I am impressed with a new mobile application that allows iPhone users to quickly search consumer product information. Currently, the Visual Search is designed for iPhone only and is not yet released by IQ Engines.

According to IQ Engines’ Website, you can use your iPhone’s camera, point at any product to retrieve detailed product information, reviews, prices, and purchase links.  To learn more about Visual Search, please view the following video created by IQ Engines.

I think Visual Search is an interesting mobile application that has a potential use in education and training.  Image that we can use our mobile devices and an application like Visual Search to find similar drawings, paintings, images, music sheets, art works, and etc. from libraries and museums in the world.  I guess it won’t be long to see more powerful media-centric Web applications.  Web 3.0 is coming soon.

Besides Gary Hayes’ social media count I introduced in my blog last week, Gary also created a mobile count showing interesting statistics driving the mobile revolution.  According to Gary, the mobile data was taken from the source articles/statistics below:

• TechCrunchies – Mobile Video Viewers Statistics
• AdMob June 2009 Mobile Metrics Report
• PortioDirect Mobile Factbook 2009
• Mashable – CITA report – 4.1 Billion SMS Messages Are Sent Daily USA
• iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future
• Research and Markets Global Mobile Broadband – Statistics and Trends
• Smartbrief Sharp Increase in Mobile Internet
• ABI Research In 2014 Monthly Mobile Data Traffic Will Exceed 2008 Total
• HotHardware Huge Growth in Daily Mobile Web Access
• Ecoustics
• Cio GPS Enabled Mobile Phone Shipments to More than Double Over Next Five Years
• Nielsen Americans Watching More TV Than Ever: Web and Mobile Video Up too

To see Gary Hayes’ Mobile Count running in real time, please click on the following image to launch the live counter.

Also, Gary provided some of the interesting statistics about the tremendous growth of games recently:

• 50 million daily users of Zynga social games (Inside Social Games 2009)
• $2.8 bill generated yearly by China MMOG players (Raph Koster 2009)
• 16 million quests per day completed by WoW players (Maximum PC 2009)
• $22 Billion US games revenue in 2009 (IDE Agency 2009)
• 50 000 person to person auctions per day on Gaia
• 1 million currency transactions per day in Eve Online (MMORPG.com 2009)
• 9 games sold every second 2007 (GrabStats 2007)
• $5.5 bill spent on virtual goods globally
• 4.1 million new MMORPG subscribers 2009 (MMORPGChart.com 2008)
• $125 mill advertising revenues in Social Virtual Worlds (GamineExpedition 2008)
• 575000 log into Fantasy Westward Journey per day (Seeking Alpha 2009)
• 250 thousand virtual goods created on Second Life per day (MarketWire 2009)
• $594 million invested in Virtual World companies in 2008 (Engage Digital Media 2009)
• 1.5 million new 3-11 US children subscribing to Virtual Worlds annually (GamineExpedition 2009)
• 1 million message board posts per day in Gaia online
• 7.5 million per month use Habbo
• $2.45 billion per year revenue made from World of Warcraft (Edge Online 2008)
• 13.4 million portable game units sold in 2007 (Grab Stats 2007)
• 936 mill Chinese user hours per week in online games (78 mill @ 12 hrs pw) (Futures of Learning 2008)
• 1250 text messages sent per second in Second Life  (Linden Lab 2009)
• 465 million user hours in second life over the last year (Linden Lab 2009)

I was deeply impressed with the original ‘Shift Happens‘ video created by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman in June 2007.  I have shown this video to students, teachers, administrators, school administrators, and government officials at numerous conferences in several countries.  I think the video is powerful in which it helps raise awareness of the issues of globalization in our newly connected world.  The video was then remixed and became a very popular YouTube hit called ‘Did You Know?‘ and attracted over 6.5 million views.

A new/updated version of the Did You Know video, called “Did You Know 4.0?” was released at the Media Convergence Forum run by The Economist in New York City, October 20-21, 2009.  The latest video provides facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.

This 4.0 version was created in the same spirit as the previous versions, but has less of an education focus and more of a business slant.  Some interesting statistics include:

• Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years.  But in the last 5 years, unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million.
• The average American teen sends 2,272 texts per month.
• 40 million people have been Rickrolled.
• 95% of all songs downloaded last year weren’t paid for.
• Wikipedia launched in 2001.  It now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages.
• The mobile device will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020.
• The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than [the one computer at MIT in 1965].

After watching this video, what are your thoughts? Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments here.

Over the past few years, social media has exploded into the mainstream. It is everywhere. I have followed closely with the exponential growth and latest development of social media these days. I have been amazed by the unbelievable growth of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube discussed in my previous post “Top 10 Social Networking Sites in the US and UK.”  Recently, Gary Hayes created a social media counter – a Flash app showing how active and dynamic the Social Web is.  It is intriguing to view this counter showing the enormous growth rate of social media in real time. Unfortunately, the WordPress.com will not allow the embedding of the flash object so you cannot see the counter running in real time here. So, please click on the following image to see the live counter.

The followings are some of the key data points that the ‘Gary’s Social Media Count’ is based on.

• 20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
• Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
• Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
• iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)
• 900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
• YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
• UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!
• Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
• Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
• Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
• Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)
• SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)

While social networking shows great potentials for e-learning in general, little is yet known about how to integrate social networking focusing on building a sense of community, particularly in e-learning courses.  With this in mind, Dr. Harrision Yang and I conducted a case study almost two years ago to design, develop, and integrate social networking into two graduate courses for the purpose of building a sense of community, improving communications and interactions, and promoting student-centered collaboration.

The results of the study were written for a book chapter in our recent book, Collective Intelligence and E-learning 2.0:  Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking, published by IGI Global. Also, the study was presented at the 2009 AECT/SICET International Conference this week in Louisville, Kentucky.  To learn more about this study, please view the presentation shown below.  We welcome your comments and suggestions.

Google launched Google Voice n March 2009 to help Internet users better manage their voice communications.  Initially, Google Voice was available to existing users of GrandCentral, a service Google acquired in July, 2007.  So, I have been waiting patiently for the past few months and was finally invited to try out the Google Voice Beta a month ago.

Google Voice can be a useful service to simplify your phone communications. You can set various preferences–for example, calls from your colleagues get a custom answering message; calls from your parents don’t ring your work number; and calls from your spouse are answered directly when you pick up the phone rather than run through the Google Voice options such as answering the call, sending it to voice mail, or listening in on the voice mail.  Also, Google Voice allows you to get a single phone number that rings all your phones; screen callers before picking your phone; join several people for a conference call; record phone calls and store them online; read voicemail messages via email or SMS; forward, embed, or download voicemails; receive transcripts of your voicemail; send, receive and store SMS messages online; customize voicemail greetings for different callers; and block unwanted callers.  Furthermore, you can use the Google Voice to make international calls (paid service but quite inexpensive) and access Goog-411 directory assistance.  Specifically, I like to access my voicemail online and read the voicemail messages via email or SMS. I think it is easy to check e-mail for voice messages than traditional voicemail particularly when I am out of town.

Until few days ago, you were required to select a new Google phone number when you first created a Google Voice account. But starting this week, you can get Google Voice with a Google number or with your existing mobile phone number. However, you will not get some features (like call screening, call recording, and call blocking) if you choose to use Google Voice with your existing number.

If you want to try out Google Voice, you can request an invitation from Google or ask someone with a Google Voice account to invite you.  Also, you may check out the following videos before making the decision.

Overall, I found Google Voice to be potentially useful even though the text-to-speech conversion is imperfect.  It would be great if Google allows forwarding Google Voice calls to an international phone number.  This is my wishful thinking.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project just released a study “Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009” two days ago (October 21, 2009).  The report provides interesting information about social network users.  Twitter traffic exploded over the last year, going from about 2 million unique visitors per month in December 2008 to over 17 million in May 2009.  According to the study, 19% of internet users use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others.  This represents a significant increase in its earlier finding in April 2009 when just 11% of internet users were using a status-update service.  Additionally, the study points out that the growth of Twitter is being driven by three groups of internet users:  “social network Web site users, those who connect to the Internet via mobile devices, and younger Internet users–those under age 44.”

It is interesting to learn that whether or not a user is on other social networks determines their willingness to use a service like Twitter.  The Pew study found that internet users who use social network sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace are more likely to use Twitter or another status updating service.  Thirty-five percent of internet users who have profiles on MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn also have profiles on Twitter. The study also found that just 6% of internet users who do not use these social networks are on Twitter.

According to the Pew study, wireless access is an independent factor in predicting whether someone uses Twitter or another status update service.  Fifty-four percent of internet users have a wireless connection to the Web in September 2009. Of this group, 25% use Twitter or another status-update service, up from 14% wireless users in December 2009. However, only 8% of internet users who rely exclusively on tethered access use Twitter or another service, up from 6% in December 2008.  Perhaps, the mobile Web users are more likely to tweet since they have wireless access.

In addition, the study indicated that the more Web-connected devices a user has, the more likely they are to tweet.  Thirty-nine percent of Internet users with four or more Internet-connected devices (such as a laptop, cell phone, game console, or Kindle) use Twitter, compared to 28% of Internet users with three devices, 19 percent of Internet users with two devices, and 10 percent of Internet users with one device.

The Pew study showed that young people flock to Twitter.  Internet users in age between 18 and 44 are more likely than older users to use Twitter or another status update service.  According to the study, the median age of a Twitter user is 31 and has remained stable over the past year.  Both MySpace and LinkedIn have gotten younger users.  The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008 and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40.  However, Facebook users are getting older, upping its median age to 33, from 26 in May 2008.

Do you use any social networks?  Do you own any mobile Web-connected devices?  How do you fit into the Pew study?  Do you agree with the results mentioned in this report?  Please feel free to share your comments here.

