Online Tools

Adding Value and Battling Staleness in Online Classes

Think back to some of the best courses you took during college. What made those courses so great for you? Well, other than the ones that were an easy A – what made them interesting to you over other courses? Probably one factor was an interesting instructor. Many instructors like to just read from the textbook or (even worse) a PowerPoint.  You know for a fact that their class is probably exactly the same this semester as it was last semester and the semester before that.

In other words: BORING!

The classes that most students end up liking are taught by instructors that are talking to them about current events and new information related to their subject. The course that you get this semester is slightly different than the one last semester. In other words – there is a a greater value in showing up to this course, because it will be interesting and relevant (and slightly different from what your roommate learned last semester). The instructor is reading and researching the subject and keeping you up to date on the course subject.

But… can this be done online… where classes are usually canned and solidified months before the first day of course?

Through the modern miracle of technology, the answer is yes – if you plan ahead.

You are probably teaching a course in a subject that you like. That means you are also probably reading blogs, articles, journals, and other websites related to that subject.  What if your students could follow you as you do all of this reading? What if they could research with you – and this research became the course content? What if they discussed what you read that week, instead of some canned, stale question you stuck in a “discussion board” months ago?

Technically, this is possible with a blog. But do you really want to log in and create an entire blog post for every article, blog post, etc, etc. that you find… several times a week? Sound too tiring to you? Well then I have two words for you:

Social Bookmarking

You have probably heard of sites like Delicious and Digg.  Did you know that you can use these sites as the content for your course? Ditch the pre-processed cheese html zip file, pdf, or (shudder) audio lecture recording and go flexible, relevant, and easy.

Here is one idea: create an account in Delicious. Then come up with a tag just for each class – edtc3320, for example.  Then install a Delicious bookmark plug-in for FireFox or Chrome (if you are using Internet Explorer, well… I am sorry).  You can then send your students to the page for your specific class tag, and they can use whatever RSS reader they want to follow you. You can even create multiple tags for different classes.

As you come across different articles and links that would apply to your class – bookmark them in delicious and tag them for the class you want to read them. Maybe even add a second link of ‘edtc3320week1’ or whatever to help students organize them better. Delicious lets you write short comments on each link – so let students know why you bookmarked the link. Then add a discussion question for each link. For your class discussion, tell students that they have to answer at least one question raised during each week’s readings.

But don’t ditch the blog just yet – you are the content expert, so you have great insights to add to everything you read, and delicious has a short limit on comments.  So blog about what you want, and then bookmark your blog post in Delicious. It gets added to the flow that students have to read each week.

Dynamic content, active learning, reflection, and rapid course design all in one neat package! Want to be really fancy? Get a RSS feed widget, and then insert that in to your LMS course for the students that don’t get RSS. They can just click on the content page and it will be there for them in the walled garden…errr… Learning Management System.

Want to see what this could look like? Well, as I find resources I like online, I have created a Delicious tag just for EduGeek Journal readers to follow:

http://delicious.com/grandeped/edugeekjournal

Follow me in your favorite RSS reader to see what this could be like.

{this post is being cross-posted at Soundings: Best Practices in Teaching and Technology]

Can’t Afford PhotoShop? Look to Cloud Computing!

Google, Zoho, and a whole host of others have been giving us free, totally online alternatives to MicroSoft Office applications for a few years now…  and these alternatives pretty much rock.  But what about the creative type people? Are they stuck shelling out big bucks for PhotoShop and other high-end products to make images and music?

I’ve seen a few online options for the creative types that want to go the cloud-computing route, but most weren’t that special (yet).  Recently, I’ve been seeing a site called Aviary get some attention, so I decided to check it out.  The short version: not too hard to figure out, with a large number of features, all for free.

You can look here for a list of tools they have available so far.  Most of these tools are related to some kind of visual art (including what they claim is the world’s first online vector editor), but there is also an online audio editor in the list.

What interests me about Aviary is that there is a community feeling to it – profiles, favorites, messages, groups, etc.  Kind of like online productivity for creativity mixed with social networking.

There are some drawbacks for the free account.  For example, you can only download a flattened version of your layered artwork or images (with a watermark).  But layered export is coming in the Pro Version.

Ah HA! You say… A Pro version?  That’s where they are going to stick it to us, with a big charge for the really good stuff.  Well, so far… not really.  The tools work the same in both version it seems.  The Pro version gives you features surrounding the tools that pros will need – like private groups to keep your work from being stolen.  And, the Pro version is $24 a year.  Click here for a comparison of the two levels.

I haven’t messed with the Audio mixer – but it looks like you can record entire songs or podcasts online (directly through input, or by uploading pre-recorded audio parts).

Interesting tools for educators – something to keep an eye on.

Check out some of the work created on Aviary.

