Heather's 11½ Things Blog

Thanks. The course was really well organised and informative. It was good to make time to try out the sites and resources that were included.

Sites I hadn’t used before: Diigo; Twitter.
Other new things: uploading photos to Flickr; embedding images/slide shows from social sites.

I saw and liked Prezi at Umbrella, so was interested to find out a bit more about it and I might consider using it in future as an alternative to Powerpoint.

I had previously dismissed Twitter, but now think it could be useful as a current awareness tool, or to promote a service, and have enjoyed using it. I’m not sure I will maintain my personal account, but a few of my friends and family have started tweeting as a result of me trying it out!

Also – related to the 11 and a half things course – the free bibliographic software session was very good. Again this is something I have wanted to explore for a while, but it can be difficult to make the time. Our users already make use of these tools, so it will be good to be able to assist them and also to be able to make them aware of the differences between these types of tools and commercial products like Endnote and Reference Manager.

First attempt at using Flickr - first attempt at organic gardening!

The 11 and a half things wiki is at http://11andahalfthings.wikispaces.com/

I tried searching Slideshare for presentations relating to health and developing countries. It was difficult to find relevant presentations - I found lots of fundraising presentations. The quality of presentations was variable.
Searching for conference presentations was more successful and I also found some presentations that might be useful for library training. Browsing through the presentations was also useful for getting a feel for good/bad presentation design.
An example of a conference presentation on climate change and health: 

I liked Prezi and I found it easier to find presentations suitable for an academic context. I recently saw a good example of it being used at CILIP's Umbrella conference:
http://www.netvibes.com/nedpotter#The_Echo_Chamber
(I couldn't see how to embed this, so assume they have blocked sharing?)

I've never used Diigo before and liked it more than Del.icio.us, especially the highlighting option and the chance to add comments. Not sure how/whether I would use it at work, though. For academics or clinicians, sharing websites within a group like this could be useful for current awareness or CPD.

A membership alliance dedicated to saving lives by improving health throughout the world.

The site is good for current awareness - publications, videos, events, research... It also includes job listings.