Weeks 8 and 9

Oh dear! Behind again ...

Last week went by in a flash - the first few days filled with producing letters for successful applicants and stuffing them in envelopes (which had already been filled with useful documents, described by one of the new intake on Facebook as 'a massive "do u have a disability/religion/allergy/buy a gown please" pack'. Then on Thursday and Friday we were fielding phonecalls from applicants who hadn't made their offer grades, and their teachers. :(

Anyway, onward and upward!

Week 8, Extra Things: tumblr and posterous

Shortage of time at this point in the summer means that I probably won't venture further than Blogger for blogging at the moment. We have a bookgroup blog on tumblr, so I have participated in that by commenting etc.

Week 9, Thing 16: Flickr

Hurray! Something else I already use! Mainly for my holiday snaps, it must be said, but still - I have an account, and I do use it from time to time. I need to update it for this year - have got Prague photos from March up there, but still haven't done Orkney & Shetland (May).

Week 9, Thing 17: Podcasts

I went to a talk about these at a conference for teachers of English as a foreign language (I used to do this in a former life) and it's something we might consider for our website. Just not right now ...

OK, that's enough for today. Now I only have to worry about the weather: supposed to be going to the open air Shakespeare at King's this evening, and have just noticed that it's started raining. 

Week 8 - nearly caught up!

Woohoo! Nearly there! Just as well, as I'll be in the office tomorrow (Sunday) morning to get the A-level results (they are released to universities a few days early), and we will then have a pretty hectic few days getting confirmation/rejection letters done ready to post out to applicants on Wednesday, so that they get them on the same day as the results are published.

Thing 14: Facebook.
I have a personal account which I'm now using more than I did to begin with. Initially I couldn't see the attraction, and in fact found the whole business rather tedious. However, a young person of my acquaintance informed me that this was because I didn't have enough friends (thanks!) and it's true that as my list of friends has gradually grown, the status updates have become more interesting.


There is also a group set up for applicants holding offers from Newnham. In fact, the equivalent group set up a few years back was the reason I joined FB in the first place - to keep an eye on what they were saying! I don't join the group myself, as I don't want to cramp their style, but I have asked the Schools Liaison Officer to join, as she is nearer to them in age, and can advise them to contact the Admissions Office if the current students are not able to answer their questions.


Thing 15: LinkedIn
As I'm now in the last few years of my professional career (just hit 60 this year!), I don't think I'll bother with this. The admissions officers in all the colleges have a very good and active email list, which we use to ask for advice, pass on tips, and generally keep in touch in between our termly meetings.


Phew! That's enough for now. Will leave tumblr and posterous for next week - if I have a minute in between fielding tearful phonecalls ...

Week 7 Things

Thing 12 - bookmarking.
Had a quick look at Delicious: one of its selling points seems to be that you can see other people's favourite websites. Browsing through the top ten on the front page, there was only one that caught my attention (10 things to do if you hate your job - quite sensible suggestions, but as I love my job, scarcely relevant!). Maybe I'm just not very adventurous, but I have a very limited collection of bookmarks, both on my home laptop (BBC messageboards, Trip Advisor, Facebook, my bank and a few time-wasting games) and at work (BBC school league tables, the University undergrad admissions handbook, Student Finance and one or two others). I'm also quite disciplined about getting rid of bookmarks I no longer need, and organising them in folders, so signing up to another tool seems a bit like overkill.

Thing 13 - LibraryThing
Not a librarian, so wouldn't use this for work. I was slightly tempted however, to use it as a reading diary. However, given limited time, I'd rather be reading than listing the books I've read, so - thanks but no thanks!

More Things ... still catching up

OK - where did we get to last week? Ah yes, Week 5, Extra Thing: Dropbox. Have decided I don't really need this - the Newnham IT office has set up our own file-sharing system, which seems to work all right, and I need to get on to Week 7 or I'll never catch up!

Week 6: reflection. It was good to meet people at B Bar and put some faces to names. From reading Aidan's blog I realise we live in the same part of Cambridge, although I didn't pick this up during the evening ...

