"QuizImages are interactive objects that teach ideas in a visual context. These activities help students learn and practice visual thinking skills, such as reading maps and graphs and finding visual metaphors in works of art. "
http://engage.doit.wisc.edu/tools/QuizImage/
"ConceptTutors are "just-in-time" windows that open from existing webpages to teach concepts. We like to think of ConceptTutors as glossaries on steroids. They support various media types (images, audio, and animations), and their design is based on best practices for learning concepts. Effective concept learning is accomplished by including the concept definition, examples and non-examples, contextual information, and quizzing.
ConceptTutors include the four elements above in an interactive tab format.
The ConceptTutor authoring tool is very easy to use. Its intuitive design is delivered in a Macromedia Flash environment that leads authors through a very simple ConceptTutor creation process. The ConceptTutor author behaves and includes elements common to most authoring environments, including functions like Save, Preview, Publish, and Edit."
http://engage.doit.wisc.edu/tools/ConceptTutor/
By Richard Anderson
FromCampus Technology
http://www.campus-technology.com/print.asp?ID=9537
Presentation technology has long had an influence on how we teach. In the wonderful quote above, the abolitionist Samuel J. May described his introduction to the blackboard and its impact on teaching. The quote illustrates a couple of key points: That technology has an important role in supporting classroom instruction, and that technologies perceived as beneficial to instruction will become widely adopted. The blackboard is a very powerful tool for instruction—it allows information to be displayed in a persistent manner, and can give the audience a consistent view of far more information than can be held in short-term memory. The blackboard becomes a mediating artifact that maintains a shared view between the instructor and students to provide context for lecture and discussion.
Open Source Repository Search
posted by Matt Pasiewicz on Thursday, November 11, 2004 8:56:11 AM MST to EduCause Blog
A really interesting new search engine has emerged on the web scene. www.koders.com indexes known open source repositories allow users to search for code (125,112,016 lines of code!) written in any number of lanugages and licences. Also interesting is their aggregate views of projects. They analyze the number of files, lines of code, the number of languages used, and attempt to provide a mechanism for estimating what the cost was to develop the project. Very interesting. Compare the Apache HTTP-D-2.0 project with XML-COCOON2 and MONO. It would be fasinating to view comparions like these for academia's many open source initatives.
http://www.educause.edu/Blog/1511&blog_id=277&select_case=permalink
Robert Farmer, Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada
Robert.Farmer@msvu.ca
University of New Brunswick
Abstract
Today’s students have grown up with the computer; in fact many, if not most, are younger than the first microcomputer. Students are more technology literate and Internet savvy than ever, and they use technology in ways that weren’t even thought of a decade ago. What impact does this have on educators today and for the future?
This paper begins by highlighting select current literature in the area of students’ knowledge of communication technology with a focus on instant messaging. Instant messaging usages today and proposed future usages are looked at. While today’s younger generation has adopted it with a frenzy, it appears that the corporate enterprise will be the next big player in the instant messaging arena. Corporate enterprise level (secure) instant messaging usages are discussed and several enterprise level software packages are identified. The advantages and disadvantages of both public and secure instant messaging are discussed.
A review of results from a student survey on technology usage and an in-class instant messaging trial are presented. In the student survey on technology usage, students rated their use of four technologies; email, browser, discussion forums, and instant messaging. The in-class instant messaging trail usage statistics were captured using an enterprise level (secure) instant messaging software.
In conclusion, this paper reviews some of the good, the bad, and the ugly about instant messaging and some of the benefits and drawbacks of instant messaging in educational settings.
http://naweb.unb.ca/proceedings/2003/PaperFarmer.html
Podcasting Podcasting (page includes lots of useful references) is "push[ing] audio content from websites down to consumers of that content, who typically listen to it on their iPod (hence the "pod"), or another audio player that supports the MP3 format, at their convenience."
"Podcasting uses an XML-based technology called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. Content publishers describe new content in an XML RSS file which includes dates, titles, descriptions, and links to MP3 files. This auto-generated file is called an RSS feed."
Edupodder.com covers the use of podcasting in education.
