Find Full Text and Available TWU Library
What does it mean when you see these two phrases in a database?
As electronic collections have grown, the challenge is to find specific items through a variety of resources. The Find Full Text and Available TWU Library links enable you to efficiently access full-text content anywhere in the Library.
TWU Libraries provide access to over 180 databases and thousands of full-text journals.
Find Full Text
When you click on this link from an article citation in a database, you will be directed to a page that restates your search criteria and provides citation information. Below the citation, you will find the links to content showing the article, journal, dates of coverage and the resource or database where the article is located.
More Full Text Options takes you to the TWU Libraries Online Catalog and...
If the full text is not available, there is a direct link to the Interlibrary Loan Request Form.
http://www.twu.edu/library/form/ILL_form.htm
Available TWU Catalog
When you click this link from an article citation in a database, you will be linked directly to the TWU Libraries Online Catalog which will display the citation(s) for the print and/or electronic versions of the journal that contains the article you are interested in.
Click on the electronic journal citation to see which databases contain online access to that journal. By clicking on one of the database options, you will be directed to a listing of the publication years for that journal that are covered by that database. Be sure to note the Year, Volume Number, and Issue Number for your article so that you can navigate through this listing.
If you need materials that are only in print, please complete the Interlibrary Loan Request Form and the article will be sent to you via e-mail.
You may also contact the Distance Education department of the Library for assistance finding and gathering full-text articles. Simply send a description of your search topic or a listing of the articles you would like to find to libde@twu.edu and our department will be happy to search for full-text articles.
Stephany Compton
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Banned Books Week – September 27 – October 4, 2008
Banned Books Week is observed during the last week of September each year. The American Library Association began this observance 27 years ago to celebrate our First Amendment rights including the freedom to read, the freedom to write, and intellectual freedom.
From the ALA website, Banned Book Week “celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.”
You can find many Banned Books (and many other books) online at:
TWU Library Website – TWU databases include NetLibrary and eBrary. Follow the “Find E-Books” link from the TWU Online Resources page. http://www.twu.edu/library/research/ebooks_index.htm
University of Pennsylvania Online Books Page – http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ This page contains links to 30,000 online books.
Project Gutenberg – www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page This page contains links to 25,000 online books.
Google Books Banned Books – http://books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/
You can find out more about Banned Books through the following links:
American Library Association – www.ala.org/bbboks (discusses why books are challenged/banned and lists the top banned books for each year)
The Forbidden Library – www.forbiddenlibrary.com/ (alphabetical listing of banned books and why they have been challenged/banned)
Banned Books Week – www.bannedbooksweek.org/ (lists local Banned Book events)
The Most Challenged Books of 2007 and the reasons for challenge (according to ALA):
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell (anti-ethnic, sexism, homosexuality, anti-family, unsuited to age group)
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (sexually explicit, offensive language, violence)
Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes (sexually explicit, offensive language)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (religious viewpoint)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (racism)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language)
TTYL by Lauren Myracle (sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (sexually explicit)
It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris (sex education, sexually explicit)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Texas Blackboard Users Group is Still On!
2008 Texas Blackboard Users Group (TBUG)
October 17 & 18 / Crowne Plaza Downtown, Houston
Pre-conference - October 16 / Houston Community College
TBUG is fast approaching! Make plans now to attend this valuable opportunity to learn new online teaching techniques, share what you are doing in your online courses and network! The conference will also provide plenty of opportunities for fun!
Program Preview: http://www.t-bug.org/Programs.html The keynote speaker will be Dr. Joel Theirstein from Rice University. More details about the program will be coming soon!
Conference registration: http://www.t-bug.org/Registration.html Conference Cost - $250 (Preconference workshops are an additional cost.)
Hotel Reservations and Parking: http://www.t-bug.org/Hotel.html Room rate - $85/night (A third person is an extra $10) The deadline to get the state rate at the hotel is through midnight on Monday, October 6!
Parking - $10/day for daily attendees; $12/ night for overnight guests
For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the main TBUG website at http://www.t-bug.org
October 17 & 18 / Crowne Plaza Downtown, Houston
Pre-conference - October 16 / Houston Community College
TBUG is fast approaching! Make plans now to attend this valuable opportunity to learn new online teaching techniques, share what you are doing in your online courses and network! The conference will also provide plenty of opportunities for fun!
Program Preview: http://www.t-bug.org/Programs.html The keynote speaker will be Dr. Joel Theirstein from Rice University. More details about the program will be coming soon!
