jumped in last summer. I rarely check it but will spend some more time on it during the Tour. I know it has been used to track trends and news and those are the only two ways I can think of it being used in an educational setting. It's purely social to me so I struggle to see how much educational value it has. I do think it would be interesting to analyze the type and frequency of individuals' comments though.

I've recently stated that I think Twitter will be dead or irrelevant in two years due to its meteoric rise, supersaturation in our culture, and lack of purpose (outside of being social). I still believe this but also think that some other Web 2.0 tool will capture our imagination before that two years is up and Twitter will be relegated to a niche product again.

Flickr Do!

I started using Flickr several years ago in order to share photos and friends with family more easily. Since Facebook has developed their photo storage and sharing Flickr has become less necessary for my personal use. Instead, I have started to post photos to my account for the Sutliff Cider Company. I work there on weekends in the tasting room and manage their website where I have a slideshow posted from the Flickr photos. I feel the slideshow is a much more effective and attractive way to show the photos as compared to just having a grid of photos on the site.

Our New Sign!

Our New Sign!
Originally uploaded by hickstr

Here is the new sign for the Sutliff Cider Company, my weekend escape from campus. Check us out at www.sutliffcider.com for our hours and events (I'm also the webmaster for the site :).

Comments please

Being able to comment openly on the web has transformed the way many sites and industries orient themselves to the public. Governments and school districts post possible changes for public opinion. Individuals look for feedback on possible purchases. Newspapers debate whether the comments; negative, positive, and ignorant, deserve attention on their sites. In the correct context commenting can be fruitful and freeing so I feel that it is important for online communities

Just as most research journals are moving online to allow for easier dissemination and commentary I feel that benefits students who may be writing online too. The ability to have a community aid in the instruction of peers can be very powerful if done well.

I have chosen to follow three of the colleagues with whom I work most closely. Mostly out of interest and comfort. We rarely have the chance to spend much time together out of the office or see each other through our writing so it's fun to interact with them on the web. As for my tags, most just refer to key terms in each of my posts in order to help keep them organized.

Wiki Work

I haven't found much use for wiki's in my work except if I'm looking for a quick answer to something that I don't need a reference for. For example, when booking music for campus I often times check out a wiki page about a band to see if they are active or have changed members.

Personally, I've had it on my list to create a page in Wikipedia for my dad. He was a world-ranked boxer in the early 1970's and my goal is to create a page for him and send it to him as a birthday present. Considering his birthday is now two weeks away, I don't think I'm going to get to it this year.

Google Docs = really good friend

Over the past year (even before Coe's Google conversion) I started using Google Docs and Calendar for on-campus projects. I originally used Calendar because it was easier to add and edit events while it also allowed me to share it with others. This came in handy because the Student Activities Committee (SAC) has at least one, if not two or three, events each week. The students and I were able to post all the information for the event (performer's hotel info, phone number, location, etc.) in one central place where the entire group could access and edit.

Now, with the ability to attach Google Documents to events, we can sign contracts electronically and attach them to the events without ever having to print out a piece of paper. It also saves on time too. It's great to have all that you need in one document that is attached to one event on a calendar that everyone can see and edit.

Our latest foray into Google Docs has involved creating forms. The form feature is great because it has an easy to use interface that allows us to develop online forms (mostly for feedback purposes in our case) in a quick manner. The best part is that all of the information gets dumped into a spreadsheet that we can all manipulate!

Overall, the integration of the different Google Apps is killer for what I do on a daily basis.