Seattle University Campus Calendar
This is pretty cool -- I think it's a homegrown application. Nice features:
- day, week, and month views
- user-submittable events, with logins
- ASP-/ASPX-based
- subcalendar feature
Subject: Re: Web Calendars
From: "Justin Vamenta"
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 18:53:55 -0400
X-Message-Number: 43
Here at Seattle University, we tackled this issue within the last two
years. In the end, we decided not to combine our facilities scheduling
system with promoting events on the public web site in order to give us
maximum flexibility with distributing calendar information across SU's
family of web sites. Below is some information on our Campus Calendar
system:
Any SU user can submit an event to the Campus Calendar; Within two days, submissions is screened and published here:
http://www.seattleu.edu/go/calendar/
Our Public Relations team screens these events and hand picks those ideal for placement on the SU home page:
http://www.seattleu.edu/
All events must be categorized by subject and audience in order to
sprinkle contextual news and events on the interior pages (right-side) of
the public web site:
http://www.seattleu.edu/home/prospective_students/
Last year's Phase II project included a "subcalendar" feature for approved SU groups. These subcalendars allow certain users (or groups of users) to manage their own calendars:
http://www.seattleu.edu/events/sc_showAll.asp
Subcalendars can easily be published to other SU web sites:
http://alumniweb.seattleu.edu/netcommunity/Page.aspx?&pid=221
We now offer our Academic Calendar (previously PDF-only based) in
subcalendar format. http://www.seattleu.edu/events/list_ac.asp?D=11/29/2004&V=3&SC=30
All events appearing on the Campus Calendar can be shared/published on other subcalendars. For example, this event appears on both the
Registrar's and Student Activities' Calendars but was submitted once:
http://www.seattleu.edu/events/detail.asp?SID=2454&SC=25
We also provide a basic RSVP email feature:
http://www.seattleu.edu/events/rsvp_email.asp?SID=2980&SC=25
We do have other ideas, but decided to put them on hold since there are so many other cool projects to be working on. I doubt you're interested but you can find more information regarding the Campus Calendar project and others on Blueprint, our project web site.
I hope this was helpful! -Justin
Wink is "tutorial and presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software. Using Wink, you can capture screenshots of your software, use images that you already have, type-in explanations for each step, create a navigation sequence complete with buttons, delays, titles, etc., and create a highly effective tutorial for your users. . . . Similar applications sell for hundreds of dollars, while Wink is free with unrivaled features."
opensourceCMS.com allows users to "'try out' some of the best php/mysql based free and open source software systems in the world. You are welcome to be the administrator of any site here, allowing you to decide which system best suits your needs."
Lots of interesting-looking portal, e-commerce, blog, groupware, forum, e-learning, and wiki software is listed.
Bulletin Board-to-Database Converter: This freeware utility derives its name from the old WebCT "Bulletin Board," which was later renamed the "Discussions" tool. The program converts a text file of compiled messages to a format that can be opened in Microsoft Access or Excel. Once converted, the data can be easily viewed and sorted, analyzed with qualitative analysis software, or simply archived.
Eduforge is an open-access, collaborative learning and exploratory environment designed for the sharing of ideas, research outcomes, open source educational software, and tools within a community of educators, researchers, and developers.
The timeline tool is a web based learning object template which allows an instructor to quickly construct an interactive timeline with audio and visual effects. The finished timeline can serve as an re-useable learning object which can be easily distributed and shared over the web. This learning object template is built in Flash, PHP and XML.
From SitePoint's TechTimes newsletter:
We who work in the fast-paced world of Web development are used to chasing product updates, but with some products getting new releases on a daily basis, it's hard to keep up!
Macromedia has done all its users a favour by publishing RSS feeds for all its products. These aren't thinly-veiled marketing vehicles, either: Macromedia has promised that all the content in these feeds will be technical in nature, including TechNotes, security bulletins, and product updates.
Microsoft has done a similar thing for its security bulletins with an RSS Security Bulletin Feed.
Mozilla Firefox users can find out about the latest changes to the browser with The Burning Edge.
And any open source project hosted on SourceForge has an RSS feed -- or five -- associated with it. Look for the "View list of RSS feeds available for this project" link on the project page.
If you're new to RSS, get a friendly introduction with Nathan Matias's article, Get Off Your RSS!
View maps, fine artwork, photographs and other items from over thirty
renowned collections. Explore these collections using the Insight® Browser
with no download required, or the Insight® Java Client with advanced
functionality, requiring one time download. View the collections individually
with the Insight Browser or Java Client. With the Insight Java Client, combine
several collections from one category, or combine any collection from
the View All tab.
Digital Web Magazine
Bradbury Software FeedDemon 1.0
By Paul Scrivens
Published on May 26, 2004
A couple of weeks ago I was in search of an RSS Reader because my ability to visit all my favorite Web sites, to check if they were updated, began to conflict with the mere 24 hours that come in a day. When asking people what RSS Reader to check out, many people immediately said NetNewsWire, but this was ruled out since it was an OSX application and I was running a Windows Desktop. The next most popular choice was FeedDemon, made by Bradbury Software.