So, reflecting ...

• What have you learned that's new?
  iGoogle, Google Reader, RSS feeds, Lightshot, among others.
• What have you enjoyed about '23 things' so far?
  Trying out new stuff, and reading the blogs.
• Which of the thing do you love/hate?
  Love Lightshot, not so keen on iGoogle, wouldn't even bother with Pushnote.
• Which ones will you carry on using?
  Probably Google docs (for the book group), if I can get it to work; Lightshot; will be experimenting with a blog for applicants in the next admissions round.
• Can you incorporate the things you're learning on this programme into your (working) life?
  See previous question ...

Pushnote and Evernote

Still trying to catch up with Week 5!


Had a read through the stuff about Pushnote, and also read what Anna said about it. Decided I agreed with her points, so haven't taken this any further.


Just installing Evernote ... my firewall didn't recognise it, so I'm hoping it's safe!


OK - have created my first note (a to-do list - I'm very fond of them!). Don't have time to explore any more at the moment. Watch this space.

Catching up

... rather breathlessly! I thought that having the office to myself for two weeks would let me catch up on all sorts of things, but I seem to be spending rather a lot of time sending out reminders to people who need to send me information to put into the freshers' information packs as well as doing loads of photocopying for said packs, so the Things have been a bit neglected.

Week 5, Thing 9 - Google docs

Again, this is something I have used in the past with the Admissions team. We thought it would be a good idea to have a web-based spreadsheet so that the Admissions Tutor and Schools Liaison Officer could enter details of their visits to schools while on the move, rather than having to wait until they were back in the office. The plan was that I would then download the spreadsheet from time to time, so that I had an up-to-date version. This was not completely successful, for two reasons:

- the AT and SLO still had to be nagged to fill in the spreadsheet, and as the nagging took place while they were in the office, it rather destroyed the point of having a web-based document;

- when I downloaded the document, any visits which had been entered since the last download had the date in the American format (mm/dd/year), so I had to check them all and manually change them.

Add to that the problems I have had recently trying (unsuccessfully) to access a spreadsheet connected to one of my book groups, and you'll see why I'm not totally enthusiastic about Google docs, although I recognise that it's a good idea in principle.

Week 5, Thing 10 - Pushnote and Evernote

Week 5, Extra Thing - Dropbox

OK - read the instructions and created an account for Pushnote, but somehow don't think the IT guys at work will take too kindly to me installing any unauthorised 'extras', so will leave this to try out on my home computer. Same applies to Dropbox - we have our own online file-sharing set up by the IT office.

And on to Week 7!

Reflecting ...

Had a week's holiday earlier this month (a few days in Weymouth, lovely weather, swam in the sea!), came back to my desk to a bit of a backlog. At the end of that week our lovely Schools Liaison Officer left us for pastures new, and my boss was off on her hols for two weeks, so there was quite a lot to sort out before they went. As a result, the Things got a bit neglected. However, fortunately quite a few of them were things I was already familiar with - here's a quick round-up of comments:

Screen-casting: This was new to me, and I can see that it could be very useful. The Cambridge Admissions Office used this technique to explain to applicants how to fill in the Supplementary Application Questionnaire, I seem to remember, and it was very successful. However, I don't think it's going to be something I will need in the near future - just as well, as the college system was very reluctant to let me load Screencast-o-matic.

Doodle: I've been using this for a while, mainly in the book groups I belong to (three, at the last count!) and guess what - I was introduced to it by a librarian! Brilliant tool, and I plan to indoctrinate my office colleagues as soon as a suitable opportunity comes up.

Google calendar: The Admissions team use this as a means of keeping everyone in the loop as regards who is in the office on a specific day, who is on school visits, when Open Days are scheduled etc. I have separate calendars for work and personal commitments, but the Admissions Tutor doesn't discriminate between the two, so occasionally we come across events such as children's dental appointments, Brownie meetings or Pilates classes too. Very useful, but we have found it a bit fiddly adding new people (new SLO starts next month) and giving them access to each other's calendars. Not always very intuitive.

