Emma Duke-Williams :: Blog :: Archives
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/09/webct-elgg/ Since I originally mentioned the link in February, Sasan has added a Flash demo of it.
Tama’s review (posted in February, but I’ve only just found it) of the Aperto link seems to indicate that it does have the functionality I’m looking for. His earlier comments about WebCT’s blogging tool covers most of the points that I was afraid of - in particular that it’s only visible to students on the course.
I’ve been looking much more closely at it, as I’d like the students on the MScIT (if we get it off the ground!) to start using blogs from the outset. One of the comments that seems to have arisen from the current cohort of MScELT students (using Blogspot) is that they don’t feel very comfortable with others potentially seeing their blogs. We’re having a focus group with them in a couple of weeks time, so I might get some clearer answers from them. Elgg, though, seems to make it very easy to set up different groups of readers, so, a student could make some totally personal posts, some for themselves & the tutor, some for the group, and some for anyone. The powerlink would make moving from WebCT to Elgg seamless, though as far as I know it only works with WebCT 6.
As we’ve not got WebCT 6 at present, we’re going to have to set it up, and then just link between the two - students will have to log in twice!
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/09/importing-external-content-into-your-blog-elgg/ Ben Werdmuller has put up some instructions for incorporating an external blog’s RSS feed to create content in an Elgg blog. I’d set up an Elgg blog a while ago, but, realistically, trying to maintain two blogs wasn’t possible. I like the way Elgg works, and, as I’ve already said, think that Elgg would be a good way to set up student’s blogs here.
I first used the auto feed system on Digitaldivide (off line at present). I’ve also asked James if Edublogs would support such a scheme.
The drawback, of course, for owners of blog sites, is that it would be quite easy for a spammer to set up a single blog, register accounts on many sites, and then just spawn many identical blogs. However, for me, when I’ve looked at several community sites, and liked them, it’s much easier to be able to have a single blog that I update & use it to generate other blogs. The ideal, which I think that Elgg are working on, would be that selected posts only went to other sites, so, Elgg could have the educational ones (about 99%), and Digitaldivide those that look more at development issues.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/09/bloglines/ Kate Britt’s site, though I’ve not visited for a while, has a lot of resources for online teaching, especially those who are using WebCT. I found an idea for putting RSS feeds of academic journals into a course, using Bloglines. (Powerpoint). That worked fine - I’ve created an extra bloglines account and have populated it with a few journals. I’ll get it properly ready for the start of next year.
While in bloglines I remembered the odd “related feeds” I’d had for this site in February. If I’m not logged in to my main bloglines account, then I get Terry, Pat and Michael’s blogs, followed by a lot of knitting & crochet sites. . When I’m logged in, as I’ve got those 3 already listed, I’m not told about them again, so it’s just the knitting sites! Not quite sure what’s happening.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/09/bloglines/ Kate Britt’s site, though I’ve not visited for a while, has a lot of resources for online teaching, especially those who are using WebCT. I found an idea for putting RSS feeds of academic journals into a course, using Bloglines. (Powerpoint). That worked fine - I’ve created an extra bloglines account and have populated it with a few journals. I’ll get it properly ready for the start of next year.
While in bloglines I remembered the odd “related feeds” I’d had for this site in February. If I’m not logged in to my main bloglines account, then I get Terry, Pat and Michael’s blogs, followed by a lot of knitting & crochet sites. . When I’m logged in, as I’ve got those 3 already listed, I’m not told about them again, so it’s just the knitting sites! Not quite sure what’s happening.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/09/bloglines/ Kate Britt’s site, though I’ve not visited for a while, has a lot of resources for online teaching, especially those who are using WebCT. I found an idea for putting RSS feeds of academic journals into a course, using Bloglines. (Powerpoint). That worked fine - I’ve created an extra bloglines account and have populated it with a few journals. I’ll get it properly ready for the start of next year.
While in bloglines I remembered the odd “related feeds” I’d had for this site in February. If I’m not logged in to my main bloglines account, then I get Terry, Pat and Michael’s blogs, followed by a lot of knitting & crochet sites. . When I’m logged in, as I’ve got those 3 already listed, I’m not told about them again, so it’s just the knitting sites! Not quite sure what’s happening.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/why-reading-is-even-more-important-in-the-digital-age/ Clare Brett has the Powerpoint presentation of a session that she gave in Toronto recently. There is a good overview of why reading is so important today - including the ability to be critical about what is read. There’s a comprehensive list of references.
via: Steven Downes
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/audio-discussion-board/ Susan Sedro has an example Vaestro board up; it’s a board where you can record your thoughts. She’s posted the question “what’s your favourite children’s book?”
