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Mashable posted a very nice annotated compilation of PDF tools.
I use one tool that's not mentioned in the list: PDF X-Change Viewer. It loads fast, as touted. It also allows me to type into PDF forms meant for printing. Handy!
During my presentation at last week's 2007 CIO & Digital Library Forum, I made the point that wiki use in education, unlike blogs, is not entirely ready for prime time. Educators who use it are pioneers (or early-adopters, in marketing-speak). That's not to say that wikis shouldn't be used. Just don't expect people to jump right in and use it.
That's a reminder to myself that I can get overenthusiastic about these tools, not realising that many people have yet to become familiar with them. Lee LeFever of the Common Craft Blog, who has an excellent video primer on wikis, points out some results of a survey on social media tools:
16% of the US online population is familiar with what a wiki is. Even if you just look at the online trendsetters (18-34 year olds), only 27% of those online users are familiar with wikis.For context, consider that 76% of the same population know of search engines and 97% of toilet paper.Blogs, which have universal awareness among nearly anyone reading this post, are only familiar to 35% of online users. And familiarity with social networks as a category still ranks below that of online forums at 28% and 35% respectfully.
Although this is a US-based survey, I figure that numbers are similar here. Traditional media can report about blogs and wikis but the general public is still unfamiliar with these, particularly the latter.
Presentation at the 2007 CIO & Digital Library Forum, National University of Singapore.
Photo credits
WikiMindMap makes use of Wikipedia to generate a mind map of the search term. I've used Changi as an example in the screenshot above. Students shouldn't be using Wikipedia as a primary source. Nevertheless, that doesn't detract from WikiMindMap's nice way of displaying the entry's related terms.
Click on the words on the branches to go to the actual Wikipedia entry. Click the 'recycle' logo to bring that term to the center of the mind map.
Hat tip to Ewan McIntosh.
Finding photos and images for use for educational purposes is a daunting task given the current copyright regime. The Creative Commons offers some hope. Recently, the Wellcome Trust announced that it has released its collection of photos for non-commercial use (via the Creative Commons blog):
Teachers, students, academics and the public can now download and use images depicting 2,000 years of mankind and medicine for free, thanks this newly launched website from the Wellcome Trust.Launched on 15 June 2007, 'Wellcome Images' is the world's leading source of images on the history of medicine, modern biomedical science and clinical medicine. All content has been made available under a Creative Commons Licence, which allows users to copy, distribute and display the image, provided the source is fully attributed and it is used for non-commercial purposes.
Wellcome Images is constantly updated with new clinical, and biomedical and historical images from the Wellcome Library, Europe's leading resource for the study of history of medicine which recently re-launched as part of the new and forthcoming Wellcome Collection.
This is terrific news for educators!
For more general purpose images which are Creative Commons licensed, you might try Flickr. It is a photo hosting site which allows users to CC-license their photos for others to use. You'll be surprised by the number of CC-licensed photos. Use their Advanced Search, and make sure the "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed photos" box is checked. You can use the photos as the respective license describes. Do inform the owner as a courtesy!
Turnitin Bibliography by Charles P. Nelson via Stephen Downes
Charles has written and collated a rich treasure trove of Turnitin (an online plagiarism detection service) resources. While it is touted as a solution to a problem, not all educators approve of Turnitin's methods and philosophy. The bibliography reflects boths sides of the story. Charles also shares his thoughts about Using Turnitin, concluding that: "Turnitin, used properly, can be one tool among others, not simply for catching plagiarism, but more importantly for teaching students how to use sources appropriately."
If you're a NUS faculty staff, you can use Turnitin. Log in to IVLE, click Resources on the left hand toolbar, then click the Plagiarism Prevention link. (P.S. I am at a loss as to why it is labelled 'Plagiarism Prevention' here.)
Academic Culture eModule, Centre for Instructional Technology, NUS
Since we are on the topic of plagiarism, you might want to check out the Academic Culture eModule. This self-contained interactive module introduces university students to the academic norms, values and practices. Through video-based scenarios and interactive questions, students learn about Academic Conventions, Academic Inquiry and Academic Ethics. The eModule is freely accessible, so do have a look.
A Teaching with Technology White Paper: Podcasting [download pdf] by Ashley Deal via Stephen Downes
A useful primer on podcasting in education. This includes a look at what podcasting is, how it can be used in education and some examples of classroom use. This primer brings to mind a recent post I read by Jacob Christenson, reflecting on the reasons his department's podcasting project failed.
