Archive for March, 2009
Voxli: Instant voice chat
Posted by Tyler Wall in Collaboration, Communication on March 25th, 2009
Likely we have all at one point or another used voice chat over the computer. Sometimes it can be difficult and sometimes fairly easy. Most of the time it requires downloading an application and on rare occasions it will exist on the net but still requires sign-up.
Enter Voxli, an online voice chat application that doesn’t require any sign-up or registration and allows up to 200 people to chat at once. To set it up you simply go to their main website and complete a url of your own choosing. Send that url to whomever you want to chat with. It will prompt you to install a plug-in for Firefox and that is it. Extremely simple. The interface is very minimal and will take only seconds to figure out how it works.
I have never ran across a voice chat application that is this easy to use let alone with good quality audio and the ability to “push” your chat outside of your browser to various other devices like video game systems.
Although it doesn’t offer anything new to the arena of voice chat it does make the whole process much easier for admin and end users and that is the kind of power I gravitate to.
How can Voxli be used in Education?
- Easily set up chat groups for distance students
- Make yourself available to students after hours via a chat room for them to ask questions while still having the open classroom concept
- Have distance students use it for collaborative projects
How would/do you use it in your course?
Twitter It!Mind Maps: The Conclusion
Posted by Tyler Wall in Mind Mapping on March 23rd, 2009
myWebspiration is very robust and the most fully featured of the three mind mapping applications. The list of it’s capabilities is impressive and includes the ability to:
- add hyperlinks
- images
- color changing
- clip art (although I am against such things, but I am a graphic guy which makes me very picky)
- converting lists to mind maps
- line customization
- collapsible maps
- collaboration
- notes for specific bubbles
- etc.
So what’s not to like with this fantastic application that seems to do everything? Although it may seem like everything to everyone and has all the functionality of the first two I reviewed and more, all the functionality comes at a big cost, usability. It is, by far, the hardest application to use of the three and surprisingly doesn’t have a very robust export or embed feature. If you are OK with an extra 10 minutes of learning time though you can unlock much of the power of myWebspiration and create great mind maps.
My pick for best Mind Map tool is (drum roll can be heard in background) Bubbl.us! Why? It is the best blend of incredible ease of use and its collaborative nature. There may not be all the bells and whistle but it looks good and when I invite someone to come and use it I know they will be able to figure it out with little to no instruction.
How can mind maps be used in education?
- quickly mapping out complex plans like websites, marketing plans, business plans,
- A more visual way of representing a idea
- Give an overview of a plot line of a story
- show relationships between groups or individuals
- show relationships between almost anything i.e. (galaxies, solar systems, planets, moons, asteroids) or (the food chain).
- show a business hierarchy or any hierarchy for that matter.
- Mind maps can increase creativity for any area (even mathematics) by helping you think outside the box and make associations that you may not have thought about before.
What are your ideas for how to use mind maps?
Twitter It!Mind-Mapping: a trilogy of visual thinking (part 2)
Posted by Tyler Wall in Mind Mapping on March 20th, 2009
Text2MindMap
In part 2 of my mind-mapping tour I have chosen Text2MindMap. This is by far the easiest app to use as it is based purely on creating outlines. This online app takes your outline tree and creates a mind-map from the content therein. It also features the ability to paste an already created list in a handy text field so go ahead and use a different app like Word to create the list, copy it and paste it into the text field. It is that simple.
Of course there are the obligatory options that you can change like the colors but at it’s core it is just a pretty list. And that is also a downside of Text2MindMap it is a bit too sparse in its features. There is no collaborative aspect, you can’t embed it and the only exporting you are able to do is to a Jpeg format.
All in all it is the simplest tool I will review and that is it’s strength. If all you need is to visualize your outline then this is the fastest and easiest tool by far to use.
How can it be used in education?
Stay tuned to the 3rd part of my article trilogy to see how Mind mapping in general can be used in education.
Wanna Read part 1? Click here.
Twitter It!Mind-Mapping: a trilogy of visual thinking
Posted by Tyler Wall in Mind Mapping on March 19th, 2009
Part 1: Bubbl.us
This is part one of 3 articles based around online mind-mapping applications. These 3 articles will end with me giving my pick for the one I like best and why.
Part 1: Bubbl.us
This mind mapping application is the probably the easiest to use and to enable the collaborative aspect right away. All you need to do is sign up and make friends with a colleague or student that has an account with Bubbl.us and give them editing access. Of course you can also only give them viewing access in case you don’t want them to muck about in your hard work
It works very much like any other mind mapping application but doesn’t have the functionality of putting links, documents or other items like that into any of the bubbles but that is the charm in my mind the utmost of simplicity.
Bubble.us has very much a web 2.0 look with glossy bubbles that contain your content.The creation of the whole map doesn’t even require using the mouse very much as all the functions for creating new bubbles can be done with the keyboard.
It also has the functionality of being able to export to an HTML page, embed directly in a website or print to an image.
