Mashups

Want an application that puts it all together? Something that has elements of web pages, blogging, wikis, podcasts, videocasts, comments, sharing, collaboration? One program that allows you to complete all the tasks for ICT 07561? (Now he tells us…)

There are more and more applications that put together multiple web-based social networking functions. These are often referred to as mash ups.

Check out PikiWiki.

Here is a bit of a PikiWiki page that I started. I have made it so that you can edit this page and add materials. Watch this Jing presentation on using PikiWiki. Please jump in and leave a comment or a podcast or a video clip. Just click on the page edit button and explore the different options.

Let’s have another group Skype meeting this Tuesday, June 17 at 5:00. We can also use Yugma.

Once again if that time is not convenient for you give me a call anytime you see me available on Skype.

Desktop sharing applications

The time alloted for this course is winding up. I am glad to see the way that everybody has taken on the various course tasks and shared your experiences with each other in our Skype sessions and in the blog comments on each others blogs.

I have had great conversations with many of you by Skype and in blog comments. The papers that have been shared with me so far through Google docs look very interesting. I think that you will be able to make meaningful contributions to the discussions of web-based tools for ICT in your professional settings.

One of the last few applications I would like to try is a program called Yugma. This is a desktop sharing application that is very similar to the DimDIm program that we have used a few times in our Skype sessions. In this case, you will need to download and install the program and set up an free Yugma account. The process is very similar to the one you used when you set up Skype.

Get Yugma set up and we can try it out in a Skype session this Friday, June 13 at 4:45.  Again, if that time doesn’t work for you please make arrangements with me to try it out another time.

If you are intending to write the paper, please set up the Google Document with me as soon as possible. I will only accept papers written using a shared Google doc. Once the Google Doc is set up we can use it to have a conversation about your paper within the shared document.

A few people have set up concept maps to develop the outline for their papers and I think that is a good way to work. The Mindmeister application makes it very simple to share a concept map with me the same as Google Docs.

The last official day of the course is June 19 and I have a week after that to submit your final grade. I do have a fair bit of flexibility to grant extensions so let me know if you will need more time to complete the tasks for the grade that you want.  I hope that everyone would challenge the requirements for the Grade of A and I will do my best to help you complete all the tasks.

Web Video

Another of the powerful online tools available to teachers is the web video. This is a way to record audiovisual material and upload it to a video service where it can be viewed online. Once the video is posted, it can be shared by embedding the video in your blog or by making a link available on your blog to the web video. Stephen Downes has recently published a journal article in Innovate:Journal of Online Education that explains some of the background and impact of web based video. You might have to sign in to view this article but it would be worth the effort, the ramifications for formal and informal education are interesting.

You can use any type of device to record video for up loading; a digital video recorder, many digital cameras and even many of the newer cell phones allow you to record video in a format that you can save on your computer and upload to a web based service.

Any video can be uploaded as long as it is in an acceptable file type such as .WMV. AVI, .MOV, .MP4, .MPG or .FLV.

Probably the simplest way to record video is to use your computer’s web cam, microphone and Windows Movie Maker, a movie editing application that is included as part of the basic Windows system. Here is a short Jing presentation on Windows Movie Maker.

Once you have created a movie file, you can upload it to a service such as TeacherTube which is a free service dedicated to educational video materials. You will need to establish an account with Teacher Tube using your alias and your Gmail account.

Here is another short Jing on uploading to Teacher Tube.

So then, here is the link to the ICT Demo video on Teacher Tube.

I know that this looks pretty simple but I am aware that the first time using many of these tools can be confusing. Too many choices and too much to learn. Everyone has been doing very well and I am very pleased to see people experimenting with different things. If any one has any questions let me know and we can arrange to talk any time.

Let’s get together again by Skype on Tuesday, June 3 at 4:45 to talk about recording and uploading web video. If you are not available at that time please let me know, so that we can make other arrangements.

We are getting near the end of the alloted time for ICT 07561 and we have covered most of the tasks that were in the course outline. I’m hoping to get at least one personal session with each of you by Skype before the end of the course.

I have a very interesting story to tell everybody on Tues about a thing called Twitter my buddy Amy in Philadelphia and Howard Rheingold.

Downes, S. (2008). Places to Go: YouTube. Innovate: Joural of Online Education, 4(5). Retrieved June 4, 2008, from http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=633&action=article.

Pedagogy of Propinquity

I used this term in another forum and realized that I had made it up completely, the Google search showed no entries so I figured I’d better stake a claim to the term. I’ll do it here and maybe we can get a discussion going.

The pedagogy of propinquity means learning that happens along the way to learning other things. This so often happens when I search the net for something. Google returns a bajilion hits and in the process of narrowing things down you look at a lot of false leads. Though they may be false leads for the initial search they often yield interesting and useful information.

