F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren (beta)

When bad titles meet (good) presentations

In reviewing submission guidelines for some conferences, I am struck by some obvious advice: the title needs to be catchy. And who among us hasn’t at times written a poor title for what was probably a good presentation?

But even good advice is sometimes overlooked, or goes unheeded. That became clear to me after the last 12:10 Lunch and Learn about new ways to access and use images in presentations, the title didn’t live up to the topic. Several of those who chose not to attend, later told me said “we know how to put an image in powerpoint”. Opps. Bad title.

The October 12:10 conspiracy was to help discover and explore item 11 on the 12/10 list: exploring Flickr. And along with that we explored that the old difficult way of finding images to use in presentations has some free and better alternatives.

So as a brief recap, here are some of the key points.

The old way — of buying stock image disks, looking through pages of stock photo albums and directories, and considering whether the use of an image constituted a violation of copyright law have evolved.

The new way includes the use of tools like flickr™ (www.flickr.com) or Picassa™ and searching for images on nearly any topic or theme.

These resources make use the images shared by millions of people and the idea of tagging - a friendly folksy way of labeling content. This blog makes use of tagging and the resulting tag cloud on the right of this page. Tag clouds are intuitive for many people.

Flickr also makes it possible to only search photos licensed under Creative Commons, a new way to look at the sharing and restriction of use of intellectual property. Now, authors, publishers, researchers, scholars have a way to allow some use of their work without involving detailed licensing agreements, or disputes over ownership.

November’s 12:10 will be a very brief introduction to using audio online and in presentations.  I still have half a month to come up with a good title.

RSS Feeds, some resources

If you missed the 12:10 lunch and learn on RSS feeds, here are some resources you can use to learn more about this great research and learning tool. RSS can bring current literature searches, reading, news, photos, and your most commonly read informaton to you, instead of having to search multiple sites to find it.

Intro to RSS

Courtesy of Common Craft, displayed via You Tube, RSS in Plain English?

Using RSS in Internet Explorer 7.0 or later (RSS is not viewable in Internet Explore earlier than version 7.0)

• A three part tutorial on the Microsoft IE Web blog http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/02/523418.aspx

A Firefox tutorial on using RSS feeds within Firefox, a popular Web browser alternative to Internet Explorer

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/RSS_feeds_(Firefox)

What do you want to do?

As a strategist and as a creative thinking instructor, one of the tools I share with clients and students is the idea of turning around a problem or statement, to look at it from a new perspective.

So, the here are the 12/10 conspiracy tools examined from a new view. Each of the tools you are invited to explore as part of the 12/10 conspiracy can hep you do the following:
Do you want to?:

1. Improve your presentations with photos but you don’t have the time or money to search stock photo libraries (Flickr)
2. Have someone organize and collect new research articles and put them in one easy to find place (rss)
3. Empower students to work and share their learning collaboratively (wiki)
4. Eliminate (or limit) the amount of information clutter in your email — but still have access to information you want and need (Pageflakes)
5. Make a fun or clever or creative hand-outs without having to learn a complex program like PhotoShop or Illustrator (flickr tools)
6. Find new research colleges and share your insights - or - help your students gain a deeper understanding of your work and course lectures (Blogger)
7. Discover a new was of organizing disparate pieces of information based on your own use or a collective understanding (Technorati)
8. Set goals and have others cheer you on (43 things)
9. Use your drive time or workout time to catch up on current issues, or build student understanding of your lectures outside of class time (iTunes)
10. Create a controlled access point for students to interact with you (Facebook)
11. Find current article and news relating to any topic and have it sorted and categorized for you (Google Alerts)
12. Have your colleagues be able to edit the same document and archive all versions (your students can write a collaborative project, as well, with almost no risk of lost data) (Google documents)

Our initial response to the first 12/10 lunch and learn was impressive. Those who attended have begun to see the time and effort saving uses of RSS in and out of the classroom. I’ve already receive initial blog posts, 43 things lists, and a few pleas for “help” in getting the latest in PubMed searches delivered to desktops on demand!

And for those of you who wanted to see it again, below is the video presentation “What if” (a You Tube feed)

43 things

Our 12/10 goal is to explore tools to understand what they do and how they shape the current use of web tools in social and learning environments. Not everyone will like, or see a need for, every tool, but this tool represent a cross section of technology in use in student’s lives.

43things.com is a simple idea and a terrific way to learn about two concepts: social networking and tagging.

First, some background on 43 things. If you are a person who makes a list of goals, or dreams, or things you would like to do, 43 things is a place on line where you can do that. What’s gained from the social network is that if your goal is the same, or similar, to someone else’s goal, the you can see who else on the 43 things web site listed that goal.

Unlike other social network sites, like MySpace, or FaceBook, where you are linked by who you know, on 43things you are linked by what you want to do or achieve. For example, if you want to learn to speak Spanish you can add that to your list and instantly see that 1, 851 other 43things member want to do this as well.

You can view their profiles and see what other goals they have, you can send them encouragement, in the form of a “cheer”, and perhaps, you may find someone with a mutual interest you wish to explore together.

