So, the summer semester for 2012 is finally over. I probably did not enjoy the breakneck pace all that much...at least as of right now. It's 3:02 am and tomorrow morning is going to creep up on my pretty fast. Oh, well. All I have to say is that I learned a lot about Web 2.0 Tools in this course. There are quite a bit of them out there. Some are great (Wordle, Tagxedo, Screencast) and some are not so great (Wridea and one other one that I did a project on but I cannot remember the name right now so you see how much of an impression that it made). I also learned that for me (at this point in time) I certainly do not want to write for or work on a blog on a regular basis. Perhaps that will change, but I have so much going on with learning a ton of other things that a blog is at the bottom of my list right now...
I certainly appreciate ALL of the hard work that obviously went in to putting this course together. I have no idea how many hours it actually took, but I KNOW that it was a gargantuan effort on both Dr. Robin and Dr. McNeil's part. I can say that I know because a crummy PowerPoint can take someone hours to create--even when they know what they are doing. This course was well designed and that takes 20-50 times as long to do. So, thank you very much for teaching us this summer and also allowing us to kind of observe the process that you all went through to modify and guide the course as it moved along.
It will be about a month (which will fly by) but some of us (me included) will be doing this again with you all in the Fall. I look forward to that one as well because a long session certainly comes with its own set of challenges and developments. So, with that I say farewell...until August 27th rolls around...
This is my Module 7 blog posting. Please find below the embedded version of my Final Project. I used Screencast to post the content, Microsoft PowerPoint on the Mac to create it, and Apple's QuickTime Pro 7.7 to edit it. Although the presentation may not l00k like much, it took me many hours to put together. I was having issues with Adobe Flash cutting off my audio at the end after posting to Prezi otherwise I would have done a cool Prezi like everyone elsezi...
I uninstalled it, but it started to get waaay to late, so I had to do quite a few things just to get this on uploaded to Screencast.com. So, this is what I have...because I don't think I will be working on this tomorrow (um, later today)...
Take care...and happy blogging!
Greg
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Using StumbleUpon.com to Aid in Educational Research
Slide 01
Welcome to Stumble Upon where your search experience is an adventure tailored just to you and your interests.
Today, we're going to talk about using Web 2.0 tools to aid you in your Educational Research but first, for those of you who are not familiar with Stumble Upon, let's go over the functions of the website.
Slide 02
To use Stumble Upon, you may either Sign Up or Sign In and if you have a Facebook account, you can use that.
Slide 03
For this presentation, I'll Sign in using my account.
Slide 04
After signing in, you can take a little tour of the site to familiarize you with its features.
Let's skip that part so you have something to check out on your own.
Slide 05
To get started, after you sign in, you can just click on the "Stumble Your Interests" button.
Slide 06
The first time you click on the button, you'll have the option to download the Google Chrome Extension or a plug-in for other desktop and mobile device browsers.
Slide 07
Or you can simply get the Stumble Upon bookmark and drag it onto your bookmarks bar.
Slide 08
At the top of the page and to the left, you have the options to Like or Dislike or perform other options like report a page as spam, etc.
Slide 09
You may also share what you Stumble Upon with friends on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as tell other Stumblers o tell them what you think of a link.
Slide 10
In the upper-right corner, there are some more options like stumbling through a Specific Interest, Channel, or mode.
You may also start typing a word or phrase in the search box to Stumble through related web pages
For some great social functionality, there is a section where you can accept or decline new Shares, check your messages, or check out new Updates.
This messaging center is definitely a place where you can collaborate with other Stumblers who could also be your classmates that are helping you research or work on a class project.
Slide 11
Finally, there is a settings section that allows you to browse your Likes and adjust your other settings.
Slide 12
This is your Interests area. If you haven't selected any Interests, here is where you do that.
You can also add to your Interests here.
Slide 13
To start our research, let's click on the "Education" Interest icon.
Slide 14
As we can see here, Education can be identified by the scholarly pencils image and it looks like they already have one million followers contributing to this Interest group.
Slide 15
This is the page for the Education Interest group.
We're going to focus on a few areas here.
Slide 16
First, taking a look to the right, you have a mini site navigation area, a "Following" indicator button and other suggested related Interests.
Slide 17
In the middle is the follower browser.
Here, you can search for others with similar interests.
This is a perfect way to seek out those who you may have heard about or Stumble upon other experts in your specialization or research field.
Slide 18
Let's click on the "View More" link to try and find that specialist in our area of interest…
Slide 19
Here is the first page of the 1 million people that share our common interest of Education.
