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Showing posts from March, 2009

Second Life Presentation

A few weeks ago, Joan and I attended a presentation on Second Life at UH Manoa. Two topics were covered: "Second Life Manoa", and " Information Behavior in Virtual Worlds". These two presentations were part of the CIS seminar series. Second Life Manoa, Sam Joseph, Assistant Researcher, ICS This presentation focused on the structure and uses for Second Life. Real estate (sq. ft. unknown) was purchased for $1,500 and managed for $1,500 annually. UH sent pictures to Second Life developers to create models of the same buildings that exist on campus. Currently, five have been created. Powerpoint walls have been incorporated for UH staff to utilize and hold class. World browsers can also be linked to real life websites. Twitter feeds can be built in so that the administrator can detect when there are visitors in the area. Objects that have been scripted or created can also be purchased for low cost, $1,000 Linden dollars is equivalent to $3 US dollars. Informati

Owau 3/31 WordPress

" WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time."Matt Mulleweg, it's creator intended it to be easy to use and supportive of open sharing. Over 3.7 million downloads of its latest version says it is. "It's just an open source project, it's free for everybody and always will be." In this way, his mission is the same as ours, of Pauahi; to share, to disseminate the knowledge and pathways we've been given access to. He says in an interview linked below, "Most software doesn't die from people pirating it, or from people using it in ways you didn't intend, it dies from obscurity. So open source is the best way I can imagine to have distribution or adoption among..people of influence in the community.... The thing that I learned over time is the more open I was, the more successful things were...so put as much out th

Dropio

Here is a link to the drop box app I mentioned in the meeting. It's as simple as it's name http://drop.io/ ... honest, that's it's web address. I have a sample: http://drop.io/joepineapple You can create a dropbox of your own by : - changing the text after dropio/_____ with a name for your dropbox and click Dropit button. - add an Admin password so you can change the look and privacy of the drop box. It asks for a recovery email in case you forget your password but you don't have to enter one if you don't want to - or use your yahoo or whatever your rubbish email address is. Then just Click Add to add a file. Switch to your desired view chronological blog, by media (notes, pictures etc) Log in as the Admin (upper right corner) if you're not already there, to change the look of the blog in the right sidebar. The admin can delete the whole dropbox when the project is over. You can chat and record the chat, email the drop box or even make an audi

Wikis and the Web

These are just some additional resources that you may want to peruse. Last month I attended Innovative Uses of Wikis in the Classroom Webinar from Wimba. Here's a link to the archive: http://lecture.wimba.com/launcher.cgi?channel=chico_2009_0217_1304_34 Last week I also attended a Web design seminar. It was divided into two sections (Web design and mobile Web). For Web design, these were some interesting points: F reading pattern - how people view your Web site so you can put your key information in the appropriate areas. Google Analytics - Clinton also mentioned this as a good way to get stats on what is currently happening on our site (where people are coming from, what they are viewing) Web copyrighters - transferring printed material to the Web is not a best practice. Companies hire Web copyrighters to edit their key messages for an Internet audience. W3Schools Web statistics - tracking what browser people are using Content management systems mentioned - Drupal , Ruby

3/19 Owau: FaceBook CourseFeed & Blackboard

Initially when I first joined FaceBook, it was because I wanted to see what the hype was all about since many of our learners seem to be hooked onto this social networking site. After I set up an account, I didn't do much until my friends from high school, college and even my own family (including my dad) started inviting me to be their "friend" to network together. It was only until recently that I realized why our students would probably prefer logging into Facebook first before even thinking about opening up Blackboard to begin their online course. Once your network of friends is set up, it's definitly an easy way to keep updated on what's going on at a distance. I really haven't done much in Facebook besides the basics, but I thought it would be interesting for us to look at the CourseFeed interface ( http://apps.facebook.com/coursefeed ) that was developed. CourseFeed is a free Blackboard Building Block and Facebook app that alerts students in Faceboook w