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!