This is the last of the four webinars that I produced for our clergy. This topic covers Google+, Hangouts and Drive. I hope that our clergy will find this useful in figuring out how to use these important collaboration tools.
On a personal note, scheduling four webinars for the same week was a bit aggressive. Perhaps future episodes should be spaced out a bit more.
We are experimenting at work with technology webinars delivered over the Google+ Hangout system. This was the first of four that I am working on this week. It’s a very basic discussion of the history of technology, where are are now and a brief overview of social networks and hardware options. The class is designed for our clergy that want more of an overview of various technology topics. It was well received when I went on a recent training trip so I thought I would repackage it here for online viewing. You can find out more about the webinar schedule here: http://nccumc.org/it/webinars/.
I have narrowed down my Google Reader replacement choice to either Feedly or The Old Reader. I have set up accounts with both services and tried using each for a few days. Here’s what I’ve found:
Feedly has a nice looking interface that takes some time to adjust to.
Feedly was the first service that I tried to use. After being used to the Google Reader interface for several years this was quite an adjustment to make. I was looking for a concise presentation of headlines with perhaps a small snippet of the article itself. Feedly’s interface concentrates more on the presentation of the data instead. It took me awhile to get used to this interface. The mobile apps for this service mirror the website closely. I was able to use it on my smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop computer.
The Old Reader has the closest interface to Google Reader. Mobile support isn’t that great though.
The Old Reader had the closest interface to Google Reader. The layout felt familiar and was the easiest to adjust to. The biggest problem with this service was the lack of good support for mobile devices. There is no corresponding app for smart phones or tablets. The website interface didn’t seem to work well in the mobile browser. I kept accidentally clicking the wrong links as I was using it.
At the end of the day I decided to stick with Feedly. Both sites were very easy to configure and start using. After I imported my Google Reader feed list they picked right up where Google dropped me. Even though Google Reader is still going for a few more months I’ve already switched. The key factor in my decision was mobile support. You just can’t beat a solid mobile app.
I spend way too much time on Facebook. It’s been bothering me for awhile now but I’ve ignored it. At last count I have 242 friends in that service. With all of the groups that I subscribe to, my likes (and my friend’s likes) and various other interactions there is a lot of background noise on that site. I spend a great deal of time filtering through that noise.
Some of my friends post genuinely funny, witty and relevant content. I love interacting with them and finding out what is going on with them and their families. I also enjoy keeping up with my own family. Facebook keeps me in closer touch with them than I ever was before they started using it. It is a very valuable tool for interacting with the people that I am journeying through this life with.
The rest of the system is a giant noise generation machine. People post the same memes and joke photos repeatedly. Blocking game notifications is a lot like playing whack-a-mole. My likes and my friend’s likes keep cluttering my news feeds with advertisements. I won’t even comment on presidential elections, the gun control debate, how much I love Jesus, support the troops or any other major news story of the day. My news feed settings seem to change from time to time, burying content from the folks that I interact with regularly underneath a digital waterfall. It’s true that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you take that one opinion and multiply it by 242 and the sound can be deafening.
I don’t mean this to be a complaint against Facebook. I’ve been using it since it was first released to the public. I still enjoy using it. I just remember when I didn’t need to spend a lot of time every day keeping up with all of that content. I’m burned out. I need a break.
It would seem that the easy solution would be to cut into my friends list. We all have a bunch of folks that we added on a whim, or because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe they were much better friends in the past than they are now. People change. People move on. Paths diverge and people head off in opposite directions. No hard feelings, right? It turns out there are hard feelings after all. Somewhere along the way people started tying their personal identities into their Facebook profiles. Some people (myself included) don’t mind if they get removed from other’s friends lists. It’s nothing personal. After all, it’s just a website, right? Others take it personally. The first time I had to deal with personal fallout from my friends list was an eye-opening experience. Fast forward to today and I’m getting tired of worrying about it. I could hide them from my news feed. I could even limit what they can see. That’s not the point though. It’s my profile, not theirs. When I start feeling like I can’t remove people because of how they will take it then I’ve lost control of my information. I find that to be unsettling.
The fact that I’m tired is also troubling. It means that this social network has become way too heavily integrated in my daily life. I’ve been going back and forth with this decision for a long time now. I’ve finally made up my mind. I’m going to take a break. I’ll write about that process as I work through it. Will it stick? Will I be able to handle the silence? Time will tell. I’ll write more on this decision later. For now though, it feels good to have finally made up my mind. Instead of reading Facebook today I think I’ll read a book!
Google announced today that one of my favorite web services will be shut down:
We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Reader (the actual date is July 1, 2013). We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too.
I don’t think they feel as sad about it as I do. I have used this service nearly every day since it launched way back in 2005. I manage literally hundreds of feeds and scan through thousands of posts every week. I access it via the website and all of my mobile devices. To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m going to do to replace this service.
So, what’s a good replacement service that offers the same (or similar) feature set?
I submitted my first article for our new Faith & Technology blog today. We are starting this up as a collaborative effort between several clergy and lay people around our Conference. Its purpose is to discuss technology and the various ways in which it impacts faith and our local church community. This is my first foray into scheduled writing for another publication (except for this blog of course). My first article discusses what happens to clergy with full friends lists when they leave a church. I am very excited about this opportunity. Be sure to subscribe. We have lots of interesting things coming!
The FCC will be unveiling new rules on network neutrality at a presentation for The Brookings Institution tomorrow. This is a very exciting development for the protection of consumer rights on the Internet. It was also a major plank of President Obama’s technology platform. We should all be watching the outcome of this important development.
The top U.S. communications regulator plans to unveil proposals Monday for ensuring Web traffic is not slowed or blocked based on its content, sources familiar with the contents of the speech said on Friday.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce plans to ask his fellow commissioners to adopt as a rule net neutrality and four existing principles on Internet access issued by the agency in 2005, one of the sources said.
RT @RoadID: It's troubling to be riding my bike next to a car & see the driver so focused on his phone he doesn't notice me staring....3ft … 1 week ago