I want to take this opportunity here to invite you to consider contributing your expertise to a forthcoming encyclopedia edited by me and Prof. Harrison Yang of the State University of New York at Oswego, entitled Encyclopedia of Virtual Worlds and Environments.

There is no doubt that information and communication technology (ICT) keeps bringing new excitement into learning and communication. Multimedia on the Internet, telecommunications, wireless applications, mobile devices, social network software, Web 2.0, and so forth are all radically redefining the way people obtain information and the way to learn and communicate. Consequently, virtual worlds and environments have become one of the most exciting, dynamic, and yet challenging fields that we have been facing. What is the history of virtual worlds and environments? Where are we now? What will the future bring? What are the key elements of virtual worlds and environments we need to focus on? Where has progress been made? How will we face and rise to new opportunities and challenges? How do we analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate virtual worlds and environments? In order to shed light on these questions, the Encyclopedia of Virtual Worlds and Environments intends to provide a comprehensive view and look at virtual worlds and environments from historical, conceptual, technical, practical, and vocational perspectives.

Objectives of the Book

This encyclopedia will include a variety of contexts and cover anthropological, psychological, pedagogical, sociological, and so forth approaches from both empirical and theoretical works on virtual worlds and environments. It will serve as a research reference, a pedagogical/informational guide, and a primary source in the area of virtual environments.

Target Audience

The target audience includes educators, e-business managers, trainers, administrators, and researchers working in the area of e-learning or distance learning in various disciplines, for example education, corporate training, instructional technology, computer science, library information science, information technology, workforce development, and undergraduate/graduate students in various e-commerce, e-learning, and other related programs.

Coverage Topics

The coverage topics include, but are NOT limited to, the following:

• Conceptual and Theoretical Perspective (issues and trends of virtual environment theories; chronicle reviews; modeling, design and strategies; etc.).
• Types of Virtual Worlds and Environments (Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) and/or Multiuser Virtual Environments (MUVEs); Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs); Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MORPGs); Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and/or Massively Multiplayer Online [Games] (MMOs); Multiuser Domains (MUDs); and MUD Object Oriented (MOOs); etc.).
• Platforms/Sites/Products of Virtual Worlds and Environments (Active Worlds; Barbie Girls; Club Penguin; Forterra Systems; Gaia Online; Habbo Hotel, Kaneva; Neopets; Second Life; The Sims Online; Teen Second Life; There; Whyville Zwinktopia; etc.).
• Interface and Hardware Aspect (visual; tracking; auditory; primary use input (such as glove, body suit, exoskeleton, track ball, and 3-D mouse inputs, etc.); tactile; kinesthetic; full-body motion; and olfactory interface technologies; etc.).
• Virtual Communities (behavioral, psychological, and cognitive issues of online users; community of practice; personal relationships; social interaction and exchange; legal and ethical considerations; etc.).
• Virtual Learning Environments and Worlds (asynchronous and synchronous activities; e-learning, m-learning and e-commerce programs; fully online and blended approaches; research and practices on ANGEL Learning, Apex Learning, ATutor, Blackboard/WebCT, Claroline, CyberExtension, Desire21Learn, Dokeos, eCollege, eFront, FirstClass, Frog, Fronter, Glow Learn, ILIAS, iWebfolio, LAMS – the Learning Activity Management System, Moodle, Pass-port, Sakai, SharePointLMS, TK20, WebEx, and new features in virtual learning environments including wikis, blogs, games, RSS, 3-D virtual learning spaces, etc.).
• Best Practices and Case Studies (evaluation and implementation in multidisciplinary; applications and training; personal experiences; creativity and innovation of projects; anthropological, psychological, pedagogical, sociological works on virtual worlds and environments; etc.)
• Global Virtual Worlds and Environments Development and Management (model, technologies, programs, issues).
• Trends of Virtual Worlds and Environments.
• All Other Related Issues in Virtual Worlds and Environments.

In addition, the Possible List of Topics/Categories for the Encyclopedia of Virtual Worlds and Environments is provided for consideration.

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before November 30, 2009, a 2-3 page article proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed article. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by December 31, 2009 about the status of their proposals and sent article guidelines. Full articles of 1,500-3,500 words are expected to be submitted by February 28, 2010. Authors are required to follow the Full Article Submission Instructions when preparing their full articles. All submitted articles will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this encyclopedia

Publisher

This encyclopedia is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference” and “IGI Publishing” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.

Important Dates for Contributors

• Deadline for proposal submission: November 30, 2009
• Proposal decision due to authors: December 31, 2009
• Full articles due: February 28, 2010
• Review results to authors: April 30, 2010
• Revised articles due from authors: May 30, 2010
• Notification of final acceptance/rejection: June 30, 2010
• Final accepted articles and materials due from authors: July 15, 2010
• All articles to IGI for publication: September 30, 2010

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) to:

Dr. Harrison Hao Yang
State University of New York at Oswego
E-mail: hyang2@oswego.edu

Dr. Steve C. Yuen
The University of Southern Mississippi
E-mail: steve.yuen@usm.edu

I read an excellent article, “Online Web-Design Tools for the Beginner,” by Don Reisinger on CNET news today.  If you’re a beginner in Web design, the following Web tools recommended in this article can be helpful to you for designing and developing your Web sites:

• Color Wizard
• CSS Typeset
• Dotemplate
• Favicon Generator Tool
• Flickrslidr
• Roxer
• Web 2.0 Button Generator
• WordPress Theme Generator

I find all of these tools are simple to use and they should be useful  for teachers and students who design their Web sites.  The best of all, all of the above tools are free.  For details about these tools, please read the Full Story on CNET News.

Social networking sites are on the rise globally and allow users to communicate and share information.  Social networking sites are being used regularly by millions of people; and they keep people connected through a fast, free, simple, and an accessible way.

Interesting information from Marketingcharts.com in August 2009 shows that Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the US with 39.53% of market share of visit, followed by MySpace (23.65%), and YouTube (13.16%) at the third place.

According to a study released by comScore in July 2009 on UK social networking site usage by age of visitor, they found that 29.4 million people accessed at least one social networking site in the UK during the month of May in 2009. The average time spent per visitor was 4.6 hours, trailing only instant messaging at 8.6 hours.  Also, Facebook.com ranked as the most popular social networking site with 23.9 million visitors in May 2009, followed by Bebo.com (8.5 million visitors), Windows Live Profile (6.9 million visitors) and MySpace Sites (6.5 million visitors).  Facebook grew 57% over the previous twelve months.  However, the big winner in the social networking site has been Twitter which grew more than 3,000% in 12 months to about 2.7 million visitors in May 2009.

About 80% of the total UK online population visited a site in the category in May 2009. Penetration was highest amongst 25-34 year old users, with 89 percent visiting a site in the category during the month, followed by 86 percent of 15-24 year olds. Category penetration was somewhat lower among the older age groups, but remained relatively high, reaching two thirds of the total online population age 55 and older.  Furthermore, younger users were also more engaged than their older users, with 15-24 and 25-34 year olds averaging 5.4 hours per user per month compared with 3.7 hours per month among users age 55 and older.

According to the Nielsen report, Facebook is now the most visited social networking site in the world, visiting monthly by 3 in every 10 people online across the nine markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use.  The popularity of Facebook also helps move up its ranking of worldwide unique visitors.  According to comScore in June 2009, Facebook is now the fourth largest site in the world, trailing only Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo sites.  The ranking of worldwide unique visitors as of June 2009 is as follow:

1. Google Sites: 844 million
2. Microsoft Sites: 691 million
3. Yahoo! Sites: 581 million
4. Facebook: 340 million
5. Wikimedia Foundation sites: 303 million
6. AOL: 280 million
7. eBay: 233 million
8. CBS Interactive: 186 million
9. Amazon: 183 million
10. Ask Network: 174 million

It is interesting that Facebook itself only officially acknowledges 300 million active registered users.  Perhaps, the difference is due to the fact that users do not have to be a registered user to visit some Facebook pages.  Furthermore, there are some interesting statistics provided by Facebook:

• More than 300 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• More than 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 40 million status updates each day
• More than 2 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 14 million videos uploaded each month
• More than 70 translations available on the site
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
• Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
• More than 350,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
• There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

I am pleased to announce the book, “Collective Intelligence and E-learning 2.0:  Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking,” that I co-edited with Professor Harrsion Hao Yang at the State University of New York at Oswego is published by IGI Global couple weeks ago.  The book is now available online at IGI Global,  Amazon.com, Target.com, and many online bookstores.

With the advent of Web 2.0, e-learning has the potential to become far more personal, social, and flexible. Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking provides a valuable reference to the latest advancements in the area of educational technology and e-learning. This innovative collection includes a selection of world-class chapters addressing current research, case studies, best practices, pedagogical approaches, and strategies related to e-learning resources and projects.

Preface

The Web is shifting from being a medium, in which information is transmitted and consumed, into being a platform, in which content is created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and exchanged. Learners become part of a global human network in which they can harness the collective intelligence of people in the world that could have never been possible previously. With the advent of Web 2.0, e-learning has the potential to become far more personal, social, and flexible. Consequently, e-learning 2.0 can capitalize on many sources of content aggregated together into learning experiences and utilize various tools including online references, courseware, knowledge management, collaboration, and search. Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking introduces theoretical aspect of e-learning 2.0 as well as disseminates cutting-edge research and first-hand practices regarding Game-Based Simulation, Podcasting, Second Life, Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, YouTube, Wiki, etc. on e-learning. In addition, instructional design models, strategies, and furture trends of e-learning are covered this book.

The book is written for broader audiences including educators, trainers, administrators, and researchers working in the area of e-learning or distance learning in various disciplines, e.g. educational fields, corporate training, instructional technology, computer science, library information science, information technology, and workforce development. The book can be used as a research reference, pedagogical guide, or educational resource in the area of Web 2.0 technologies and related applications applied to e-learning.

