Empa Edtec Talk April 2010

Some useful (and simple) tools for Education (and Research)

http://www.andrewmurphie.org/blog/?p=120

Monday, 12 April 2010



Tools—what to use, how to link them up

• all of the links (and this powerpoint) are online at http://www.andrewmurphie.org/blog/?p=120

• most of these tools are open source (and free)

• all are simple to use, but can take a long way if you wish.

• all are things that catalyse education (and research) engagements, rather than “replacing” them

• I won’t show you how to use these .. they’re simple and instructions online .. but happy to chat any time

• online you’ll also find a simple list of tools (including some I won’t mention today)






I’m not going to show you “how to do this ...”

• I’m going to show you what you can use

• And point you in the right direction to “DIY” ...


you can think of all this as various combinations of apps, tags and feeds ...


WordPress (and WPmu) [the latter is WP Multi-user]


WordPress (single user)



the “back end”



WPmu


front page



individual blogs on the WPmu site




you might notice that these blogs often carry the same posts


syndication—they syndicate with each other ...



this is one kind of feed


some course blogs on WPmu




internal tags



you can subscribe to a blog’s feed

students (and staff) on Twitter,

using the “hashtag” #arts1090


in passing, before retuning to WPmu—Twitter (which is indeed boring for socialising at times, but wonderful for

research)



my Twitter feed


eco interests

media interests

music interests

groups


Research Collaborator (only know him from online)

not quite sure who these are now!


almost “real-time” search for Walt Whitman


and, as everywhere, customisable feeds are

here as well


someone I followed and who followed me back,

as a result of preparing this talk


but where do feeds go?

Well, everywhere you want them to (almost)


you can subscribe to a blog’s feed

students (and staff) on Twitter,

using the “hashtag” #arts1090

or have a feed delivered

from elsewhereMonday, 12 April 2010


Some other WPmu Sites (University of Mary Washington Blogs)



some of the umwblogs courses






feeds again!

if I click here in Firefox ... this comes up


one place these can go!


Google Reader

(integrates with everything else “google”)


bringing this course feed into my personal Google Reader





finally, a research blog, which can easily and quickly feed into course blogs (and vice versa)




crucial point about blogs ... when you link to another blog, they get a “ping back” to their blog. Since they are

usually curious to see who’s interesting in them, they check your blog out. Before you know it, you have new

research collaborators!


Delicious—online tagging


btw—the Firefox browser has lots of great add-ons!

two buttons I’ve added to my Firefox browser


tag



my delicious page










RSS

• all this happens via RSS ... Really Simple Syndication


Firefox picks up RSS whenever it’s available


but it’s more often than not there on the page anyway


... at the bottom of the Guardian page there’s a good descriptions of how to use the Guardian’s feeds



btw—another Firefox add-on replaces the given ads with environmentally sensitive ads


but what‘s this other button?


Zotero (basically an Endnote replacement, add-on to Firefox)





the bottom right hand corner of my browser


Clicking there brings up the Zotero windows


click here and you automatically

add the reference


tags again


you can add notes


this goes for all of your references


you can link references to each other


you can export references in a wide variety of formats, and I think there is a Word plug-in, etc


however, you can also upload and synchronize your Zotero library via the Internet, and share across

computer

whether these are yours

or, via the formation of Zotero groups, others you’re collaborating with .. students, or other researchers (or

both!)



Zotero is courtesy of the Center for History and Digital Media at George Mason University ...



They make other open access tools



Omeka is one of these ... an online exhibition tool



some examples—and this could be used for research, community engagement (eg oral history) and teaching








