This week is relatively calm.
This blog is part of 23 Things for Professional Development, a course encouraging information professionals to explore online tools.
So, Thing 19 is my chance to think about the tools I’ve looked at so far, and we’ve been given an extra week to tackle it, so I’m in no hurry! I’ve found the tools covered fell into three categories:
- Unknowns. Tools I’ve heard of, but never looked at.
- Could-do-better. Tools which I’ve signed up for, or am even using, but where I could be better exploiting the features.
- Knowns. Tools I’m using, and I love.
The could-do-better tools have been interesting, as these ‘Things’ have made me think about how I use and integrate web tools into my everyday life. I’ve made a few resolutions associated with these. Now seems like a good time to summarise them:
- Make my website less stern-looking (I’ve made a bit of progress on this one, but still want to move my blog to the home page)
- Keep an eye out for opportunities to use file sharing in my work (ongoing)
- Try different tools to vary the delivery of my teaching (ongoing)
The unknown tools were my favourites to look at. Some of these I have loathed immediately (i.e.Pushnote!), others were more succesful. Mendeley is far away the most successful tool I’ve tried: I was always sceptical about trying it, as I’m not really bothered about its pdf annotation features, but so far it’s really working for me as a reference management tool, for my out-of-work research. In work, well, it’s a crying shame that I can’t use the desktop client, and this stops me from recommending it to students too.
Of course, there’s been a bunch of other themes and resolutions of a tool-free nature. I’m thinking I’ll come back to those as part of the final ‘Thing’.