Create Online Presence With Posterous

I remember hearing about Posterous when it first came out.  It was nice, but at the time didn’t really stick out above all of the other social sites coming out at the time.  However, I took another look at Posterous when a student in a class I am adjuncting featured it in a project.  What a difference a few years make!

Posterous is a service that allows you to update all of your social sites through an email.  It is designed to be intuitive – so if you attach pictures, they will get posted in your Flickr account.  Videos can go into YouTube.  But, a text post won’t end up in some weird corner of either one.  You can also update blogs like WordPress and your attached images and video go into the post, too.

The two features I am digging the most are site-specific emails and groups.  Usually, one email will go to all the sites that you set-up for autopost.  Don’t want your short Twitter update to post to your Drupal blog?  Just send an email to twitter@posterous.com.  Your little tweet only posts to twitter.  You can also combine emails, like twitter+jaiku@posterous.com.

The group feature is really nice.  Just invite other contributors and have them send emails to a bit more specific email address that identifies your group.   Any one’s email can then go out to a whole slew of social sites (great for organizations, school news, or conferences) in a matter of seconds.  Or, make your group private and host a class that way (you don’t have to autopost anywhere if you don’t want).  Every post goes out to all contributors by email, and you can comment by just replying to the email.  Any pictures or videos added are intuitively inserted into the post.

It will even update your FaceBook status, or load pics/videos into FaceBook.

As you can guess, this is a great all-in-one tool for mobile blogging.  Posterous itself can act as your blog, or it can push your posts out to most major blogging platforms.

Now I wish we could see Posterous pluck SocialThing away from AOL before it is totally killed and become a one stop place to post and follow all of your networks.  They would need some kind of comment tracking system for that, because I would hate to have to keep up with comments on all the sites the support.  Or maybe that can be an idea for future features – a way to sync comments from all the sites they support.

Zoho Projects 2.0 Beats Google Wave to the Punch (Kindof)

Is social project collaboration the next big thing online? Will we finally see all of the separate tools that we currently use for communication and collaboration (email, IM, documents, micro-blogs, etc) integrate into seamless tools? Google is heading that way with Google Wave. Or, at least we think they are. Still waiting for that invite to come through…

Which leads me to the big problem with hyping a tool before you release it – your competitors will beat you to the punch. Maybe Google is banking that Wave will be cooler than anything else anyone else can rush to the market. But if your competitor comes out with a tool that works for everyone that wants to use it – people will stick with theirs no matter how cool your idea is.

That brings me to Zoho Projects 2.0. Many of the features sound similar to Google Wave – like integrating chat with online documents and project flow and all that. Zoho’s take on social project collaboration is a bit more business minded – you can create milestones and post progress updates and such. Zoho doesn’t hype the synchronous/asynchronous integration like Wave does, but it is there. Which I think is okay – I really don’t think people are going to care that much about switching between synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous communication is a huge drain on productivity, so I predict that many people will be turning off some of Google Wave’s synchronous innovations. Really – who needs synchronous online document editing? Too many editors in the room will cause some big arguments. There is a reason that face-to-face meetings only have one person at the white board taking notes, even thought many whiteboards are monstrous in size these days and there are usually enough pens for everyone to go around.

But the biggest missing feature of Zoho Project 2.0 is the open-source attitude that Google Wave embraces. The ability to install Google Wave on your server and then customize it the way you want will be killer. Zoho Projects will only be good for educational projects that can fit into it’s design and flow. Which will be several, no doubt – but Google Wave will potentially have the ability to adapt to whatever anyone wants. If you want to dig into the codes and/or APIs, that is.

Still, I can see Zoho Projects appealing to a certain mindset. For more information and a demo video, see this post:

Announcing The Social Way To Get Things Done: Zoho Projects 2.0

Will LMS Companies Ever Get Into Browser Plug-ins?

I was pondering Learning Management Systems this morning. I do that way too much.  Maybe Google Wave will get released soon and it really will be able to deliver on the hype and all my problems will be solved!  But until then… got to ponder….

FireFox plug-ins are pretty nifty little deals.  And many of them have educational uses.  A few more are even totally educational in nature.  But I wonder if LMS programmers will ever get into the business of making plug-ins that will enhance their products?  Have some done that already and I just missed it?

Yeah, I know that would force people to use a specific browser.  But just imagine if the concept of plug-in goes universal and all browsers end up being able to use the same plug-ins interchangeably for a moment….

Because I am thinking we are really going to need this – like yesterday.  I checked around for a plagiarism checker – one like “Map This“, where you just highlight some text and click “check for plagiarism” – and couldn’t find one.  I found a couple of dead links to some here and there, so maybe it is out there and just hard to find.

Because, let’s face it – going EduPunk or GoogleWave or what not with your class would mean that you might not be able to check that cool blog post against your plagiarism software.  Or maybe you can.  But wouldn’t it be nice to to integrate it with your browser instead?

