This was a very entertaining and useful learning experience. Thanks Kerry for organising it, and thanks to those of you who kindly made comments on my posts.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thankyou and farewell from Dashboard Diva
This was a very entertaining and useful learning experience. Thanks Kerry for organising it, and thanks to those of you who kindly made comments on my posts.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
All that social networking...
MySpace
I'd not been much interested in MySpace. But after googling some of the bands I saw at BluesFest recently - I discovered it is quite useful music-wise. Many bands have other bands with similar styles as their friends, and its an easy way to find up about upcoming gigs. Here's the MySpace site for one of my favorites from the festival, The Bamboos.
Facebook
My kids have migrated to Facebook after being MySpace users. My daughter commented the other day that she couldn't imagine life without the internet. And indeed I recall finding out about it around the time she was born 16 years ago. I find Facebook useful for staying in contact particular friends who use it a lot, or who are hard to reach because of busy lives. A quick online facebook chat at 11pm is a new opportunity to stay in touch
Second Life
I have joined second life and my persona is Gary Daffyd. I've logged in and had a walk around, tested the flying option, and looked at the tutorial. As has been the case with many of the learning activities, on-line tutorials can be excellent. I;m more confident now to work things out on my own.
Skype
I've been using this on and off for a while. I used it while a friend was living in Paris a few years ago, and more recently have started to chat with relatives in Perth. Its easy to forget people are actually looking at me, since they are not in the room, so I need to check I'm not twiddling my thumbs or filing my nails while we are chatting!
I'd not been much interested in MySpace. But after googling some of the bands I saw at BluesFest recently - I discovered it is quite useful music-wise. Many bands have other bands with similar styles as their friends, and its an easy way to find up about upcoming gigs. Here's the MySpace site for one of my favorites from the festival, The Bamboos.
My kids have migrated to Facebook after being MySpace users. My daughter commented the other day that she couldn't imagine life without the internet. And indeed I recall finding out about it around the time she was born 16 years ago. I find Facebook useful for staying in contact particular friends who use it a lot, or who are hard to reach because of busy lives. A quick online facebook chat at 11pm is a new opportunity to stay in touch
Second Life
I have joined second life and my persona is Gary Daffyd. I've logged in and had a walk around, tested the flying option, and looked at the tutorial. As has been the case with many of the learning activities, on-line tutorials can be excellent. I;m more confident now to work things out on my own.
Skype
I've been using this on and off for a while. I used it while a friend was living in Paris a few years ago, and more recently have started to chat with relatives in Perth. Its easy to forget people are actually looking at me, since they are not in the room, so I need to check I'm not twiddling my thumbs or filing my nails while we are chatting!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Feeding on RSS
OK, so I've been planning to do this for a while, and couldn't get my head around how to organise it. But now I've set up my account with bloglines. http://www.bloglines.com/blog/ColleenMcC
I also set up an account with Google reader, and I'm comparing the two. One advantage of Google's reader was that it automatically listed all my vincet colleagues blogs, with latest updates ready to read.
I was still wondering how to get the podcasts off the computer and into a listening device - when Kym showed me how to access the itunes store directly from my iphone, and immediately download podcasts from the abc website. As a result today on the train I was listening to a speech downloaded from "Big Ideas". Very pleased. I the meantime my mission is to find a good system for getting non-itunes podcasts onto the device.
The automoation of RSS is great - as described on the commoncraft tutorial - the capacity to bring all the things I'm interested in directly to my computer - will increase the amount of good information I can access; for work, funstuff, and study.