Free Geography Tools via Google Earth Blog
The Free Geography Tools blog is about the latest in "free tools for GIS, GPS, Google Earth, neogeography, and more".
s/pores is a new e-journal run by a group Singaporean academics, mostly based in NUS:
This e-journal aims to provide a much-needed multi-disciplinary platform for the dissemination of works investigating different aspects of historical and contemporary Singapore society. Moving beyond statist perspectives, the journal encourages research that opens up space for recalibrating the status quo in Singapore....s/pores is an interplay of the short form, the lower case, the plural, the backslash-the informal, the non-elite, the multiple, the oblique. Pronounced ‘spores’, our title also denotes the dispersal of seeds of ideas, some of which should fall on fertile ground. s/pores is therefore simultaneously a declaration of authorial positioning as it is a statement of our hopes for a more variegated Singapore.
The first issue touches on pre-1965 Singapore as a starting point to explore alternative narratives to the Singapore Story.
A Tomorrow.sg post highlighted Hong Lysa's The Continuing Saga of Singapore's Story, which uses S. Rajaratnam's passing as a focal point to examine the lack of diversity in our foundation stories. This article is heavy going for a blog format, as are the others, but they are worth the time to read.
The s/pores team also invites contributions:
Contributions should be the result of scholarly research, but need not be presented with the full formal conventions of an academic product. In fact, the injunction is that intimidating academic-speak is out. We want to provide room as well for reflective essays, proposals and tentative findings for new areas of research.
This is one blog that I will definitely continue reading.
UPDATE s/pores now offers PDFs for printing. PDFs for Vol 1 Issue 1.
Blog2Learn Wiki by Anne Davis
I'm glad that it's Blog2Learn instead of Blog2Teach. We're all learners! Anne's blog is a wide-ranging collection of links to edublogging resources and projects (K-12 through to tertiary level). Click on the SideBar link to see the navigation menu. Anne teaches writing, and she says this about blogs:
[They] give us an avenue to teach writing (blogging) as a cluster of complex thinking and writing behaviors that provide ownership to the student and the possibility of getting a multitude of responses from others. We have to orchestrate that. Yes, it takes time but we can truly model this process through our own blogs and provide the type of environment to support young writers and give them the challenges necessary to foster writing development. What a joy!
Mobile Learning, Vol 8, No 2 (2007), The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning via elearnspace
Mobile learning is an area in educational technology which is fraught with issues. The emphasis tends to be on how content can be delivered via mobile devices. This brings with the the problem of compatibility: operating systems, file formats, screen sizes, battery life, storage capacity... you get the drift. On the other hand, those that want to exploit the use of mobile devices in classroom projects need to overcome issues with sufficient and equitable access to the necessary tools. Regardless of what you conceive m-learning and how it will affect education, this issue of IRRODL has a number of peer-reviewed journal articles which explore mobile learning.
Reflections from EduBloggerCon07: Crafting a Compelling, Cogent Message for Change by Chris Sessums
Chris Sessums summarises a session he participated in at EduBloggerCon07, bringing together the thoughts of the participants:
For many educators who are actively engaged in the blogging process, weblogs have reportedly transformed the way they learn; it has challenged them about the ways they think about themselves individually, as well as the way they think about teaching and learning.For many educators at this meet-up, blogging extends their ability to connect to other people and ideas, enhancing both personal and professional relationships. Weblogging has reportedly challenged them to learn more about themselves as well as challenging the way we think about a variety of subjects.
Zotero is a browser extension which "helps you collect, manage, and cite your research sources" from within the Firefox. I've not installed it yet, but it might be a handy tool. No harm trying - it's free!
I've mentioned Slideshare a few times previously. It's been called the YouTube of PowerPoint, and it works as advertised. But a presentation slides are just that: presentation slides. Where's the actual presentation?
Zentation promises to change that. You can upload your slides to Zentation and upload the video recording to Google Video (chosen for its ability to jump to any point of the video during streaming). Zentation puts them together. You get an shareable online webcast. Very nice if you're not on campus.
UPDATE: Slideshare allows you to load an accompanying audio file. I have not checked it out, but I gather that the audio and slide synchronisation is an issue.
This page contains all entries posted to CITations in July 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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