Many things Google…. May 29, 2008

I want to introduce you to two things this week that are very Google-cool.  In addition to their search technology (they probably win the record for fastest transformation of a proper noun into a verb) they are also creating and collecting (they’re always buying something) some of the most innovative web 2.0 tools out there.  This week I want us to explore iGoogle and Google Docs.

iGoogle (an example of mine at the bottom)

I ADORE iGoogle.  Think of it as your own personalized webpage.  You get to customize it to be anything you want and no one but you sees it.  It’s very gadget-rich.  They allow non-google people to create the gadgets (or widgets) and so there is lots of cool stuff out there for every interest.  It’s part of the open source movement of letting lots of people dabble instead of one company controlling and directing all components of a “resource”.  It’s become my home base — all the of the bookmarks I use on a daily basis are there.  There’s a widget for my Gmail and Google Reader.  It’s totally changed the way I work cause I can access all of the most important things to me from any internet connection I sit down at.  It all pretty much starts from this one place.  And it’s not all serious –I love my National Geographic Picture of the Day and my Quotes of the day and the Human Calendar.  Near the top you can see the different “tabs” I have.  At lunch I might read the headlines of the day from different news sites.  You can see that I have a tab for “Pierce Learning” where I collect the stuff I want to use with this group.

 Google Docs — Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations

Have you ever wanted to be able to work on a document from more than one location but not have to be constantly emailing yourself the latest version?  Or ask a couple of people to author a document together?  Or a spreadsheet?  Google Docs allows you to start a document, spreadsheet or presentation on the web which is great because then you can access it from anywhere.  And then you can “invite” others to that document.  To give you a geeky but practical example….I started an RSVP spreadsheet for wedding invitations.  My parents were receiving the RSVPs and my mom would update it every night with what she’d received in the mail.  Bob and I could see the most updated list of who was coming (or wasn’t) any time we wanted.  She didn’t have to email or call us — we could all look at the same ever changing spreadsheet.

TASK #1:

1. Go to the Google homepage – http://www.google.com/
2. Click on iGoogle in the upper right hand corner
3. Create your own iGoogle page
4. Practice dragging the various boxes around to arrange your page
5. Notice that you probably have multiple “tabs” (upper left) and create a new one
6. In the upper right, “select theme” and “add stuff” — under “add stuff” try different searches based on things you like. Really into weather? — look at all the “widgets” you can add. Like news? There are tons of different news widgets. Add them to your page.
7. Here are some of my favorite iGoogle gadgets – http://piercelearning.wetpaint.com/page/iGoogle

Extra credit:

1. Send a screen shot of your iGoogle page to me. When looking at your page hit the “print screen” button on your keyboard (that creates an image of what’s currently on your screen). Paste it into an email you send to me.

TASK #2: 

I’m going to invite you to a Google Document that I’ll create.  Check it out and respond to the prompt (it’s quick).

my friend Flickr….. May 21, 2008

I’m sure this is completely unsurprising but here is this week’s Common Craft video.  If I were getting paid for this I’d probably have to give them a cut…..

This week is about the social nature of online picture-sharing. Again, there are many services out there that people use — two you hear a lot about are Flickr and Picasa (more – Photobucket, Webshots). Both allow you to upload pictures and then share them others for free (you can also pay for “premium accounts” that give you much more storage and other functionality). I use mine to post adorable pictures of my nieces or to collect a set of pictures for Christie’s family (I went with Christie) to see her adopted daughter Joo Mee while we were still in Korea.  You guys aready saw some honeymoon pictures (there are some wedding ones too)!

Flickr is certainly a well-known and is easily the biggest photosharing site out there.  The social dimension of this massive collection of phots is kind of staggering.  Do a search on a word like “bear” and the richness of results you get.  Search a word that represents a hobby or interest of yours.  Did you get surprising or interesting results?

The Library of Congress made a big splash this year when they uploaded more than 3000 photos to Flickr. They already had an online catalog of photos so why was this so exciting? For one thing, because of Flickr’s social networking nature, the public could participate. They invited people to contribute “tags” (kind of like “subject headings” for books) and comments — with the hope that LOC could learn more about these photos for their records. In just two days there were 650,000 views of photos, all 3,100 photos had been viewed and 420 pictures had comments. People loved it and what a rich collection of photos most of us would never have the chance to see in person….

