Thing 12

I was amazed by the number of project management tools out there. Since my job is more autonomous and really just about managing my own case workload and solving sudden crises, I don't have a lot of first-hand experience with big company projects. Still, I checked out 3 or 4 of the sites and did whatever tour they had available. It was hard to really compare them without testdriving each one--I think that is the only real way to figure out which one works for the type of projects you might have. I would be hard pressed to pay anything for these, but I suppose if projects were a big part of a company, it would make sense to pay for those that would really fill the company's need.

I spent 30 minutes on Thing 12.

Thing 11

I don't own a smartphone, but after reading about all the medical apps you can put on your iphone, I admit I want one. I've never been a big cellphone user, preferring to keep it solely for emergencies or quick "what type of bread did you want again" calls from the grocery store. I just never wanted to be that accessible to people. I don't get wanting to chat on the phone while shopping for groceries or driving my car, etc. (Okay, I know the car one puts me in a very small minority.) But now that there are lots of apps out there, I can appreciate the utility of a smartphone. Iphone seems to be the most popular choice among friends and coworkers, with only rare blackberries surfacing.

I had problems with the instructions for this Thing, since the assignment refers to blog posts but doesn't provide a link to them. It also says you can go to KevinMD and put "med apps" in the search box. But for the life of me, I couldn't find a search box on the site. (Librarians, did I somehow just miss it or does it not exist?) I did find what looks like the first assigned blog (iphone vs android) by doing a google search for this phrase with "kevin" at the end. Here it is: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/10/doctors-choose-google-android-iphone-medical-apps.html

I got to the second one the same way (gotta love google). Here it is: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2009/09/iphones-blackberrys-doctors-medical-students.html

I spent about 30 minutes on Thing 11.

Thing 10

Well, this Thing has finally prompted me to do what I never thought I would--sign up for twitter. I'm not sure why I've been so against it, but I guess I suspect people's updates are too numerous and not very exciting or relevant (okay, boring). I'm happy with facebook, but will twitter add anything to the experience? On the other hand, since everyone seems to be doing it and I'm constantly hearing about it, I figured I'd better jump on the bandwagon and at least try it out. It was easy to set up an account. I picked one celebrity to follow and added the only person in my email address book who has an account (really? only one? isn't everyone doing this?). I also added Regions hospital, but couldn't find the Regions medical library. I'll try again later. I then went in and tried to add my photo, but couldn't get it to upload. I was able to add a bio and my location. I was surprised to get one follower almost instantly but was a little disappointed to see it was someone I didn't know who was "looking for that someone special". Ugh. Weird. No tweets from me yet, but I will try once I get a real follower. I'll also try to add some local businesses that I shop at to see if they tweet any coupons, etc.

I spent about 1 hour on this Thing, although it would be easy to spend much more by searching for people to add, learning all the terminology, apps, etc.

Thing 9

As a frequent facebook participant, I feel I'm pretty well versed in social media. Facebook is a way to reconnect with people I don't see often (like since high school) and feel more intuned with their lives. I think it has added to my life, especially since I live far away from where I grew up and have never been great at keeping in touch with people.

I never got a ning invitation, so I didn't do the ning project. I even emailed the librarians a month or so ago to get an invite, but it never came. (Librarians--not sure what happened. Are you still sending these invites, or was that just for last year?). But no matter, I ended up joining Sermo, which looks really interesting. I was happy to see my specialty represented (especially since it is a less common one), and looked at several of the questions posted and the responses. This looks like a great site to ask practice questions and see what others are doing. I also like you can post questions to other specialties and they can post to yours. I think I will log into it often to see what's new.

I spent 30 minutes on Thing 9.

Thing 8

I signed up for CiteULike. It was easy to do, I just did the basic signup (not the advanced option). I was disappointed that the first journal I tried to put in an abstract from was not on the accepted list. I didn't bother to do it manually. I then tried another journal which worked. Tagging was easy but I could see from the suggested tag list that I wasn't using anything quite like those, so I don't know how helpful this will be. One thing--the 8 things instructions say that when you create your account, you should click on the option to allow CiteULike to stay open even after closing your browser. I couldn't find this at first and when I tested it, it wouldn't work without signing back in. But as I logged back in, the option was there and was already clicked, so I expect it'll work from now on.
I also signed up for a RefWorks account. Looks more complicated to use, so I didn't do anything more with it at this point. It will likely take a lot more time to fully explore it. It would be helpful to take one of the classes the librarians say they will be doing in the future.
I'm not sure how much I will use reference sharing. I don't think it will have a big impact on my work life.
I spent about 45 minutes on thing 8.

Thing 7

I used Google Docs, mainly because I now have a google sign-in, reader, 2 wiki sites, and a calendar. Easiest to have everything in one spot. I added several files that I wanted access to from both home and work--much easier than emailing them to myself, which is what I've done in the past. This way, I know I'll always have the latest version and can access them from anywhere. The only problem I foresee is having to make sure that I make all corrections to the google doc, so I don't have 3 different versions floating around.

This was an easy assignment (but useful) and didn't take very long--maybe 30 minutes.

Thing 6

Although I knew about Wikipedia, of course, I had never thought about the possibility of creating my own wiki (and had never edited one). I decided to create a family wiki using a template on the google wiki site. I plan on using this to potentially post a family blog, announcements, photos, etc. I've been playing around with this for a few days and have learned to use some of google's other applications that can be added to the wiki template, such as google maps and calendar. I want to learn more about how the sharing works, especially with the different "levels" you can specify when you list who can have access. I just shared it with my husband and once ready, I'll share it with other extended family members too. I like that one site covers the whole family (as opposed to facebook) and doesn't require others to join (again, facebook).

I'm really interested in creating a wiki for work also, similar to a mini-intranet for our department. I've been thinking about this for awhile but thought I'd have to start a password protected website. Now I'm wondering if this would work instead. It would be a way of having contact info, a calendar of conferences/meetings, and maybe useful on-call info that people can access from home as well as at work. Although I'm not sure how much I can put on it without running out of space and having to pay extra.

To do the assignment, it took about 45 minutes, including reading and watching the suggested material as well as starting my own basic wiki (more with the extra time spent editing and adding to it).