The second tool use of 43things lets you explore the concept of “tagging”. Tagging is a current trend in data collation. Unlike folders, or rigid categories imposed by others, as in the Dewey Decimal system, tags allow diverse groups of people to identify with a few works what a subject or photo or item is and how it should be grouped.

For example, I might tag, or categorize, my series to learn to speak Spanish as “personal improvement” and “language skills” or “foreign language” or “travel”. Now, I have a way of searching other goals people have that are similar to “learning to speak Spanish”. Perhaps someone want to “visit Spain”; I might find them while looking at those goals tagged as “travel”. Someone else may want to learn Portuguese, and I might find them by searching “foreign language”…Or perhaps they speak Spanish and want to learn English, and we may be able to pair up as pen pals, with me writing in Spanish and they writing in English.

43things is one way to begin to understand social networking (and the expectations our students have about how they can communicate via the web. (Students wold like to be able to “instant message” each other when they see a familiar person is also on the class web site at the same time)

It also is a visual way to help understand how folksonomy tools like tagging are changing the way we collate our information.

More resources:

http://www.43things.com/about/view/learn_more

My 43 things list:

http://www.43things.com/person/zenbasser

12:10 - the list

NOTE: Tomorrow’s Lunch and learn at 12:10 is on using RSS in research and the classroom.

Previously, I wrote about the 12/10 conspiracy. You’ll learn more of my thoughts on why 12/10 is a conspiracy as we go along, but to get us started, what is it?

Simply, 12/10 is a challenge and opportunity to you to try 12 new (free) tools in ten months. Tools that are good not because the are new, but can help you be a better researcher and learning partner. The goal and challenge I want to share with you is to try each of these tools, chart your progress, and when you’ve completed 12/10 we’ll reward you with a USB flash drive emblazoned with the 12/10 conspiracy logo. (Heck, it’s better than a “certificate suitable for framing”)

So here is the list and you do not need to complete these in any specific order. and if you have done some already, mark them off. A key here is this, you are welcome to keep your academic hat on and do these in a serious frame of mind — but I encourage you also to have some fun and play. Play is one of the best ways to learn and discover and if it happens to help you be a better researcher, or teacher, well, I won’t tell if you don’t.

1. Learn about RSS feeds and subscribe to at least one feed (And what do you know, tomorrow’s 12/10 lunch and learn is about: ta da RSS feeds!  Link to learn more
2. 43 things …
   1. Explore 43 things web site, You can create an account, and track your 12/10 progress. Share and cheer our learning partners on (You”l see what it is about when you get there: http://www.43things.com Link to learn more
3. Create a FREE Google Account https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
   1. Use Google documents to share a work in progress with a colleague Once you have your Google account, you’ll see the link to Google Documents. Link to learn more
4. Take that fancy new Google account and create your own blog using Google’s Blogger (Or use Wordpress.) Create your first blog entry. https://www.blogger.com/start
5. Page Flakes is a web page aggregator. It uses the RSS feeds and other tools of any number of web sites so that your sites come together in one url to quickly review. http://www.pageflakes.com/ Create your own view of the Web.
6. Search and alerts: use Google Alerts to be updated on content. Want to be notified by email when your favorite research topic in included on a web page or news article? Want to do a little “vanity” surfing? Google alerts will send you an email and a link whenever it finds new information.
7. Tagging .
   1. Use technorati to tag content you read or create. Dewey had a system. The web puts the taxonomy system in the hands of the viewer. Visit technorati www.technorati.com and explore tagging and what it means to the process of categorization.
8. Podcasting what it is and how it is different from streaming media. Use iTunes (installed on my DMU computers and find a list of podcasts on iTunesU.
   1. Subscribe to a podcast, listen to a lecture
9. Social Networking is the trend du jour. But the concepts of social networking web sites do have some influence on designing effective classrooms online.
   1. Make a profile on Facebook http://www.facebook.com
10. Wiki
    1. Create an account on a wiki (Wikipedia or other) and add content
11. Visit flickr. Sharing photos of everything is the purpose of flickr. You can upload and share photos with family, friends, co workers. A group of slides can be shared with a class or colleague. http://www.flickr.com Link to learn more
12. FD labs flickr toys
    1. Make a movie poster, set of trading cards, or another creation. (Many projects are free, some do cost.) http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/

There is it, the 12/10 list. You can do as many or as few as you like, and in any order. But I think if you set your reluctance to try new things aside, and quietly, in the privacy of your home or office, just peek at some of these tools, you might find some new ways to learn, share, and have fun.

As you complete a 12/10 conspiracy item, drop me a note. — OR — send me the link to your 43 things page so I can cheer your progress.

Our goal is to do do these 12 thing in 10 months , the last day of the 12/10 conspiracy is July 31, 2008.

Trivia.quiz

Last week’s question we didn’t have a winner. It was:

According to the Educause study, what percentage of the 2007 report students indicate they prefer a “moderate rather than an extensive” use of IT in courses:

69%

59%

49%

and the right answer was 59%.

This weeks question: What is the 12/10 conspiracy?

a) a chance to better understand some learning tools by trying 12 tools over 10 months

b) figuring our this whole “web 2.0″ thingy

c) a deranged concept by the ed tech strategy guy

d) a way to win a cool USB drive

e) all of the above

Right answers to me