All in all Bubbl.us is the tool that I tend to use the most because of its ease of use, collaborative aspects, control over group access, and the export functionality.
How can Bubbl.us be used in education?
Stay tuned to the 3rd part of my article trilogy to see how Mind mapping in general can be used in education.
Wanna Read Part 2? Click Here.
Twitter It!The Hype around Skype
Posted by Tyler Wall in Communication on March 11th, 2009
Skype is an internet phone, a video phone and a screen sharing app (with beta version) that sits on your computer and is free. Now technically it is not a Web 2.0 app because you have to download it but it is the tool that is most entrenched in the market.
With Skype you can phone any other computer that is running it and talk as long as you want for free. Video chat is also included when you call computer to computer. Skype also allows you to to call a land line but it will cost you (pre-paid) a very minor fee (2.4 cents a minute). And of course that means you can make calls worldwide for that price.
An added bonus with Skype is the ability to make conference calls via voice or video. And to round out the features Skype also includes an instant messaging service with the added bonus of being able to text message someone’s cell phone from your computer.
For the brave you can also get a cell phone that is Skype enabled which will let you use it on your cell phone to save money.
How can Skype help in Education?
- Set up a conference call with distance students
- leave your Skype enabled for times when you want to be at home but available to your students
- Record your calls/interviews (yes Skype does that too and remember to get the interviewees permission as well) with important people and play it back for students
As always you can voice your ideas as a comment on this post at the top and keep an eye out here for more information on tools like Skype that are fully fledged Web 2.0 (all online) and are just as good as Skype.
Twitter It!Can you Diigo it?
Posted by Tyler Wall in Annotation/Research, Bookmark, Collaboration, Communication, Presentation, multipurpose on March 9th, 2009
Diigo – Web Highlighter and Sticky Notes, Social Bookmarking and Annotation, Social Information Network! via kwout
I wrote an article extolling the social bookmarking tool Diigo. In my zeal I left out some really important ways that Diigo can and is used so I thought it was worth a revisit.
Diigo’s tools in a nutshell:
- Research tools
-
- tagging
- list creation
- persistent highlighting (if you highlight text on a web page it will show up there every time you return and if you make it public anyone else will see it, or only allow people in a group view it instead of the whole world) Try it out yourself by clicking the link no signup required. http://www.diigo.com/04tra
- persistent commenting (same as the highlights )
- archiving bookmarks
- Annotation tools
- persistent highlighting (http://www.diigo.com/04tra)
- persistant commenting
- Presentation tool
- Webslides via lists (add bookmarks to a list as well as your own slides. It all plays back to whomever you send the link to with full web interactivity and they don’t even need a Diigo account, check this one out http://slides.diigo.com/list/tylerwall/web20_applications and you can even print it out)
- Social bookmarking tools
- tagging
- public and private access to individual bookmarks
- search engine
- unread bookmarking functions
- create bookmark lists
- share bookmarks to entire groups
- see bookmarks that your groups post but you retain the right to not bookmark them.
- discover people who have similar bookmarks, tags, groups
- show the sites you bookmark most
- messaging
- cloud lists
- Posting to blogs (I posted this article to my blog from Diigo)
There is more but I only have so much space.
So what can an educator use this application for?
Here are some ideas I came up with,
- Use the annotation tools to keep notes for yourself on important websites, I know sometimes its nice going to a website i haven’t seen in a long while and have a few notes or the important text highlighted.
- Make your annotations public and have your students become Diigo members which will allow your
- Create a list of links that are important to a course, this creates a webslide presentation that you can share with whomever you want. This will then bypass deep linking copyright (as far as I understand the copyright laws). The links in the presentation are still navigable and provide students an overview of resources.
- Broaden your knowledge horizon by joining a group. I have found dozens of E-Learning and Education groups which harness the power of the masses by bringing you all the best resources on the web regarding whatever topic you choose.
- Why not create a web research quiz? Set it up like a scavanger hunt by finding a bunch of websites that your students need to do research on and post questions on those sites using the “post it” annotation tool in Diigo. This displays your questions to them on the page that they needed to research which teaches them research skills and they won’t know the question until they do the research.
- Create a group for your whole class and make the research process a group activity spreading the knowledge around.
These are just some ideas that I came up with but the possibilities are there for the taking.
I want to hear about what you use Diigo for or ideas that you may have on how to use it for education.
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“When is Good” A timely scheduling App
Posted by Tyler Wall in Calendar/Scheduling on March 5th, 2009
Set up a meeting between several very busy people very easily all with no signup or login. When you want to set a meeting just go one to the website select all the times that work for you from the calendar, add a description of what you want to meet about and send it to everyone you want to have a meeting with. The next person that goes to the website (via the link that you sent them) picks all the times that work for them from the times you initial set. The next person does the the same thing but the only options they have to choose from are what the previous people selected. When everyone has selected an email is sent out with the time or times that work.
If you want a bit more you can sign up for free to keep track of all your meetings and even sync it with your google calendar or iCal, but only if you want to.