Or what about designing your LMS to work with existing plug-ins like Zotero?

There are probably a hundred different ways to create plug-ins specifically for online courses.  Is there someone out there doing this, and I just haven’t searched enough?

Random thought that hit me today…

Google Nods to the Future With Wave

Everything Google does gets hype.  So you probably already read all there is known (so far) about Google Wave.  For the two anti-Google people out there in the world that just refuse to read anything about Google, it is said to be a new way to communicate online, based on new concepts of how we interact online.  Of course, I probably lost those two people at “Google”, so I just wasted time writing that.  Guess that makes me a true blogger.  Anyways, there is a really looooonnnggg video about it out there, too.  Which I haven’t watched, because I really just don’t have time.  Is it just me, or does it seem to be blasphemy to put a long video on YouTube,  THE website that proved people are more into short, concise summaries rather than long dissertations covering every detail?

Really?  How much can you talk about a service that is still in planning stages?

Well, the universe didn’t explode when it was posted, so I guess it is okay.  For now.

Everything that Google does usually turns out pretty good.  Even when it is something that doesn’t prove to be popular… like say Lively or Jaiku… they still do a good job with it.  But will Wave prove to be their first major misstep?  I’m thinking there is a slight possibility.

I’m sure it will work great.  I’m sure I will like it.  I’m just not sure it’s going to catch on.  This is what caught my eye, from the blog post quoted ’round the world:

He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the ’60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point, and I was immediately sold.

What if the reason that email and IM caught on was because they did mimic what we were used to?  What if is had nothing to do with network limitations of the time, or lack of other ideas? Let’s face it – Twitter caught on because it mimicked texting.  Skype caught on because it mimicked phone calls. FaceBook caught on because it mimicked interaction and games from real life.

What if online stuff has to mimic something we are already into before it will catch on?  Most people are attributing the death of virtual worlds to the fact that they just seem too surreal sometimes.

Sorry – as much as I wish virtual worlds would catch on and take over the world, the cold hard truth is they seem to be dying.  Blogs are still kind of popular and kind of not… wikis never truly caught on as a tool (Wikipedia is seem more as an information source than a tool by most people)… and collaborative documents haven’t really caught on yet.

I’m pretty sure I will love Google Wave (as I also love virtual worlds, blogs, wikis, Skype, you name it).  But are we going to lamenting what could have been in a few years, just like we did with Lively earlier this year?  I guess only time will tell.  Twitter was pretty much dying until Oprah and a few other key events breathed some life in to it.  Now it is every where.  Maybe we can get Obama using Google Wave?

To honor free comic day…

As many of the more geeky EduGeek readers know, last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. I took advantage of this by catching up on Marvel’s fun and compelling Sinister Six (which was not free, by the way). This event has me thinking of a tool that I have used in the past which allows anyone to design, draft, and publish comic book strips. This is another entry on tools that instructors might use to appeal to visual learners: the tool I highlight this week is Bitstrips.

Bitstrips are an easy way to embed information visually to your students

Bitstrips are quick to make and they can convey information to your students visually without much effort. It is also a simple way to create a static avatar for your course.

Bitstrips can add a bit of visual flair to: your syllabus, your learning management system, your orientation handouts, even exam instructions.

Bitstrips are not just for instructors, either. You could assign comic strip writing as creative exercises. A great thing about Bitstrip comics is that they can be edited by more than one person, if the designer desires. Therefore, students can work on creating a strip together. For example, a group could design a strip reflecting their interpretation of something that motivated a character to do what she or he did in a novel. Or perhaps they could draw up a case study graphically reflecting a prescribed course of actions.

Example of a bitstrip giving advice on how to ask effective questions.

Bitstrips are easily transferable, both on-line and off. They can be embedded into websites, downloaded as a image file, e-mailed and/or printed. Clearly this flexibility makes Bitstrips quite open as an assessment opportunity.

So, with that being said, I would be really interested to know what uses for this you might have. Send me a note @clongstr on Twitter and I will gather them to post later.

Introducing Cool Iris

When we want to move our student’s learning environment into the ether of the web, we can be hard pressed to go beyond simply assigning more reading.  In the days of multimedia, interactivity and all things web 2.0, assigning links to on-line articles will not cause many students to leap up for their netbooks with joy and glee.  There are a couple of web-based tools that I would like to posit as potentially very useful when we want to appeal to our students who learn best visually and experientially.  This week, I would like us to take a look at Cool Iris.

cooliris2

Click this link for a Cool Iris Demonstration
A brief summary of Cool Iris; it is a free(!) browser plug-in for MS Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Flock (that’s right, dear reader, Flock).  The browser add-on throws open a 3D wall that lets users rapidly browse hundreds of images instantly, using image results from search engine sites.  Default search engines include Google, Yahoo!, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, and even Hulu.   “Hulu?” I hear you ask. Weirdly enough, it was surprisingly enlightening to do a quick search on ‘autism’ in Hulu to see what Hollywood threw back at me. Plenty of learning opportunities there, my friends…

But wait, folks, there’s more.  Cool Iris is not limited to the default search engines.  It is enabled on a variety of other websites such as Getty Images, Facebook, the LA Times and many others.  Beyond being a very fast method for gathering and viewing a large collection of photos and videos, users are also able to collect images into a “Favorites” basket – useful for later recollection and/or presentations.  Moreover, Cool Iris allows users to send images they find to others.