Slide 20
Well, what do you know. It looks like we found them on the first page. Let's click on "Happy Mind" to find out if they're that long lost expert we've been searching for…
Slide 21
Now when we go into someone's page, the layout is very much like the Education interest page.
Slide 22
The difference is that now, we can Stumble that person's likes.
Slide 23
Or we can take a look at some details about them and copy the code associated with them and post it somewhere.
Slide 24
However, I am going to Stumble Happy Mind's likes to see what comes up.
Slide 25
Well, I am glad that I did Stumble his likes because I found a great site about the Zettabyte that I've never seen before.
It actually looks like an infographic. Cool.
Slide 26
Here is a short summary graphic that says: "The Internet in 5 years will see the dawn of the Zettabyte Era and an overtaking of Web traffic with video consumption at the helm."
Slide 27
Toward the bottom of the page is actual content that is related to this specific interest.
The great thing about Stumble Upon is that you may just Stumble Upon that perfect article or website that you've been looking for or didn't know existed.
In research, we all know how challenging it can be to kind of know what you're looking for, but not have an exact place to start or those magic keywords that will lead you to the right study or information.
Slide 28
I'm going to scroll down a bit to see if there are other articles that I might be interested in.
Incidentally, in case you have not noticed, I am in "Grid View" right now.
Let's see what happens when we switch over to "List View."
Slide 29
Well, here is "List View" and it's a little bit different.
Slide 30
Looks like we're in luck.
The World's Largest Online Library of flash cards is available!
Let's click on it to see what else it says.
Slide 31
Hmmm… a better way to study.
That's exactly what I need.
I'm going to keep that link handy…
Slide 32
Finally, to the left of the Education interest page, you can click on the "Stumble This" button to get back something of interest.
I know what you're thinking, "What's the difference between that and Google's 'I'm Feeling Lucky' link, right?"
Well, the great thing about Stumble Upon is that the sites and other stuff you Stumble Upon have already been "curated" by someone else with the same interest as you, so feeling lucky with results generated by an algorithm versus an actual human a lot of times can render quite different, if not better results.
The "Stumble This" button returned the following three links of interest within a matter of a few seconds.
Slide 33
Born to Learn which is a series of animations of how we learn.
Slide 34
How to find textbooks online by About.com
Slide 35
And a TED Ed site containing Lessons Worth Sharing.
And with that, it looks like we are done stumbling upon things.
Well, at least for now.
Thanks for listening to my presentation on using the Stumble Upon Web 2.0 tool as a supplement to your Educational Research endeavors.
Hello. This week on the eduAnalytics Blog, I am going to review the Web 2.0 Productivity Tool called Simplenote. This presentation was done usingTechSmith'sJingapplication and hosted on their very ownScreencastservers.
The viewing area for the presentation (below) is a bit small (640x480), so please click HERE if you would like to see a larger version of it.
Below is a TRANSCRIPT of the presentation:
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Hello. My name is Greg Jonason and this is another Web 2.0 Tool Review.
I am recording this video using TechSmith's Jing application. This is my first time doing this using Jing, so please bear with me.
The name of the Web 2.0 Productivity Tool that we are going to look at for today is one of my favorites. It's called Simplenote.
To sign in or sign up for a free Simplenote account, just click on the sign in or "Create an account" buttons in the upper-right corner of your browser or iOS mobile device.
I have a premium account which costs me a whopping $20.00 per year. I used the free one one for about a year before I switched. I haven't noticed much difference between the two other than the ads.
Since this is a demo, I am going to sign in with my account.
The primary category for Simplenote is definitely a Productivity Tool.
Simplenote is a text-only cloud-based application that runs within a browser or on your iOS applications.
This means that I can jot something down on my iPhone on my way to class.
When I get to class and take out my iPad, my note is right there.
To me, Simplenote is a cloud-based stream of consciousness memory or idea recording application.
Since the web is not sophisticated enough yet to do complicated audio searches, Simplenote is a great way to have a text-based store of all your thoughts or class notes or todo lists or whatever you want.
It's with you all of the time and it's searchable, so no more opening folders or trying to remember what you named a document.
The only skills you need to use this application are basic web surfing skills, the ability to type
You do need a desktop or a laptop, an Internet connection, and an iOS device or two if you want this to be a pretty seamless part of your life.
In order to use it, all you need to do is press the plus sign to create a new Simplenote.
Type in what you want.
Take me to your leader.
Then walk away.