I have heard this referred to as a serendipitous literature review, or accidental learning.  I think I even read an article a while ago extolling the virtues of goofing off on the web and the incredibly powerful learning that can happen when you least expect it. Kind of a Zen like attention/non attention thing. Like you have to relax to see one of those magic eye puzzles.

Podcasting

Podcasting is a way to post audio content on a web log. This has become very popular for recording and sharing a wide variety of educational content.

The term podcast originated with the Mac iPod but many other products and applications have been developed. Technically an audio recording doesn’t actually become a podcast until you download it onto an iPod ( or MP3 player or other audio player) This way you can download a lecture to listen to on the bus on the way home.

Teachers are finding podcasts to be an effective way to share classroom presentations for later access by students.

There are quite a few ways to podcast and we will explore a few of them in this course. We will start with two free programs that will allow you to record an audio file, upload it to the Internet and link to it on your web log.

We will use a program called Audacity to create a digital recording and a web based service called Gcast to upload and store your audio files online. You will then set up a link in your Blogger web log to your online audio file so that visitors to your blog will be able to click a link and hear your recorded file. That’s a podcast.

The first thing we need to do is to record some audio content. Each multi-media computer has a microphone and speakers and the ability to turn audio into a computer file that can be managed like any other file. We need an application to create and edit an digital audio file.

One of the best audio editing applications is a free product called Audacity. It is very simple to download, set up and operate but it allows for fairly sophisticated editing and production.

Download a copy of Audacity 1.2.6 to your computer and open the application. The application will automatically find your microphone and speakers so you don’t have to do much other setting up. I am enclosing a link to a tutorial for setting up Audacity. I have also recorded a Jing presentation that walks through the steps. There are many other excellent resources on the web.

Once you have recorded content and stored it in a file on your computer you are ready to set up an account with a podcasting service. I will recommend that we use Gcast a free service that is easy to use and easy to connect to a web log. I have created another small presentation that walks through the process of posting to Gcast and linking to a blog.

We can talk about some other features of Audacity and Gcast next Tuesday, May, 27 at 4:45 on Skype. If you want to work through any of the details, Skype me anytime you see my online icon.

Zotero on Firefox

One of the research tools that has been very useful to me when writing academic papers is Zotero. This tool allows for the easy storage of references and creation of bibliographic entries. It is an “add-on” for the web browser Firefox by Mozilla. It is good to get experience with web browsers other that IE and many free versions are far superior for different activities. Firefox is a good example of a customizable web browser that is designed to work with the Web 2.0 activities that we are engaged in with this course. Many people have been developing all sorts of free “add-ons” that give Firefox added value.

You can download and set up the Mozilla FIrefox browser on your computer for free it in about 2 minutes depending on your internet speed. You will be able to run Firefox or IE so you will be able to compare the strengths of each. When you set up Firefox it will ask you to decide what browser you want to use as your default browser and if you want to import your IE book marks. I would recommend importing your book marks. This it won’t affect your IE browser and you can use both browsers. Firefox will install an icon on your desktop.

Once you have set up Firefox it is very easy to install Zotero. This add-on is a free download available from the Zotero website. There are also some excellent resources on the same site to get people started using this fabulous research tool. Click on the download button and follow the directions it basically installs itself into your Firefox browser. Firefox and Zotero will be installed on your computer so you will have local copies of all your links and

Here is a short presentation about how I use Zotero. Don’t be alarmed if your Firefox doesn’t look like mine. I’ve been customizing mine for a while.

How about we try to meet on Skype on Tuesday, May 20 at 5:00 this week. Trying to find a time that works for more people. I’d like to review our progress against the course objectives at this point among other things.

Social Bookmarking with Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a web-based tool for storing, managing and sharing web site bookmarks. Once again it is free tool and very easy to set up and use. Please review the Commoncraft video Social Bookmarking in Plain English.

Here are some of the ways that I use Del.icio.us. As I do my daily scan of the various blogs, wikis and online resources that I track in my news reader, I come across items that are of interest. I might not have time to write a blog entry or the item might be not significant enough to justify an complete reflective entry but I still want to be able to find my way back to the web address.

I could make a bookmark in my browser but after awhile that gets to be a bit of a nightmare. Del.icio.us lets me organize bookmarks with a system that I can personalize by creating a tag that has meaning to me. I can go back later and review all the resources by searching my Del.icio.us account for the tag that I have created.

I can also share the items that I have tagged without having to send an email to somebody to let them know what I have found and why it is interesting. That is where social bookmarking gets social.