Organization of the Book

Collective Intelligence and E-Learning 2.0: Implications of Web-Based Communities and Networking is designed to be used in a flexible manner, and it can adapt easily to suit a variety of educational technology related courses and needs by students, instructors, and administrators. The book includes a selection of chapters addressing current research, case studies, best practices, pedagogical approaches and strategies, related resources and projects related to e-learning 2.0. The book is organized into two parts, From Web 2.0 to E-Learning 2.0 and Beyond (Chapters 1-6) and Web 2.0 Technologies in E-Learning (Chapters 7-16). The book covers beyond theoretical insights of Web 2.0 and e-learning 2.0. It shares practical aspects of e-learning 2.0 and provides readers with a balance of research, theory, and applications on both innovative Web 2.0 technologies and future e-learning.

Chapter 1: Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge. This chapter introduces theoretical views on factors impacting the future of e-learning. It discusses connectivisim theory, networked learning, connective knowledge, and network semantics that form a new e-learning approach (e-learning 2.0).

Chapter 2: Conceptualizing Codes of Conduct in Social Networking Communities. This chapter reviews the capabilities of social networking tools and links those capabilities to recent legal and ethical controversies involving use of social networking tools such as Facebook and MySpace.

Chapter 3: Fulfilling the Promise: Addressing Institutional Factors that Impede the Implementation of E-Learning 2.0. As online learning continues to expand and evolve, new challenges emerge regarding the implementation of Web 2.0 tools and technologies in online pedagogy. This chapter examines institutional factors that impede implementation of e-learning 2.0. The business model approach to online learning being embraced by many institutions may actually work against faculty who want to utilize Web 2.0 technologies to create E-Learning 2.0 experiences for their students.

Chapter 4: Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application. This chapter presents a new instructional design model that specifically addresses the cognitive demands involved in Web 2.0 learning, promotes learning that focuses on metacognitive thinking and self-regulation, facilitates knowledge integration and construction of schemas-of-the-moment for ill-structured learning, and delivers a dynamic learning environment in Web 2.0 application.

Chapter 5: Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE). This chapter discusses synchronous online learning environments (SOLEs) and their affordances for teaching and learning.

Chapter 6: University 2.0: Human, Social, and Societal Issues. Higher education is changing in important and profound ways. University 2.0 offers amazing potential to fundamentally change the way higher education functions in the future. This chapter describes many of the potential problems that will accompany University 2.0 and provides a series of recommended actions that university administrators can take to respond to the problems.

Chapter 7: Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students. This chapter discusses the merits and challenges of using a wiki to support the activities of students during group projects.

Chapter 8: Wikibook Transformations and Disruptions: Looking Back Twenty Years to Today. A wikibook is a transformative and disruptive technology that is finding increasing use in schools and higher education institutions. This chapter describes the adoption of three wikibooks in cross-institutional higher education settings and discusses collaboration issues, technology issues, knowledge construction and sense of community issues related to the wikibook technology and the wikibook design process.

Chapter 9: Web-Based Video for e-Learning: Tapping into the YouTube Phenomenon. The recent explosive growth of Web-based video has expanded the repository of free content that can be tapped into for e-learning. This chapter introduces Web-based video as a new form of educational motion picture, delves into technical aspects of Web 2.0 video tools, describes instructional strategies that integrate Web-based video clips in e-learning, and examines barriers that could potentially inhibit its use.

Chapter 10: From Information Literacy to Scholarly Identity: Effective Pedagogical Strategies for Social Bookmarking. This chapter provides best examples for effective pedagogical applications of social bookmarking and offers insights into how these activities change the way students think and learn.

Chapter 11: VISOLE: A Constructivist Pedagogical Approach to Game-based Learning. VISOLE (Virtual Interactive Student-Oriented Learning Environment) is a constructivist pedagogical approach to empower computer game-based learning. This approach encompasses the creation of a near real-life online interactive world modeled upon a set of multi-disciplinary domains, in which each student plays a role in this “virtual world” and shapes its development. With sophisticated multi-player simulation contexts and teacher facilitation (scaffolding and debriefing), VISOLE provides opportunities for students to acquire both subject-specific knowledge and problem-solving skills through their near real-life gaming experience.

Chapter 12: Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life® .This chapter addresses the application of e-learning in university degree programs based on exploiting the practical, intensive, and holistic aspects of Second Life®.

Chapter 13: Empirical evidence and practical cases for using virtual worlds in educational contexts. This chapter introduces three cases for educational uses of the Second Life® virtual world and provides empirical evidence for effective usage within the educational contexts.

Chapter 14: A Pedagogical Odyssey in Three-dimensional Virtual Worlds: The Second Life Model. This chapter discusses the theoretical perspectives, educational possibilities, as well as challenges of using virtual worlds in teaching and learning. In addition, it offers a pedagogical framework to support teaching and learning in virtual worlds – the Second Life® model.

Chapter 15: Podcasting – a flexible E-Learning Tool. This chapter discusses the uniqueness of podcasting technology in promoting e-learning, examines educational efficacy of podcasting in e-learning, and provides podcasting best practice in e-learning design and delivery.

Chapter 16: Using Social Networking to Enhance Sense of Community in E-Learning Courses. This chapter provides an overview and development of sense of community and social networking, discusses the potential uses of social networking in education, and presents a case study that integrates social networking into e-learning courses for the purpose of building a sense of community, improving communications and interactions, and promoting student-centered collaboration.

Chapter Authors and Table of Content

Table of Contents:

Foreword

George Siemens, University of Manitoba, Canada

Section I: From Web 2.0 to E-Learning 2.0 and Beyond

Chapter I: Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge

Stephen Downes, National Research Council, Canada

Chapter II: Conceptualizing Codes of Conduct in Social Networking Communities

Ann Dutton Ewbank, Arizona State University, USA
Adam G. Kay, Dartmouth College, USA
Teresa S. Foulger, Arizona State University, USA
Heather L. Carter, Arizona State University, USA

Chapter III: Fulfilling the Promise: Addressing Institutional Factors that Impede the Implementation of E-Learning 2.0

Judi Repman, Georgia Southern University, USA
Cordelia Zinskie, Georgia Southern University, USA
Elizabeth Downs, Georgia Southern University, USA

Chapter IV: Designing Dynamic Learning Environment for Web 2.0 Application

Robert Z. Zheng, University of Utah, USA

Chapter V: Instructional Strategies for Teaching in Synchronous Online Learning Environments (SOLE)

Marshall G. Jones, Winthrop University, USA
Stephen W. Harmon, Georgia State University, USA

Chapter VI: University 2.0: Human, Social, and Societal Issues

Daniel W. Surry, University of South Alabama, USA
David C. Ensminger, Loyola University Chicago, USA

Section II: Web 2.0 Technologies in E-Learning

Chapter VII: Use of Wikis to Support Collaboration among Online Students

Jay Alden, National Defense University, USA

Chapter VIII: Wikibook Transformations and Disruptions: Looking Back Twenty Years to Today

Curtis J. Bonk, Indiana University, USA
Mimi Miyoung Lee, University of Houston, USA
Nari Kim, The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA
Meng-Fen Grace Lin, University of Hawaii, USA

Chapter IX: Web-Based Video for e-Learning: Tapping into the YouTubeTM Phenomenon

Chareen Snelson, Boise State University, USA

Chapter X: From Information Literacy to Scholarly Identity: Effective Pedagogical Strategies for Social Bookmarking

Deborah Everhart, Georgetown University, USA
Kaye Shelton, Dallas Baptist University, USA

Chapter XI: VISOLE: A Constructivist Pedagogical Approach to Game-Based Learning

Morris S. Y. Jong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Junjie Shang, Peking University, China
Fong-Lok Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Jimmy H. M. Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Chapter XII: Second Language E-Learning and Professional Training with Second Life®

Patricia Edwards, University of Extremadura, Spain
Mercedes Rico, University of Extremadura, Spain
Eva Dominguez, University of Extremadura, Spain
J. Enrique Agudo, University of Extremadura, Spain

Chapter XIII: Empirical Evidence and Practical Cases for Using Virtual Worlds in Educational Contexts

Hyung Sung Park, Korea National University of Education, South Korea
Young Kyun Baek, Korea National University of Education, South Korea

Chapter XIV: A Pedagogical Odyssey in Three-Dimensional Virtual Worlds: The SECOND LIFE® Model

Sharon Stoerger, Indiana University, USA

Chapter XV: Podcasting: A Flexible E-Learning Tool

Youmei Liu, University of Houston, USA
Shawn McCombs, University of Houston, USA

Chapter XVI: Using Social Networking to Enhance Sense of Community in E-Learning Courses

Steve Chi-Yin Yuen, The University of Southern Mississippi, USA
Harrison Hao Yang, State University of New York at Oswego, USA

The Web has entered a new era of sophistication.  There are great numbers of free, powerful Web 2.0 applications that help teachers teach, collaborate, share, connect, and participate in an online learning community.  To help Mississippi Business Education Teachers and Educators learn about some of the powerful Web 2.0 applications that have tremendous potential in business education classrooms, I was invited to give a presentation entitled, “Great Web 2.0 Applications for Business Education Teachers,” at the Mississippi Business Education Association 2009 Fall Conference in Hattiesburg last week.  The presentation went well.  I thought this presentation might be helpful for other teachers as well.  Here is my presentation delivered at the 2009 MBEA Conference on September 18, 2009.

I learned about the Nokia Morph concept phone couple months ago and was very impressed with Nokia’s vision for how handsets might evolve.  The Morph concept is a collaboration project of Nokia Research Center (NRC) and Cambridge Nanoscience Center.

Morph concept phone is a flexible two-piece device that can adapt its shape to different use modes. Nanotechnology enables to have adaptive materials yet rigid forms on demand.  Morph is a concept demonstrating some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable in future communication devices.  Morph can sense its environment around us and empower us to make better choices.  Also, Morph is self-cleaning and self-preserving and hence repels water or dirt.  Furthermore, Morph has built-in solar absorption capabilities to re-charge itself.