It's that easy. You can create your own original tags and share the document with others via email.
Let's take a look at some of the more advanced features now.
There is the "Trash" icon for tossing away unwanted notes along with "Version History" and "Sharing".
If you click on the "i" icon, the options "Pinned to Top" and "Markdown Formatted" options are available. Pinned notes are listed before other notes. and Markdown extensions are supported. To find out more about Markdown, go to http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
You might want to use this application in a teaching environment to teach your students to have better note taking skills. Although this is a simple exercise, it is indeed an invaluable skill and incorporating a cloud-based application like Simplenote makes the illustration of its value even more practical.
The advantages of Simplenote are that you can bring it with you anywhere. What's even better is that once you sync your device with what is stored on the servers at Simplenote, you have a local copy of all of your notes and ideas right there on your device.
The web application can run kind of slow though, especially if you have a ton of notes like I do. The iOS device apps run a lot faster. ANother downside is that if you have an Android phone or Blackberry, you're out of luck.
I would recommend this tool to others, however, you can have more capabilities than just text with other apps like Bento and Evernote, but that's another Web 2.0 Productivity application review that I don't have time for right now.
Take care and I hope you enjoyed my review of Simplenote.
As a Web 2.0 Tool Wridea would be classified as a Reflection Tool.
This tool is a reflection/brainstorming site with a little bit of social networking added into it just to make it collaborative enough to want to try. Although there are several implications for using this tool (creative writing projects, business plans, software authoring, etc.) it is hard to come up with many exciting uses that cannot be done with other more well-known tools that are out there. For me, using Google Docs or Google products in general can get the job done without having to go out there and hunt down a site such as Wridea.com. The site is clean and simple, but it may be too simple. I think it needs some feature upgrades such as importing/exporting abilities, the ability to use Facebook/Google/Twitter logins, and more social media capabilities that are common to other social network sites such as embed code and a decent help file within the website. Some functionality is unclear to me and non-intuitive such as the "Search in this page" function. Trying to use the "Remove category" function under the Categories menu item does not seem to work, either.
What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?)
Using a browser, basic keyboarding skills, and some creativity
What do you need to have before using this tool? (Resources)
You, a computer, an internet connection and ideas.
How do you use this tool? (Write the basic steps using a numbered list)
For the following instructions, I used screen shots created with a function native to the Mac operating system. It is a UNIX-based program called "screen capture." In the graphical user interface portion of the Mac OS, the keyboard shortcut to use this function is COMMAND (Apple Key) + SHIFT + 4
3. Fill in form with your information (Email address, Name, Password and Nick Name. If someone is already using the username you want, try using another one instead.
4. After you have completed this step, it should look like this.
5. Write down the URL to your personal Wridea.com address.
6. Click the "Sign Up Free" button.
7. Sign in to your new Wridea.com account by using your username and password.
8. Congratulations! You have successfully logged in to your new Wridea.com account.
9. Select the Ideaboard" menu option and click on "Create a new page" to start each new idea page.
10. Click the "Add new idea" menu option to add a new idea.
Here is a scenario of how this tool might be used in a teaching environment:
In a teaching environment, I can see this tool being used as a way to supplement the process of writing a screenplay. People have a lot of ideas and a way to associate them with keywords and in a visual, organized fashion. Perhaps using this site in conjunction with a tablet or a slate-type mobile device may be best. This way, someone can get the feeling at least that they are actually jotting down ideas in a meaningful and personalized manner. If the students do not have access to tablet hardware, they can always use laptops or desktops. I would probably have the students maintain a Wridea page that they use from start to finish to assist them with the writing of their collaborative screenplay project. Once they have done that, they could do a follow-up assignment where they submit a sketch of how they were able to use Wridea to assist them in the process from start to finish.
Below are the screen shots I took of the Collaborative Screenplay Writing Project that I am suggesting. I had a link for you to be able to go to on a publicly viewable web page hosted by Wridea.com, but apparently there are several functions that are not "functioning" on the Wridea.com website.
Here is a list of each component of the Collaborative Screenplay Writing Project.
Here, I have highlighted the first section in the project called "New Idea." New Idea has several options that we will take a closer look at. Take a closer look:
Let's take a look at the "Details" section. Here is what it looks like:
When you click on "Details," you get a pop-up window that shows an overview of the idea for the Collaborative Screenplay Writing Project:
Comments on whatever has been written in the "Details" section can be made.
When you click on "Comments" you can make and format a comment.
Here is the "Move to" option.
When you click on it, a pop-up window comes up that allows you to move different ideas to other pages within your Wridea account.