OK, will stop there for now, and do Week 5 Things in a separate post.

LightShot is brilliant!

Thanks Ange! Just look at this pic of my very new great-niece as seen on Facebook:



All together now: aaaah!

Tweet tweet!

Well here I am at Thing 4 - rather belatedly. I have been on Twitter for a while now, and still don't really see the attraction. Although I have to admit that it's a source of entertainment on long train journeys, now that I can get it on my phone; it would be even better if I could work out how to RT things on the phone ...

Don't think we'll be using it to communicate with applicants any time soon - some of them seem to have difficulty in grasping the concept of replying to emails, so this would definitely be a step too far for them! For similar reasons, I don't think I'll be trying out the 'extras' this week. But thanks for the recommendations!

Cam 23 Week 2 - onward and upward!

I'm sitting at my desk staring at the rain bucketing down, and listening to crashes of thunder, while I wait for a group of 20 Year 10 and 11 students to arrive for a tour of the College ... oh well, maybe it will stop in the next 15 minutes?

OK - Thing 3: RSS Feed. This was completely new to me, but I have managed without much trouble to sign up to Google Reader (now in my bookmarks list), to add the Cam 23 blog and another one I follow, and to subscribe to BBC News. I am so proud of myself!

Rain is getting heavier, and there is now lightning as well as thunder. At least if it doesn't stop for the school group visit, fingers crossed that it stops by the time I need to cycle home.

How to address an Honourable

Today I had an email from an Honourable (as in 'the Honourable Joe Bloggs') and momentarily hesitated over the salutation in the reply. Googling 'forms of address' took me to Debrett's Online, which is full of fascinating stuff from the social season to everyday etiquette. It took ages for the relevant bit to appear on the screen (not sure if the site is very slow, or if it was my computer having an after-lunch nap), but I can now reveal that:
"All sons of a viscount have the courtesy title of 'The Honourable' before their forename and surname. The style of 'The Honourable' (usually abbreviated to 'The Hon') is only used on the envelope in correspondence, in written descriptions (usually only on the first mention) or in formal documents.  It is never used in conversation or on invitations or on visiting cards, when the correct style is 'Mr'.

How to address the Sons of a Viscount

The recommended (social) style of address is as follows:

Beginning of letter	Dear Mr Brown
End of letter	Yours sincerely
Envelope	The Hon John Brown
Verbal communication	Mr Brown (or appropriate rank if in the Services)
Invitation	Mr John Brown
Description in conversation	Mr Brown
List of Directors or Patrons Hon John Brown	Hon John Brown
Place card	Mr John Brown
Legal document	John William   Brown Esquire commonly called The Hon John Brown"

I bet you all wanted to know that.

PS: Thing 1

Although I've been blogging for a while, and the Newnham Admissions team are seasoned users of Google calendar, iGoogle was new to me. When I first logged in with this ID, I found it a bit annoying that it reverted to my work ID, and I think I'll have to get used to logging out and doing 23 Things in a completely separate time-slot, rather than fitting in bits and pieces in between other work. Oh well, we'll see!

All systems go!

This is my first blog for Cam23 2.0, although I have already blogged in other places (which may or may not be revealed later in this blog).

As a non-librarian, I feel highly honoured to be able to participate in 23 Things and I'm looking forward to discovering new stuff that I may be able to use in my work in the Admissions Office at Newnham College. We are always on the lookout for new ways to communicate with school students, applicants and offerholders, and as they are probably more experienced users of social media than I am, this may help me to catch up!

This week is full of new systems:

• this afternoon I was at a 'roadshow' for the new Cambridge Online Preliminary Application - an electronic application form for overseas applicants and those applying for Organ Scholarships and Choral Awards; it will go live next Monday ...
• tomorrow, Thursday and maybe Friday I'll be taking part in UAT (User Acceptance Testing) for the Interviews module of CamSIS - to be used by Newnham Admissions Office for the first time in the next admissions round, i.e. for 2012 applicants;
• and 23 Things.

Look forward to reading what everybody else is up to!