I am excited about the R&D of Morph and its potentials of creating a world of radically different devices that open up an entirely new spectrum of possibilities.  Morph concept and nanotechnology will unleash new applications and services that will allow us to communicate and interact in unprecedented ways.  This will in turn revolutionalize the way we use mobile devices in teaching and learning in the future.  To learn more about Nokia’s Morph concept, please view the below video.

I recently found an interesting and useful Web-based printing application called PrintWhatYouLike. Instead of printing out an entire Web page, PrintWhatYouLike lets you remove elements from the page that you don’t want to print, set the page to a particular width, or print specific areas of a site.   Using PrintWhatYouLike, you don’t have problems of printing web pages with full of ads, empty space and other junk you don’t want.  PrintWhatYouLike is a free online editor that lets you format a Web page for printing.  I have used PrintWhatYouLike for several days and found it is a very useful tool.  Furthermore, it saves your money by reducing your paper and ink usage.

To print what you like on a Web page, you follow these steps:

• Go to PrintWhatYouLike.com and click Start.
• Make the page more readable by changing the font size and type and removing the background.
• Remove ads and other junk you don’t want.
• Save ink by removing all the images on the page.
• Save paper by making narrow columns of text fill up the entire page.
• Combine multiple web pages – edit & print them as one document.
• Save your modified page as a PDF or HTML document.

Multi-touch technology is getting popular since it was adopted by the iPhone couple years ago.  However, multi-technology is nothing new and it has a long history.  According to Wikipedia, multi-touch technology started in 1982 when Nimish Mehta at the University of Toronto developed the first finger pressure multi-touch display.  Multi-touch denotes a set of interaction techniques which allow computer users to control graphical applications with several fingers.  Multi-touch consists of a touch screen and software that recognizes multiple simultaneous touch points, as opposed to the standard touchscreen that recognizes only one touch point.   Recently, there are some interesting developments of multi-touch technology.  Here are some examples:

Multi-Touch iTable

Multitouch

Microsoft Multitouch Computer Display

Multi-Touch in Windows 7

Schools today face a serious challenge of preparing students with 21^st century skills.  Since the report “A National at Risk” published by National Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983, many similar definitions from different sources have emerged.  However, most definitions point to the same goal: that being technology literate is much more than just having good technology skills. It is learning core subjects with application of these learning skills and communication tools (SREB, What are 21st Century Skills?).

A SREB’s Web site “21st Century Skills and Information and Communications Technologies Literacy: From A Nation at Risk to ICT Literacy” has done an excellent job of compiling information on 21st Century Skills, including standards, instructional resources, assessment resources and organizations and initiatives.  In addition, the site provides an outstanding graphic illustration of key literacy documents that show the evolving development of these literacies from A Nation At Risk in 1983 to the present.

So, what are the 21^st century skills?  I have recently read the 2008 report “21^st Century Skills, Education & Competitiveness:  A Resource and Policy Guide” published by Partnership for 21^st Century Skills.  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education. They define 21^st century skills as follows:

• Learning and Innovation Skills (creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, etc.)
• Information, Media and Technology Skills
• Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes (global awareness, financial literacy, etc.)
• Life and Career Skills (initiative and self-direction, among others)

The report emphasizes that all Americans need 21^st century skills that will increase their marketability, employability, and readiness for citizenship such as:

• Thinking critically and making judgments
• Solving complex, multidisciplinary, open-ended problems
• Creativity and entrepreneurial thinking
• Communicating and collaborating
• Making innovative use of knowledge, information and opportunities
• Taking charge of financial, health and civic responsibilities

Finally, the report summarizes the challenges and opportunities and also warns the consequences.  If we do not infuse 21^st century skills into our school curricula, we will diminish our global competitiveness and standing in the world.  Unfortunately, the 21^st century skills are not included in many state learning standards or measured on state or local assessments.  I, therefore, urge schools must do more to keep pace with rapid changing technology, embrace new learning based on emerging research, and integrate 21^st century skills into standards, assessments, and graduation requirements at all levels. Also, for those of us who involve in teacher education programs, we should embed 21^st century skills into teacher preparation and professional development.

I came across the third and latest version of the popular “Shift Happens/Did You Know?” video by Karl Fisch and Scot McLeod.  I have enjoyed viewing the previous versions and thought it is a great educational video for students.  This version was released in late 2008 with updated statistics and a much better visual presentation.

VoxOx is s a new Web service launched recently by TelCentris.  VoxOx is probably the first universal communicator that combines the IM/e-mail/social networking functionality with free voice.  The software interface is very much like iPhone.  The key features of VoxOx include a unified meta address book which contains contacts from all the various services and social networks; VoIP telephony with two initial hours of free talk time; inbound/outbound calls; voicemail; call forwarding; inbound faxing and fax-to-e-mail; instant messaging for MSN, ICQ, AOL, Jabber, Yahoo, and Google; video conferencing; e-mail; two-way texting; and file sharing up to 100MB.  And the best of all, VoxOx gives out a free phone number for each user.  This means your students, friends, and colleagues can call you right on your desktop. VoxOx is currently available for Windows and Intel-based Macs, with versions planned for Linux, PowerPC Macs, iPhone to be released soon.

The VoIP service is similar to Skype in that calls are free between other VoxOx users.  However, VoxOx users can make free outside calls as long as they are willing to frequently view video ads to rack up points for minutes.  Each point equals one minute of call time.  Also, users can get free minutes each time they recommend the service to a friend.

I have tested VoxOx for the past few weeks and I like it so far.  VoxOx is simple to use and has many great features.  As a regular Skype user, I find the call quality is as good as Skype.  Though VoxOx is still very much in beta, I think VoxOx will be a strong Skype competitor.  You can try VoxOx out by downloading it here.

The 2009 Horizon Report was released two days ago at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.  The annual Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the ELI.  Each year, the report identifies six emerging technologies that are likely to have a significant impact on higher education in the next one to five years.  In addition, the report presents an overview accompanied by examples and suggested readings for each technology.  The areas of emerging technology cited for 2009 are:

• Mobiles (i.e., mobile devices)
• Cloud computing
• Geo-everything (i.e., geo-tagging)
• The personal web
• Semantic-aware applications
• Smart objects

You can download the 2009 Horizon Report here or view the Web version.

Few months ago, PC Magazine and The Princeton Review revealed the America’s Top Wired Colleges, 2008 Edition.  It was interesting to see which universities were made the list.  In order to rank America’s Top Wired Colleges, The Princeton Review contacted 368 colleges featured in the 2009 edition of The Best 368 Colleges to complete an online survey.  The survey contained 18 questions that were grouped into categories of academics, student resources, tech support, and infrastructure. Each question was assigned a point value and weighting, and each of the overall categories was assigned a weighting.  Based on these data, they came up the top 20 most wired campuses.

The table below shows the top 20 high-tech colleges of 2008.  In addition, it provides the 2006 ranking for your comparison.  I was not surprised by the top rank, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  However, the high-tech poster child, MIT, dropped from #2 in 2006 to #20 in 2008.

Source:  http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/21/0,1425,i=219119,00.gif

Besides Google Base, blist is another collaborative, Web-based database application.  blist is a visually rich, social online database.  It requires no software installation and comes with a very slick Flash interface running against a SQL backend.  You do not need to know any SQL in order to use blist.  blist offers an array of templates that can be selected for a variety of purposes, from common to-do lists to fantasy football stats.  It is very easy to create a database in blist and collaborate with your friends or colleagues.  You can simply drag field types onto a spreadsheet-like grid.  Data types include names, phones, URLs, and images.  blist allows you to easily share their databases with other blist users through the standard interface or widgets. Also, you can incorporate multimedia items like photos or videos into the databases.

I think blist has an intuitive interface that provides non-technical users the easy-to-use tools to create and manage databases online.  blist is functional and is free.  I think blist is a great tool for teachers and students.   You can give blist a try.

I have recently read an interesting report, ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2008, published by ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research).  The study investigated the use of technology by undergraduate students in American colleges and universities. The report includes the key findings from a web based survey of over 23,000 students at nearly 100 American higher education institutions, which are supplemented by focus group findings and comparative data from surveys in previous years.  It covers areas such as technology ownership, the amount of time spent online, the type of activities undertaken by students, student IT skills and information literacy, IT content in courses and how students view the role of technology in their learning.  In addition, it includes a range of questions on the use of social networking websites, such as Facebook.

Here are the key findings based on the short summary in October 27, 2008 issue of  OCLC Abstracts:

• More than 80 percent of respondents own laptops, 53.8 percent own desktops, and one-third own both a laptop and a desktop.
• Laptop ownership increased from 65.9 percent in 2006 to 82.2 percent in 2008. Freshmen respondents are entering college with new laptops in hand-this year 71.1 percent have a laptop less than one year old.
• Ownership of Internet-capable cell phones is also on the rise, now owned by 66.1 percent of respondents. Most respondents, however, do not yet take advantage of the Internet capability, citing high cost, slow response and difficulty of use as primary reasons.
• Despite barriers to use, almost one-fourth of respondents access the Internet from a cell phone or PDA at least monthly, and 17.5 percent do so weekly or more often.
• Respondents report spending an average 19.6 hours per week actively doing online activities for work, school or recreation, and 7.4 percent spend more than 40 hours per week doing so.
• Almost all students surveyed use the college or university library Web site (93.4 percent) and presentation software (91.9 percent). Also used by most students are spreadsheets (85.9 percent), social networking sites (85.2 percent), text messaging (83.6 percent) and course management systems (82.3 percent).
• About one-third of respondents report using audio-creation or video-creation software and 73.9 percent use graphics software (Photoshop, Flash, etc.).
• Almost one-third engage in online multiuser computer games (World of Warcraft, EverQuest, poker, etc.) and about 1 in 11 respondents (8.8 percent) report using online virtual worlds (Second Life, etc.).
• Students are interactive on the Web, with more than one-third contributing content to blogs, wikis, and photo and video Web sites.
• Over 85 percent of respondents report using social networking sites. The striking change over the last two years was in how many respondents now use social networking sites on a daily basis, from 32.8 percent in 2006 to 58.8 percent in 2008.

