I have been in a rather pensive mode while learning more about the web-based technologies which we have been asked to examine during these past weeks. In experimenting with various tools and after a read of articles, I couldn’t help but compare the ideas of Library 2.0’s open interpretation of ideas with those of the postmodernist movement which occured in subject areas such as literature, art, architecture, music and film after 1945 as a response to the modern period with its notions of fixed beliefs. Postmodernism had a powerful impact upon every aspect of life. Like Library 2.0 the movement couldn’t be defined with a simple sentence because it had lots of components and directions. First and foremost both are characterized by innovation: the experimental nature of reappropriation of formats and interfaces to create pluralistic applications, is similar to movements within the postmodern era with its liberties with conventional forms and styles and combinations of them in a collage-like fashion. Another lateral comparison is that these newer technologies are user-centered and while some utilize social ranking, others like wikis are collaborative and social networking such as Facebook, blogging and IM are powerful tools of communications. Like postmodernism they strive to accept and respect the differences in perspectives of the user and pave the way for an open interpretation of information with different ways of putting it together.
Now on to the applicatioins which I tried. I had a lot of fun with fd’s Flickr Toys and tried out the Warholizer. That photo can be seen on http://www.flickr.com/photos/bacchusbuffy
Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a useful application to have and is especially welcome as a free tool. I like the fact that it has a spreadsheet built in. I have experienced Wordperfect crash and Word not available so I had recently tried Writely, a collaborative word processor which I find has now been taken over by Google.
Snipshot is a very easy to use tool which allows you to save images in Webshots or Flickr. I like its clean and simple interface. I tried resizing an image and it was easy and fast.
Redkid.net is an excellent example of a site which integrates social networking and collaboration. It is truly a one of a kind site and the teacher who designed it is looking to the future by offering these ingenious ways for the students to communicate with one another, have fun and keep up to date. It has a cool interface and offers tools such as image editors, animation, blogging, haiku and many more… obviously the teacher used student input to create such a user centered site. I loved the creative Potato head activity.
Like the central characteristics of postmodernism, library 2.0 presents us with a radical way of looking at life.
