Online Office tools.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been experimenting with a number of online office tools. I tend to use Google Docs the most, not that I particularly think that it’s the best, more that others I know use it, and they want to share things. It’s also just introduced a search feature, which could…

The New Web Literacy

The New Web Literacy Notes from a presentation by Dave Millard at Southampton. I was invited to this (and to the others they’ve had this term, but I teach on Wednesdays & can’t get from Portsmouth to Southampton in 5 minutes!) He raises some useful points about using Web based tools – both the traditional…

Usage over time of "new toys"

A very useful diagram, that I can’t actually track down the original creator of this, as Wisdump seems to have gone off line. It demonstrates nicely some of the features that were discussed in the recent Poke 1.0 Symposium. Facebook is at the meteroic growth rise – how much is viral spread and how much…

Just one ID?

OpenID crops up quite often in the blogosphere. While I can see the point to a certain degree, there are also issues of merging upmteen accounts into one. Stephen Downes is a strong advocate, though I can see the points that Langhoff raises in the comments regarding security (particularly after the news of the loss…

Class assignment: Write an original Wikipedia article

Martha Groom of the University of Washington Bothell, has had her students do major edits / create new articles on Wikipedia as part of an assignment. For her students, the Wikipedia experiment was “transformative,” and students’ writing online proved better than the average undergrad research paper. Knowing their work was headed for the Web, not…

Mind Mapping.

Web 2.0 mind mapping tools came up at a meeting today (following a discussion on Portableapps – including the fact that you can install Freemind to a USB stick – as long as it’s got JRE on). Someone mentioned MindMeister, which I’ve used before. I knew I’d had a play with something else, though wasn’t…

Should I start to twitter?

I can very much agree with the first part of Marshall Kilpatrick’s review of the World’s Most Popular Twitter Clients. “I thought it sounded stupid.” He’s now changed his mind, and has reviewed a range of different twitter clients. I’ve yet to be convinced, as it’s just another thing to have to do. Perhaps part…

Audio and Online Learning.

Cathy Moore has created a (partially) narrated presentation highlighting some of the points that Kulhmann has made in regard to the use of Audio enhanced presentations for online learners. They both make valuable points; I know that I am definitely someone who reads ahead of the presenter. I think there are infact two things that…

Audio bits and bobs.

EveryZing – attempts to analyse the audio in online audio and video to enable searching (Technical details are outlined in SpeechTechMag). I’ve just tried searching “News” for “Peter Tobin” – who has cropped up a lot in the UK news in the past few days. I didn’t get any hits, though when I extended this…

Popular News – facebook.

I’ve been wandering around Facebook – trying to see what I can see on the two networks that I’m part of. I’m registered with Uni. Portsmouth (thanks to working here), and Durham – as an alumni. I’m not entirely sure how the Durham network works, as I’ve got one friend who is also there –…