Week 9 Thing#20a

A new course ware at MIT OpenCourseWare is Anthropology of Sound...antrhopology of sound?I wondered.
And it turns of to be quite a course....talking about perception of sound...the cultural and economic aspects to it,copyright and technical details too!No,not my cuppa!!
At Weblogg-ed(Will Richardson's page) I saw information about educon 2.1, an educational conference coming up in a few weeks time.

Is this what education will look like?
A picture does speak a thousand words:)

Week 8 Thing#19

I enjoyed this 'thing' immensely:)
I found Library Thing a great place...I use shelfari and virtual bookshelf at fb.Each comes with its own likable features:)
Library thing shows me who else has read the same book; shows reviews and conversations about the book-all these alongside the book...very nice.There are conversations on about books,great!
Added the widget...hope it stays there!

week 8 Thing#18

This time it's collaborative documents.
Google Docs, Zoho Writer, ThinkFree,WriteWith,Saywire and so on....have not really looked in great detail at any of the others due to my beginner level familiarity
with Google Docs.

I can carry my work virtually with me...which is a great +. Its easy to understand and has a handy help menu, which has helped sort out issues I have had(but for the one mentioned later!)
I think it is a neat way for students to submit work,with tracking and editing functions and sharing of documents.So its easy for me to help them along and for them to help each other in their work.Its a huge time-saver without the back and forth via emails or (worse) printouts!Not to mention a paper saver.And I find it is easy to upload word,excel files into it.

I also noticed some interesting assignments teachers have used Google docs for. I should definitely recommend my research friends to use this tool to communicate with their thesis adviser...I rem'ber making futile trips to his office and never finding him there.Should get project students on board with this-so it is easy for us to look at their results and comment.

However the big issue I have is being unable to upload a zip file or multiple docs together...I noticed there are more people like me out there. And I understand this problem was not there with the older version of google docs...anyone knows how to get around this?Will appreciate the insight.

Week 7 Thing#17

I see why I had to contribute to the sandbox.....(revelation time!)it was experiencing the ease of using a wiki myself.
And with this page for help,I am quite sure I will be able to guide my students with creating a wiki.
I am thinking,I should get my students to do their group-work using wiki.
My dream right now is to get other lecturers teaching the same subject onboard to create a wiki-text for the subject.And since I am dreaming with my eyes open....it will work.Wishing for this project to take off in 2009:)

Week 7 Thing#16

Education has come a longgg way-no longer the 'I provide information and u learn it'.It has become interactive and easily updated.Which brings me to the topic I am going to explore and share-wikis.

How to create a wiki....video,fun and easy:)

There are different sites at which one can create a wiki,wikispaces;wetpaint;pbwiki(as easy as peanut butter sandwich).
And there are a wide gamut of wikis available...I really like the wikihow,the online how-to manual!Even a wiki for Heroes!!

Wikis in education....incredible number of things being done out there.There is an online book at lulu.com, called Using Wikis in Education.One could buy the book, but a peek into it gives us a fair idea of things happ out there.

Looking at some interesting wikis used in learning,I found this quite an interesting way to teach spectroscopy.A very technical area, has been made quite easy to understand and appreciate.

Week 6 Thing#15

Copyright and Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which helps sharing of information across the web while protecting the rights of the content creator.A choice of options is available to the content creator,so one can choose to make content freely available for use to anyone who wants it or restrict the use to specific purposes( for eg;educational or non-profit) or totally restrict the use of your content and so on.

The copyright is dependent on the jurisdiction of the world u want it operational.And it comes absolutely free of cost.When I upload pics onto flickr,I can choose whether my pics can be used;unconditionally or conditionally or not at all.This ensures my creation is protected and used only the way I choose.

Otago polytechnic has a page at wikieducator, where they have course information,teachers blogs, wikibooks etc all of which are openly accessible for all to read.As per their license,we can share and remix(alter) the content, under the conditions of attribution and share alike(distribution of an alteration of the original work, should be protected under a similar or same license).