Project Launch
Project Follow-up
Library of Congress Flickr page

Three ways this is a “social animal” that makes it more than just storing your photos online.

1. You can share with others!  You can open your pictures up to the world or just your friends and family.  I love being able to share photos online.  And in a time where families are often geographically distant, it sure does make it easy to share!
2. Comments — one of the way you see the social nature of this collection is the comments.  160 people left comments on this picture of gummy bears!
3. Tags, or “what’s the photo about?” – Pay attention to the “tags” in the common craft video and when you’re poking around Flickr.  This is an important Web 2.0 feature we’re just now getting to.  It’s not unlike a book’s “subject headings” (Frank and Kathy could tell us more about those) but it’s also radically different.  That could be an essay assignment – “compare the similarities and differences of subject headings vs. tags”……nah.   But buy a librarian a cup of coffee or a beer if you really want to know.

But there are many other applications as well. To get the 411, see Educause’s two page “7 things you should know about Flickr“ description of what Flickr is all about and its educational applications.

 

Your task(s):

1. Easy — search the vast Flickr collection or the smaller Library of Congress collection for pictures you find interesting. Post one to your blog.
2. Extra credit — start your own Flickr/Picasa (or other) account and upload some photos to share. Put a link on your blog for us to peek at!
3. More Extra credit — play around with the edit features they offer. Flickr partnered with Picnic this year which means that on Flickr I can crop and resize photos, add text, borders or other fun graphics (I was going to make this our Christmas card).

 

 

quick quick! (that’s what “wiki” means) May 11, 2008

Here are the Common Craft folks again….

 

Now it’s time to look at some in use and play around with the one for this class.  For this week’s activities, go the Pierce Learning 2.0 wiki!

 

 

A little more about blogs…. April 30, 2008

I assume there haven’t been any problems getting set up in Bloglines/Google Reader and subscribing to our blogs. Please let me know if you need help!!!

Expanding our reading list…..

In my experience, word of mouth has been the most interesting way to discover more blogs (reading one person’s blog often leads you to others). Many blogs have a “blogroll” on a sidebar that links to the blogs they enjoy reading.  Google Reader has also recently introduced a new “Top Recommendations” (upper right hand corner – green box) that’s made some pretty decent suggestions to me based on what I’m already subscribed to.

Here is a list of some of the blogs I read regularly….

Otherwise– there are two popular ways to finding new blogs to read.

Technorati (this link is to their Advanced Search — scoot to bottom to search the blog directory). From their “About” page:

Technorati is the recognized authority on what’s happening on the World Live
Web, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the
Web. We search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent,
user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to
as “citizen media.”

Google Blog Search – okay, this is pretty much what it sounds like. From their FAQ page:

Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a
strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and
we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more
effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether
you’re looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad
recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are
saying on any subject of your choice.

So the above are two possible ways to search out blogs on a subject.

Activities:

1. Add a “Tacoman” blog to your subscriptions and a few more that catch your eye (hint: “Savage Chickens” and stuff in the Education category) from my list above.
2. Search for blogs about education, community colleges or a personal hobby you enjoy using the tools above.
3. Add some blogs to your Bloglines or Google Reader accounts.
4. Post to your own blog info about a blog you think looks interesting

Making it come to you…. April 23, 2008

Okay – you all can tell me if you get tired of these videos but I think Common Craft does a nice job with giving quick, practical overviews of these technologies (and here’s their advice on how to survive Zombies).  And pay close attention because they are describing your task for this week!

Task #1: Watch the video
Task #2: Sign up for an account with Google Reader or Bloglines.  These are also called “news aggregators” — they collect the news you’re interested in and put it one place for you to read. 
Task #3: Subscribe to this blog and to all the blogs for this group (you can get these over on the right-hand corner and right-click to “copy” the link and paste it into your news aggregator of choice. 

Task #4: Check this at least once a day to see if people are posting anything new (which implies y’all be posting new stuff from time to time – hey, post about signing up for Google Reader or Bloglines — easy or hard?).

Next: We’ll widen our readership and add other blogs.  I have some to suggest and we’ll look at how to find them.  Then we’ll go to online photosharing!

Update: Here’s a recent post of someone comparing Bloglines and Google Reader….

Week Two – Dare to Blog! April 10, 2008

The Common Craft Show creates great, brief videos explaining what some of these technologies are all about. Why are blogs such a big deal?

