The journey project

Everyone seems to be talking about it – the entire Skittles website has been turned over to social sites.  there is a small widget in the corner for navigation but the main page is their Twitter page, the ‘pics’ page goes to a Flickr album, the video page to YouTube and the friends link goes to Facebook.  There are disclaimers and users have to click that they agree to the T&C but most people seem to be commenting on the amount of spam hitting the pages.  Check it out for yourslf.  I suspect that problems aside for a minute – this is a stroke of genius.

Had an interesting chat with Grant Malcolm from the UWA WebOffice yesterday who inadvertently reminded me that developing resources is one thing (and most of the work) while syndicating it is another (and can be considerabley easier).

So to that end I have edited the UWA STUDYSmarter webpage this morning by replacing text with a voki and a Flickr slideshow powered by Pictobrowser so that it now looks like this:

Pictobrowser is nice and user-friendly and it really couldn’t be easier to get your Flickr photos into your website – most handily you can choose which sets, tags or groups of photos you want to embed (useful if you have a very varied site and a more specific website – no need to have your holiday snaps cycling through your work website)

Well it’s been a perfect Perth Christmas (hot, hot and then a bit hotter) but work and real life beckons so in lieu of any New Year’s Resolutions, here’s a snapshot of my goals for the Online Student Journey project for early January:

• Get the Study Smarter online tutorials started in Moodle
• Set up the Flickr account for Student Services and write the user protocols
• Shift from Voki to Sitepal and get the first examples going (one to appear in this blog!)
• Deal with Wordle problems I seem to be having
• Adminster a staff survey across the Division (asking about knowledge of Web 2.0, ways staff prefer to be trained, what applications people think we should be persuing etc)
• Arrange the RL networking event for people working on Web 2.0 projects across the University for 28th Jan
• Use photojojo to test time lapse video – consider using it for large events on campus
• Kick off DIY Web 2.0 sheets and videos for training packages
• Get the node.live site ready for Semester 1 and recruit the 2009 blogging team

Sound reasonable?

With so many things happening and so little time this is the last blog post for  the year (UWA closes at lunch today and reopens on 6th Jan).  The Online Student Journey Project is poised for a HUGE 2009 with conference presentations to prepare, guest blogging activities to fire up, a UWA Web 2.0 networking event to organise, a training materials to write and a zillion other things to do.

Early initiatives for 2009 include a Student Services Flickr album (with associated training and protocols), SitePal replacing Vokis (to remove banner ads), progressing our iTunesU presence and starting video compilations for study break workshops  Plus I’ll be exploring uses for Wordle, SketchUp, Make Me a Cartoon, Wink and many more applications ready for the onslaught of 2009.

Until the New Year then….