Educational Technology – Lisa Toulon

Listservs are a great way to keep current in Education.  One such listserv I belong to is the Friday 5 hosted by Lucy Gray.  Five sites, based on a theme, are emailed to participants every Friday.  The most recent one was on Firefox.  Lucy listed sites with useful information on FireFox.  Another participant on the list added another Firefox recommendation called Adblock.  This blocker gets rid of not just popup ads but almost all text ads like banner ads and side panel ads.  Here is how it works:

1.  Using Firefox 1.5, go to the Adblock download page.

2.  Click on the install now link.

3.  Restart Firefox.

4.  Go to a website with ads like Yahoo.

5.  Right-click on an ad and choose Adblock Image and click ok (on the Mac, hold down the Control key as you click)

6.  The image will be gone and added to a block list for future viewings of the site.

These adblock filters can be exported and imported onto other computers.

Reflections

Having students go to sites with ads is a common complaint in education.  This tool is perfect for those which you may not use because of the ads.  However, as Mozilla pointed out on their website:

However you should note that many websites are supported by revenue from ads. You should consider this carefully before you block all the ads on the site.  Perhaps just blocking intrusive ads like popups and flash ads with sound is enough? If everyone blocked all the ads on that site, then the webmaster might be forced to close it.

I have discovered some wonderful free Web-Based Word Processors which support Collaborative Writing.  The three I have loooked at so far are: Writeboard, Jotspot Live, and Writely. 

They have the following features in common:

1.  free service

2.  Available from any Internet connected computer – no software needed

3.  Collaborate with others – enter their email address and an invitation with a link to view and edit is sent

Some optional features include:

1.  Stored versions of various writers (Writeboard, , Writely)

2.  Compare different versions of a document (Writeboard, Writely)

3.  Format text (Writeboard – using simple codes, Writeboard – like Word with toolbar)

4. Add Comments (Writeboard)

5.  Subscribe to documents via RSS and be notified of changes (Writeboard, Writely)

6.  Writers can edit at same time (Jotspot Live, Writely – problem showing who was editing when I tried it)

7.  Multiple pages (Jotspot Live free version – limited to 5 pages per month, Writeboard – create multiple writeboards)

8.  Import and export documents (Writely- both to Word, Writeboard – export as text file only)

9.  Publish the document on the web or post to your blog (Writely)

10.  Organize documents (Writely – using tags, not folders)

11.  Save as zip file (Writely)

Setup information – Name, password, email 

1.  Writeboard – use a password that you do not mind sharing with others if you plan on using it to collaborate with others.

2.  Jotspot Live – each person has own password and ability to set up own 5 pages in addition to sharing.

3.  Writely – Initial person sets up a password.  Random password sent to those invited to collaborate.

Example Screenshots

Writeboard 

Writely

Reflections

While each is relatively easy to use, they have distinct educational applications.  Jotspot Live would be great for group notetaking.  Writeboard is more user-friendly than Writely and therefore may be more appropriate for younger students when collaborating.  Writely, integrates well with Microsoft Word and has a built in file system (using tags).  You can also organize files in Writeboard but separate writeboards need to be setup.  The accompanying “Backpack” service can be used to organize the files.  Comparing versions is easier in Writboard than Writely.  Each has much promise for educational use for Collaborative Writing.

So how did Mike, from BlinkList, find my posting on my blog so fast? (see Jan. 4th post)  I went straight to the source and asked him myself.  He used technorati, a blog search engine.   How does this search engine work?  According to their site,

“Because Technorati automatically receives notification from weblogs as soon as they are updated, it can track the thousands of updates per hour that occur in the blogosphere, and monitor the communities (who’s linking to whom) underlying these conversations.”

You can search by keyword, website URL, or the tag which the blogger has assigned to the post.  Very cool.  Thanks for the recommendation, Mike. 

Other Blog Search Engines include: Blogdigger, Bloglines, BlogPulse, BlogSearchEngine, Bloogz, Daypop, Feedster, Google Blog Search, IceRocket and PubSub.  The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about this called “New Search Engines
Help Users Find Blogs.”

Just hours after I posted my first entry on this weblog, I received an email from someone asking me to check out their social bookmarking service BlinkList.  I was amazed that he was able to find my post so fast.  I then remembered there is an RSS button on my blog which edublogs automatically added.  So I understand that my blog automatically has a web feed (RSS feed) on it and anyone with a web feed reader (aggregator) can receive updates to my blog automatically through their reader.  I have never used a reader before and started doing some research on it.

I did a search for RSS Reader on Google and came up with 105,000,000 hits!  So where to start?  I started with Bloglines and added a couple of Blogs that I read regularly.  I would be interested to hear other recommendations.

For years, I have been using an online bookmark manager called iKeepbookmarks to manage and access my Internet favorites.  I have always liked the simplicity of the interface and the ability to access it from any Internet connected computer.  At a recent conference in Alabama, I was introduced to del.icio.us  At first glance, the interface seemed confusing and I could not understand why someone would want to keep their bookmarks this way.  However, I decided to try it out to see what all the fuss was about. 

I then discovered the power of tags.  Have you ever bookmarked something and found that it could fit in many categories?  Which folder to put it in…  With del.icio.us, you can use tags to organize your links.  For example, I found an article called Does your web policy cover student sites?  This could go in my folder on blogs or AUP.  Del.icio.us doesn’t make you choose one of them or make you duplicate your efforts.  You can use tags, one word descriptors, for each of the categories and find this resource under either one!  You can also search someone else posts for related content with the same tags. 

Del.icio.us was mentioned in the Chicago Tribune today in reference to social bookmarking.