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A Week Sabatical #edtech

Wow, has it really been a little over a wek since my last blog post?  I knew I wouldn't stay away long.  I still need to write a reflection post about the experience.  Although it may end up being a vlog instead at my new 52 week project which can be found at http://blip.tv/Drivetime.
But I do have a few new Web 2.0 tools to share.  Somehow I missed blogging about Pinterest which is an application which allows you to pin images to a "pinboard" in collections and allow others to like, comment and repin what you have shared.  I'm still waiting on my invitation to come through, so I can't really give it a yeah or nay just yet.

One site I can definitely recommend is Photo Pin.  It is another Flickr search tool which allows you to find pictures of both Commercial and Non-Commercial licensing.  Below is a picture of the Chicago Bean.  They give you a number of images sizes to choose to download and include the photo credit necessary to provide Creative Commons attribution. All without having to go to Flickr at all.  One word of caution make sure not to take images from the top row if they are labeled "Pay for Photos (no link required)"

                                           photo credit: Wright Way Photography via photopin cc

One Wonderful Page to Rule Them All #edtech

It's been an amazing year and I will be writing a reflection post about this 365 project in a few days, once I have had a chance to recover.  And the 365th utility of the year will help you organize the other 364.  Wonderpage allows you to create categories or "folders" for all the sites you come across and then create a visual snapshot of those sites.Wonderpage is easy way to keep all your web explorations neatly categorized.  Call it a start page, call it a social bookmarking tool, call Wonderpage simply wonderful!  You can make your folders public and share them with others or hoard the sites you find for yourself by keeping them private.  Connect with others and follow their folders as well.  Change the view from thumbnails to lists if you choose.

I wish you nothing but the best in 2012.  While there will not be a new site a day listed at Zenodotus, I will continue to share resources I find throughout the year.  It's been a wild and sometimes wacky adventure!
 

Continue the Conversation #edtech

I can't believe that this is the second to last post in the miraculous 365 project.  I say miraculous because it is truly a miracle I got through it.  I'll be writing a reflection post about this in the near future I'm sure.  But in the meantime, I wanted to point out a new feature I have added to Zenodotus.net and that is the Tal.ki forum I have added at the bottom of the page.  Forums are still alive and well on the internet and Tal.ki is a fantastic resource to add a 5 subject forum to your blog or website for free!  Adding a forum to your site is now as easy as grabbing some Embed code from Tal.ki.  The free version allows Unlimited posting, Unlimited members, 15 recent topics can be displayed and five forum topics to be created. If you need more than that there are reasonably priced paid versions available as well.  What's nice about Tal.ki is that you don't need to have an extra account to participate.  Simply log in with your Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Google, MySpace or OpenID and you are free to participate. Tal.ki is a nice addition to this blog and I hope you will take the opportunity to scroll down log in and share your thoughts and ideas.  For now I have created a suggestion and Web 2.0 category.  That leaves me with three topics left to create.  Leave me a suggestion in this new forum and I will consider adding it as a topic.  Tal.ki does offer some administrative tools but I won't know how well they work until you start participating.  Please don't leave any "snarky" comments, since I don;t know yet if they can be deleted.  Don;t want one bad apple to spoil the bunch and force me to take it down before it even gets started.  Let's explore together shall we?  And keep on Tal.king!

A New Kind of Blog in Town #edtech

There is yet another new blogging platform out there in cyberspace called Novalet.  I've been holding off on posting about it since I had some trouble signing up (if you choose to do so make sure you put your email address in all lowercase letters). After contacting the developer for help, I explained I wanted to post about  Novalet  here on Zenodotus.  They asked that I hold off until they rolled out a set of widgets, which they obviously have since you are reading this.  The concept is fairly simple, sign up and start blogging. Make sure you tag your posts so others can find them easily via the post search engine.  This is where Novalet starts to get interesting and a bit unique.  When you find a blog post you like you can add the standard comment.  But, you can also "like" the post which let's others know what you are reading.  You can also follow the author.  These features seem to be a lot like Facebook which is the social aspect of Novalet.  Then of course there are the widgets.  At the moment you have Embed, Feed, Twitter and HTML.  I haven't had enough time to experiment with Embed and HTML, but, it looks like the Feed widget will pull the last four messages from the RSS of your choosing and Twitter widget does the same for your Twitter account.  Novalet is definitely interesting and will be one to watch in 2012.

The Final Four #edtech

I realized today, I am down to 4 days left in this 365 project and while it has been a valuable learning experience it has been exhausting! Especially, when I have so much on my plate the next few weeks with preparation for a number of different conferences.  So, the last few posts may be short but hopefully sweet.
One of the many items I have on my plate is putting together a video with my team explaining a professional development "experiment" we have been conducting at two of the satellite schools with which I work.  Part of creating a good piece of media is storyboarding.  We chose to use Spaaze to create ours.  Spaaze is a lot like Wallwisher in that it is an online corkboard of sorts that allows you to create notes or stickies (which was how we laid out our ideas).  But, you can also post videos, images, links, bookmarks, files, labels and even "snippets" of html.  Spaaze is also collaborative and you can invite a number of people to work on the corkboard at the same time. What really makes Spaaze unique though is the ability to create "hotspots" making navigation around your board extremely easy.  It's can almost become a Prezi presentation.  You can Publish, export and even share an RSS feed!  There is more here than I could possibly explain in a short post. Go explore Spaaze tonight!

Read the TOS #edtech

TOS stands for terms of Service and they have been popping up all over the place and most recently on video games (just saw one to use the EA Sports network on an XBox game).  We often joke that as we scroll through these and click accept that we are giving up their first born.  But these TOS agreements are important.  Perhaps most importantly is a sites right to refuse services for any reason.  Why am I rambling about legal issues when I am not a lawyer nor do I pretend to play one on TV?  Because Google made a young girl cry this week: Google Shuts Down Youth Account.  And while many sites hide behind COPPA to protect themselves from lawsuits, they have every right to do so!

Who really made this young blogger cry?  In my opinion, her father, who should have read the agreement and done his homework before signing her up for a gmail account. Google clearly states that children under 13 should not sign up for an account.  Now, I felt bad for this young lady who had her blog ripped out from under her and email taken away.  But, this was not Google's mistake.  I heard the father this morning on the radio talking about the situation and felt bad for all involved.  I even called the radio station this morning on the drive in to tell them about Kidblog which also does not allow children under 13 to register directly for an account.  Instead a teacher (or presumably a parent) signs up for an account at Kidblog and then creates sub accounts for students to blog under.  Within the TOS, they clearly state:

"1. Membership Policy
You must be at least 13 years or older to register for this Service. Users under the age of 13 must use an account created by a Member over 13 years old. Kidblog is uniquely designed for teachers, students, librarians, administrators, parents, and anyone else involved in education. The Member registering (or maintaining/moderating) a class account (and subsequently creating and/or adding students/users to the account) is responsible for obtaining permission of a parent or guardian of any users under 13 who use the Service within the Member's class account."

A lot of tears could have been saved.  I understand that the young lady and her father were able to recover and offload the data.  Perhaps they can migrate the information to Kidblog so she can continue to grow as a cyber citizen.