You will notice that I have set up a Del.icio.us widget in the sidebar of this course blog. When I started designing this course I created a tag in my Del.icio.us account with the (old) course number, 07:598. Every time I came across an item that I thought would be of interest to this group I tagged it with the 07:598 tag. What I have done on this course blog is set up the WordPress widget to interact with my del.icio.us account and specified that it display all the items I have tagged with 07:598 so far. (This can also be done in Blogger) I will continue to tag sites of interest to this group with this tag.

Pretty slick!

I invite everyone to set up a Del.icio.us account using your course alias and password and begin exploring the possibilities. You can find a link to Del.icio.us on the resources page of the course wiki or you can just Google it. You can also add Delicious buttons to your browser tool bar that makes tagging a one click operation. I would highly recommend this step. It works in Internet Explorer but is a lot simpler with FireFox web browser.

What I am hoping is that you will also create a tag 07:598 in your Del.icio.us account and start tagging things that might be of interest to this group. We can start accumulating , organizing and sharing a large amount of information in a hurry.

As always, please continue to document your experiences in your blog and read and comment on the entries of your co-learners’ blogs.

I will be available for a Skype session this week on Friday, May 17 at 5:00 CST. We will use DimDim again so I can show you some of the steps to set up Del.icio.us and link it on your blog.

Google Docs

Google Docs is an amazing innovation in web based productivity tools. Part of the suite of products packaged with each Gmail account, Google Docs includes word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Google Docs incorporates many Web 2.0 functions that allow for the real-time collaborative generation of web based documents.

When you open your Gmail account you will notice a “Documents” link at the top of the page. This link allows you to access your own Google Docs application. No need to download an application or set up another account. Your Gmail ID and password are all that is necessary.

Please watch this simple video presentation and then explore Google Docs. We will be using the Google Docs word processor to complete the final requirement for this course. It will be useful to become familiar with this tool so that we can start planning for the final paper.

When we meet by Skype next , we will set up a Google Docs session where we will all work together in a single document, at the same time. We will be able to see each others contribution as soon as it is made. Once again if you are not available Monday we can schedule another time for trying this out.

I think you will be able to imagine the possibilities that this sort of collaboration could hold for classroom activities.

Next get together

Were you alerted to this post in your Google Reader? That is certainly the advantage of RSS feeds when you are following a resource that has new material added on an irregular basis. You don’t have to keep checking back to each resource, you only have to check your Google reader and it keeps track of the changes to the things that you have told it to track.

Most people are set up with Skype now and we had a group conversation last Friday. I would certainly invite each of you to make contact with each other by Skype.

There are a few things you should try:

• the video,
• try setting up your own conference call on Skype with others in the course,
• try sharing links in the chat while you are having a spoken conversation,
• Try searching in contacts for associates, friends and family who might already be using Skype.

One of the next applications I want to look at is the Google Documents application. This is another tool that is a category bending application, an online word processor that allows you to collaborate in real time. The final paper for this course will be written using Google Docs so I want to introduce it now so everybody is familiar with it in lots of time. We can discuss it a bit when we meet on Skype and we can explore it together.

I’m adjusting our time slightly to try to make it more accessible for all. I realize that it isn’t going to work for all at every time.

We will try for Friday May 9 at 4:00 central time.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me at any other time. Look for my clear Green Skype icon, drop me a quick chat and lets talk.

Reading RSS Feeds

Our next step is to set up a feed reader or news aggregator. There are a number of free, web based applications that perform this function. The one I would like to start with is Google Reader.

Simply do a Google search for Google Reader and follow the directions on the site for setting up an account. You already have a Google account set up so you can use your alias and your course Gmail address to set this up the Google Reader account.

It might be useful to review the Commoncraft video “RSS in Plain English” that is linked on the first entry on this blog.

I have created a mini-tutorial for using Google Reader using to talk about how to add links and how to use some of the other features. Please view this tutorial by clicking this link.

I created the presentation with an application called Jing, another tool that we will work with more later. To view a Jing presentation you simply click on the the link and then click on the big play button in the center of the video that shows up. You can also pause and restart the Jing presentation. At times you may have to scroll up and down as the presentation is being played to follow all the mouse clicks.

You may want to open two browser windows, one to view the Jing presentation and another to have your Google Reader account open. That way you can pause the video, switch browser pages and work in your Google Reader account. When you want to go on to the next step you can go back to the first browser page and resume the video.

Please add the feed from the course blog and the feeds from the blogs of all other members of our group to your Google Reader account. Once your feeds are set up, start creating entries in your own blogs. You should try to make daily entries for a while to get accustomed to the process. You should also be commenting on each others blogs as much as possible to get the conversation flowing. I will be watching my Google Reader account for updates to your blogs.

If you have any trouble viewing the Jing presentation or using the Bloglines application. Please phone me at 204 730 0837 or even better send me a Skype message. I do not intend to make you work through these tools on your own. You do, however, need to explore and let me know if you need my help.