Conference registration: http://www.t-bug.org/Registration.html Conference Cost - $250 (Preconference workshops are an additional cost.)
Hotel Reservations and Parking: http://www.t-bug.org/Hotel.html Room rate - $85/night (A third person is an extra $10) The deadline to get the state rate at the hotel is through midnight on Monday, October 6!
Parking - $10/day for daily attendees; $12/ night for overnight guests
For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the main TBUG website at http://www.t-bug.org
Thursday, September 18, 2008
23 Things for Learning 2.0 - Post #4
Discovery Exercises (Things)
9. Tag a blog entry
10. Find and set up Bloglines feed reader
11. Set up a del.icio.us account
#9 (Post 4) Tag an entry in your blog (Estimated time to complete: approximately 20 minutes)
You now have a blog. If you like, you can use this blog to report your progress on your 23 Things. If you use this blog for other purposes, be sure to explain what you’re doing. Feel free to link to any part of The online Instructor (this blog) in your blog. But, first, let’s explore just a bit more so that you become more comfortable with your blog.
A tag is metadata (descriptive information) - it’s a key word that helps you index something, like a blog entry or a set of online photographs or bookmarks. You choose your own tags when it comes to your online content, so it’s helpful to think through (and sometimes go back and edit) the tags you set up in your blog or other online collection. You are setting up an indexing system. Depending upon your application, it may also link to others who have chosen the same tags.
First, let’s tag a blog entry. Go to your blog (and be sure you’re logged in to your blog host; if you have to log in, then do so and then go to your blog page to continue with Step #2.)
In Blogger, click on the word Customize (top right). (In other blog hosts, look for the tagging option on the page where you write the post or in the administrative area.)
Next, look at the tabs that appear just below your blog name (top left). Click on Posting.
You are now in the Create Posts mode. Below the Posting tab, click on Edit Posts.
Now click on the word Edit next to any post in the list.
At the bottom of the box with the blog post in it appears a blank line. The words Labels for this post appear to the left of it. Essentially, this means that what is typed here “tags” your video with a topic or label.
Type a tag in that line. Make it something that other posts will have in common with it. For example, if you chose your a post with a link to a video in it, you might tag it video. You can give it several tags if you like.
Click the Publish button.
When your view your blog now you will see the tags show up below the entry. Readers who click a tag will see a list of your blog entries that are tagged with that label; depending upon the application you are using, you may also see other people’s posts that are tagged in the same way. So it can bring to gether a community blogging about the same ideas (like, say, Learning 2.0).
If you have not yet set upyour blog, check out how in this Slidehsare "creating a free blog with blogger" from Visualthink
#10 (Post 4) Set up and use a Bloglines account. (Estimated time to complete: approximately 30 minutes)
Visit Bloglines at http://www.bloglines.com/ /.
Click on SIGN up now - It’s free! in the middle of the page.
Enter the requested information and click register. Close your browser. (Record your user name and password!)
You will get a confirmation email: click the link in the email to confirm your subscription.
Go to this webpage http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs and bookmark it so that you can find your way back later.
You will automatically be placed in a page that gives you one feed. Feeds are in the left column, at the top. Your feed will be Bloglines News. Click on the title of the feed, and the right column will now show the text in the available feed. Under Additional Features (left column), click on Easy Subscribe Bookmarklet. Choose the appropriate browser name and follow the instructions.
Now, let’s subscribe to a blog. Go back to http://theonlineinstructor.blogspot.com/ and then from your Bookmarks or Favorites, choose Sub With Bloglines. Don’t bother changing any settings on the page you go to; just click on Subscribe at the bottom. Look in your left column. You are subscribed to a new blog!
Choose at least one more blog or website with a feed to subscribe to - CNN, somebody’s Flickr account, etc. More ideas for feeds are at http://technology180.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/feed-fever/
Use this link once a day or a couple of times a week to check on updates to your favorite sites! If you like, blog about your experience on your own blog.
#11 (Post 4) Social Bookmarking
Have you made it this far? Yay!!
Social Bookmarking is a way to save and share your favorite websites in a web-based format. Why? Well, you might wish to have particular collections of bookmarks available to you when you travel (not computer-based but rather more accessible). You might want to share collections with friends or family. Or, you might use social bookmarking to share a web bibliography or set of resources with students or other instructors. Students might use social bookmarking to develop a collaborative collection to support research or project-based work. Some people or institutions develop their own “social bookmarking” tool and may use the word tag interchangeably with social bookmarking. Here are a few examples:
http://digg.com/
http://del.icio.us/
Set up a del.icio.us account.
Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/ ) is a website that allows you to store your Internet bookmarks online. This means that you can access your bookmarks from any computer. When you book mark a webpage, you can “tag” it with keywords of your choosing which will help you organize similar pages. This is more versatile than bookmark folders since you can “tag” a website with more than one descriptor. For example, one could save a link to this blog on del.icio.us and tag it with “blog” “web 2.0” and “distance education.”
Del.icio.us is most commonly known as a “social bookmarking” site. This means you can share your bookmarks with friends if you choose (but you don’t have to!) You can also see what websites other people are bookmarking and what tags that they assign them.
Go to https://secure.del.icio.us/register/ and create a del.icio.us account.
Del.icio.us provides easy to follow, step by step instructions through this process. As part of this process, you will be offered the opportunity to install “post to del.icio.us” button on your web browser. If
you choose not to do so, that’s okay! You can always go to http://del.icio.us/post/ and enter the URLs of the websites that you’d like to post to del.icio.us.
Find five websites that interest you (they don’t have to be about Web 2.0).
Assign them tags based on whatever organizational scheme makes sense to you.
If you make a mistake or think of another tag later, don’t worry…you can always go back and edit your tags.
You can also import bookmarks from your browser.
After finishing this, look at your list of bookmarks.
Click on “saved by – other people”
Click on one of the usernames of the people that have saved your page. See if they have saved some pages that you may find interesting.
Write a quick blog post in your own blog with a link to your del.icio.us account.
9. Tag a blog entry
10. Find and set up Bloglines feed reader
11. Set up a del.icio.us account
#9 (Post 4) Tag an entry in your blog (Estimated time to complete: approximately 20 minutes)
You now have a blog. If you like, you can use this blog to report your progress on your 23 Things. If you use this blog for other purposes, be sure to explain what you’re doing. Feel free to link to any part of The online Instructor (this blog) in your blog. But, first, let’s explore just a bit more so that you become more comfortable with your blog.
A tag is metadata (descriptive information) - it’s a key word that helps you index something, like a blog entry or a set of online photographs or bookmarks. You choose your own tags when it comes to your online content, so it’s helpful to think through (and sometimes go back and edit) the tags you set up in your blog or other online collection. You are setting up an indexing system. Depending upon your application, it may also link to others who have chosen the same tags.
First, let’s tag a blog entry. Go to your blog (and be sure you’re logged in to your blog host; if you have to log in, then do so and then go to your blog page to continue with Step #2.)
In Blogger, click on the word Customize (top right). (In other blog hosts, look for the tagging option on the page where you write the post or in the administrative area.)
Next, look at the tabs that appear just below your blog name (top left). Click on Posting.
You are now in the Create Posts mode. Below the Posting tab, click on Edit Posts.
Now click on the word Edit next to any post in the list.
At the bottom of the box with the blog post in it appears a blank line. The words Labels for this post appear to the left of it. Essentially, this means that what is typed here “tags” your video with a topic or label.
Type a tag in that line. Make it something that other posts will have in common with it. For example, if you chose your a post with a link to a video in it, you might tag it video. You can give it several tags if you like.
Click the Publish button.
When your view your blog now you will see the tags show up below the entry. Readers who click a tag will see a list of your blog entries that are tagged with that label; depending upon the application you are using, you may also see other people’s posts that are tagged in the same way. So it can bring to gether a community blogging about the same ideas (like, say, Learning 2.0).
If you have not yet set upyour blog, check out how in this Slidehsare "creating a free blog with blogger" from Visualthink
#10 (Post 4) Set up and use a Bloglines account. (Estimated time to complete: approximately 30 minutes)
Feeds allow you to subscribe to a blog, photo archive or other web-based information that provides an opportunity to track new entries via a feed reader. It’s often referred to as syndication, sometimes used interchangably with the word feed or aggregator, or to mention a specific type you may have heard, RSS (which stands for Really Simple Syndication). On the left side of this blog, below the blog posting archive links, you will see the word subscribe next to an orange button.
You can click on the button or the word subscribe and see the feed page, or (if set up by the blogger) a page that lets you subscribe to those feeds.
We’re going to use a simple web-based feedreader called Bloglines to subscribe to this blog.Visit Bloglines at http://www.bloglines.com/ /.
Click on SIGN up now - It’s free! in the middle of the page.
Enter the requested information and click register. Close your browser. (Record your user name and password!)