The chart on this page displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison. Only server-installed scripts are included. Many attributes of many different packages are listed.
Articulate Presenter is the precursor to eHelp's RoboPresenter.
From SitePoint's Tech Times email newsletter:
After years of pointing out the Mono project as a beacon of hope to those who want to enjoy the benefits of ASP.NET without suffering Microsoft lock-in, I had honestly given up hope of ever seeing this open source effort bear practical fruit. Imagine my surprise last week when Beta 1 of the Mono Project was released!
I haven't yet had time to install and play with the beta, but that's definitely high on my to-do list. Downloads are available for Windows and Mac OS X, as well as all popular Linux platforms.
For those who don't know, Mono is an open source project that aims to create cross-platform versions of:
- a C# compiler
- the Common Language Runtime (CLR)
- most of the .NET Framework's class library, including ADO.NET and ASP.NET
Most notably for Web developers, ASP.NET (including both Web Forms and Web Services) is advertised as being fully functional with this release! Yes, now is the time to start testing your ASP.NET applications on Mono. It'll be much easier to get any bugs fixed now, in the final push before release, than it will once 1.0 hits the streets.
The Mono project, which is sponsored by Novell (who bought out Ximian last year), have two more beta releases planned before the final release of Mono 1.0 on or about June 30, 2004.
EdNA has launched a new (and free) quiz builder on its global education website.
The Global Education Website is initiated and funded by AusAID to support its Global Education Program.
The objective of the Global Education Website is to increase the amount and quality of teaching of global education in Australian primary and secondary schools.
The site supports the AusAID Global Education Program which aims to raise awareness and understanding among Australian school students of international issues, development and poverty, and to prepare them to live in an increasingly globalised world and to be active citizens shaping better futures.
http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/quiz
The v4.4 issue of XML Journal has an article which describes XML-Coursebuilder. This uses XML and XSLT to create a course or workshop presentation. Here is the documentation, itself a XML-Coursebuilder presentation.
http://www.techtrainingworkshop.com/coursebuilder/
Moodle 1.1 is an open source course management system for creating online courses. It includes site, course, and student management functions, assignments with due dates and timestamps, forums, poll and survey functions, journals, and more. The new version adds a new backup and restore system for courses, a workshop module for peer grading, a chat module, a new course manager for handling large numbers of courses, and other improvements. Moodle is free for Mac OS X, Linux/Unix, Windows, and any system that supports PHP.
http://moodle.org/
Another utility: LS File List Generator Generates a list of all files in a specified directory and subdirectories.
http://home.a03.itscom.net/tsuzu/programing/en/
Updated jClicker- web slide show template (free too!)
Finally got around to some revamps to a web slide show template I've been rolling for a few years, the "jClicker" (little "j" is for JavaScript). We do many many photos for our many events at work, and this has been a very handy way to organize photos into a slide show format. The main site includes a step-by-step construction guide. Basically, all one has to do is to assemble your image files (any web format), write some captions and edit one text file to control the settings and define the order of the slide show. Previously, one had to actually write incrementing numbers for the lists (arrays) manage the image files, menus names, and captions, but a email from a user generated a beautiful idea-- just have a running self-incrementing counter (javascript- "i ;) before each section that lists the next slides image file, menu name, and caption. Now deleting, adding, or re-arranging the slide order is a trivial cut and paste, whereas previously one who have to re-order all the data. A key feature since the first version is that every slide page also pre-loads the next image for a smoother slide to slide flow.
http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/alan/archives/2004/01/06/jclicker
LMS Selection Site from Simon Fraser University
http://www.sfu.ca/lidc/LMSSC/
Site to support the selection of a new CMS that is still ongoing at SFU. If you dig around there's some generally useful material - these results of a technical comparison between WebCT and Desire2Learn by B.C.'s Ministry of Education (though I'm not sure how they got it), as well as this latest progress report that contains a lot of interesting anecdotal feedback gather from various stakeholder sonsultation sessions on what they are actually looking for (short answer - 'better' systems that are 'easier' to use, look nicer, and are infinitely customizable ;-)
Quizmaster Software From the e-Learning Guild lists.... "I've been using Quizmaster for some time now to create fun games and interactions for my internal training. It used to be web-based, but now it is also available as a standalone product for a very reasonable cost. Our employees LOVE the Millionaire-style game! These exercises are a great way to draw people into a review of dull or dry material. There are lots of other games to choose from, as well as some more traditional exercises. I use the matching exercise a lot in our external courses. Check out this resource...it's one of my favorites!" http://cybil.tafe.tas.edu.au/~capsticm/quizman/qmhome.html
Online University Consortium Releases Learner Assessment Tool
A network of universities founded to help companies and employees secure a quality online education, announced a Web-based assessment tool for prospective students considering online degree programs. The Online Learner Assessment, unveiled by the Online University Consortium, helps students determine their aptitude for online education in order to choose the best source for their individual learning style. The tool helps Online UC to match learners with qualified degree programs. "The tool helps learners avoid costly mistakes by making the best education choice for their individual needs," said Greg Eisenbarth, Online UC's executive director. "This allows targeted development and enhances ROI for corporations funding employee training."
