eLearn Magazine: Education and Technology in Perspective

eLearn Magazine: Education and Technology in Perspective

#23 Audiobooks

This would be great for passing the time commuting, but I haven't found a lot of interesting titles in the free directories yet. If you're not into the classics, the prospects aren't too exciting.

#22 eBooks

I use eBooks all the time for research. If you're subscribed to an academic library, the sky is your limit. I use a database called eBrary. It is great to have access to printed material, all online, without going through the interloan process of requesting articles or books to be mailed to you. Great stuff!

#21 Online Video

I often use Teacher Tube and You Tube for tutorials in my role as ICTPD facilitator. It is often useful to get the latest 'how to' instructions for new Web2.0 tools. The Medieval  IT Helpdesk is a classic and I've used it in my training sessions. It's great to find Rachel Boyd's TeacherTube video about blogging there -go the Kiwis :-). The Think Before You Post video has a very powerful message and we used it in our cyber citizen awareness sessions.
We used Prezi as a presentation tool at a recent conference instead of Powperpoint. This video will give you a good idea of what the tool is about.

#20 Podcasts

http://castroller.com/

I must admit I got a little carried away with my podcasting explorations. I stumbled upon CastRoller. It lets you browse podcasts, create your own collection, share episodes, import podcasts and even create your own podcasts. This is a one-stop site for podcasting. I'm feeding all my subscriptions to the site. Previously I had some podcasts feed to iTunes and Pageflakes, but I think this is going to work better overall.

#19 Rollyo

This was the first tool that did not work smoothly when I tried it. The website was very slow and the first few times I tried to create a new searchroll it timed out. I did manage to add the widget to my blog. I could see this tool utilised in an online teaching environment where you want students to use only specified web resources.

#18 Wikis

I've been using wikis for a little over a year now. I find it a very useful tool for collaboration and sharing of information. It is also more 'sociable'  than a blog, for you have many 'voices' contributing. I came across this educational blog that I immediately joined as they are doing many things along the same lines as my team at work http://teaching-with-technology.wikispaces.com/
Wikis are very useful within a community of learners, whether they be teachers, students or just a group with similar interests.

#17 Delicious

I use Delicious all the time. It can be useful in all the contexts mentioned in the task. What I find really useful is that you have all your links together and accessible in one place and that you can build communities of practice/learning by sharing these bookmarks. It also gets me into the habit of tagging the bookmarks which makes it searchable and adds another layer of usefulness, if you like. Once you start creating networks, it can become really interesting and it saves a lot of time if you're after specific information. Just do a search and see what other people have already found on the topic.

#16 Subsribe to some blogs

I am following a few blogs by using My Blog Links widget. In this way I always see the latest posts and I can read the complete blogs in one click.

#15 RSS feeds

I've used Google Reader for a while and find it handy to read all ones feeds in one place. As the space grows you can also organize feeds into folders. All the blogs I'm following feed into this reader. It's an easy way to follow the progress of my classmates on this course and I could imagine it to be useful to a course facilitator too for the same reason.

#14 Facebook

I have a personal Facebook profile and I've linked it to Pageflakes which is my home page. In this way I stay connected with friends from school and university and keep up with my relatives overseas.

#13 MySpace

Personally I find MySpace too commercial. It is useful if you want to follow celebritity profiles, but I prefer Facebook for personal use. There is also a lot of unwanted advertising on MySpace. I could see the application of a MySpace page for a public library, as long as it is frequently maintained. My experience with Drupal is with a previous version and we use it on our intranet. It has a much more conservative look than the examples in the link. It is quite cumbersome to load images and you need a bit of coding knowledge to make it work properly.

Visual dictionary

Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images.
http://blachan.com/shahi/

#12 Flickr: This Photo Rocks!

This Photo Rocks!
Originally uploaded by Extra Medium

Fantastic play on words and colour!