Twitter It!
Social bookmarking at its finest
Posted by Tyler Wall in Annotation/Research, Bookmark, Collaboration, Communication, Presentation, multipurpose on March 3rd, 2009
Have you ever been at someone’s house, office, or even using a second computer and you want to bring up a website that you have bookmarked on your main machine and can’t remember the URL? Social bookmarking has set out to eliminate this problem and there are several tools to help you in a situation like this but 2 in particular stand out, Diigo and Del.icio.us.
The big dog on the block is Del.iciou.us which allows you to put all your bookmarks up on the web and accessible wherever you are in the world all you need is an internet connection. It has great functionality and is a great tool for collecting your bookmarks, it even has plugins for Firefox, IE, and Safari that allow for easy bookmarking and access to bookmarks.
My pick for best social bookmarking tool is the young upstart is Diigo (even though I use both). Diigo is a Research tool, a knowledge sharing community, a social annotation tool; you can highlight text (with comments) on a website, add sticky-notes to any page all visible to everyone (if you choose) who has Diigo installed in their browser. It can even create lists of bookmarks that can then be presented as a slideshow that can be accessible to anyone in the world if you so choose. These interactive browsing slideshows take you through a list of urls at predetermined intervals all the while still allowing the user to look through the webpage and be in control of the experience clicking links and using the webpage. Use it to bundle important websites together for students or co-workers. Try out the slideshow for yourself no download required (http://slides.diigo.com/list/tylerwall/web2tools) and here is an example of how to use it (http://wslides.blogspot.com/2007/09/emmbed.html)
Like Facebook you can check out how your friends are bookmarking, send messages to them, share bookmarks with them and create groups (like “web 2.0″ or “good recipes”) to facilitate the whole process.
Both Diigo and Del.icio.us are very well integrated into your browser and use a tagging organizational structure so you can easily find 1 bookmark within thousands very fast and very easily. So long story short Del.icio.us focus is more on strictly the bookmarking functionality whereas Diigo has that functionality and adds to it many different social aspects and annotation tools. If you already have a Del.icio.us account Diigo even makes the transition easier by allowing an easy import and bookmarking to both services through Diigo.
delicoious bookmarks
A.nnotate, an online way to to comment and take notes
Posted by Tyler Wall in Annotation/Research on March 2nd, 2009
A.nnotate.com – Upload – Annotate – Share. Online document review and collaboration – PDF, Word and HTML via kwout
With A.nnotate you can upload pdf,doc, web pages, presentations and allow others to add notes, tags and other things to allow collaboration, evaluation or anything that you can dream up. It is all hosted online so now you can put up one document and send the link to hundreds of people who can then see it and annotate to it if needed.
The free service allows you to upload 30 pages per month and have unlimited commenters and a pricier solution for institutions allows unlimited everything for one server to be outfitted.
So what could A.nnotate be used for in education? Because the free version is limited I will limit my ideas to those that require the students to have accounts and upload papers of less than 30 pages per month.
- Have students get accounts to A.nnotate and send their papers to you the instructor for marking, this way they see nearly the minute you are done how they did.
- Use it for collaborative writing assignments
- Have the students critique each other before they submit papers
- Give it to students for note taking on their own papers
So what would or have you used it for?
Twitter It!
VoiceThread: The Little Voice Inside Your Computer.
Posted by Tyler Wall in Collaboration, Presentation on March 10th, 2009
VoiceThread – About – Identities via kwout
VoiceThread is an interactive environment that facilitates collaboration on creating dynamic slideshows by allowing users to post comments, which are publicly viewable if needed, in a variety of formats including text, audio and video all delivered from either a computer or phone. In addition to this it allows viewers to comment by drawing pictures directly on the slides.
Although that is a fairly good shot at describing VoiceThread they do a much better job of it by showing what it can do which you can see here.( http://voicethread.com/#q.b409.i848804 and here http://voicethread.com/about/).
My description of VoiceThread is drastically condensed but it is a good base. When you watch a VoiceThread you are faced with a slide and pictures all along the sides, these pictures are the comments that people have left in either text, audio or video, a timeline plays along the bottom and is segmented for each person who left a comment. If you want you can skip all the comments and go to the next slide by clicking the large arrow on the bottom right.
So how could you use VoiceThread in Education? Well this is one of those tools that could be used for so many different purposes that I won’t touch on even a fraction of what can be done but I will try so here we go:
Use it for creative writing exercises, post a series of pictures and have students commutatively create the story by having each person add to what the last person wrote.
If you are interested in more I suggest you go to VoiceThread and browse ( http://voicethread.com/#q ) some of the ones that have already been created. Many of them are very creatively using the tool to fill gaps and really engage students in an open and non-threatening dialog.
One downside to VoiceThread is that for a student to use it they do need to have an account and although it is free it is another step they will need to go through to be able to use it.
Twitter It!Collaborative, comment, multipurpose, slideshow
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