Author: joanvinallcox

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, rabid reader and poet who has taught in both the college and university systems. Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia. She is a widow from a happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter. Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry

MERLOT Presentation on PLEs

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I head out tomorrow for the MERLOT International Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesoda where I will be presenting on Web2.0, the Social Media, and Academia: Using Personal Learning Environments to Expand Teaching and Learning.  (The description is second from the bottom here.) I am asking for some help in proving my point – that creating your own Personal Learning Environment is essential for teachers and other knowledge workers.

I’ve worked up a PowerPoint with many links to many free applications and images of what a PLE actually is, but I want to show its value during the presentation. I received  some important help in my learning from  comments when I posted on Visual Literacy here, I’ve received help from responses to some of my Twitter postings, as you can see here, and someone (sorry, I can’t remember who) pointed me to http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/2008/07/19/listen-to-the-wisdom-of-your-network/ – which has really inspired me. I really like Sue Water’s use of the phrase “Personal Learning Networks”, and I’m imitating some of her approaches, and this is where you come in.

Please help me show the power of Personal Learning Networks by responding to some or all of the following requests:

  • Add a comment to this post mentioning any part of your own PLE that other teachers might find valuable;
  • If you are on Twitter, follow me, and when I ask for responses, use “Reply” so I can show how the network can help almost instantly; and/or
  • If you have some ideas that might help, “Direct Message” me in Twitter.

I’m presenting Sunday, August 10 at 11:45, Central Daylight Time – an hour ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. (It’s 8:30 near Toronto, and 7:30 there.)

So I’m requesting your help, and, in return, I will post some version of my presentation after the conference is over and I’m home again. So thanks in advance.

MERLOT Member Page
MERLOT Member Page

WebTools For Teachers 07/31/2008

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Chunkit and Cuil

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In the past few days I’ve been alerted to two new search tools. A friend, knowing my web-fascination, sent me a link to Cuil – http://www.cuil.com/info/ – I have only briefly played with it, but the information has hit the Twitterverse, and it was created by Google alumni, so you might want to check it out.

Searching for Vygotsky
Searching for Vygotsky

The other search tool I found out about from a comment from someone called Sasha on my blog. Chunkit is still in beta, you have to add a small download – Windows, Mac & Linux, IE 6.0+ or Firefox 2.0+ – but I found the Chunkit videos and information intriguing enough to download the application.

Searching for Vygotsky 2
Searching for Vygotsky 2

When you click on the most interesting text on the left, you are taken to the source site with the relevant text highlighted:

Source site
Source site

This looks like a handy research tool to me. I found the videos helped me learn how to use Chunkit, including the Search Options –

Chunkit Search
Chunkit Search

I have 3 small criticisms, less to more important:

  • the colours, orange and black are Hallowe’en colours – ugly;
  • The toolbar takes up a chunk of my small laptop screen; and
  • the education-oriented videos are all oriented toward the partying, last-minute essay writing, and one almost suggests plagiarism – inappropriate.

However, some of the videos have pages attached, like this one on Gutenberg for those who want a static set of instructions. The abudance of videos for many purposes, household, shopping, news, academics, and business, make it easy for the viewer to dip into the different uses he or she might make of Chunkit. After sampling a few, I found it easy to navigate Chunkit, and to use it for my purposes.

Chunkit PLE
Chunkit PLE

So what do you think? Are either of these a helpful addition to your searching? One more than the other? I interested in how others see them.

WebTools For Teachers 07/26/2008

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Jing (for Screencasting) and TweetDeck (for Twitter)

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Summertime is playtime, and we’ve had record amounts of rain where I live, so my playing has been indoors. Here are a couple of tools I’ve been playing with.

Jing is a free and very easy screencasting tool. Because I’m thinking about Personal Learning Environments, that’s what I made this screencast on –

http://www.screencast.com/users/JoanVinallCox/folders/MERLOT/media/15cb112a-af72-4d8a-a7c0-f41d42041696

My problem is that by covering my full screen, I get a screencast the size of my full screen, which is too big. Twitter helped me get a partial answer. (I’m using TweetDeck because with it, I can see any replies immediately and I can separate the people I follow into different groups, for ease of following conversations.)

From TweetDeck, Alana James answers my request for help.
From TweetDeck, Alana James answers my request for help.

Alana’s advice allowed me to reduce the size of my Jing screen, but it only showed part of what I had captured. I wanted the whole image, but smaller. I have asked for help on Twitter several times previously and most often got a reply, so I consider it an important part of my PLE. It’s a place where I can ask and answer questions from peers.

So I’m playing, and thus learning how to use these tools, so when the weather is sunnier and/or I’m busier, I’ll be proficient and efficient in using them.