To view the full report, you can access the table of contents (in HTML format) on Educause site.  Also, the complete report (122 pages) can be downloaded at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0808/rs/ers0808w.pdf

I recently came across the Young People and Social Networking Services report published earlier this year by the Childnet International.  The report was written from a UK schools and Further Education perspective, although much of the information will be useful to people working outside of these two contexts. The report is informative and provides useful information concerning social networking services with young people.  The report contains the following main sections:

1.  What are social networking services? This section examines the definitions of social networking services.  Also, it provides a comprehensive review of six main categories of current social networking services:  Profile-based services (e.g., Bebo, Facebook, MySpace), Content-focused services (e.g., Flickr, YouTube), White-label networks (e.g., FPeopleAggregator, Ning), Multi-User Virtual Environments (e.g., Second Life, World of Warcraft), Mobile services  (e.g., Twitter), and Microblogging/Presence update services (e.g., Jaiku, Twitter).

2.  Evaluating Social Networking Services. This section describes how to use a social networking evaluation chart and covers many significant relevant issues including profile privacy, moderation, customization, security and access issues, data management tools, and interoperability.

3. Benefits & Opportunities.  This section evaluates the potential positives for young people and organizations of using social networking services.

4.  Barriers & Risks. This section examines issues preventing educators from exploring social networking services as well as some of the e-safety issues involved.

5. Ideas and Examples.  The section showcases innovative practice, and provides examples where social networking services have been successfully used in education.

The complete report is available to download and redistribute under a Creative Commons license from Childnet’s digital literacy and citizenship site, Digizen, at http://www.digizen.org/downloads/fullReport.pdf.

I gave a presentation “Social Networks in Education” at the E-Learn 2008 Conference in Las Vegas last week.  I want to take the opportunity here to share the presentation in my blog.  My presentation provides a brief overview of social networking in education.  Also, it presents a case study that integrates social networking into a graduate course for the purpose of building a sense of community, improving communications and interactions, and promoting student-centered collaboration.  Below is my presentation at the E-Learn 2008 Conference.

Several weeks ago, I introduced my Educational Technology Journal Survey that was designed to assist prospective authors with an easy access to the information about the educational technology journals.  Also, I shared the complete information on all participated editors and their journals on the
A Guide to Publication in Educational Technology Web site.   Users can use the basic and advanced search tools provided on this Web site to find the journal information before deciding on the target journal.

With the help of Patrivan Yuen and Xiaojing Duan, we expanded this work and recently published an article in the Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE).  Our article, A Guide to Publication in Educational Technology, provides journal information to over 40 journals that are appropriate for the publication of articles in educational technology. Also, it discusses the process of planning and writing a journal article, submitting to journals, the peer reviewing process, and steps toward publishing in academic journals within the field of educational technology. Furthermore, the guide provides tips to getting published and offers helpful suggestions.  If you are interested in reading the full article, please access the article from the Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE).

I talked about Web 3.0, the “semantic Web” in my blog last June.  The concept of a semantic Web is based on the idea that machines can be taught to understand language more like the way people understand it. To get a first taste of a semantic Web, let’s take a look of Twine, the most hyped Web 3.0 application developed by Radar Networks a year ago.  Twine is a Web application that helps you organize, share, and discover information around your interests with your friends, family, or the public.

According to the Twine’s Web site, Twine is smart and it automatically organizes information, learns about interests and makes recommendations. Twine enables you to organize information you find or create on the Web including bookmarks, text, images, and videos. As you add information to Twine, it is automatically tagged so that you and others can find it more easily.  Twine looks at content and parses it automatically for the names of people, places, organizations and other subject tags. You are then able to navigate between related content, view recommended content and connect with recommended people around your interests.

I think Twine is a cool application and it is a smart way to keep track of your interests. Twine organizes your content, learns as you use it and recommends new things to check out.  Twine is no longer in private beta.  You can join Twine anytime and check the service out.  To get a good started with Twine, I suggest that you visit the Raven’s Twine Tutorials site that provides a collection of Twine tutorials, tips and tricks.  Also, you may want to view the How to use Twin Screencast tutorial before starting your Twine.

The Web has entered a new era of sophistication.  The Web 2.0 applications hold profound potentials in education because of their open nature, ease of use and support for effective collaboration and communication. They change the traditional view of human knowledge and open up more opportunities in teaching and learning.  Librarians and teachers can use Web 2.0 tools attract students’ attention and enhance their learning experiences.

I just came back from the Mississippi Library Association Annual Conference in Natchez, Mississippi.  My wife, a librarian at William Carey University, and I gave a presentation Using Web 2.0 in Your Library at the conference.  We thought our presentation went very well.   The presentation discussed digital native learners and the advent of Web 2.0 technologies.  In addition, it discussed how librarians and teachers can use Web 2.0 applications to empower learners and creating exciting new learning opportunities.

Below is our presentation.  We welcome your comments and suggestions.

Writing a journal article can be an overwhelming process.  In the planning stage, the author needs to first determine which journals would be a good fit for his/her manuscript.   The author should take time to research the potential journals and look for journals that publish similar types of work targeted for the same audiences to reach.  Information such as frequency of issue, publication format, circulation, audience, acceptance rate, refereed/non refereed, number of readings, desired length of articles, preferred style, submission and review process, and publishing fee are important that can help the author determine the target journal.

To assist prospective authors with an easy access to the information about the educational technology journals, I conducted an online Educational Technology Journal Survey a year ago to collect journal information from the editors of various journals related to educational technology.  The intent of the survey was to create an educational technology journal database that provided the important journal information needed by the prospective authors.  The survey consisted of 27 items and provided useful publication information that included journal title, name of editor, email address, frequency of issue, publication format, circulation, audience, acceptance rate, refereed/non refereed journal, number of readings, desired length of articles, preferred style, submission and review process, and publishing fee if any.

Seventy editors from various journals worldwide were identified and invited to participate in the survey.  After 6 weeks and several follow-ups, 42 editors completed the survey online with a usable return rate of 60 percent.  The results indicate that most of educational technology journals publish 4 issues per year.  Sixty-three percent of the educational technology journals are published in printed format.  The acceptance rate varies and ranges from 9% to 80%.  The average acceptance rate is about 32%.   Ninety-three percent of the journals surveyed are refereed and only 7% are non-refereed.  The number of readings required by the editorial review board ranges from 1 to 8 times with an average of 2.7 times.  On the average, author takes about 12 weeks for receiving editorial decision and another 20 weeks for getting an article to publish.  All educational technology journals participated in the survey have open submission policy and 95% of these journals have author’s guidelines available online.  Most educational technology journals prefer APA style (74%) and allow an electronic submission (95%).  Seventy-nine percent of these journals provide editorial assistance to help authors revise their manuscripts.  Ninety-five percent pay no honorarium to authors.  However, 69% of the journals provide complimentary issues to authors.

The Educational Technology Journal Survey provides many helpful information with ease to those who want to publish their papers in the field of educational technology, especially to graduate students and junior faculty who are pursuing tenure and promotion.  The complete information on all participated editors and their journals is available online at A Guide to Publication in Educational Technology Web site.   Users can use the basic and advanced search tools provided on this Web site to find the journal information before deciding on the target journal.   For basic search tools, users can search the journal information by title, refereed journal, printed format, online format, or electronic submission.  Also, an advanced search tool is provided to filter the journals based on the following criteria selected:  (a) preferred publication format (printed or online format), (b) refereed or non-refereed, (c) ranges of acceptance rate, and (d) submission format (electronic or snail mail).  Once a journal is chosen from the list provided by the search tool, the system will provide the complete journal information for the selected journal.

A Guide to Publication in Educational Technology Web site will be updated from time to time and new journal information will be added.  Editors are welcome to submit their journal information for the inclusion in the journal database.  Please contact me for online journal submission procedure.

Posted in research Tagged: Add new tag, Educational Technology, instructional technoloy, journal, publications, publsihing ]]> http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/educational-technology-journal-survey/feed/ 0 Steve http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/stanford-engineering-everywhere/ http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/stanford-engineering-everywhere/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:43:20 +0000 Steve Yuen http://scyuen.wordpress.com/?p=173 ]]>

Following Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s lead in OpenCourseWare and Yale University’s Open Yale Courses, Stanford University is offering 10 free online courses in computer-science and electrical-engineering courses this fall.  Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) provides the Stanford experience with students and educators around the world.  SEE offers online access to the school’s popular course sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence, robotics, and electrical engineering.

It is quite simple to take any of the SEE online courses.  All you need is a computer and an Internet connection.  SEE courses include lecture videos, reading lists, handouts, quizzes, tests, and even a social network for other SEE students.  The course content is offered through a variety of media and formats, including videos on YouTube, iTunes, Vyew, WMV Torrent, and MP4 Torrent. The courses will be covered under a Creative Commons license.  Stanford encourages students and educators to use SEE course materials in their own classrooms or for noncommercial purposes. A Creative Commons license allows for free and open use, reuse, adaptation and redistribution of Stanford Engineering Everywhere material.

According to Stanford, SEE encourages educators and students from across the world to “form virtual communities around the classes.”  The SEE program could be expanded to include more courses if it proves popular and successful. This is a terrific news for students and educators around the world who can’t afford Stanford’s tuition and want to experience the world class education, they can take Stanford up on the offer.   They can now take classes with Stanford students and download lecture videos, handouts, assignments and even exams, almost exactly the same course material available to Stanford students. But of course a big difference is that non Stanford students won’t get any credit.

