July 2008 Archives

Dipity is a neat little tool that allows you to create timelines quickly and easily and share them with others. You can also allow others to edit the timeline, making it a great way to have students collaborate on the creation of a timeline for a group project. You can control the privacy settings on the timeline so that it is only viewable and/or editable by people you specify. The tool is web-based, so there is no program to download or files to install.

It is very easy to sign up for a free account and begin creating your own timeline. You have the option of adding both images and videos to timeline events, as well as Google map locations. Simply type in an address, and the map will appear when the event description is clicked on the timeline.

In addition, there are multiple views of the timeline, including a text list of the events (suitable for printing), a flipbook view (one event at a time), as well as a map view of all the events with locations. Finally, there are over 20,000 timelines available for viewing that were created by people all over the world. The timelines are organized into categories and are easily searchable on the main page. These would be a great resource to use in your classes for students to see visually and geographically how particular events were sequenced. Check it out!

A new search engine launched this week: Cuil. Developed by Stanford professor Tom Costello and former Google search architect Anna Patterson, Cuil offers a new way to search.

Features of this new web browser include: Drilldown, Roll-over definitions, Tabs, and Navigation suggestions.

I am such a visual person ... always looking for the perfect image to go with a publication, handout, digital story, video or website. The first place I look anymore for photos is on FLICKR. The site contains amazing shots and I have had great luck with FLICKR photographers allowing me to use their photos for various educational purposes.

Given that, I was so excited to find this online image searching tool, Multicolor Search Lab - Flickr Set at the Idee Labs web site < http://labs.ideeinc.com/> which allows you to search for images that contain a particular color or color set on Flickr. In the example below, I was looking for images with a red/green combination.

Soooooooo cool! Check it out ... hope you find it as useful as I do!

Heidi Trotta

Two online training videos have been produced by DyKnow in preparation for the version 5.1 upgrade. This upgrade will build upon existing features and streamline the user interface.

If you have any questions, please contact your Instructional Design liaison.

The Distance Learning Academic Advisory Board (DLAAB) held a joint meeting with the Education Activities Task Force (EATF) on June 18, 2008 at the County College of Morris to discuss new and currently available resources through NJEdge.net. DLAAB is comprised of members from two and four-year colleges and is co-chaired by Pete Shapiro (Bergen County Community College) and Patty Kahn (Montclair State University). The use of the Quality Matters rubric for online distance education was highlighted once again as a best practice for developing online courses and programs. Most colleges participating in DLAAB are using some form of the rubric while Seton Hall is a Quality Matters institution.

In addition to the use of a rubric as a best practice, NJVID, an inter-institutional video repository, is currently being developed by Rutgers and William Paterson Universities. NJVID, a Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services funded project is open source and statewide and will house lectures, properly licensed media and tools.

DID YOU KNOW...Seton Hall has its very own YOUTUBE resource appropriately called SHUTUBE?

I'm sure you've all heard about the universities upcoming e-mail move from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook. It's a major project that will be done in phases over the next 6 months. IT migrated a few "early adopters" last week and another group will be done this week. The "early adopters" have been reporting any issues with the new system and we will be working these issues out so that when we start migrating the administrative areas in September, your migration will be as comfortable as possible.

Most of the users I've spoken with about this project have expressed concern about what happens to the mail currently in their Lotus Notes file, how will they access the Notes databases they use regularly, their Personal Address Book and their personal mail archives. All legitimate concerns so let me address them.

First, even though your Outlook mail box will start from scratch at the time you are migrated, your Notes mail will be available to you in Outlook via a folder. You can refer back to it and it will remain available until the files themselves are deleted sometime in the future. You will still maintain the Notes client on your PC, so you will be able to start it up and access databases like the Phone Directory, the Resource Request database, and any of your "local" archive files you may have created over the last few years. Lotus Notes databases will be converted to another software, again, sometime in the future, but not right now. Finally, when you are scheduled for migration to Outlook, you will be reminded to synchronize your Personal Address Book right before you come to the training class. This process will ensure that all your contacts/groups are brought over into the Outlook system for you to use just as you did in Notes.

