Links and Things

• tiltshiftmaker.com – Transform your photos into tilt-shift style miniatures

  Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs.

  Now you can easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift style miniatures using tiltshiftmaker.com.

  tags: photography, tools, design, web2.0

• Yonkly – Create your own network

  Create Your Own Microblog Network for Anything

  tags: microblogging, web2.0, twitter, microblog, ideas, app

  

  Image via CrunchBase

• Diigo Tutorials

  A Google notebook of Diigo how-to and tutorials

  tags: diigo, tutorials, tutorial, web2.0, tools, bookmarking, socialbookmarking, howto

Image via CrunchBase

• TwitterCounter
  
  TwitterCounter Stats: You Count!

  tags: twitter, tools, web2.0, socialmedia, statistics

• TweetStats :: Graphin’ Your Stats

  Graph your Twitter Stats including

  * Tweets per hour
  * Tweets per month
  * Tweet timeline
  * Reply statistics

  In use by over 50,000 Twitter-folk!

  tags: twitter, stats, tools, statistics, web, web2.0, app

• Retweetrank: Find any twitterer’s retweet rank

  Retweet rank is a representative of the number of times a user have been retweeted by others recently

  tags: twitter, web2.0, app

• Twitemperature: How hot are you?

  What is your Twitemperature?

  tags: Twitter, web2.0, ideas

• SlideShare » Nnorris’s Slidespace

  Web 2.0 tools and information literacy for learning

  tags: twitter, education, learning2.0, web2.0, classroom2.0, digitallearning

• Using microblogging in education. Case study: Cirip.ro – SlideShare

  Presentation at Conference eLearning Applications, UAC, Cairo, 10-12 January 2009

  tags: twitter, education, learning2.0, web2.0, classroom2.0, digitallearning

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Links and Things: Online Storage

• Wuala – The social online storage

  Wuala, the social online storage

  Voilà, here comes Wuala! Securely store and back up files online, access them from anywhere, and share your photos, videos, and music with friends and family.

  Join Wuala today and experience a new dimension of storing and sharing files – free, simple, and secure.

  tags: web2.0, storage, media, video, mp3, pictures

• Gspace

  Gspace is the FON friendly site that provides FREE Online Storage to access your files everywhere.

  Gspace turns the 2GB of your Gmail account into free online storage. With Gspace you can manage unlimited Gmail accounts to store all type of files within its simple, user friendly interface.

  Listen your favourite stored music directly from your Gspace, view your collections of pictures and manage your Gdrive files as well.

  Download Gspace now and transfer files between your computer and Gspace at anytime, from everywhere!

  tags: gmail, storage, firefox, google, tools, extension, download, app, ideas, web2.0

• Putfile – free videos and photos sharing!

  Putfile is a FREE digital media hosting service. Upload, organize and share your media with your friends, family, or even the world.

  Our easy to use tools gives you control of your media, you even get your own personal web page

  tags: tools, web, media, upload, hosting, storage, web2.0, app

• DivShare – Professional Media and Document Sharing

  5GB of free online storage for Documents, Music, Photos and Videos
  Your Videos
  Upload your videos and we’ll convert them to high-quality, streaming Flash that you can embed anywhere. With our advanced features, add your own logo to your players!
  Your Photos
  Store and share thousands of photos and link directly to individual images or thumbnails. We’ll automatically create beautiful Flash slideshows to embed on your own site.
  Your Music
  Share all your original music and audio, stream MP3s and create embeddable playlists in seconds. Great for blogs, social networks and streaming right from DivShare!
  Your Documents
  Upload your Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents and view them right in your browser before you download. Perfect for sharing docs with classmates and co-workers!

  tags: storage, hosting, sharing, upload, tools, web2.0, filesharing, file, app, ideas

• MyBloop.com – Upload and Share Your Files for Free

  MyBloop is an unlimited free file storage website. We give anyone the ability to upload all their files and share them with anyone else for free. You can upload files directly from the website or you can install the BloopLoader application to upload files by dragging and drop from your desktop. The BloopLoader is available for Windows and Mac (Intel-based PC.)

  tags: storage, sharing, web2.0, music, hosting, backup

• Oosah – Homepage

  1TB of Online Media Storage
  Support for all your media file types
  Syndicate or podcast your media

  tags: storage, media, web2.0, sharing, photos, filesharing

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Links and Things: Online Storage

• Wuala – The social online storage

  

  Image via CrunchBase

  Wuala, the social online storage

  Voilà, here comes Wuala! Securely store and back up files online, access them from anywhere, and share your photos, videos, and music with friends and family.