If you’re ready to start the SEE courses, you can now access these 10 SEE courses [http://see.stanford.edu/SEE/Courses.aspx] here.  Good luck.

Online surveys and polls are often used by teachers, school administrators, and researchers to conduct schools surveys, school elections, educational research, and polls for students, parents and teachers.  Also, they are frequently used by teachers, technology coordinators, or Webmasters to elicit feedback from visitors about their Websites.  Online polls and surveys can make your Website or blog more interactive and invite readers to join the conversation easily.

You can find many online services to conduct online surveys and polls.  One of my favorites is PollDaddy because it is free and very easy to use.  With your free PollDaddy account, you can create surveys and polls for your website, blog, and social network profiles.  One of the best features of PollDaddy is the ability you have to customize your online surveys or polls.  You can choose from a number of designs to fit in the color scheme or theme of your Website or blog.  PollDaddy also offers an option for you to customize your survey or poll using CSS.  Furthermore, you can enter your own question and answers for polls or surveys with full foreign language support. You can also decide if and how you want your readers to be able to view the results.

To create your online survey or poll with PollDaddy, you simply register for your free account and then click a button to create a new survey or poll.  You will then enter your question and answers, choose your design and layout and you are done.  PollDaddy will automatically provide the necessary code for you to copy and paste into your Web site or your blog.

Some of the key features of PollDaddy Surveys found on the PollDaddy site are:

• Online reporting in real time of your data as it is collected.
• Set paths for your respondents using Conditional Branching.
• Insert HTML directly allowing you to add pictures and video.
• 11 question types to choose from with multiple options for each.
• Export your data as XML, CSV and subscribe to your results via RSS.
• Close surveys after a certain date or quota has been reached, and create custom start and finish pages for your survey.
• Create multi question, multi page surveys with ease using an advanced survey editor.

For PollDaddy Polls, here are some of the features:

• Unlimited free polls with unlimited votes per poll.
• View poll results online, as XML, CSV, or subscribe to them via RSS!
• Add text, pictures and video to your polls.
• Block repeat voters by IP address or cookies.
• Create single choice or multiple-choice polls.
• Close polls after a certain date, randomize answers, allow text entry ‘other’ field, show or hide results from voters.

I think PollDaddy is a great online survey or poll tool.  Teachers and school administrators can use PollDaddy to run secure online surveys and polls for the students, parents and teachers, conduct online student elections, invite students to vote on social issues as part of citizenship education, run classroom opinion polls, produce a ranking of student issues, conduct opinion or attitude surveys, and conduct educational or social research projects.

To test out the PollDaddy, I have created an online poll for my previous post.  Please feel free to view my online poll with PollDaddy shown below and let me know what you think.  In addition, please participate in the poll by selecting your favorite photo-sharing site.

Snapping photos with a digital camera is easy. Sharing your pictures to colleagues, students, friends and family can also be fast and easy. Today’s photo sharing services make organizing, storing, and sharing digital photos convenient, easy, safe and most importantly-fun. There are many free online photo sharing sites that allow you to upload your photos to online albums and invite people to view them. Some of these photo sharing sites allow you to add notes and tags to each photo. In addition, they allow viewers to search your online albums and leave comments and notes on each photo as well. You can post your pictures for private view where only your private group can view the photos and offer feedback on your pictures. In addition, your photos can be geotagged, a process that links your photo with the geographical location of the source of the photo, permitting a visual, geographical study of a particular location or place.

If you are looking for a free online photo sharing site, you may want to consider one of the following sites:

• Bubbleshare
• Flickr
• Photobucket
• Shutterfly
• Webshots

These sites provide free accounts. They are great for teachers and students to post digital photos and use them in teaching and learning. Teachers and students can share their pictures of important school events, class activities, field trips, digital storytelling projects, displays, illustrations, and special occasions. However, using these free online photo sharing sites in education is not without concern. Caution should be used when searching specific topics and a discussion with students about what should take place when inappropriate imagery is located should be done prior to use. As always, the use of these photo sharing sites in the classroom should be closely monitored and balanced against the climate and culture of the school or school district.

If you have used these free photo sharing sites, you have an opportunity here to vote for your favorite site. So, which is the Best Photo Sharing Site?

]]> http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/free-online-photo-sharing/feed/ 4 Steve http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/the-art-of-learning-better-101-tips-to-find-and-fit-your-learning-style/ http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/the-art-of-learning-better-101-tips-to-find-and-fit-your-learning-style/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:25:54 +0000 Steve Yuen http://scyuen.wordpress.com/?p=143 ]]>

Kelly Sonora informed me few weeks ago about an article The Art of Learning Better: 101 Tips to Find and Fit Your Learning Style they posted to TeachingTips.com. However, I haven’t have time to read this article until this week. The article is written by Heather Johnson in which she offers many excellent tips to help learners with different learning styles (visual, auditory or kinesthetic) improve their learning experience. To learn about the 101 tips for learners with different learning styles, please read the article at http://www.teachingtips.com/blog/2008/07/10/the-art-of-learning-better-101-tips-to-find-and-fit-your-learning-style/

The Jing Project is a simplified or lite version of screen capture and screencasting tool from TechSmith, makers of Camtasia Studio and SnagIt. Both Camtasia Studio and SnagIT are my favorite tools for creating screen-captured instructional materials and I wrote about these tools in my blog last December. The Jing Project aims to make screen capturing and screencasting easier by providing these tools in one program. The best part of Jing is free. It is very simple to use and runs on both Windows and Mac machines. Jing allows you to capture video/screencast with good results. Unfortunately, it produces video/screencast in Flash (swf) format only. This may not be a problem for most users since the Flash file is small and is a popular format on the Web.

The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video from your computer to anywhere. The Jing Project has a built in sharing function that allows you to upload your files free of charge to Screencast.com, a screencast hosting site owned and run by TechSmith. Once a video is created and uploaded to Screencast, you can get an embed code to put it in your blog or Web page. Jing users can get complimentary Screencast.com accounts with 2 GB of storage and 2 GB of bandwidth per month. You can save images and videos on your own computer. In addition, you can share your content with others by uploading to an FTP server, a network drive, Screencast.com, and Flickr account.

My experience of using Jing has been very positive. The interface is clean and simple. It is very easy to grab screenshots and videos straight from a PC or Mac, and then save them or share them on the Web. I strongly recommend the Jing Project to teachers and students who need to capture screenshots or create screencast. It is hard to beat the Jing Project particularly it is free.

MacApper.com produces a video review on the Jing Project. You can learn more about the Jing Project and see exactly how it works from MacApper.com’s video shown below.

I was informed by Mr. Michael Douma, Executive Director of Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement (IDEA), about his recent study on Finding Information: Factors that Improve Online Experiences yesterday. Mr. Douma was kind to invite me to read the executive summary of the report and provide me a link to download a PDF version of the findings.

This is an interesting study. IDEA conducted this study to determine how people find information online and how the experience of Web site visitors can be improved. The intent of the IDEA’s study is trying to improve the ways people interact with technology.
The study covered three groups: non-profit organizations and cities; web designers and firms; and the general public and attempted to answer the following questions:

• What makes a Web site effective?
• What factors contribute to visitors’ enjoyment of a Web site? Does this vary by segments within each population?
• From a visitors’ perspective, what factors determine a quality Web site?
• Are there differences between visitors’ needs as perceived by organizations and designers, and those reported by visitors themselves?

The study received 563 clean responses from nonprofit organizations and cities, 250 from web designers and firms, and 1,675 from the general public. Major findings are:

• Designers underestimate the thresholds for an effective site. Visitors have higher expectations for effectiveness than do designers.
• Easy access to complete information is key to visitor enjoyment.
• Good visual design and up-to-date information are critical.
• Visitors want information fast.
• Visitors want a broad range of topics.
• Designers are overly optimistic about visitors’ ability to maintain orientation.
• Visitors still need handholding.
• Visitors point to the lack of breadth and depth of site content as causing an “Information Gap.”

As an online educator, I think the results of this study provide many useful information and ideas on designing educational Web sites or online courses that allow learners to easily find information and orient themselves on the Web site. For more details about the study as well as its findings, you can download the 17 page report in PDF at: http://www.idea.org/find-information.pdf

A new search engine, Cuil, was launched last Monday to aim for delivering better results than other major search engines by searching across more Web pages and studying them more accurately. Cuil, created by former Google engineers, tries to take on the search engine giant, Google. Cuil claims to be the he world’s biggest search engine that covers 120 billion Web mages (about three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft). Besides relying on superficial popularity of a Web page, Cuil analyzes and ranks pages based on their content and relevance and the groups similar results under different menus.

After you perform a search, Cuil will show you “Tabs” that suggest ways to clarify your search. In addition, you may see a “Explore By Category” panel on the right-hand side that provides you a list of subjects related to your search.. If you click on one, Cuil will direct you to this additional information. By looking at these suggestions, you may discover search data, concepts, or related areas of interest that you hadn’t expected.

Cuil provides you couple options on the Preferences. You can enable typing suggestions and perform a safe search that filters pornography or other objectionable material from your search results. Although the safe search cannot guarantee that all objectionable material are filtered out, it is helpful for teachers and students in K-12 settings.

So far, I like my search experience with Cuil. The interface is intuitive and the search process is fast with a return of good results and suggestions. The major weakness I experienced so far is the images on the search results seem completely random which often have nothing to do with the result entries. However, I will continue to try it out as my default search engine for the next few weeks.

While many of us are excited about the recent Web 2.0 development and find ways to integrate some of these Web 2.0 tools in teaching and learning, many Web entrepreneurs and developers already designed and created the next generation of Web applications that some people have dubbed Web 3.0.