License creation-as easy as this
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Howitworks_Comic1

Science Commons is another project where the effort is to make sharing of scientific knowledge and tecnological materials among research laboratories as easy as 1-2-3.Biomed Central and Public Library of Science have adopted CC licensing, which I did not know.This is very interesting, especially since there is a 'some rights reserved' licensing option, which will give scientists the option of having an important say in the modification and use of their inventions/creations.
I am quite excited about this, as I have had the experience of waiting for agonizing months over the paper work of a MTA!!

Week 6 Thing #14

A blog entry has 73,349 and counting,comments to it....wowwww!
Wonder how the folks at 'boing boing' keep track...is there another web tool for that?Nothing at web2.0 surprises me anymore-I am beaten fair and square!!!

Was checking out technorati,something I had never heard of before I took on this Classroom 2.0 learning assignment.Am I the only one?!!I am okey with the answer being a YES,after all thats what learning is all about:-)

The following is a key feature of technorati(a blog search engine),which helped me understand what its all about.
' Many blogs only send out a small portion or summary of their full postings and leave the full postings on their sites as HTML. Technorati specializes in searching all blogs, not merely those with RSS feeds, and instead of only indexing the RSS feed (often the first few hundred words of an article), Technorati reads all of the HTML code in a blog posting, and also tracks all of the activity around a blog or post such as inbound and outbound links'.

The best way to understand how it works is to use it....doing a search on technorati for Einstein(am going thr a phase!)I realised I could filter the search based on post/tag and language.I could also do so based on 'authority'-the higher the authority,it means more are the number of unique blogs connected to it over the last 6 months....this is not a reflection of the number of links.
Search Posts;tags;a lot of authority=60
Search Posts;tags;any authority=2972
Search Posts;entire post;any authority=48,644
The specification of search based on technorati authority is unique to searching posts only.It does make sifting through a lot of information easier I think.
Multiple words can be used for the search too.
so Einstein,Manhattan search post;entire post;any authority=827. The search got more refined.

I am more familiar with google and so I end up thinking,I can do the same at google too!I am not sure if we can search posts in goggle blog search.
I need to use technorati more to get the google-bias out of my system:-)

P.S- Did u know 'Einstein' is now used as a common noun?!!

X'mas week Thing # WISHES

wishing everyone a wonderful X'mas time and a great year 2009....

May recession not obliterate the joy of the year ahead and all our plans for it.
May the world be a less terror-prone place to live in.
May Gaia be cared for by ALL OF US.
And lets toast to learning:-)
to learning.....cheers!!!

Week 6 Thing #13

I have to share this with everyone...my gaffes as a blogger!!
I went to 'edit post' and deleted drafts of my blogs.....thinking it was a draft I had saved while working on the blog.And so like it happens with email, even after publishing it,it was still sitting among the drafts.
Much to my horror,when I viewed my blog,some posts were missing.....
am smiling at my gaffe:) Although, it meant more work....!!!

Delicious?....my stomach growls....,does it happen to everyone?!Maybe its just hungry-me:)Thats the idea maybe...to throw one totally off?!!
Needed some reading to understand the way it works....besides that obvious that we can carry out fav bookmarks with us without having to lug our comp around!
Tags, tag bundles.....lots of interesting new things there.I like the multiple tags I can put...personalizes it to my jargon.And the good thing for firefox users, is intergration directly into firefox. Neat.
This can be really useful for group work.....all out searches can be pooled together and accessed by the group members anytime,anywhere.
There is so much more to it....I need to explore.But a tool,I can see myself using.

Week 5 Thing #12

Created a rollyo searchroll for an area of my interest..shouldn't everyone be able to see it?Why doesn't the rollname show up in the box?Someone please tell me.