Here is a detail of the drop-down menu within the "Move to" pop-up window:
Next is the "Select" option.
The "Select" option allows you to select multiple ideas and move them to other pages. You can also delete multiple ideas within a page using this option.
The "Dialogue" section is just another idea area like "New Idea" except it would be used to post ideas for dialogue within the screenplay.
The "Props" idea page is to keep track and organize all of the props that come up during the writing process.
The "Scenes" idea page allows for a quick view of each of the scenes within the screenplay and enables everyone to comment and re-order the scenes.
The "Character Sketches" area would enable everyone to contribute to the "fleshing out" process of each of the characters in the screenplay. Comments could be made, details added or erased, etc.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
I think that an advantage of using this tool in a teaching environment would be that each student automatically has a sense of ownership when they have their own online account to a website. It brings a level of "officialness" to it. What's more is that they can collaborate with friends or a group that they build within the site themselves. The social aspect of this is always a way to get more than one head together thinking about a project.
Would you recommend this Web 2.0 tool to others, or suggest that they explore a different tool?
I would, but with a warning: Wridea.com is not ready for prime time and does not offer up heavy social media functionality, seems non-intuitive, and buggy. You will probably end up signing up for an account and forgetting about it.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Implications for Today's Education System:
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
This week, Adriana Arevalo, Andrew Kapral, Michael
Sanregret and I created a Voicethread presentation about Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs).
We all coordinated our division of labor via Gmail and then "graduated" to using Google Docs. We created a shared Google Microsoft "Wordish" document that we could all post to in order to update each other with our ideas. Another couple type of documents that we created were a spreadsheet, a presentation document (PowerPoint) and a whiteboard document if we needed to post some type of organized data tables that we would want to share, start on our group PowerPoint presentation or just jot down ideas.
Research was done on our own. I managed to gather up quite a bit of articles and information via a Google Scholar search. I was able to download all of these articles and compressed all of them into a .ZIP file which I posted to a Dropboxaccount that had a public link enabling any of the group members to download the article "package.
Using Wordle, it was east to pick out the common thread among all of the articles as far as the most popular key words, etc. I also went through each article and grabbed an abstract or introductory paragraph along with keywords in order to see what common terminology was out there concerning our topic.
The PowerPoint was assembled online using Google Docs and on the weekend we were able to come together as a group and edit and polish our presentation. The Google Chat functionality embedded into the Google Docs presentation editor was quite handy because we could see who was looking at what slide, what was being edited, or post questions to each other.
It was easy to download the Google Docs PowerPoint presentation to a local drive and then export the slide stack for the presentation to either PNG files or an Adobe PDF document to upload to the Voicethread site. We were able to download an .mp4 of the Stephen Downes YouTube file using SaveTube. Here is the URL: http://www.savetube.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-eNoTC5jRqs. We were also able to successfully download his YouTube presentation using Keepvid as well.
Once we had all of that prepped, Adriana uploaded all of these raw assets to her Voicethread account and emailed us the link so we were all able to embed the file wherever we wanted and were able to post comments on it using USB headsets. I did all of my work on my Mac laptop and it is so great that Google Docs allows you to use many of the hot keys within their free online Google applications.
What an interactive, high energy and rewarding experience Module 4's collaborative project has proven to be!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Some Learning Analytics Companies to Watch Out For...
Please select the one, primary category for this tool: Communication Tool, Collaboration Tool, Productivity Tool, Creativity Tool, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Tool, Reflection Tool, Feedback Tool, Networking/Social Tool, Presentation Tool
Creativity Tool
Please describe this tool in your own words in about 150-250 words.
As mentioned in the mission statement of the website, this site was created to make data visualization more accessible to the public. Data visualization is a necessary component of conveying complex processes or large amounts of information for comparison to others that may not be familiar with the material, process or subject matter. Making this more accessible to the public does a great service since our world has become so information rich. Big Data is something that can overwhelm if it is not communicated in such a way that is not only organized, but also interesting and intelligible to others. The addition of a social media component to this website is par for the course. THe sense of community that people have come to know and expect is no different for this website. Being able to view so many different examples of so many different types of data visualization in one place is a nice concept. One thing for this site to be wary of is that others may be wary of so many of these sites popping up everywhere that it can just get lost in the shuffle.
What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?)
You will need to be pretty good at Data Visualization.
What do you need to have before using this tool? (Resources)
Artistic ability. Spacial/Visual capabilities, Gimp or an Adobe Photoshop-type tool to create your visualizations with.