You will get a confirmation email: click the link in the email to confirm your subscription.
Go to this webpage http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs and bookmark it so that you can find your way back later.
You will automatically be placed in a page that gives you one feed. Feeds are in the left column, at the top. Your feed will be Bloglines News. Click on the title of the feed, and the right column will now show the text in the available feed. Under Additional Features (left column), click on Easy Subscribe Bookmarklet. Choose the appropriate browser name and follow the instructions.
Now, let’s subscribe to a blog. Go back to http://theonlineinstructor.blogspot.com/ and then from your Bookmarks or Favorites, choose Sub With Bloglines. Don’t bother changing any settings on the page you go to; just click on Subscribe at the bottom. Look in your left column. You are subscribed to a new blog!
Choose at least one more blog or website with a feed to subscribe to - CNN, somebody’s Flickr account, etc. More ideas for feeds are at http://technology180.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/feed-fever/
Use this link once a day or a couple of times a week to check on updates to your favorite sites! If you like, blog about your experience on your own blog.
#11 (Post 4) Social Bookmarking
Have you made it this far? Yay!!
Social Bookmarking is a way to save and share your favorite websites in a web-based format. Why? Well, you might wish to have particular collections of bookmarks available to you when you travel (not computer-based but rather more accessible). You might want to share collections with friends or family. Or, you might use social bookmarking to share a web bibliography or set of resources with students or other instructors. Students might use social bookmarking to develop a collaborative collection to support research or project-based work. Some people or institutions develop their own “social bookmarking” tool and may use the word tag interchangeably with social bookmarking. Here are a few examples:
http://digg.com/
http://del.icio.us/
Set up a del.icio.us account.
Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/ ) is a website that allows you to store your Internet bookmarks online. This means that you can access your bookmarks from any computer. When you book mark a webpage, you can “tag” it with keywords of your choosing which will help you organize similar pages. This is more versatile than bookmark folders since you can “tag” a website with more than one descriptor. For example, one could save a link to this blog on del.icio.us and tag it with “blog” “web 2.0” and “distance education.”
Del.icio.us is most commonly known as a “social bookmarking” site. This means you can share your bookmarks with friends if you choose (but you don’t have to!) You can also see what websites other people are bookmarking and what tags that they assign them.
Go to https://secure.del.icio.us/register/ and create a del.icio.us account.
Del.icio.us provides easy to follow, step by step instructions through this process. As part of this process, you will be offered the opportunity to install “post to del.icio.us” button on your web browser. If
you choose not to do so, that’s okay! You can always go to http://del.icio.us/post/ and enter the URLs of the websites that you’d like to post to del.icio.us.
Find five websites that interest you (they don’t have to be about Web 2.0).
Assign them tags based on whatever organizational scheme makes sense to you.
If you make a mistake or think of another tag later, don’t worry…you can always go back and edit your tags.
You can also import bookmarks from your browser.
After finishing this, look at your list of bookmarks.
Click on “saved by – other people”
Click on one of the usernames of the people that have saved your page. See if they have saved some pages that you may find interesting.
Write a quick blog post in your own blog with a link to your del.icio.us account.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Live, Desktop Presentations for Distance Educators
The Office of Lifelong Learning is offering a series of live, desktop presentations on topics that relate to teaching at a distance. Information on how to access the most upcoming live presentation is available by following the links provided below.
Managing the Discussion Board for Distance Courses
Today! 11 a.m.
Setting the Stage for Discussion Boards in the Distance Course
Tuesday - October 7, 2008 at 11 a.m.
Managing Grade-Related Items for the Distance Course
Wednesday – November 12, 2008 at 2 p.m.
Management Strategies for Distance Courses: Student Communication and Assignments
Thursday - December 11, 2008 at 2 pm
If you are not able to make it to the live presentation, an archived version will be immediately available after the presentation on the DE website with each corresponding session description.
Managing the Discussion Board for Distance Courses
Today! 11 a.m.
Setting the Stage for Discussion Boards in the Distance Course
Tuesday - October 7, 2008 at 11 a.m.
Managing Grade-Related Items for the Distance Course
Wednesday – November 12, 2008 at 2 p.m.
Management Strategies for Distance Courses: Student Communication and Assignments
Thursday - December 11, 2008 at 2 pm
If you are not able to make it to the live presentation, an archived version will be immediately available after the presentation on the DE website with each corresponding session description.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
TWU Fall 2008 Online Educator Symposium Presentations now available online
Presentations from the Online Educator Symposium (OES) are now available online at http://twuid.pbwiki.com/OES-2008. The OES was a half-day event on August 21 that provided information about current distance education initiatives at the University and provided participants an opportunity to hear innovative practices from current DE faculty. The Office of Lifelong Learning invites you to view the presentations on the website and please contact us if you have any questions.