Select Search Engine...science for allWe canSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Week 5 Thing #11a-b

So many new things to try from Web2.0...At Lulu studio u can create an album of pics ...choose a bind type, theme, upload pictures and also choose whether a photo takes an entire leaf or part of the leaf, of the album. Almost like doing it with your own hands...without getting photos all smudged with finger prints--really neat!! It is so user-friendly,I got it right the 1st time:-)

I joined a ning network for beginner runners...should be fun as I had put my running shoes up for a while. And thanks to Cheriboy I have joined an educators group, Web2.0:-)

Thing #10

Modern Art Museum by dumpr.net

This is such a fun thing to do.....I bet everyone has fun distorting things.
I made a piece worthy of the Tate museum....no less:)

Thing #8b

School Library Blogs: Whats the scoop?, contributors Sara Seely and Jill....is an interesting librarian and student's blog about classroom and blogging.....setting up a classroom blog and so on.
From their blog, I was led into Will Richardson's webpage. One of his pieces titled 'What is the future of schools?' was very interesting. While the conference he attended discussed the future of education and the ways of schooling, I find myself thinking about the many children spread over the globe who do not have access to basic education. But I am digressing.Talk about this another time.
Am really looking forward to reading the blog and the webpage......have made very little progress,so far...but hey,hope springs eternal in the human breast!!

One thing I have to add, this RSS exploration took me way off my target...and I had to keep pulling myself back to toe the line.This has been a eye-opener for me and having google reader is such a cool thing...I can read all the updates as I open to my igoogle page.

Thing #8a

Really Simple Syndication (2.0)
I gather the 2.0 refers to Web2.0. Am glad I know the non-political use of this abbr.

MITOpenCourseware
This is quite remarkable as it has such interesting courses ranging from aeronatics to writing and humanities, these are freely available for us to learn from and integrate into our teaching. I found interesting courses such as Kitchen Chemistry and Sexual and gender identities there.
Makes life easy for me....as I do not have to go to their website to check out new additions.

Thing #7b

Doing another online activity is helping me!!
As a part of an e-discussion, I will ask my students to explore the chemical nature of ingredients in the kitchen. A part of the activity includes takng pictures of the ingredient, uploading it onto flickr and then introducing it into the discussion board.

Another idea is to get them to take pictures on their way to school or on their way home. These pictures must include crude oil or its products, such as petroleum, plastics, cosmetics, tyres and so on and so forth. They can upload them into their flickr account and we can go through them in class and discuss the chemistry of the object/s.
I think this will take the lesson out of the classroom and hopefully, get them to appreciate chemistry as more than just structures and reactions!

Thing #7a

Technology...the Mumbai blasts brought the role of tech to the fore.....with people getting updates through blogs;twitter; flickr much faster than through news channels..I for one actually experience this, as I anxiously followed the news.

I have been using Flickr for sometime, but thanks to this classroom, I spent sometime exploring it. And one of the fascinating things there is 'geotagged photos'. It was quite interesting to see the geographical location of contributers to my search 'noodles'!

Facebook..a great tool;I have caught up with friends and foes from the ice-age through it.....a word of caution; I find it a blackhole of time!! Having said this, it also seems a great place to catch my students for a quick word!I think I should start a group there.....

Another favourite of mine is shelfari. A virtual bookshelf where I can update books I have read, am reading and want to read;write my reviews....recommend books to friends and get to read others reviews. I really like it, as it has a bookshelf 'look' to it and I can get a virtual feel of books I have missed.

Thing #6

More than acads, originally uploaded by Srivanis.

I guess I got lucky...took pics in the library without a dressing-down!
Interesting that the library is such a vibrant place...a lot happens alongside books...this picture reflects that to me.
A far cry from what the mind's eye conjures the library to be----talking about a revolution(as Tracy Chapman sang)

Thing #5

Counting my Blessings, originally uploaded by keribeth.

This is truly Counting my Blessings....and as the year draws to a close in the wake of global recession and a fresh terror attack, this seems a great way to take stock of what I have.

Not to mention what a great way this is to learn;-).....now to get my students to think the same!!!