So, what is Web 3.0? Web 3.0 is generally agreed to be the semantic Web. According to Nova Spivack, the CEO of Radar Networks who launched its first Web 3.0 product called Twine, Web 3.0 is a Web 2.0 with a brain. He further indicates that Web 3.0 will not replace the ideas from Web 2.0. It’s just building on the techniques and making them smarter. Web 3.0 is about data and making them smarter. Web 3.0 is statistics, linguistics, open data, computer intelligence, the wisdom of crowds and user-generated content all coming together. So, Web 3.0 is not a specific technology. It is convergence of Web technologies that will take place in the next decade.

To get a feel of a Web 3.0 application, you may want to check out the Twine. Twine is a first Web 3.0 tool that intelligently collects, organizes, and shares information such as documents or Web pages for professionals.

If are interested in Web 3.0 or the trends of Web technology, you may want to view the following two presentations from Slideshare. Meanwhile, get yourself ready. Web 3.0 is already here and more Web 3.0 applications will emerge soon.

The Evolution of Web 3.0

Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond, May 2008 Update

I was just informed by Fiona King of College@Home about a newly published article, “100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner, ” on their College@Home blog today. Christina Laun, the author of the article, did a great job of identifying 100 helpful learning tools and grouping them into three groups of learners with different learning styles. Many of the recommended learning tools are popular Web 2.0 tools. In fact, I have written many of these tools in my blog. I think this is an interesting attempt for identifying helpful Web tools that teachers and students can use to cater to their individual learning style. Christina’s 100 helpful Web tools are grouped into the following categories:

1. Tools for Visual Learners

a. Mind Mapping

b. Charting and Diagrams

c. Videos and Photos

2. Tools for Auditory Learners

a. Podcasts

b. Presentation Tools

c. Audio Tools

d. Text Readers

e. Audio Books

3. Tools for Kinesthetic Learners

a. Note Taking Tools

b. Bookmarking

c. Interaction

d. Collaboration

For the completing listing of the 100 helpful Web tools, please visit the original site at: http://www.collegeathome.com/blog/2008/06/10/100-helpful-web-tools-for-every-kind-of-learner/.

I came across a simple online private journal called Penzu. It is fast, intuitive, and easy to use. There is no need to log in the site in order to use Penzu. You can go to the Penzu site, quickly drop down your thoughts, and log in later to save to your account if needed.

You can use Penzu for keeping a daily diary, expressive journal, travel journal, or the story of your life. Also, I think teachers and students can use Penzu to take notes in classes and meetings. You can hop back and forth between notes easily. Penzu puts the most-recently created documents on top and allows image insertion. You can share your entries with others via email option or you can keep your identity a secret. The best part of Penzu is that your work is saved as you type, so you never have to worry about saving. Furthermore, printing with Penzu is quite easy. The documents come out just like they look like on the page.

With the recent advances of mobile technologies as well as Web 2.0 technologies that harness the collective intelligence of users, there has been a lot of discussion on mobile 2.0 in Europe for the past year. Mobile 2.0 already started to emerge. Basically, mobile 2.0 provides access to a Web 2.0 service via a Mobile Web Browser or applications that represent one aspect or feature of Web 2.0 such as user-generated content, community, collective intelligence, or rich media. Mobile 2.0 will integrate the social Web with the core foundations of mobility – personal, local, always-on and ever-present. Furthermore, these services are based on a new generation of wireless devices that enable rich, interactive services that integrate the full range of mobile consumer favorite features including talking, texting, capturing, sending, listening, and viewing. Mobile 2.0 could be another revolution that will dramatically change the Web and the mobility landscape that we currently know. Rudy De Waele of m-trends.org indicates that the mobile Web will become the dominant access method in many countries of the world, with devices that become more hybrid and networks that become more powerful and accessible. Mobile 2.0 will soon create new exciting opportunities for mobile learning.

Two weeks ago, Daniel Appelquist delivered his presentation “Mobile Ajax and the Future of the Web” at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. In his presentation, he indicated that the majority of Web usage worldwide will be mobile in next 5 years. Mobile application developers are increasingly choosing the Web as a platform. Mobile 2.0 is finally here. You can view Daniel Applequist’s entire presentation at the Web 2.0 Expo below.

Mobile Ajax and the Future of the Web

Also, Rudy De Waele delivered a keynote at the Over The Air event in London last month. He talked about the current development and the future of Mobile 2.0. Here is his keynote presentation.

Mobile 2.0 @ Over The Air

Today, we have entered an era in which mobile technology is fundamentally changing our culture and impacting every aspect of our lives, including education and training.  By age 21, the average of digital natives will have spent over 10,000 hours on cell phones.   More than 1.5 billion mobile phones are used in the world today, with a half a billion new ones sold every year.  This is more than three times the number of personal computers (PCs), and today’s most sophisticated cell phones have the computing power of a mid-1990’s PC.  So, the mobile education revolution is finally here.  Over 90% of college students now own a cell phone.  Despite what some may consider cell phones’ limitations, students are already inventing ways to use their phones to learn what they want to know.

For the past five years, I have engaged in several mobile learning (m-learning) research projects involving personal digital assistants (PDA), ipods, and other mobile handheld devices.  I have great interest in mobile learning and believe it will be a major extension of e-learning.   I want to continue my research effort in mobile learning focusing on the use of cell phone technology.  Currently, the research in the design and testing of a learning support system using a cell phone is very limited.  I would like to join many researchers in the research institutions and giant corporations like Nokia and Ericsson to conduct research on the use of a cell phone in education and training.

My current (CPLSS) project is attempted to deliver instructional content and learning materials in way that fits into students’ cell phones – their digital lives.  The CPLSS is designed to work with many cell phones, smartphones, or PDA phones and will have four major modules: Java book, Web book, audio book, and video book.  The Java book is a small Java program which runs in the cell phone to display any textual information.  It will be used mainly for displaying the course syllabus, schedule, lecture notes, assignments, quizzes, or other learning materials.  The Web book is actually a mobile Web site displayed in a standard HTML or WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) on a cell phone.  The Web book will be used to retrieve course materials online through a special mobile Web site.  It is designed for a Web-enable cell phone.  The audio book is designed to play recorded lectures, class news, podcasts, digital audio books, interviews with guest experts, or language lessons in MP3 format. Finally, the video book will be used to play instructional videos or demonstrations in 3gp or mp4 format. Both audio and video recordings will be placed online for distribution, downloaded to the cell phone, and then played in the phone when the learner wants to listen or view.  The CPLSS system will enable professors or trainers to provide the course syllabus, class schedule, assignments, quizzes, and other learning materials (in text, audio, and video formats) to students on a cell phone.  The CPLSS project is currently under development.  Hopefully, I will be able to field test the CPLSS in my classes next year.

AOL launched an interesting service last year, circaVie, which lets you easily create a flashy photo timeline and share with anyone. You can create multimedia timelines with circaVie for about anything–your life story, your career, your vacation, or the chronicle of last 5 years’ important events in your professional life.

circaVie provides a tool for creating Flash-based timelines by adding photos, captions, text and links for all kinds of events. You can then embed your timelines into your blog, share them with students, friends, colleagues, and families. Others can then view your timeline, scroll through it, skip to a certain date, search across all timelines, and browse tags. In addition, you can embed your timelines on your blog or Website, pass your timeline via AIM Share, and subscribe to an RSS feed of that timeline.

circaVie’s interface is quite cool and it is easy to use. Go to the circaVie site, simply sign up or sign in with your AIM screenname or OpenID. Then, you can start a timeline and add photos to the timeline by uploading the photos from your computer or entering the URLs of the photos if they are already online. You need to specify the title, date, and description and tags for each event. Also, you can change the color of the timeline. Once you complete the timeline, you can share your timeline with others by providing the URL. Also, you can get the embeddable code for embedding your timeline into your blog entry or Web page. For a complete demonstration on circaVie, you can view the circaVie screencast tutorial produced by Demo Girl.

Besides creating timelines for fun, I think teachers and students can use circaVie to create timelines for educational uses in many school subjects such as history, science, social studies, art portfolio… etc. circaVie is a great educational tool. Here is an excellent example, The History of Autism, created by Jayne Lytel.

For the past month, I have viewed several videos regarding teaching and technology. I think they are well made. Teachers, administrators, and parents should watch them and learn.

Evolution of Technology and Teaching

Advances in technology have powered paradigmatic shifts in education (Frick, 1991). This video was made to encourage teachers to use technology in new ways to support and transform erstwhile ways of teaching and learning. Unfortunately, this video is no longer allowed to be embedded into a blog.  So, here is the link:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suWzpLmRH0g]

Why We Need to Teach Technology in School?

This video describes the importance of technology in schools. Technology prepares students for lives in the future. It also engages students in learning.

Are kids different because of digital media?

The video was created by MacArthur Foundation (www.digitallearning.macfound.org). The MacArthur Foundation committed $50 million to explore how technology is changing kids and learning,

Children Using Technology to Learn

This movie was made by Gosford, a TAFE Outreach student in Australia, for her major assignment in the Digital Movie Making course.

Performance-based portfolios have increasingly become popular in education. They offer numerous benefits: a) fostering self-assessment and reflection, b) providing personal satisfaction and renewal, c) providing tools for empowerment, d) promoting collaboration, and e) offering a holistic approach to assessment. Many educators believe that performance-based portfolios are essential part of teacher education programs. One commonly applied type of portfolios is the Web-based portfolio, which is specifically created for and placed on the Web. Web-based portfolios have some unique advantages, such as: providing a means of storing multiple iterations over time and a mechanism for ease of editing and revisions; allowing instant access from anywhere and at any time; and providing structured presentation that allows a viewer to choose contents from one section to another based on his or her need or preference. In spite of significant benefits, there are some drawbacks of existing web-based portfolios. Typical Web-based portfolios still require users to have the skills and knowledge of using Web authoring software and FTP clients, which can be daunting to many pre- and in-service teachers. Furthermore, traditional Web-based portfolios lack the capability of allowing viewers to leave their feedback and therefore are limited for easy and instant collaboration.