It reads the whole thread once started, though I do have a few concerns re. accessibility. The poster only has to leave a written comment if they choose. While I can see a great potential for getting thoughts online, I could see some issues if you have the need to have accessible learning material. (Also, lack of transcript leads to difficulty searching).
I’m just trying to test it; you have to have Flash installed, and, when it asks for permission to record, let it! If you accidentally click “deny” (e.g. because you realise that you have yet to plug the microphone in…), then you’ll need to go to the Flash Settings manager (online), in order to reset it.
The drawback of recording is that you can’t edit if you make a mistake, you have to start over again. I was also testing to see how long a summary I could write (i.e. could I write a full transcript), except I accidentally clicked the wrong button, so it got posted with no summary at all!
Generally seems like a good idea though.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/why-reading-is-even-more-important-in-the-digital-age/ Clare Brett has the Powerpoint presentation of a session that she gave in Toronto recently. There is a good overview of why reading is so important today - including the ability to be critical about what is read. There’s a comprehensive list of references.
via: Steven Downes
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/why-reading-is-even-more-important-in-the-digital-age/ Clare Brett has the Powerpoint presentation of a session that she gave in Toronto recently. There is a good overview of why reading is so important today - including the ability to be critical about what is read. There’s a comprehensive list of references.
via: Steven Downes
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/audio-discussion-board/ Susan Sedro has an example Vaestro board up; it’s a board where you can record your thoughts. She’s posted the question “what’s your favourite children’s book?”
It reads the whole thread once started, though I do have a few concerns re. accessibility. The poster only has to leave a written comment if they choose. While I can see a great potential for getting thoughts online, I could see some issues if you have the need to have accessible learning material. (Also, lack of transcript leads to difficulty searching).
I’m just trying to test it; you have to have Flash installed, and, when it asks for permission to record, let it! If you accidentally click “deny” (e.g. because you realise that you have yet to plug the microphone in…), then you’ll need to go to the Flash Settings manager (online), in order to reset it.
The drawback of recording is that you can’t edit if you make a mistake, you have to start over again. I was also testing to see how long a summary I could write (i.e. could I write a full transcript), except I accidentally clicked the wrong button, so it got posted with no summary at all!
Generally seems like a good idea though.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/16/eye-tracking-on-home-pages/ Etre a usability company who have an eye tracking device, have been using it to study how users use a home page, if they’re just browsing. While the group testing the sites were a little more homogeneous than one might expect for sites such as Amazon, (18-40; experienced Internet users ) the results seem to be useful
The software looks at how long users fixate on particular areas of the page. They also spoke to the users, to try to work out, for example, if they spent a long time on a particular area because it was interesting, or because it was confusing. All sites had far fewer users that ventured “below the fold” than those that browsed above it; however, Amazon did have a few hotspots a long way down the page (DVD erotica being one!)
They’ve attempted to draw some conclusions - some seem a little contradictory, for example, both Dixons & Currys have their logo in the expected top left. Those didn’t attract much notice. Amazon, on the other hand, had a special offer there (free DVD rentals); which attracted much more interest. What seemed to be happening was that people were catching it in their periperhal vision - so, if it was a logo as expected, then they didn’t check. However, if it seemed more interesting (a special offer), then it attracted more interest. The spring bargains on the top right of Amazon’s page wasn’t of so much interest. Of course, it could also be that free DVD rental is inherently more interesting than cheap books, so people were studying it.
The rest of Etre’s site seems useful, though I’ve just run their accessibility checker & got a different result from others that I’ve run.
They’ve put the information up really to advertise their system, but it’s useful to see what can be done, and quite a lot can be learnt from the information that they’ve provided.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/18/wiki-on-a-stick/ Having talked to various people about “Wiki on a Stick”, I thought I’d better have a go. The first page that I found was one at MediaWiki - which is the one I’d seen before. I intially tried the method with Uniform Server3_3, though that started to look rather fiddly (and quite large, given that I only had a 64 MB stick). So I then tried the Alternate approach using WOS portable. That was much more straightforward to install, however, once installed I couldn’t get it to work on my PC in the office at all. I decided that it was most likely to be the University set up - so tried my tablet. I got a bit further this time (i.e. the server started running). However, I still couldn’t get MySQL to run. Remembering that I had MSSQL on there for Perception testing, I tried at home. Still the same problem. I did get it running from the hard drive in the end, but that required me to download & install the earlier version of WOS - which didn’t have a “Small Edition”, so the overall size was over 120 MB.
I had a further google, and it seems that there are other ways of installing a server on a stick, however, I suspect that given the fact that I couldn’t get it going on the University PC would mean that this isn’t a sensible approach if we’re thinking of getting students to use a wiki on a stick for note keeping, so another approach.
