Shirley Garcia
Student ID #: 11468539
Info 506: Social Networking for Information Professionals
Lyn Hay—Fall 2010
So I am writing this blog entry right after my second attempt at using second life. Both times I received a message stating that Second Life had crashed...it completely disappeared from my screen! This of course, was after repeated warnings from McAfee that second life was trying to bring in info from the internet. McAfee clearly did not want me to do this! Anyhoo…I hadn’t been on for more that 2 minutes when the crash occurred…I was trying to get to the CSU-SIS Learning Centre. I was also trying to friend 'LenaLotus Latte'.
Aaargh! I just don’t get this thing! I understand that it can be a creative and learning outlet. However, my personal opinion is that people spend far, far too much time involved in these virtual lives, so much so that I think they are missing their own lives sometimes. I feel this applies especially to children.
Remember outside???? Remember when if you wanted to have fun and explore you went and played with like leaves and bugs and kids and stuff? Remember ‘hanging out’? I come from a small town, very small in fact. There was never much to do here but maybe that has always been the beauty of it. If you were in your house as a teenager, you walked downtown and found, guess what REAL PEOPLE to talk to! Crazy I know, but it’s true. If you wanted information, aha! The library (which is where I learned origami by the way!).
As learning tools, I understand the sheer awesomeness of Web 2.0. Wow here are convenient platforms to collaborate, create and explore. For brief recreation, escapism, whatever…that’s neat for a minute. For those with limited access to like people n’ stuff, well here is a way to interact in a social environment. Job searching, networking, great! As such, they become tools for enhancing real life. Again, I’m not a fan of being asked for my birth date and the promise of my first-born, but I understand the purpose of the tools as an enhancement to real life.
Ok, so I’m ranting out of slight frustration…yes I need to explore these tools more to gain a true understanding of them. Will I walk around in second life after this project….hmmm probably not. I’d rather walk around in the feet of snow left in the aftermath of the blizzard that just hit the Hudson valley region of NY State, which is where I am by the way.
Do I think it is necessary to understand the utility of these tools? Absolutely. They are being used. Understanding them is the only way to use them to the information professional’s advantage. How can a librarian properly serve her patrons if s/he does not have any knowledge of what is current? A good librarian knows the latest books his or her patrons may come in the library for right? Well the same would apply to these technologies.
I like blogging. I like wiki’s. YouTube makes me smile J I have reconnected with people using facebook. For now, anything beyond that is simply in the interest of knowledge of what is current to relate to the users of this technology better. Maybe I’m a little ‘old school’ as some might say. I’d rather press leaves in wax paper, have a cup of coffee with friends on the porch, feel the earth beneath my feet, maybe some yoga in the sun...