Dr. Sharon Van Sell earns “Quality Matters Recognized” Course
The Office of Lifelong Learning is pleased to announce that NURS 3612 Intro to Nursing Research, developed by Dr. Sharon Van Sell, has been reviewed by Quality Matters™ (QM) and passed the review, meeting the quality standards of this review process. The course has earned the “Quality Matters Recognized” distinction. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Van Sell for this outstanding achievement.
The Quality Matters™ program is a faculty-centered peer course review Quality Assurance process. Review criteria are linked to external standards; criteria and process are supported through instructional design principles; and the process is vetted by faculty experts. The goals of the program are to increase student retention, learning and satisfaction in online courses by implementing better course design. Quality Matters is sponsored by MarylandOnline and has been adopted by hundreds of higher education institutions across thirty five states and Canada.
For more information about Quality Matters, please visit www.qualitymatters.org. If you are interested in submitting an online course for review or want to apply the QM rubric to your course, you can find more information at http://www.twu.edu/de/quality-matters.asp. The application deadline is Friday, September 26.
The Quality Matters™ program is a faculty-centered peer course review Quality Assurance process. Review criteria are linked to external standards; criteria and process are supported through instructional design principles; and the process is vetted by faculty experts. The goals of the program are to increase student retention, learning and satisfaction in online courses by implementing better course design. Quality Matters is sponsored by MarylandOnline and has been adopted by hundreds of higher education institutions across thirty five states and Canada.
For more information about Quality Matters, please visit www.qualitymatters.org. If you are interested in submitting an online course for review or want to apply the QM rubric to your course, you can find more information at http://www.twu.edu/de/quality-matters.asp. The application deadline is Friday, September 26.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The 23 Things for Learning 2.0: Post #3
Week 3: Photos & Images
Discovery Exercises (Things)
6. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
7. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites.
8. Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week.
#6 (WEEK 3) Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site
Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr http://www.flickr.com/ to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Flickr uses "tags" or what we would call subjects or keywords to help identify and search for photos.
For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags http://www.flickr.com/help/tags/#37 work, what groups http://www.flickr.com/help/groups are, and all the neat things
that people and other classrooms http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=classroom&m=names and courses are creating thanks to Flickr.
Discovery Exercise:
In this discovery exercise, you have two options…
a. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include either a link to the image or if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool http://www.flickr.com/help/blogging/ to add the image in your post.
--OR--
b. If you are up to an easy challenge ... create a Free account in Flickr and use your digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your office. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “TWU virtual office” and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post. Once you have a Flickr account, upload through Flickr's blogging tool http://www.flickr.com/help/blogging/ . So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you're interested in looking at some photo hosting sites, then check out Picasa Web Albums http://picasa.google.com/features.html from Google and another service called Smugmug http://www.smugmug.com/ .
PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette and cybersafety - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload
pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.
Resources:
Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps) http://www.flickr.com/tour/
Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials http://www.indezine.com/mediamazine/2006/05/flickr-tutorials-series.html
Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups) http://www.flickr.com/services/ and here's another Flickr site http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ that lets you create movie posters, CD covers, magazine covers and so on.
[Note: Please remember to include WEEK# and THING# in your heading posts.]
#7 (WEEK 3) Flickr fun, mashups, and 3rd party sites
Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications http://www.flickr.com/services/ using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here is just a sampling of a few …
Mappr http://stamen.com/projects/mappr - takes Flickr images and allows you to paste them on a map
Flickr Color Pickr http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/ - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
Montagr http://www.deviousgelatin.com/montager/image.php – create a photo mosaics from photos found on Flickr.
Poster Maker http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php with inspiration sayings (add in any picture and saying)
Discover more web apps http://www.flickrbits.com/#webapps , and Flickr tools http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/03/great-flickr-tools-collection/ .