So, I’ve found two “Wiki on a stick” options that don’t seem to require a server. While I rather like the sound of t StickWiki , the fact that it only runs in Firefox, while not a problem for me, wouldn’t necessarily suit students, so TiddlyWiki seems to have the edge. It’s tiny! Basically it’s a 159kb html file that can be downloaded. It contains all the JavaScript required to allow you to start to build a wiki. I think that it will take a bit of playing with to get to understand how to use it, and I’m rather unsure of its accessibility. I’ve tried a couple of the accessibility tests on the AIS toolbar, and the results don’t seem too good.
As it was so small, I’ve put StickWiki (even smaller) on the same USB stick & will see what the pros & cons of each are. (So far StickWiki seems to be working in IE as well as Firefox, and I think that I prefer it).
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/18/google-notebook/ Google Notebook… It’s Google’s latest idea. Like many of their other ideas, they’ve taken something that already exists (in this case, Firefox’s QuickNote extension - and many others for example). They’ve then improved it; at least, I think that they have; others aren’t so sure.
The advantages as far as I can see it are that unlike QuickNote, images can be included; and, more usefully, it’s associated with a Google account. The site can tell if you have IE or Firefox & the relevant plugin is available to download. Once installed you can select text & send to Notebook - it’s possible to start up a new notebook if required (broadly simililar to the features that QuickNote offers. However, the integration with Google accounts means that it’s possible to access the same notebook from anywhere (as long as the browser has the right plugin); and notebooks can be made public/private (private being the default).
One issue I’ve just realised, is that like Google Pages (and quite a few more things I suppose) there doesn’t seem to be a away of accessing it from the “my Account” link in Google personal. You’d have thought that by now they’d have a list of services to which you are subscribed, and those that you aren’t - all in the same place, rather than having to bookmark them somewhere else. Oh well… still room for improvement.
First seen on Internet Time Blog
(Since posting this, I’ve done some googling, it seems there are quite a few rivals out there … Clipmarks being one of them - and users there have listed quite a few others: I’d not come across Clipmarks before, but it looks worth investigating …)
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/18/google-notebook/ Google Notebook… It’s Google’s latest idea. Like many of their other ideas, they’ve taken something that already exists (in this case, Firefox’s QuickNote extension - and many others for example). They’ve then improved it; at least, I think that they have; others aren’t so sure.
The advantages as far as I can see it are that unlike QuickNote, images can be included; and, more usefully, it’s associated with a Google account. The site can tell if you have IE or Firefox & the relevant plugin is available to download. Once installed you can select text & send to Notebook - it’s possible to start up a new notebook if required (broadly simililar to the features that QuickNote offers. However, the integration with Google accounts means that it’s possible to access the same notebook from anywhere (as long as the browser has the right plugin); and notebooks can be made public/private (private being the default).
One issue I’ve just realised, is that like Google Pages (and quite a few more things I suppose) there doesn’t seem to be a away of accessing it from the “my Account” link in Google personal. You’d have thought that by now they’d have a list of services to which you are subscribed, and those that you aren’t - all in the same place, rather than having to bookmark them somewhere else. Oh well… still room for improvement.
First seen on Internet Time Blog
(Since posting this, I’ve done some googling, it seems there are quite a few rivals out there … Clipmarks being one of them - and users there have listed quite a few others: I’d not come across Clipmarks before, but it looks worth investigating …)
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/18/wiki-on-a-stick/ Having talked to various people about “Wiki on a Stick”, I thought I’d better have a go. The first page that I found was one at MediaWiki - which is the one I’d seen before. I intially tried the method with Uniform Server3_3, though that started to look rather fiddly (and quite large, given that I only had a 64 MB stick). So I then tried the Alternate approach using WOS portable. That was much more straightforward to install, however, once installed I couldn’t get it to work on my PC in the office at all. I decided that it was most likely to be the University set up - so tried my tablet. I got a bit further this time (i.e. the server started running). However, I still couldn’t get MySQL to run. Remembering that I had MSSQL on there for Perception testing, I tried at home. Still the same problem. I did get it running from the hard drive in the end, but that required me to download & install the earlier version of WOS - which didn’t have a “Small Edition”, so the overall size was over 120 MB.
I had a further google, and it seems that there are other ways of installing a server on a stick, however, I suspect that given the fact that I couldn’t get it going on the University PC would mean that this isn’t a sensible approach if we’re thinking of getting students to use a wiki on a stick for note keeping, so another approach.