Read more: http://info.101com.com/default.asp?id=3157
Collaborative learning environments sourcebook: This book is a resource for academics and students who want to develop collaborative learning environments (or communities of practice) in which lecturers, students and others can work together to create new knowledge while learning new skills. See also the background info about the book.
http://www.criticalmethods.org/collab/
BrowserSizer (Freeware)
BrowserSizer is a low-fat, NOT in-your-face tool to help web developers check to see how their web pages look on screen resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and WebTV. It controls Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator from an un-obtrusive, sit in your tray, application that provides an interface to resize either browser to the standard screen resolutions. Isn't it annoying to change your development machine's resolution just to test for people who haven't figured out that they can change THEIR screen resolution?
http://www.applythis.com/browsersizer/default.asp
iLecture Iowa City, IA --
The Information Commons Productions Services in Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at The University of Iowa has released a beta edition of iLecture, the simple online lecture delivery system. http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/commons/ilecture/ Product Description: iLecture makes preparing an online lecture an easy process. Simply import your PowerPoint slides, plug in a microphone and record your narration. iLecture does the rest. It packages the images and audio, along with the individual timings for each slide, in a directory that's ready for upload to any web server. Not only does iLecture offer convenient features to any instructor narrating an online lecture, it also makes viewing and listening to that lecture simple for students. Students aren't locked in to a particular piece of software, particular file formats, or any specific computer platform (operating system). The online lectures created by iLecture can be viewed on any Internet connection in any web browser. iLecture is open ended, accessible and easy to use, unlike many products on the commercial market. iLecture makes the task of creating and viewing online lectures simple. Best of all--iLecture is free. About the Information Commons Productions Services: iLecture was developed by the Information Commons Production Services (ICPS) Team at The Hardin Library for the Health Sciences at the University of Iowa. ICPS is an award-winning multimedia and web production services group that has been creating compelling web sites, instructional titles, CD-ROMs and interactive presentations for more than 7 years. Download: iLecture beta release is available at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/commons/ilecture/ Contact: ilecture@uiowa.edu
Reference Miner searches the Internet to find and display reference information from PubMed, and the Library of Congress. Special features include the display of book cover art (Amazon) and the ability to easily perform complex searches. If you or your institution has the appropriate journal subscription, a double-click immediately opens the PubMed full-text article in your browser. Mac OS X 10.2 or later is preferred, but Reference Miner also runs in Mac OS Classic. Reference Miner is the perfect companion for Bookends: you can save references and images you find by dragging and dropping them onto a Bookends 7.7 or later database window.
Some client-side quiz development tools: - University of Utah Knowledge Weavers'
WebQuizBuilder (old, not updated) - Macromedia's CourseBuilder Extension for Dreamweaver (flexible and extensible, buggy/tricky, not for novices) - Macromedia's Learning Extensions for Flash (haven't used but looks promising) - SmartLite's WebQuiz XP (haven't used but looks potentially interesting) I'm sure there are others!
http://medlib.med.utah.edu/kw/quizmaker_fmp/
Technorati allows you to enter a URL and get a list of "every other page that has linked to it in the past 24 hours, ranked by freshness or AUTHORity. It shows the contextual text surrounding the inbound link, its age, and other helpful facts." You can also search by keyword. Feedster is another blog search engine.
http://www.technorati.com/
iUpload Mailby RSS generates RSS feeds from email. "Using MailbyRSS is simple. [Users] need only to sign up to the service to receive a special e-mail address and password from iUpload and can immediately begin to
AUTHOR content for their RSS channel by sending it as an email. When MailbyRSS receives an
AUTHORized e-mail message, it automatically creates or updates an RSS channel and generates any supporting web pages required." One interesting use: Yahoo Groups to RSS in Three Easy Steps
http://www.iupload.com/product/mailbyrss.asp
Projectory Projectory is a platform-independent, web-enabled project management tool designed to track software projects through all phases of development. Where traditional project management software is primarily useful only for planning and reporting purposes, Projectory lets you track actual development effort expended by teams or individuals across multiple projects and activities. It's easy to configure for small or large software development groups, and its streamlined user interface makes it easy for individuals to enter and manage their work entries. Its comprehensive reporting capabilities serve the needs of team leads and managers alike. You can get an accurate snapshot of current development activity, track effort on planned vs. unplanned work, and compare actual effort expended to the estimates in your project plans. Its project-agnostic activity tracking functionality makes it a great tool for improving estimation on new projects, as you can mine historical data to determine real-world development metrics.