I can imagine a Vicnet blog with RSS feeds of relevant reading/listening/demos would be a useful tool that supports our capacity to stay up to date with information and opinion in our field.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Mind-Mapping
Mind maps are great. Nothing like a colourful grid to plot ones thoughts. I am familiar with bubbl.us I used it last year for study - and it helped me get my head around some concepts that were new to me. When I went to log in I was amazed that I remembered my user name and password - I have generated so many online accounts, I need a mind map to keep track of them. Below is said mind-map:
I was in search of a different type of map, so was happy to use this opportunity to explore. I tried mindmeister, and in an effort to multitask, I learned how to use it, and plan my daughters 16th birthday party at the same time. Here is the result:
I was impressed with the online demonstration for mindmeister - courtesy of demogirl.com, that's am interesting how-to site I'll go back to for other demos.
Update: Since initially writing this post, Andrew has drawn my attention to XMind which is an open source mind mapping tool that can be downloaded onto your computer. Its an alternative where your maps are created and stored on your computer, rather than their website. It kind of feels old-fashioned!
I was in search of a different type of map, so was happy to use this opportunity to explore. I tried mindmeister, and in an effort to multitask, I learned how to use it, and plan my daughters 16th birthday party at the same time. Here is the result:
I was impressed with the online demonstration for mindmeister - courtesy of demogirl.com, that's am interesting how-to site I'll go back to for other demos.
Update: Since initially writing this post, Andrew has drawn my attention to XMind which is an open source mind mapping tool that can be downloaded onto your computer. Its an alternative where your maps are created and stored on your computer, rather than their website. It kind of feels old-fashioned!
Newsletters: Letterpop
I had a go at using LetterPop today, and you're all invited to a wild disco party:
You can see the invite online here.
The LetterPop templates can make the creation of a document very easy, but I found it hard to find one that allowed me to influence the design with my own graphics. The theme of the template drove the content for my practice piece. Diva is a control freak!
You can see the invite online here.
The LetterPop templates can make the creation of a document very easy, but I found it hard to find one that allowed me to influence the design with my own graphics. The theme of the template drove the content for my practice piece. Diva is a control freak!
Tagcrowd-ing
This isn't part of our learning 2.0 curriculum, but I'd like to talk about tag clouds. You can very easily generate one by visiting http://tagcrowd.com.
By example, below is one I have generated. Nicky, Andrew, and I need to find a name for the research report we've been working on, which is about emerging communities, their languages and the internet. For some inspiration I generated a tag cloud with the text of the executive summary. We still have more brainstorming to go for the report name - your suggestions are welcome.
By example, below is one I have generated. Nicky, Andrew, and I need to find a name for the research report we've been working on, which is about emerging communities, their languages and the internet. For some inspiration I generated a tag cloud with the text of the executive summary. We still have more brainstorming to go for the report name - your suggestions are welcome.
access appropriate australia available communities computers consulted content create cultural develop diasporas digital dinka emerging english example exist groups harari help important inclusion information internet issues karen language literacy maintenance meet members mother needs people problems programs research resources settlement settlers shared skills support tongue tools training web websites written
created at TagCrowd.com
Monday, June 1, 2009
Wikis
I had a look through the wikis on the discovery tour. The Future Melbourne Wiki was very corporate - the look of it didn't seem interactive. Its corporate nature seemed to go against its community based content. Nevertheless, it was a good repository of information about the consultation process.
I liked the Wirlpool blog, particularly its easy to follow instructional focus. It was a useful site at which to become familiar with the jargon around wikis. Its got a huge community of people who are used to creating stuff together, or helping out, they seem to be particularly good at explaining stuff.
The Radiography wiki was very interesting - and I especially like the way they organised their information. I've heard the term cruciate ligament many times, now I know how to spell it!
WikiNorthia is terrific - a truly practical way for people to contribute to their community history and stories.
I liked the Wirlpool blog, particularly its easy to follow instructional focus. It was a useful site at which to become familiar with the jargon around wikis. Its got a huge community of people who are used to creating stuff together, or helping out, they seem to be particularly good at explaining stuff.
The Radiography wiki was very interesting - and I especially like the way they organised their information. I've heard the term cruciate ligament many times, now I know how to spell it!
WikiNorthia is terrific - a truly practical way for people to contribute to their community history and stories.
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