  Join Wuala today and experience a new dimension of storing and sharing files – free, simple, and secure.

  tags: web2.0, storage, media, video, mp3, pictures

• Gspace

  

  Image via CrunchBase

  Gspace is the FON friendly site that provides FREE Online Storage to access your files everywhere.

  Gspace turns the 2GB of your Gmail account into free online storage. With Gspace you can manage unlimited Gmail accounts to store all type of files within its simple, user friendly interface.

  Listen your favourite stored music directly from your Gspace, view your collections of pictures and manage your Gdrive files as well.

  Download Gspace now and transfer files between your computer and Gspace at anytime, from everywhere!

  tags: gmail, storage, firefox, google, tools, extension, download, app, ideas, web2.0

• Putfile – free videos and photos sharing!

  Putfile is a FREE digital media hosting service. Upload, organize and share your media with your friends, family, or even the world.

  Our easy to use tools gives you control of your media, you even get your own personal web page

  tags: tools, web, media, upload, hosting, storage, web2.0, app

• DivShare – Professional Media and Document Sharing

  5GB of free online storage for Documents, Music, Photos and Videos
  Your Videos
  Upload your videos and we’ll convert them to high-quality, streaming Flash that you can embed anywhere. With our advanced features, add your own logo to your players!
  Your Photos
  Store and share thousands of photos and link directly to individual images or thumbnails. We’ll automatically create beautiful Flash slideshows to embed on your own site.
  Your Music
  Share all your original music and audio, stream MP3s and create embeddable playlists in seconds. Great for blogs, social networks and streaming right from DivShare!
  Your Documents
  Upload your Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents and view them right in your browser before you download. Perfect for sharing docs with classmates and co-workers!

  tags: storage, hosting, sharing, upload, tools, web2.0, filesharing, file, app, ideas

• MyBloop.com – Upload and Share Your Files for Free

  MyBloop is an unlimited free file storage website. We give anyone the ability to upload all their files and share them with anyone else for free. You can upload files directly from the website or you can install the BloopLoader application to upload files by dragging and drop from your desktop. The BloopLoader is available for Windows and Mac (Intel-based PC.)

  tags: storage, sharing, web2.0, music, hosting, backup

• Oosah – Homepage

  1TB of Online Media Storage
  Support for all your media file types
  Syndicate or podcast your media

  tags: storage, media, web2.0, sharing, photos, filesharing

• OpenDrive – Free Online Drive and Syncing

  OpenDrive is a remote drive for your computer, that allows you
  to store, share or back up files from your computer on the Internet. You can store anything and share it with anyone, right from your desktop. Start storing and sharing today.

  tags: storage, media, web2.0, sharing, backup, filesharing

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Listen to this article

Links and Things: GCal Popop

Image via CrunchBase

Here is a Firefox extension that just might get me to use GCal a little more. I am giving it a shot. That will bring me up to 53 extensions but hey what else is Firefox for?

GCal Popup :: Firefox Add-ons

Google Calendar in a nice overlay so that your calendar can be updated without ever leaving the web page.

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Links and Things: ThinkFree Web Office Better than Google Docs?

ThinkFree is a web office suite. It is a fully featured office suite. It has the big three: ThinkFree Office 3 Write (read Microsoft Word), ThinkFree Office 3 Calc (read Microsoft Excel), and ThinkFree Office 3 Show (Read PowerPoint). ThinkFree offers collaborative features, a workspace for team projects, and “Note” which is a blog web-based editor.

From the website:

Online Service

My Office (Free)
Enjoy instant access to your files, and share them with colleagues and friends anytime, anywhere. Documents editing is fundamental.

Workspace
Collaboration with team members or friends is made simple with your managed workspace.

Web Word “Note”
Edit Documents and post to blogs with the use of a powerful web-based editor

ThinkFree for iPhone
View all documents from your iPhone or wireless device, whenever you want.

ThinkFree has an offline function like Google Gears so documents can be edited offline. ThinkFree also has features that are sorely lacking in Google Docs,

1. ThinkFree reads the new Office 2007 document format (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) natively. Whew. ThinkFree is Faster and better than the “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats” tool. The Comaptibility pack takes up 27.5 MB and requeres every Microsoft Office 2007 security patch and update that the full suite uses.
2. ThinkFree has prettier formatting. One of the knocks agaist Google Docs is the lack of formatting features. ThinkFree Office 3 Write looks almost exactly like Microsoft Word 2000. I have heard many complaints about the new interface for Microsoft Office 2007. The free office download has an advertising sidebar that doesn’t take up much real estate. At $50 it is worth it to pay for the full version.
3. The ThinkFree tools like Workspace and Note features are bundled together. Offline document editing and synchronization and premium features like ThinkFree Server Standard all work together. Google has Google Sites which is more like SharePoint than a Microsoft Project and Team Collaboration site.