Despite the recent popularity of adopting electronic portfolios in teacher education programs, the question “Electronic Portfolios for Whom?” has been raised by Javier I. Ayala and many other researchers. Javier argued that “the knowledge promoted under the guise of electronic portfolios is hardly student-centered. Very little research exists integrating student voices into the dialogue of electronic portfolios. The voices that are integrated are primarily those of administrators and some faculty.” The literature suggests that reforming a new type of Web-based portfolio, which simplifies the technology part of publishing content and allows developers and peers to share resources and ideas for reflection and collaboration, is essential for teacher education.

With the recent advances of Web 2.0 and the use of blogs in teaching and learning, it is apparent that blogs can simplify the technology part of publishing content. Furthermore, blogs can allow users to reflect, post information and resources, and collaborate with others. Because of the easy of use and the interactive capability of blogs, it comes naturally that blogs can be used for developing and reforming web-based portfolios in education. The blogfolios (weblog-portfolios) will have a great potential in teacher education and support students’ self-reflection and self-evaluation of their learning.

Currently, Professor Harrison Yang at the State University of New York at Oswego and I are conducting a study to examine the effects of using blogfolios on students’ perceptions on interaction and learning. Our blogfolios study is currently in the final stage of data collection. It is anticipated that the study will provide useful information on students’ perceptions on interaction and learning by using blogfolios in their courses. The summary of the findings will be posted in this blog when it becomes available. So, stay tuned…

[Dr. Harrison Yang at the State University of New York at Oswego also contributes to this post.]

Footnote.com is a unique place where original historical documents are combined with social networking to create an interesting experience involving the stories of the past. The Footnote.com collections feature documents relating to the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, U.S. Presidents, historical newspapers and naturalization documents.

Footnote.com is a great online repository for original documents by hosting millions of records and supports an online community of people that are passionate about a variety of topics relating to history. I think the service is particularly useful for teachers and students in social studies, history, U.S. government classes. Footnote allows students to access thousands of primary source documents and photos, and create online history reports. Students can post the URLs of their history reports online and allow others to leave comments on their reports. In addition, students can add annotations and comments to things they find on Footnote, create their own Story Pages and Spotlights, maintain a gallery of their favorite Footnote images, upload their own images to their gallery, as well as annotate and print any Free Titles or documents.

For those of you who are teachers and students and have limited disk space to keep all of your files (music, video, photos, documents, and other files) on your computer or server, ADrive could me your best solution.  You can access to your stored files from anywhere you have Internet access, at any time. The basic plan of ADrive gives you up to 50GB of free online storage, with the largest individual file size of 2 GB.  This is quite adequate for most teachers and students.

ADrive is very easy to use.  You do not need to install software on your computer and is a 100% web based service.  All you have to do is sign up for a new account and then login and begin uploading your files.  To upload a file, click the “Upload File” button from your “My Files” tab and launch the Java-powered file uploader.  If you do not see an upload tool, please make sure your Web browser has Java turned on.  You can upload from a single file to several directories.  Also, you can drag and drop files onto the applet to add them to the upload list or you can use the add button to browse your files.  Once the upload is complete, you can download the file or share it with other.  Sharing your file on the ADrive is a great feature.  It will move the file to your “My Shared Files” tab and a unique Web link will be generated that you can share with anyone on the internet. You simply email your students, friends, family, and colleagues the link to your ADrive shared file. All they have to do is open the link to download your shared file.

I think ADrive is an outstanding tool for teachers and students.  It is a quick and easy solution to backup your files online.  With ADrive in the classrooms, teachers and students don’t have to worry about running out of storage space on their local hard drive or go through hassle of using external storage devices.

Two weeks ago, the Office of Communications in the U.K. published an 80-page report, Social Networking: A quantitative and qualitative research report into attitudes, behaviours and use. The report draws on numerous qualitative and quantitative research studies conducted in UK in 2007. Here are some interesting findings from the report:

• Social networking sites are most popular with teenagers and young adults.
• Despite the fact that the minimum age for most major social networking sites is usually 13 (14 on MySpace), 27% of 8-11 year olds who are aware of social networking sites say that they have a profile on a site.
• The average adult social networker has profiles on 1.6 sites, and most users check their profile at least every other day.
• 25% of registered social networking users had posted sensitive personal data about themselves on their profiles (phone numbers, home addresses, etc.).
• The majority of adults who had used a social networking site had a profile on Facebook (62%) and this was the most mentioned main social networking site (49%). Nearly half of all respondents reported having a profile on MySpace and one-third had one on Bebo.
• Two-thirds of parents claim to set rules about their child’s use of social networking sites, although only 53% of children said that their parents set such rules.
• Social networkers fall into five distinct groups based on their behaviors and attitudes: 1) Alpha Socialisers, 2) Attention Seekers, 3) Followers, 4) Faithfuls, and 5) Functionals.
• Non-users of social networking sites fall into three distinct groups: 1) Concerned about safety, 2) Technically inexperienced, and 3) Intellectual rejecters.
• Social network users create well-developed profiles as the basis of their online presence. They share personal information with a wide range of “friends.”
• Only a few users highlighted negative aspects of social networking.
• Concerns about privacy and safety are not “top of mind” for most users.
• 41% of children aged 8-17 and 44% of adults leave their privacy settings as default ‘open’ which means that their profiles are visible to anyone.
• 34% of 16-24 year olds are willing to give out sensitive personal information such as their phone number or email address.
• 17% of adults used their profile to communicate with people they do not know. This increases among younger adults. 35% of adults spoke to people who were ‘friends of friends’.
• Facebook is the most popular site with adults followed by MySpace and then Bebo. For children aged between 8 and 17, Bebo was the most used social networking site.
• A minority of younger women reported creating fake profiles for fun.
• Some teenagers and adults in their early twenties reported feeling ‘addicted’ to social networking sites and were aware that their use was squeezing their study time.
• A minority of people reported being aware of bullying through social networking sites and some younger users admitted using social networking sites to ‘get back’ at people they had fallen out with.

Robin Blake introduces Ofcom’s research on Social Networking

Yudu Freedom is a new on-demand publishing service that lets you turn a PDF file into a live, Flash-based Web page within minutes. Like Scribd, Yudu Freedom allows you to publish documents in an interactive, page-turning digital format and host them online at no cost. It is fast and simple to use Yudu Freedom. You first upload your document in PDF format. After uploading your file, you will be sent an email with the link to your publication, along with a jpeg of the front cover and HTML code which will allow you to embed the publication on your Blog or website. Basically, Yudu Freedom service converts your PDF file into a Flash publication which is simple to upload to a website or blog, distribute via email or save to a digital storage device.

You can use Yudu Freedom to create digital publications with up to 16 pages each at no cost. The files can be viewed a little faster than with Adobe’s Acrobat reader, and it runs entirely in Flash with neat page turning effect. The digital publications you create can contain images, audio, video and links back to your Web site. I think the service is great for teachers and students who want to create brochures, newsletter, instructional and learning guides, how-tos, ebooks, reports, manuals, photo books, CVs, portfolios and more. If you need to produce materials that go over the 16-page limit, you can step up to Yudu’s fee-based services, Yudu Pro and Yudu Express.

Like Scribd, Yudu Freedom has also a built in search tool, zoom tool, and a thumbnail viewer. The best part of the Yudu Freedom is that you don’t need to sign up to use the service. You can simply upload the files and leave your e-mail address and it will send you a link when it’s done processing. However, Yudu is lacking the support for other document formats and the capability to embed PDFs on third party sites. In comparison, Scribd supports many document formats (PDF, Postscript, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Rich text, plain text, and other OpenDocument formats) and allow you to share it anywhere with its iPaper service.

On the Yudu Freedom Website, it states “We want your readers all over the world to enjoy this interactive, online reading experience. We’ll let you publish for free, forever, providing that you follow our 3 simple rules: 1) No adult content, 2) offensive material, and 3) No copyright abuse. We let you and fellow Freedom readers report abuse on each and every publication if they aren’t Freedom-friendly. If we agree, YUDU will take publications down without notice.” I think this is a great policy and it makes Yudu a better place for online document publishing for teachers and students.

With Yudu Freedom and Scribd, anyone can now make professional digital publications. Yudu Freedom’s document viewer is simple and fast. You can view my first test on Yudu Freedom in action simply click on the image below.

]]> http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/yudu-freedom/feed/ 6 Steve Yudu Yudu http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/tooble/ http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/tooble/#comments Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:41:44 +0000 Steve Yuen http://scyuen.wordpress.com/?p=115 ]]>

Tooble is a useful application that lets you browse, search and download any video from YouTube and put it on your video iPod, iTouch, iPhone or Apple TV. You can also save these videos to watch on your computer. The best of Tooble is that it automatically converts YouTube videos to MP4 format and then sends them straight to iTunes so that the next time you plug in your iPod or iPhone they’ll be there for you to watch.

I have tried out Tooble for the past few days. I think Tooble is a great utility that allows teachers and students to download educational videos from YouTube to their iPods. Tooble has a terrific interface and is very simple to use. Tooble can be a stand alone YouTube browser that lets you search and select video from YouTube. You can navigate using the lists of featured videos, enter a search in the search bar, or enter a direct URL you already know. Once you have found the video you like, simply check it and hit the download button. Tooble will take care of the rest. It will download the video, converts it, and imports it into iTunes to be played or synced to your iPod. Currently, Tooble is only available for Macintosh, but a Windows version is in beta testing and is coming soon.

I came cross an interesting presentation “Mobile 2.0″ today. The presentation was created by the author of mTrends, Rudy De Waele, and delivered at Plugg Conference in Brussels on March 19, 2008. Plugg is a conference which shares a European perspective on Web 2.0 and focuses on raising global awareness for European start-ups in the Web / Mobile 2.0 field. In his presentation, Rudy discusses the Mobile 2.0 and why you should care. He examines the historical development and explores the latest trends in the mobile web.