#11 Library Thing

I am a real bookaholic, so I find LT really great. I think that it could be a specially useful tool in the library at our school, seeing that we're a distance education provider. The librarian could use the widget on the library's webpage to showcase new arrivals and it could also be interesting for students to see how widely these book are being read (or not).

#10 Image Generators

This is way too much fun! OK, I'm restricting myself to stop and show what I've created...
Cool Text Generator

Voki   She talks too!

Glowtext 
Fotosketcher This does require a download, but I think it's definitely worth the space. I've taken a Flickr photo and turned it into a water colour.

#9 Virtual Worlds

It is an eye opener too see how many virtual worlds there are around. I am personally not a huge fan of SecondLife because I can barely manage to get everything done in my 'real life', let alone in a second life. I have seen some interesting applications e.g. a PhD student who posted his thesis displayed as an art exhibition. You could literally read from the walls and walk through rooms of information - fascinating.
As a parent I am frequently confronted with new virtual worlds such as Club Penguin and Rune Scape. Most of these do contain the social interaction component of IM (instant messaging) as well as the entertainment features of games, quests and creating personal spaces.
I discovered Whyville which is a virtual world for 10-16 year olds. What I find reassuring about this site is the parent information and the fact that users need to attain their Chat License before they interact freely with other users.
ExitReality is a fascinating concept but quite a logical development if you take into account the advances 3D technologies have made in the past decade. I must admit that I wasn't aware of the 3D sites being 'searchable' as such.
To summarise, the development of virtual worlds could have very interesting possibilities for visual learners. It is however always important that it's not about the technology, but about the learning outcomes for students.

#8 iGoogle

I've had an iGoogle page for quite a while. It's not set as my homepage, so I do not make as much use of it as I could. What I added today are:
Webopedia's Page of the Day (for my job), SunflowerGlam, Random Bible Verse and one of the Facebook gadgets.
I would love to be a Google employee. I am a firm believer of looking very carefully after your employees and Google seems to get this right. All the elements of flexibility, nutrition, excercise and relaxation are incorporated into the 'campus'. Although this seems like heaven on earth, I am still mindful of the fact that it could take over your life completely... and the downside - I think I was born 2 decades too early :-) All the employees are REALLY young!

#7 Google Books

Google books in NZ
An interesting development on the front of Google Books is the joining of New Zealand authors. There seems to be mixed opinions, but I found the take of Auckland University Press sensible.
“Allowing people to preview books generates more sales, so we are going to give that a try. If in a year or so we don’t like it, then we will pull our books out,” says Sam Elworthy, Auckland Uni Press.
I find the feature to preview a book very useful, especially if it is an academic resource. Often the title can be somewhat misleading and it is not until you've had the opportunity to look at the contents page and even some of the chapter excerpts that you can make an informed decision about buying the book. I think that Google Books definitely exposes the work of authors to a much wider audience and in my view that is the ultimate goal - to have as many people as possible read your work!

Activity#6, Google Maps

I’ve used Google maps before just to find the locations of places around the city. Another feature of Google maps is that you can actually create your own customised maps with descriptive text, videos, photos and rich text. This map can either be private or listed publically. You’ll need to sign in to your Google account to do this.
You can also draw the route from one place to another and include the driving directions. It even gives you a time and distance estimate. Very cool!
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68480
Here is a little map I created.

Activity#5, Google Docs

Google docs is fantastic for working collaboratively. I use this often to collate information for updating contact details and conducting short surveys. You can use the forms to create a questionnaire which feeds straight into a spreadsheet. You can then manipulate the data as you would in an Excel spreadsheet.

Activity#4, Web2.0

I find the concept of Library2.0 intriguing and very logical. Since libraries have traditionally been kowledge repositories, it is interesting to see them taking on the 'social responsibility' of providing information in a connected world. I see their role as critical in teaching users to cope in a world of information overload.

Activity#2, Create a blog

I am really looking forward to learning more about Web2.0 and how to apply the tools in a teaching and learning environment. Exciting times!