Ripples - Research in Electronic Presentation Production
The Research in Presentation Production for Learning Electronically (RIPPLES) project is investigating how to most effectively use the World Wide Web and CD/DVD-ROM to deliver lectures and course materials outside of the classroom. Our focus is on asynchronous learning environments in which students proceed at their own pace and are not assumed to be accessing the same material at the same time. Students can access lectures as digital audio or video, synchronized with slides, overheads or other materials.
http://ripples.cs.umass.edu/
Test Builder Build SCORM-Based Tests and Quizzes
Start building online tests and quizzes today with Test Builder. Test Builder lets you
AUTHOR tests quickly and easily with a text editor. Absolutely no programming is required. Create tests and quizzes with true-false, multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank and matching questions. Deliver your tests with a SCORM-based Learning Management System (LMS). Randomize the sequence of questions and choices. Randomly select questions from a question pool. Limit the number of attempts. Set the passing score.
Blackboard Inc., Partners with Leading Academic Publishers to Develop Integrated e-Learning Solutions Tuesday March 9, 4:00 PM
ET WASHINGTON, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc., a leading provider of enterprise software applications and related services to the education industry, announced today that it has joined three of the world's leading academic publishers in a development project to integrate the companies' most popular e-Learning applications into the Blackboard Learning System. [...] The development project, titled "ChalkBox," will go beyond simple importation of textbook-related electronic content to accommodate more sophisticated integration between the publishers' hosted instructional applications and Blackboard-powered course web sites at client institutions.
ProjectForum is an easy to install web application, used through standard web browsers, that lets workgroups collaborate and coordinate their work on projects. Each of your groups gets its own dedicated forum for its projects, containing any number of separate web pages. In ProjectForum, your group decides what to post, what to share, what to discuss, and how to organize it all. Create whatever new pages you need for new topics. Each page is fully editable by everyone, right from the browser. No special tools are needed, nor knowledge of complicated markup languages like HTML. Its easy enough for everyone to contribute, adding their own material, commenting on existing material, or helping to organize it all. ProjectForum is centered around simple free-form text, making it easy to understand, and easy to work with - creating or modifying content within the group is as easy as writing an email message. There's no complex interface, set procedures for working, or complex web forms to navigate.
Word Processing with Microsoft Word 2000 Tutorial The tutorial has been divided into seven sections; a "Getting Started" section is followed by six instructional sections covering a number of related skills. The menu on the left lists all of the sections as well as the corresponding skills. For each skill that is presented you will find a textual explanation. In most cases, you will also find a link to a short animation (labeled "Show Me"). At the end of each section, you may test what you have learned by completing the corresponding "PRACTICE" exercise. You may wish to progress through the sections sequentially or focus on particular skills you are interested in learning more about. http://www.mwc.edu/training/inte/office/previous/word_processing/index.htm
A CNET News.com article about Microsoft Sharepoint: Sharing the love -- and data -- through SharePoint Last modified: April 6, 2004, 4:00 PM
PDT By David Becker Staff Writer, CNET News.com Microsoft wants you to start paying more attention to the "Save As" command. Instead of the usual habit of saving documents to a hard drive, Microsoft wants you to place them in server-based collaborative "work spaces" that can be accessed by multiple people. Such document sharing is one of the main ideas behind SharePoint, a critical part of Microsoft's strategy to unite business applications and processes. It's also viewed as a major motivator for getting businesses to upgrade to current versions of key Microsoft products. And one user's take on it: [...] In my experience, I've been disappointed with the product (sign in isn't direct and obvious, very little metadata support, very "boxy", no support for RSS, collaboration is basically just a threaded discussion, etc.) Given the opportunity, I would move toward a product like Plone, Groove, Drupal, or Convea. Over the next several versions, Sharepoint will certainly improve...but it's currently a product that looks like a poor duplication of the more effective collaboration tools now available (both open source and proprietary).