Activity #1: See what they say in this 3 minute video…

 

Activity #2: Start your own blog!
Create your blog using Google’s Blogger.com or WordPress.com (two of the most well-known). After you’ve created your blog and written at least one post, reply-all to the last message I sent the group and tell us the address of your blog. The rest of us will check it out and leave comments. From now on, this is where you will “journal” your learning and tell us about the great stuff you’re learning or find. It’s time for the community to begin!

Blogs can be used for many different types of communication. I’ve used one to share my marathon training experience (several people in this group have read it!) and one for an international trip where it was fun to share our experience with friends and family. Many people use them professionally and they are among the most valuable I read. The library’s blog is to share updates on various items of interest — kind of like an ongoing newsletter.

Yours is starting out as a journal focused on this program. Write about what you’re discovering in the activities, things you notice in the news related to technology, etc.  But please write about anything else as well.  Please don’t feel pressure to write only really interesting things.  Tell us your new brand of toothpaste.  What cute thing did your daughter/dog/nephew recent do?  Have a picture?  Post it!  Don’t be shy!  Write early and write often!

Play around with the designs and widgets you can add to your blog.  Make it your own!

Activity#3: Read the different blogs that people in this group create. Leave them comments and encouragement!

NOTE:  Blogger is a Google product.  To create a blog with them or to leave a comment on a Blogger blog you’ll have to create a Google account.  That’s great cause we’re going to play with lots of Google stuff and you’ll need that (including iGoogle, my favorite thing ever) later.

NOTE #2: This blog is a WordPress blog (Honda).  My marathon blog linked above was a Blogger blog (Toyota).  They offer much of the same functionality and work in similar ways.  Doesn’t matter which one you pick.

Goodness there are a lot of exclaimations points in this post….(I resisted one right there)

Week One – Welcome! April 8, 2008

I’m so glad to welcome you all to the second “Pierce Learning 2.0″ program! I’m going to be finding more about what drew you to this program but my basic assumption is that you’re interested in knowing more about the new technologies out there — both for your own information and because you’re curious about implications they might have for education and your teaching.

Here’s what I’m planning/promising to offer with this program:

1. A fun exploration of the different technology tools. Because these many of these things are social in nature (that’s why they’re called “social networking” tools) I promise to interact in all of the tools I introduce and any others you find and want to try out.
2. Support as you work through the exercises. We’re not going to meet as a group in person but I’ll absolutely make house calls or talk you through something on the phone. I also want this group to help each other out.
3. To try and offer balance and options. You’ll notice that we’ll be playing a LOT with different Google products. They’re doing a lot of cool stuff. But there’s usually another (or many) other freely available technologies that will do the same or similar things. I don’t care which things you use — just that you try!

Here’s what I can’t promise:

1. A linear experience — I’m going to do my best to create clear activities but there isn’t exactly a logical progression so at times it might be MESSY. That’s okay — that’s kind of what some of this stuff is about anyway — slightly organized chaos.
2. Same experience for everyone — You will bring different experiences to this program. Some of you may be used to reading blogs and others may still be fuzzy on what a blog is. Some of you will LOVE the photo sharing tools and others will find wikis more exciting. You might think some of things we try have no immediate application to your life. That’s REALLY okay. You might never find a use for certain things — sometimes it really is enough to “get it” even if it doesn’t rock your world.
3. To be an expert. I’m an enthusiast. But we’re not trying to become experts – just active amateurs.

Here’s what I want from you:

1. Spirit of Adventure – jump in and try it all
2. Interact with me and the other participants — that’s the fun of “social technologies”. This is really important!!!!!
3. Keep up — I’m going to try and keep the activities realistic to our busy lives. I’ll probably have an activity or two that I’d like everyone to try as well as some “extra credit” activities for people with the time and interest to go further. It will be more fun if we’re all kind of doing the same stuff at the same time.
4. Give me lots and lots of feedback – you guys are the guinea pigs of this program. Tell me along of the way if I’m giving you too much or too little to do. Tell me if I make too many assumptions about what I’m asking you to do (i.e. I ask you to send me a screen shot and you have no idea what that means). This way, it will be a successful program for you and an even better program this Spring!

Whew!!! That’s almost it for now!

Your First Task:
Make a “Comment” at the end of this post (see the green link for “Comments”?). Tell us why you’re interested in participating in this program — what you want to get out of this — or something fun you did over the break.