RefWorks Calendar Fall 2009

Last lesson -- Mashup Editors -- YAH !!!

I just had an excellent idea about future learning 2.0 lessons. The creators of all these lessons should get an award by not writing blogs on their own entries. How's that?
Mashup editors still sound unfamiliar to me. I understand Yahoo Pipes more than the other editors. The only mashup I ever created is to link Flickr with Google maps. I still have trouble getting three web 2.0 applications link together and make sense.
When I created the lesson I created one mashup combining Flickr and Google Map together: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=4D_lktpi3BGdRIZjy6ky6g. But when I looked at it right now I have no idea what it shows on the map. It is about cute tiger moth caterpillar :(

Mashups

Now I need to write a blog on my own lesson. Hopefully my lesson won't confuse you too much :P It was created before and during the "famous" GSO week when I was almost toasted:( Anyway, I love mashups esp. those that associated to make fantastic photos. I still remember that when I took Photoshop workshop in graduate school, I thought Photoshop is amazing. But now I think many photo mashups are amazing. It takes much less of your time but provides you with great final products. Plus, you don't need to learn any photo editing software. Mashups would be great tool for library marketing. I love Maprr, dumpr.net, and Badge a lot. I posted an image that I got from Dumpr.net. Simply click the image and it will take you to Dumpr.net

Podcasts

Among the three posted Podcast directories, I like Podcast.net most. It listed all the categories on their homepage which is easy for me to browse and choose the category that interests me. I love video podcasts since I am a visual person and I learn best when I see something visually (it must have been due to watching so much TV as a kid.) Podcast Gallery provides some good podcasting software which is kinda handy. I don't like Yahoo podcasts unless I have a specific audio that I want to search for.

YouTube

I love YouTube since I can find lots of clips on cartoon animations for my daughter and Chinese MTV for myself. Also sometimes I search YouTube for teaching purposes. It is cute to start a library instruction with a nice piece of video. It doesn't need to be related to the class content. It could just give students five minutes to relax and enjoy a melody and be away from their busy college life. The followings are the top two videos that Zhuzhu loves most

Beyond the sea

You are beautiful

Processing Words on the Web

Okay, I will keep this blog entry straight this time:

• How does the application you chose compare to word processing software you're familiar with?

I chose Google Docs to create a couple of online presentations. I love the templates and the easy access to my presentation. It is interesting to think about some of the free web applications. Especially those that were created by big companies. Do they want us to be addicted to their products and then they suddenly begin to charge you for small fees? I wish they only want to get their profit from the ads but not their users.

• What features did you like/dislike the most?

I like the easy share features. This is a great product for group projects and team work among libraires in different countries. I am concerned about their server maintenance and privacy. I haven't looked into their policy part.

• Can you think of any ways the application you chose would be useful to you or to EKU students?

For students who already have gmail accounts, this would be a great tool to share teaching materials. Also it won't take anybody's own web space.

Get your hands dirty in the wiki sandbox

The beauty of Wiki is its editable. Everyone can contribute and build this online community. This would be a great tool for faculty learning community. Librarians could create a learning community and invite faculty and students to participate.

I once suggested my husband use blog for the Astrobiology group he organized. Unfortunately, he complained that it requires sign-in and creation of new account. Faculty won't do that. Now I have a better tool to recommend to his group -- Wiki! That way they could post videos of their regular discussion online, extend their discussion to outside group meetings (adding entries to their wiki), and send their wiki to people in the world who might have a insight on Astrobiology (Google can do that I believe). You know what, actually I am kinda interested in creating one for them. Oh well, I need to learn more about wiki before making any promises :)