Discovery Exercise:
Your discovery exercise for this “thing” is to: Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there. Create a blog post about one that intrigues you. You might want to check out FD Toys’ Trading Card Maker http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php . So have some fun discovering and exploring some neat little apps. If you are up to the challenge while you’re at it, create a trading card of your own. :)
All sizes of this photo are available for download under a Creative Commons license. http://flickr.com/photos/frozen-in-time/42762345/
* Mashup Note: Wikipedia offers some great articles that explain mashups. Basically they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a map) In this example, you get Mappr (http://mappr.com/ )
#8 (WEEK 3) Create a blog post about anything technology-related that interests you this week
Simply blog about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! You just need to share a few thoughts. For example: "I like digital cameras because it's much easier to share photos with family and friends now that I have a Flickr account. Skype lets me talk with friends through computers. Technology advancements for music and medical equipment are amazing! Video Games, iTunes, iPods, Flatscreen televisions, etc. "
Discovery Exercises (Things)
6. Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
7. Have some Flickr fun and discover some Flickr mashups & 3rd party sites.
8. Create a blog post about anything technology related that interests you this week.
#6 (WEEK 3) Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site
Photo sharing websites have been around since the 90s, but it took a small startup site called Flickr http://www.flickr.com/ to catapult the idea of “sharing” into a full blown online community. Flickr uses "tags" or what we would call subjects or keywords to help identify and search for photos.
For this discovery exercise, you are asked to take a good look at Flickr and discover what this site has to offer. Find out how tags http://www.flickr.com/help/tags/#37 work, what groups http://www.flickr.com/help/groups are, and all the neat things
that people and other classrooms http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=classroom&m=names and courses are creating thanks to Flickr.
Discovery Exercise:
In this discovery exercise, you have two options…
a. Take a good look around Flickr and discover an interesting image that you want to blog about. Be sure to include either a link to the image or if you create a Flickr account, you can use Flickr's blogging tool http://www.flickr.com/help/blogging/ to add the image in your post.
--OR--
b. If you are up to an easy challenge ... create a Free account in Flickr and use your digital camera to capture a few pictures of something in your office. Upload these to your Flickr account and tag at least one of the images “TWU virtual office” and mark it public. Then create a post in your blog about your photo and experience. Be sure to include the image in your post. Once you have a Flickr account, upload through Flickr's blogging tool http://www.flickr.com/help/blogging/ . So go ahead, explore the site and have some Flickr photo fun and if you're interested in looking at some photo hosting sites, then check out Picasa Web Albums http://picasa.google.com/features.html from Google and another service called Smugmug http://www.smugmug.com/ .
PS: A quick word about photo posting etiquette and cybersafety - When posting identifiable photos of other people (especially minors) get the person's permission before posting their photo in a publicly accessible place like Flickr. Never upload
pictures that weren't taken by you (unless you have the photographer's consent) and always give credit when you include photos taken by someone else in your blog.
Resources:
Flickr Learn More tour (6 steps) http://www.flickr.com/tour/
Mediamazine Flickr Tutorials http://www.indezine.com/mediamazine/2006/05/flickr-tutorials-series.html
Flickr Services (3rd party applications & mashups) http://www.flickr.com/services/ and here's another Flickr site http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ that lets you create movie posters, CD covers, magazine covers and so on.
[Note: Please remember to include WEEK# and THING# in your heading posts.]
#7 (WEEK 3) Flickr fun, mashups, and 3rd party sites
Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications http://www.flickr.com/services/ using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here is just a sampling of a few …
Mappr http://stamen.com/projects/mappr - takes Flickr images and allows you to paste them on a map
Flickr Color Pickr http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/ - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
Montagr http://www.deviousgelatin.com/montager/image.php – create a photo mosaics from photos found on Flickr.
Poster Maker http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php with inspiration sayings (add in any picture and saying)
Discover more web apps http://www.flickrbits.com/#webapps , and Flickr tools http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/03/great-flickr-tools-collection/ .
Discovery Exercise:
Your discovery exercise for this “thing” is to: Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there. Create a blog post about one that intrigues you. You might want to check out FD Toys’ Trading Card Maker http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php . So have some fun discovering and exploring some neat little apps. If you are up to the challenge while you’re at it, create a trading card of your own. :)
All sizes of this photo are available for download under a Creative Commons license. http://flickr.com/photos/frozen-in-time/42762345/
* Mashup Note: Wikipedia offers some great articles that explain mashups. Basically they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a map) In this example, you get Mappr (http://mappr.com/ )
#8 (WEEK 3) Create a blog post about anything technology-related that interests you this week
Simply blog about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! You just need to share a few thoughts. For example: "I like digital cameras because it's much easier to share photos with family and friends now that I have a Flickr account. Skype lets me talk with friends through computers. Technology advancements for music and medical equipment are amazing! Video Games, iTunes, iPods, Flatscreen televisions, etc. "
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