Week 3: New Technologies

Image from bashford @ Flickr
I'm sorry, I wasn't going to introduce social bookmarking, but I'm having you "find" all these resources and you need a tool to keep them in. So this week you are being overwhelmed with new technologies.

Social Bookmarking: check out this page about social bookmarking (definitely watch the video, also located at YouTube ) and skim the rest of the material. Since I'm asking you to collect possible course content, you may want to get either a delicious (more popular) or Diigo (next generation, very robust tools) account to bookmark all of your various finds. If you want to share your accounts with us, post your account usernames or URLs in the course roster. Do not feel like you have to get an account or share, this is just a "help keep you organized" tool. FYI...my delicious page.

RSS: this technology is it folks! If you "get" RSS, you'll get all these crazy new web-based tools (esp. social networking). Watch RSS video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

How many feel guilty for not working in local, national, and international news into your daily, or at least weekly, life? Do you think you might be more likely to if you were able to easily skim the headlines and then click out to anything you want to know more about? Try using an Real Simply Syndication (RSS) Aggregator to get caught up in the world. With an RSS Aggregator you can subscribe to any electronic source that provides an RSS feed. All blogs provide an RSS feed. Most newspapers and magazines provide RSS feeds from their websites. For example, I like getting my world news from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/). If you scroll to the bottom of their international edition homepage (the link above), there is a little link called “RSS Feeds.” Once you link on the feeds page, you can find a listing of a variety of types of feeds to which you may subscribe. However, to subscribe you first need an RSS Aggregator (or reader). Popular RSS Aggregators come in many shapes, sizes, and flavors:

• Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/) combined internet based RSS aggregator & blogging tool
  
• Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader/) internet based RSS aggregator
  
• Newsgator (http://www.newsgator.com/) internet based RSS aggregator, can also include download on specific computers
  
• Sage (http://sage.mozdev.org/) Mozilla/Firefox based RSS aggregator
  
• Gritwire (http://my.gritwire.com/) internet based RSS aggregator with more social software tools
• Sharpreader (http://www.sharpreader.net/) computer based aggregator, you must download software

I suggest you start with Google Reader—it has a lot of feeds for you to initially try and many websites give it as a RSS subscription option. Like Google Reader, most RSS aggregators start you off with a few feeds to read. Similarly, you can also subscribe to a bunch of feeds from within the aggregator. However, if you find feeds outside of the aggregator, say your friend’s blog, you’ll need to manually add the subscription by finding the RSS feed URL (web address).

after deadline #1

I wish I could claim I'm done "grading" deadline #1 stuff...but I'm not. I hope to finish today...we'll see. However, I do know that although I have a gmail address for everyone (yippy...that may be a first), I definitely do not have blog URLs/web addresses for everyone. Please be sure to check the course roster (it's shared with you in Google Docs). If you don't see a blog URL listed next to your name, I don't have it! I need it to grade a lot of your work this semester.

Someone asked me a great questions about how/why I'll be using the various technologies in this class. Here is a beginning answer:

1. wiki- to share readings about teaching online that you and everyone else finds
2. blog-to share your experiences in the class, sometimes this will be writing about how your class building is going and sharing screen capture pictures that you posted in picassa (or flickr)
3. document sharing-some of your course building is document stuff (like outcomes and outlines/schedules)...so we'll share those in google docs so everyone can read and comment on them
4. picassa- you can screen capture your course as you build it. Remember, the rest of us can't get into the course your are building to see what you are doing.

Flickr image by ilmungo.