Screen Sharing And Live Annotation Make A Step Forward: Vyew 2.0 Pre-Release

 I've had good luck with Microsoft OneNote but some of you may want to try out this non-M$ product.

Link to Screen Sharing And Live Annotation Make A Step Forward: Vyew 2.0 Pre-Release - Video - Online Collaboration and Web Conferencing Breaking News - Kolabora.com

Looks promising but haven't tried it so can't personally vouch for it. If you have, leave us a comment here below.

Instant Messaging Tools and Technology: A Mini-Guide

 A nice review of what IM is all about. Many people these days are very familiar with IM services such as MSN Messenger.

Link to Instant Messaging Tools and Technology: A Mini-Guide - Online Collaboration and Web Conferencing Breaking News - Kolabora.com

Now, for those who want a bit more of an update on what it's all about, check this out.

PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials: Create notes as you deliver

A simple little tip from Ellen. 

Link to PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials: Create notes as you deliver

Use the Speaker Notes feature of PowerPoint to directly make notes during your presentation - a great way to capture audience feedback and to create greater audience participation.

Guy Kawasaki On The 10-20-30 PowerPoint Rule: Video Clip

Short 2 minute video clip - quite fun and punchy. 

Link to Guy Kawasaki On The 10-20-30 PowerPoint Rule: Video Clip

I don't always agree with or hold with the 10-20-30 rule - but the points made are so valid for so many presentations that it is worth watching. Have fun.

Don't Read From Your PowerPoint Slides - TJWalker Video

A short 4 min video which hammers home the point (or PowerPoint) about not reading from your slides. 

Link to Don't Read From Your PowerPoint Slides - TJWalker Video

A flaw that some might think obvious...but o so many experienced presenters use their PowerPoint slides like a teleprompter, reading the slides to the audience.

Scroll down the page to find the short video tutorial.

314 Resources on Complete List of Web 2.0 Products and Services - Listible!

Interested in what is available as Web 2.0 services?

Link to 314 Resources on Complete List of Web 2.0 Products and Services - Listible!

Here is an expansive list. This is general stuff, not eLearning specific stuff, but there are some goodies here, nonetheless.

Jon Udell: Half-baked ideas

A simple but thought provoking piece from Jon...as many of his posts are.  

Link to Jon Udell: Half-baked ideas

This short piece posits the differing approach for traditional academia and the blogosphere. Well considered rumination and polish before publication, or agile thought development. 

What do you think?

When Can I Expect an Email Response? « Tasty Research

A little bit dated this piece but has some interesting observations. Worth a quick squint.  

Link to When Can I Expect an Email Response? « Tasty Research

Rescuing a Failed Post

You've just crafted a wonderful, thoughtful, erudite page of insightful commentary and wisdom. It has taken you 20 minutes to carefully piece together. You click on the Post button at the bottom...and the Forum baulks! Error message. Your work is lost!! Did the network go down?! Aaaargh!

STOP!

• Do not close the browser window!
• Do not reboot
• Do not heave your laptop into the round filing cabinet!
  

On most occasions, if this happens, you can simply click on the Back button on your web browser. This will take you back to where you just were and you can rescue your text even if the Forum has gone completely off line.

• Click somewhere in the message window text where you just wrote your stuff.
• Click on Edit Select All on your web browser's menu. (This will highlight all the text)
• Click on Edit Copy
• Ignore the web browser window for the moment
• Open Microsoft Word
• Create a New Document (there may be a blank one there already)
• Click on Edit Paste to insert the text that you just copied to the Windows clipboard.
• Save the document as a Word document.
  

Now it is safely stored on your hard drive. You can now use a variation on the above process to then copy and paste your text into the Forum when you next get connected.

The above looks like a complicated process but is really quite simple if you give it a whirl. It is also a process that you can use in a wide range of situations where you are trying to post a big block of text into an online form using a web browser.

A very simple tip...and apologies to you experts out there...but this tip has saved some of our faculty a lot of grief.

Library Journal - Library 2.0

 "The heart of Library 2.0 is user-centered change. It is a model for library service that encourages constant and purposeful change, inviting user participation in the creation of both the physical and the virtual services they want, supported by consistently evaluating services. It also attempts to reach new users and better serve current ones through improved customer-driven offerings. Each component by itself is a step toward better serving our users; however, it is through the combined implementation of all of these that we can reach Library 2.0."

Link to Library Journal - Library 2.0

Here's something that is an indicator of things to come in the library world. We are particularly fortunate here in that several members of the HIRC and NOVL teams are looking at ways to integrate such an approach here at NOSM.

Senate Hearings on High Performance Computing

"On behalf of IBM, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman for the opportunity to testify.  I am Vice President for Technical Strategy and Innovation at IBM, and have been involved with supercomputing initiatives for over twenty years.  With your permission, I will simply summarize my written testimony."

Link to Irving Wladawsky-Berger: Senate Hearings on High Performance Computing

Ok, fair warning. Very dry political stuff, and USA stuff to boot...but these deliberations and their outcomes will directly affect our computing activities here, even in Northern Ontario...in fact, given some of our current research projects, this stuff is more relevant to us than you would think.

Now I wonder how such activities will be affected by some of the trends to grid computing and initiatives like Amazon's EC2, mentioned last week. Again, as mentioned before, the types of problems that these supercomputers can tackle are not necessarily the same as those that can be handled by grid computing. And this is all very different from having the best Pentium chip in your desktop! But politicians don't always draw such distinctions...so supercomputing funding may suffer, especially with the current US administration and its lack of understanding of such complex issues.

And this, I guess, is the point of Irving's presentation. That supercomputing companies need to keep business efficiency, costs etc in mind.

The Importance of Human-Oriented Design to Avoid Drowning in a Sea of Complexity

"I really believe that one of the most important and exciting areas of innovation is to rethink IT applications around the humans that use them not the computers that run them.  In fact, I feel that we do not have a choice -- if we want to stay one step ahead of the growing complexity of the IT systems around us."

Link to Irving Wladawsky-Berger: The Importance of Human-Oriented Design to Avoid Drowning in a Sea of Complexity

A bit dry but some important concepts touched upon by Irving.

inDave�s Educational Blog � EURODL - Edublogging as research.

"English AbstractThe article argues that it is necessary to move e-learning beyond learning management systems and engage students in an active use of the web as a resource for their self-governed, problem-based and collaborative activities. The purpose of the article is to discuss the potential of social software to move e-learning beyond learning management systems. "

Yet another activity that Stephen Downes is involved in - busy guy. Some more stuff on why we need to move towards a collaborative approach to education.