SOEHHP Tech Info Newsletter
Zotero: Cool new Research ToolI think I've told you about this before but am not sure so here it is again :) Zotero is a web-based website and online research database tracker. When you are doing online research and encounter a site you want to use in your research just click on the Zotero plugin in your Firefox browser and it pulls all the citation information from the site. You can file your citations in folders as well as tag them with categories for easy searching later. In addition, you can add notes and attachments to these citations. The other thing I like about Zotero is that you can take a website snapshot so you always have an image of the website as it looked the day you tagged it. Zotero website: http://www.zotero.org/ Zotero tutorial: | VoiceThreadWhat is a VoiceThread?Wow! That's a big question. I just stumbled upon this and am already in love with this online program. The basic premise behind VoiceThread is to post an image then add a voice comment. It sounds simple but I can think of a million things to do with this. First of all more than one person can comment on an image so you can have one drawing and have each child comment on what they think is happening. Second, you can group images together to create a "book" that flows together. Great for family histories or creating an online story. Images AND VideoAs I said earlier you can post image collections (books) or individual images and allow audio postings. However, you can also post a video and add voice comments to that as well. The coolest part is that, while recording, you can pause the video and actually mark on it with the crude marking tool. Very cool and easy to use. What can you do with a VoiceThread?Personal HistoryA student can upload a group of pictures that illustrate them or their family and create a story. Their family members can also log on and provide their own comments about the photo that shows their perspective. Creating a StoryUpload multiple images drawn but a student and allow that child to narrate the story. Great for early writers. Book ReviewUpload the cover or illustrations from a book read by the class and allow each student to give a review of the book. Classroom DocumentationUpload pictures that you have taken on a project in your class then annotate or voice annotate the images for documentation purposes. Classroom YearbookPost the images from your class that year and allow all the students in the class to provide their comments on what they thought of the year. AdvantagesThis program does many of the things that Microsoft Photostory can do but without all the headache. It's web-based so all browsers on all platforms (mac and windows) can create and view the project. In addition, Photostory can't handle video.
Main webpage: http://voicethread.com/ | WebCT Replacement UpdateThe demos are over and the questionnaires are in, so now what? Well currently the RFP is being written on campus. Once finished, it will go to Columbia where they will advertise it. Hopefully we will get lots of good vendor responses. If all goes well in Columbia, we will have a replacement for WebCT ready for testing in the Fall. Remember two important things: 1) you don't have to make the change from WebCT right away. You'll have at least a year to make the switch. 2) the timeline all depends on how things go in Columbia. I'll keep you posted. To get all the info go to the project's website: |
Mendi Benigni • Instructional Technologist - School of Education, Health & Human Performance