I hope this helps a little and you will be receiving more information on this project as we move forward. I will also keep you up to date in this ePirate blog. I will be setting up training for all admin departments beginning in September and you will be notified of when the training will be held by your management.

Throughout all the compatibility issues people may be experiencing with Vista, the ray of hope has always been the companies that care about the user experience. Although, it is at first an inconvenience to find out that your favorite programs may not have originally gotten the Vista seal of approval, it has been comforting to know that program designers have empathisized with your pain. Companies, such as Mozilla, Google, AOL, and Microsoft (of course...), have all paved a path for the development of Vista-approved applications. They have understood a long time ago that with the onset of Vista there needed to be an established presence for those users. And that it is why they have kept up-to-date with their prized programs... Mozilla Firefox 3.01, all the Google Apps, AOL Instant Messenger 6.8, and Microsoft, has accomodated much of their software to Vista specifications...
To get these updates, you can make your way to these sites->

Mozilla Firefox
Google Apps
AIM
Microsoft

Users that already have the DyKnow v5.0 client installed will continue to function as before, but will not have access to the new features in the latest update.

Some of the new features in DyKnow v5.1 include:

• A redesigned user interface, modeled on the new Microsoft Office Fluent based user interface, featuring the Ribbon, Quick Access Toolbar, and Application Menu.


• The ability to record audio during the DyKnow session


• Resized filmstrip view


• Enhanced polling


• File transfer

Favthumbs is a great new tool that allows you to visualize your del.icio.us bookmarks. All you have to do is enter your del.icio.us username and sign in (your password is optional).

Once signed in, there are a few options. The default view is to show all of your bookmarks in grid view. Use the slider on the top right to zoom in and out of your visual bookmarks (click on image below to see detail).

Another option is carousel view which allows you to flip through your bookmarks so that you can see them one by one. As in the original del.icio.us view, you can always focus in on a particular topic by clicking on one of your tags that are listed on the right hand side of the screen (see graphic above). The graphic below is in carousel view after selecting the tag digitalstorytelling.


Check it out!

Learning Objects, Inc., developers of the Blackboard wiki and blog tools, recently launched online demos to illustrate some examples of how these tools can be used within a course.

The wiki tool (Teams LX) provides a way for students to work collaboratively on projects and group-edited content and to share this content with other students/faculty in a Blackboard course. With this tool, faculty also have a way to assess individual students' contributions through the Assess Wikis function in the Control Panel of Blackboard.

The blog tool (Journal LX) offers a medium by which students can reflect on experiences and course content in either a private (available only to the instructor) or public (available to instructor and all students) format. Commenting provides a convenient way for faculty to provide feedback to students on their blog entries.

The podcast tool allows faculty to easily distribute audio or video to your students, giving them the option to listen to the file on a mobile device, such as an ipod.

Check out the newly launched online tutorials and demos to see how these new tools can be used in your courses!

I have been teaching a lot of Movable Type blogging classes lately and in every class I have taught, someone has asked me what RSS is or means. So, without getting too techie, here goes...

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary and it is a format for delivering updates to regularly changing web content. Online publishers (websites, blogs, etc.) create RSS feeds for anyone who wants them. There is software that allows you to access the feeds but most people use web-based feed readers such as My Yahoo, Google Reader and Bloglines.

First, you create an account with an RSS Feed Reader service (My Yahoo, Bloglines, etc.). Then, when you identify a website or blog that you want to keep track of, you will need to subscribe. When you go to do this, sometimes you will encounter the RSS icon (such as the one at the top of this post and the one below - click on any image below to see detail) or just the word RSS. Sometimes you will even see both. Or, you can look for the word(s) Subscribe or Subscribe to this blog's feed. The last step is choosing the feed reader service you have chosen to use. If you visit the same websites every day or even every week to see what's new, and you haven't investigated RSS and RSS feed readers, check it out!

The creative team at Common Craft has created this video that explains RSS in "Plain English":

This is a fun web site that will assemble your favorite words or tags from delicious, flick or blog. Its free to use so check it out at http://wordle.net/ The image below was created from a delicious account.