How might one use Cool Iris in a blended environment?  When I first presented this tool in-class, I had students do a search in the Flickr search engine within Cool Iris using the three terms ‘Chinese, Buddhist, temple.’  chinesetemple When their 3-D wall popped up, I asked them to scan the photos for about 5 minutes asking them to take stock of what they saw – colors, features, architecture, statues, whatever they thought was striking. We then had a quick discussion and in about 10 minutes time, my crew had a pretty strong grasp of many of the common features of Chinese Buddhist religious architecture.

For homework, I then assigned my students to go home and using their web browsers do a similar exercise using the terms ‘Japanese, Buddhist, temple.’   In this assignment, they were required to take notes that took stock of features they saw in Japanese Buddhist tempes as well as make comparisons with the Chinese temples.

japanesetemple The next time we met, my students were very proficient at distinguishing Japanese and Chinese Buddhist temples from one another. They noted that the Japanese temples tended to be more integrated into their surroundings, that the colors were more neutral and that the exteriors tended to be less ornate than their Chinese counterparts.  This allowed me to then talk about the predominance of Zen Buddhism in Japan as well as the influence of Shinto religion on Japanese expressions of Buddhism.

The sheer ease of this tool has plenty of potential for an all on-line classroom environment.  Give it a try, I bet you will agree.

Collaboration, file-sharing, podcasting and more with drop.io

Sorry for the very long delay in posting. The new job and my one-year-old are taking up 113% of my time.  Just wanted to let you know about a new tool a co-worker discovered at Educause Southwest Regional.  Drop.io is a file hosting site that gives users the ability to upload images, documents, audio, video, and more.  A free account gives you 100Mb of space to set up your “drop” (area where you can upload your files), and users can then view a web-friendly version of the file or download the original.  

Adding content to your drop couldn’t be much easier.  Drop.io gives you an email address that you can use to email or MMS files that are auto-added to your drop.  You also get a phone number that you use to call in and record audio which is then saved in mp3 format and auto-added to your drop (read: easy-podcasting).  You can even fax directly into your drop.  A Firefox add-in allows you to drag and drop directly into your drop.

Content can be protected by setting a guest password.  You can even give guests the ability to add their own files, leave comments, and even delete files. Drop.io also gives you the ability to set an expiration date for the files you upload.

Viewers of your content have multiple methods of being notified any time you add content to your drop.  They can sign up for email alerts (which you, the drop owner, can customize both the alert message and the welcome message) that are sent out any time you add content.  Users can subscribe to an RSS feed or add it to your iTunes as a podcast.  They can even get SMS alerts – they just choose their service provider and enter their phone number.  Add drop updates to your Facebook feed so friends see when you add content, or add the drop directly to your profile.  Users can tweet any file added to your drop.  Users can even add a widget for your drop to their website.  I could go on.  

The educational possibilites are endless: podcasting, collaboration, team building, to name a few.  So, do you use drop.io?  Are you interested in drop.io?  What ideas do you have for using drop.io in your class?

Click image to view drop.io demo.

More Details on The Google Books Project

Happy New Year!  With a new year comes more buzz from Google.  Did you really expect anything less?  New York Times has an interesting article about the future of the Google Book search project and what it can mean for education.  Now that Google has settled various lawsuits surrounding the project and made all parties happy (for the most part), the whole thing can move forward.

Here are some of the higlights of the article:

  • Over 5 million out-of-print books have been scanned.  This is a treasure trove for research purposes, as most of these will be available for free download.
  • New releases will even be available for paid download, usually cheaper than the print version.
  • “More students in small towns around America are going to have a lot more stuff at their fingertips,” said Michael A. Keller, the university librarian at Stanford. “That is really important.”  (Not to mention really important for distance education)
  • Google wants to push access to the entire database to school libraries, making sure that they make it affordable.  Students at schools that purchase access will be able to get “full contents of all the books free.” (!)
  • Paul Courant, university librarian at the University of Michigan had this to say: “One of the important things about this settlement is that it brings the literature of the 20th century back into a form that the students of the 21st century will be able to find it.”

So, will we one day see courses that use this project entirely for their textbook requirements?  Or maybe even a mix of current blogs and news sources with classic books?  Probably so, if not already.  To see the Google Book project, see http://books.google.com.