Friday 30 October 2009

#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.


Thursday 22 October 2009

#20 Podcasts

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.

Sunday 18 October 2009

#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.

Thursday 15 October 2009

#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.

Saturday 3 October 2009

#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.