Thing 6 Wiki Wiki Wiki

Convenient timing on this one. I've developed a couple of wikis so far. One is for a multi-institutional research project on Google Sites. The other is for a little pet project for work through PBWiki (can't really describe it yet). Emphasis in the above sentence should be on the work "developed". Have I actually added anything to them yet? No. Working on that.

Our residency did their PIF on wiki and it went well. I'll probably start running my resident research projects on them as well. I'm getting some of the same functionality on Google Documents, but I'll try a wiki next time and see how it goes. Editing the 8Things Wiki was a breeze.

I like my first glance at AskDrWiki. They need the Emergency Medicine page started. I'll see if I can get to that in my free time. :)

Did about 30 minutes on this Thing.

Thing 5 Video and Podcasts

Too bad the cool videos won't allow embedding.  So here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afIBrdwP22E

It's the Unwritten Rules of the Gym...pretty funny, IMHO.

I haven't actually added a podcast to my Google Reader. I use my iPod regularly for workouts. My attention span is ridiculously short. So I really like the "Quick and Dirty Tips" series of podcasts - I follow Grammar Girl, Money Girl, Mighty Mommy and the Nutrition Diva. I have followed the medical blogs - most are a little too boring for me unfortunately.

I spend about 30 minutes on this thing.

Thing 4 - social bookmarking

Oops, accidently posted a post with nothing in it.  Glad they have "edit posts".

I found this out very helpful.  I had heard of del.icio.us but never knew what it was.  This is how I'll be doing my bookmarking from now on.  I'm always on different computers between the 3 hospitals I work at and the simulation center.  I'll admit I'm a little creeped by the "social" part of it.  Do I want work colleagues to see what links I post to ?  Can they see it?  I don't think so, but until I dive into it a little more I'll watch what I put on there.

I'll make a little plug.  I've been using a little web gadget called Toggl to keep track of how my time I spend on projects.  I didn't use it to figure how much time I spend on this Thing, but that would have been a really good idea.

I looked a little at the other sites - Digg is interesting, and I've heard a lot about StumbleUpon.  For now, I'll just stick with one site (Delicious) and see how I do.

Now I'm rolling

1. What do you like about RSS feeds / feed readers?

Less work.  Info is there and ready for me when I'm ready for it.  

2. How could you use RSS feeds in your personal or professional life?

I'm already using RSS feeds a lot.  My Google Homepage (iGoogle page) is filled the various feeds from entertainment (cakewrecks.blogspot.com) to work-related (Wachter's World, NEJM Image of the Week, etc.).  

3. How did you find additional feeds to add to your reader?

Oh, my gosh, it's a disease!  OK, so I go to a blog for whatever reason, that blog links to another relevant blog, so I check it out, then subscribe.  Occasionally I'll search ("add stuff" to my iGoogle page).  I recently tried FeedReader, but I do seem to be actually using it.  Probably too busy.

4. How long did it take you to complete this Thing?

15 minutes maybe - once I realized exactly was RSS feeds were, I realized that I already subscribe to a zillion of them.

Thing 2 finally done

Wow, this one took a while.  I started this Thing about 3 weeks ago, but only spent about 90 minutes on it.  The articles to read were a little dense.  Also I found myself following links to other sites since I'm sort of an educational theory geek.  Also, I'm only a little bit older than Generation Y.  In my job, I teach people from all sorts of different generation.  So I feel I need to be at least conversational, if not fluent, in various teaching modalities and strategies.  That's my big motivation in doing the 8 Things.  I feel I vaguely understand a lot of the concepts but I don't truly get the nuts and bolts of them.  

I spend a lot of time on the internet.  I haven't gotten myself so addicted that I need to pay a ton of money to get in on my phone yet...I think it's kind of nice to be "off the radar" every once in a while.  But whenever I'm on my personal or work computer, I'm online.  I do most of my job-related information hunting on the internet.  I "google" much more often than I crack a journal or, heaven forbid, a textbook.  Some think it's blasphemy.  But often when I need information, I know the reputable sites.  Or the answer is at the tip of my tongue.  All I need to do is see it and I'll recognize it as correct.  So what if it's on Wikipedia.

On to Thing 3...

Get to Know Your Librarian

So I'm sitting in a CME class on Medical Education Research.  The last objective is "communicate effectively with your research librarian".  OK, back to work.