So, I’ve found two “Wiki on a stick” options that don’t seem to require a server. While I rather like the sound of t StickWiki , the fact that it only runs in Firefox, while not a problem for me, wouldn’t necessarily suit students, so TiddlyWiki seems to have the edge. It’s tiny! Basically it’s a 159kb html file that can be downloaded. It contains all the JavaScript required to allow you to start to build a wiki. I think that it will take a bit of playing with to get to understand how to use it, and I’m rather unsure of its accessibility. I’ve tried a couple of the accessibility tests on the AIS toolbar, and the results don’t seem too good.
As it was so small, I’ve put StickWiki (even smaller) on the same USB stick & will see what the pros & cons of each are. (So far StickWiki seems to be working in IE as well as Firefox, and I think that I prefer it).
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/16/eye-tracking-on-home-pages/ Etre a usability company who have an eye tracking device, have been using it to study how users use a home page, if they’re just browsing. While the group testing the sites were a little more homogeneous than one might expect for sites such as Amazon, (18-40; experienced Internet users ) the results seem to be useful
The software looks at how long users fixate on particular areas of the page. They also spoke to the users, to try to work out, for example, if they spent a long time on a particular area because it was interesting, or because it was confusing. All sites had far fewer users that ventured “below the fold” than those that browsed above it; however, Amazon did have a few hotspots a long way down the page (DVD erotica being one!)
They’ve attempted to draw some conclusions - some seem a little contradictory, for example, both Dixons & Currys have their logo in the expected top left. Those didn’t attract much notice. Amazon, on the other hand, had a special offer there (free DVD rentals); which attracted much more interest. What seemed to be happening was that people were catching it in their periperhal vision - so, if it was a logo as expected, then they didn’t check. However, if it seemed more interesting (a special offer), then it attracted more interest. The spring bargains on the top right of Amazon’s page wasn’t of so much interest. Of course, it could also be that free DVD rental is inherently more interesting than cheap books, so people were studying it.
The rest of Etre’s site seems useful, though I’ve just run their accessibility checker & got a different result from others that I’ve run.
They’ve put the information up really to advertise their system, but it’s useful to see what can be done, and quite a lot can be learnt from the information that they’ve provided.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/audio-discussion-board/ Susan Sedro has an example Vaestro board up; it’s a board where you can record your thoughts. She’s posted the question “what’s your favourite children’s book?”
It reads the whole thread once started, though I do have a few concerns re. accessibility. The poster only has to leave a written comment if they choose. While I can see a great potential for getting thoughts online, I could see some issues if you have the need to have accessible learning material. (Also, lack of transcript leads to difficulty searching).
I’m just trying to test it; you have to have Flash installed, and, when it asks for permission to record, let it! If you accidentally click “deny” (e.g. because you realise that you have yet to plug the microphone in…), then you’ll need to go to the Flash Settings manager (online), in order to reset it.
The drawback of recording is that you can’t edit if you make a mistake, you have to start over again. I was also testing to see how long a summary I could write (i.e. could I write a full transcript), except I accidentally clicked the wrong button, so it got posted with no summary at all!
Generally seems like a good idea though.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/15/why-reading-is-even-more-important-in-the-digital-age/ Clare Brett has the Powerpoint presentation of a session that she gave in Toronto recently. There is a good overview of why reading is so important today - including the ability to be critical about what is read. There’s a comprehensive list of references.
via: Steven Downes
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/09/bloglines/ Kate Britt’s site, though I’ve not visited for a while, has a lot of resources for online teaching, especially those who are using WebCT. I found an idea for putting RSS feeds of academic journals into a course, using Bloglines. (Powerpoint). That worked fine - I’ve created an extra bloglines account and have populated it with a few journals. I’ll get it properly ready for the start of next year.
While in bloglines I remembered the odd “related feeds” I’d had for this site in February. If I’m not logged in to my main bloglines account, then I get Terry, Pat and Michael’s blogs, followed by a lot of knitting & crochet sites. . When I’m logged in, as I’ve got those 3 already listed, I’m not told about them again, so it’s just the knitting sites! Not quite sure what’s happening.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/22/audio-blogging/ A link from Mr Belshaw’s blog to mine, lead me to his blog, and then to EduPress - his customised version of WordPress. I rather liked his podcasting, so further investigating took me to Martin Laine’s Audio Player - which I’ve now installed & hope I’ve got working.
I’m trying to work out the best way to include a transcript … so for now I’ll use the quotation feature after the link to the player.
[See post to listen to audio]
Transcript:If you can hear this, then it’s working.
http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/05/22/more-audio/ Since I made the post this morning, I’ve done some more investigating and have found PodPress - and bought a rather snazzy headset.
So, here’s my latest attempt.
Transcript: This is so much easier than the one I was using this morning.
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