How do you use this tool? (Write the basic steps using a numbered list)
1) Create your own visualizations (on your computer) using your image manipulation skills and software and post it to this site.
2) In order to post your dataviz to the site, you must register by creating a new account. Fille out your name and preferred username. If your username has already been chosen by someone else, you will need to select another one. Here is what the new account form looks like:
3) Finish filling out the short registration form and click the "Create new account" button. Remember to check BOTH "agree" boxes AND to put your answer in the "Math question" at the bottom of the form.
4) After you are finished with the registration form, you will receive a notice that you will need to check your email account in order to confirm registration.
5) In your email, you should receive an email like the one below. Clicking the confirm link will take you back to your account.
6) Here is your account. Now all you have to do is update it if you want or upload some of your dataviz projects for the world to see.
7) By clicking the "Update your profile" button, you may update your profile information.
If applicable, please create an example with this tool and either embed in your blog or submit the URL.
I chose not to create a data visualization to post to the web site via my account because creating one is quite time consuming and is a very involved process…even for a basic data visualization.
Please describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (150-250 words).
You would probably want to surf the site and curate different visualizations that are great examples of what it is that you are trying to help your students learn. Based on what they goal of the project or assignment, there are several ways to create a "dataviz." Please see the site below for a more detailed breakdown of many different types of data visualizations. My assignment might be for the students to classify different data visualizations that they find on the site and align them with the different "periodic table elements" shown on this site:
What are the advantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
That great visualizations are available to you on one site.
What are the disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
The "creativity" aspect of the site is limited because that is something that you would have to do on your own. It would be great if they had some type of visualization templates that you could use to start you off on a visualization project of your own.
Please select the one, primary category for this tool: Communication Tool, Collaboration Tool, Productivity Tool, Creativity Tool, Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Tool, Reflection Tool, Feedback Tool, Networking/Social Tool, Presentation Tool
Creativity Tool
Please describe this tool in your own words in about 250 words.
This is a great tool. It is truly a Web 2.0 tool that is useful for topics that you might want to "scoop" and make available to friends or customers on your personal/company Facebook page, microblog or "tweet" out via your Twitter feed, or make others aware using some other popular social media website of your choice.
What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?)
In order to use this tool, you will need to have knowledge of popular social media websites such as Facebook or Twitter. If not, you may sign up for an account by simply completing a user profile application. Being familiar with bookmarklets and how publishing web content would be useful.
What do you need to have before using this tool? (Resources)
As stated above, it would be best for you to have an account on a popular social media site such as Facebook or Twitter in order to quickly sign up for an account.
How do you use this tool? (Write the basic steps using a numbered list)
1) Sign up for a Scoop.it account.
2) Create a topic that you want to "scoop".
3) Gather or "curate" the content sites that you want to add to your scoop topic/post by visiting the sites or articles that you want to add.
4) Click the "Scoop it!" bookmarklet that you dragged onto your bookmark bar within your browser.
5) Write a review of the content you are scooping (optional)
6) Post the content to your Scoop it site
7) Make the content available on your social media sites
If applicable, please create an example with this tool and either embed in your blog or submit the URL.
Please describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (about 500 words).
If I would like for students to familiarize themselves with the concept of "curation", then this is an excellent tool to get them started with. If they are already familiar with this concept, then all I need to do is create a lesson that enables them to curate content on a favorite topic that they want to share. Or, even better would be to create a Scoop.it topic that defines who they are. The whole idea of Scoop it! is that they student can actually create a Flip-Board type site of their own that they go out and generate. Once they have this content and their Scoop.it URL, then the lesson can go deeper into the who concept of using social media to generate traffic/awareness or a "buzz" about a topic. They can send out their new Scoop it! post URL to a group of friends via a microblogging account such as Twitter. After that, they can then monitor the popularity or "Reactions" to different pieces of curated content right there on their Scoop it! post. Content can then be shared via email, other social network sites by friends using the various interaction buttons at the bottom of each item scooped. Content can even be "rescooped" by others who have a Scoop it! account very much like re-Tweeting works on the Twitter site.
What are the advantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
This allows students the freedom to curate content that they are interested in and to post it when and where they want. They can post it directly to a blog, a social media site such as Facebook or Tumblr, or they can microblog the content to friends or other people in their interest group.
What are the disadvantages of using this tool in a teaching environment?
Students can get "lost" in the technology and begin to equate all social media technologies as the same even though the application of different Web 2.0 can be quite different.
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