ThinkFree is number 3 of the list of web office suites behind Google Docs and Zoho Office. I find ThinkFree easier to use and it is luring me away from Google Docs. Give ThinkFree a try. I think you will find that it is worth it.

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Links and Things: Firefox

Calling Firefox a web browser is like calling a Swiss Army Knife a knife. Yeah, a Swiss Army Knife is a knife but a butter knife just doesn’t hold a candle. Comparing Firefox to Internet Explorer is a similar comparison. You can surf the web with Firefox just like you do with Internet Explorer but that is like using a Swiss Army Knife to put butter on a piece of bread. Sure you can do that but you can also do so much more.

Firefox is superior to Internet Explorer in several ways.  From the Firefox Website:

Firefox is no longer a web browser for me. It is my internet toolkit. With the exception of VMWare Workstation I could do away with every other program on my computer and use Firefox instead. I can use ThinkFree and Google Docs for any word processing I need to do. I can use many of the addons for Firefox for monitoring my email, social networks and just about everything else.

If you haven’t tried Firefox you are missing out.

Student-Teacher Collaboration: Feedback Please!

I hate the traditional classroom
“Students have little input into the structure and substance of their own education. The traditional classroom lecture creates massive boredom, especially when compared to the vibrancy of their media-saturated, tech-driven world. But if we were to ask them, we’d learn they prefer questions rather than answers, sharing their opinions, group projects, working with real-world issues, and teachers who speak with them as equals rather than as inferiors.”
Young Minds, Fast Times: The Twenty-First-Century Digital Learner

I love the idea of students participating in the curriculum design. I would love to collaborate with them on how they learn best and how to incorporate technology in the course work. I especially excited about the concept of students creating content instead of just being force feed content. I know that most of my students have books they will hardly, if ever, read. I believe that a student buys a set of books they don’t open and have no participation in the content they receive then they have wasted their time and money.

I believe in integrating technology into the curriculum. I believe that students should participate in creating content as well as participating in existing content. I believe that students should use and/or become familiar with I am using wikis, Google docs, twitter, Diigo, Blogs, Friendfeed among other tools to reach these ends.

I am a strong advocate of collaboration. I believe that students should work together in teams. I believe in project based learning. I think students should have real world exercises to work with. I don’t believe in exercises in a vacuum. I believe that working on a project is the best way to make sense of the technology they want to learn.

I am not doing something right…

I am not getting feedback. I cannot seem to find a way to talk to the students about how they would like to learn. I would like to know what I can do with the students. I could chuck the whole curriculum as it stands and rebuild it if we could work something out. I would love to have the input. I would love to find out what would help them learn the best and find a way to work with them to make it work.

I have some how built a barrier between me and my students. The feedback I get usually comes from the top down and is usually very vague. They seem to feel like they need to address their issues with someone else. I haven’t done right by them somehow. It is very disheartening.

So now I am asking the void: What do you suggest I do to get it right? What have you tried that has worked? What am I missing?

collegedegrees.com: a serious resource for the Digital Learner

College Degrees is a great resource for digital learners and the instructors that teach them. Their articles are well thought out, through, and well researched. Their suggestions are practical, easy to understand and dad-gum handy.

My favorites are

• 57 Habits of Highly Effective Gmail Users: This is an excellent resource on how to use Gmail to the fullest.
• 50+ Useful Firefox Extnesions for College Students defines some of the best Firefox extensions for the digital learner and how to use them. Just when I thought I was going to be able to cut back to less than 30 extensions. Oh well.
• The post that takes the cake is the 50 tips and tricks to create a learning space in second life. I couldn’t have done better myself.

Secondlife is one of the tools for the digital learner that I believe has the most untapped potential. Even if universities like Ohio State have bought whole islands I still believe there is much more that the educator can do to take advantage of it.

Take a look at the blog and let me know what you think. I think its great.

Google Pages for the Rest of Us

Google moves Google Sites from the enterprise and adds a wiki. Google Sites Wikis for the classroom perhaps? From TechnoCruch:

When Google Sites launched in February, it was part of the Google Apps group that targets enterprises large and small. Now, consumers can create a wiki Website using Google Sites, without the need to have their own domain.
Google Sites gives you a basic template to create a Website that can be edited by the public at large or a smaller group of people. Photos, widgets, videos, and other elements can be added. Here is a video showing what you can do: