Clearly Zoho Writer is the next generation of word processors but it is more than just the average run-of-the-mill word processor. The Zoho Writer allows anyone access to the document and it also allows that person to edit it, making his own comments in different colors, fonts, etc. In addition, once the person has completed his document using Zoho, he can save it in a file, tag it, save it to a blog. It seems as if the possibilities are limitless with Zoho. Clearly, it is the wave of the future. While I have omitted a number of features that Zoho offers, the idea of trying to remember to include more than what I have stated makes me somewhat swimmy headed. I got that way just reading about all the features it does offer. I am going to try and save this document to my blog. If I am successful, you can view it from there.
Oh well, I failed to complete the mission. Fortunately, I copied and saved my comments just in case this failed so that I could post it on my blog. I still feel that Zoho will be huge in the future. The features that are offered are just too diverse to overlook. It is vastly superior to virtually anything out there. I especially like the spell check; however, I especially like the idea that someone can post his comments on line via zoho which in turn posts it in cyberspace where someone else can not only read it but also edit it.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Week 7 #17 Sandbox
Since the basic nature of Sandbox is described as "fun," I doubt that anyone would seriously consider this as an academic research tool---and it isn't. Sandbox is a hodge podge or eclectic collection of ideas written down by different people. If one were looking for some kind of coherent meaning from this site, he would be disappointed. It seems best described as a "stream of consciousness," where things don't necessarily add up to anything but extemporeanous fun. In many respects, it is kids at play. Yet there is something refreshing about Sandbox because it is a place that allows anyone to visit and add his thought of the day and then move on. Although there doesn't appear to have any academic value, it might be attractive to those who are given to moments of frivolity. Unfortunately, as perhaps would be expected on a "fun" site, there doesn't appear to be any kind of organization to it.
Week 7 #16 Wikis
The realization that Wikis are a collaborative tool where individual members of a group can log on and make his contribution to the research project from anywhere in the world makes this feature one of the most interesting aspects of web 2.0. In open format a wiki can deal with anything anyone is interested in and anyone may join and make contributions to the individual wiki.
Obviously, the most popular wiki is Wikipedia, a highly suspect source of information. There has been so much misinformation put out by individuals who pass themselves off as experts in a certain field. One example was man who passed himself off as a college professor with a PhD degree. While passing himself off as an expert, he wrote a vast number of book reviews as well as adding erroneous information about his field of expertise. This person was finally exposed and allegedly his misrepresentation of the true facts was correct. But, in my opinion the damage has been done and the credibility of Wikipedia is a source for accurate research information should be viewed with a grain of salt. Most of the contributors may be honest and above board, but I don't know these people and their credentials could be fraudulent just like the information that they post. I think poeople ask for trouble when they create something in open format where anyone can pass himself off as an expert. In a closed environment, things might not be so suspect, depending on where students get their information.
Having stipulated that Wikipedi is quetionable at best (as are other wikis no doubt are as well), I had a wiki set up with Patty's help for a research project with my honor students. This particular process has worked very well; I divided the class into small groups and assigned research topics on The Once and Future King. The collaborative effort would have been more difficult without the wiki because the group members would have had to arrange a time and a place to meet and discuss what they had found in their research. The Wiki project required no specific time or place to meet. Each member worked on his own section of the project wherever he happened to be (at home, the library, or a computer lab) and then he wrote the results of his research effort in the wiki section reserved for the group's project. All other members could read what he wrote. They could also edit his research or question the results of his research or correct any grammatical mistakes when it was convenient for them to do so. In addition I could monitor the group's efforts and progress, adding comments to their paper finding out who was doing the work and who wasn't contributing anything.
This format could work well not only in virtually any academic endeavor but also it would lend itself very well in the business world as well where special projects and research and reports would need to be done in a collaborative way.
Obviously, the most popular wiki is Wikipedia, a highly suspect source of information. There has been so much misinformation put out by individuals who pass themselves off as experts in a certain field. One example was man who passed himself off as a college professor with a PhD degree. While passing himself off as an expert, he wrote a vast number of book reviews as well as adding erroneous information about his field of expertise. This person was finally exposed and allegedly his misrepresentation of the true facts was correct. But, in my opinion the damage has been done and the credibility of Wikipedia is a source for accurate research information should be viewed with a grain of salt. Most of the contributors may be honest and above board, but I don't know these people and their credentials could be fraudulent just like the information that they post. I think poeople ask for trouble when they create something in open format where anyone can pass himself off as an expert. In a closed environment, things might not be so suspect, depending on where students get their information.
Having stipulated that Wikipedi is quetionable at best (as are other wikis no doubt are as well), I had a wiki set up with Patty's help for a research project with my honor students. This particular process has worked very well; I divided the class into small groups and assigned research topics on The Once and Future King. The collaborative effort would have been more difficult without the wiki because the group members would have had to arrange a time and a place to meet and discuss what they had found in their research. The Wiki project required no specific time or place to meet. Each member worked on his own section of the project wherever he happened to be (at home, the library, or a computer lab) and then he wrote the results of his research effort in the wiki section reserved for the group's project. All other members could read what he wrote. They could also edit his research or question the results of his research or correct any grammatical mistakes when it was convenient for them to do so. In addition I could monitor the group's efforts and progress, adding comments to their paper finding out who was doing the work and who wasn't contributing anything.
This format could work well not only in virtually any academic endeavor but also it would lend itself very well in the business world as well where special projects and research and reports would need to be done in a collaborative way.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Week 6 #15 Copyright, Commons, and What's coming down the Web 2.0 road?
I read Lawrence Lessig's blog only to learn that he is shutting it down forever after working on it for seven years. This statement only reinforces the idea that blogs come and go and take on a life or death of its own. In addition, Lessig also pointed out that in that seven year period, there were 30,000 comments and of those 1/3 if them were fraudulent and that Google had kicked him off their index because too many illegal casinos were linking to his server. The idea that 1/3 of 30,000 comments were fraudulent serves only to reinforce the question of how valuable and valid are these blogs (and on-going research projects). This idea is particularly true because it calls into question the validity of one's research efforts when it is based on fraud.
Neverthess, the important question here is the idea of copyright, commons, and the future. The video about copyright is dead on target as it seeks to explain the nature of copyright and why it is important. Some of the animation may obscure the most important aspects of copyright, however. Copyright is important as it is subtle. I remember a few years ago that a popular TV series Murder, she wrote was orginally scheduled to be called Murder, she said. The network decided against that title because of copyright infringement on the movie series with Miss Marple which was called Murder, she said. In addition, students need to be taught the nature of copyright and what it involves in order to prevent "borrowing" from sources and then having to defend onself by claiming ignorance of the law.
It is anyone's guess as to what is down the Web 2.0 road, but it will no doubt be decidedly different then than it is today. When one looks at the service of the libraries of the past and what it is doing today, one would have to agree that the basic nature of the library has changed drasticallty. With the advent of electronic books or ebooks and papers, the library will have to change again to accomodate these latest innovations. Even the Web 2.0 project has changed since we first began our operation because it has been modified to suit our individual needs as we prepare for our teaching roles of the future. Web base 2.0 now features a host of social networking sites which never existed a few years ago but they within themselves will eventually change and morph into something else down the road. Again, just look at the cell phone of a few years back and examine it in the presence of what it does today as an example of change and reconfiguration.
Neverthess, the important question here is the idea of copyright, commons, and the future. The video about copyright is dead on target as it seeks to explain the nature of copyright and why it is important. Some of the animation may obscure the most important aspects of copyright, however. Copyright is important as it is subtle. I remember a few years ago that a popular TV series Murder, she wrote was orginally scheduled to be called Murder, she said. The network decided against that title because of copyright infringement on the movie series with Miss Marple which was called Murder, she said. In addition, students need to be taught the nature of copyright and what it involves in order to prevent "borrowing" from sources and then having to defend onself by claiming ignorance of the law.
It is anyone's guess as to what is down the Web 2.0 road, but it will no doubt be decidedly different then than it is today. When one looks at the service of the libraries of the past and what it is doing today, one would have to agree that the basic nature of the library has changed drasticallty. With the advent of electronic books or ebooks and papers, the library will have to change again to accomodate these latest innovations. Even the Web 2.0 project has changed since we first began our operation because it has been modified to suit our individual needs as we prepare for our teaching roles of the future. Web base 2.0 now features a host of social networking sites which never existed a few years ago but they within themselves will eventually change and morph into something else down the road. Again, just look at the cell phone of a few years back and examine it in the presence of what it does today as an example of change and reconfiguration.
Week 6 # 14 Technorati
Since Technorati is the leading search engine for blogs and therefore the leading expert in blogs, it becomes important to take a serious look at Technorati. Technorati affords the researcher with the possibility of searching all blogs through one search engine. The idea that there are over 175,000 new blogs created everyday with over eighteen updates on older blogs every day, there is no way to keep up with new blogs, much less older blogs. Technorati does a good job in trying to categorize blogs as well as provide search opportunities with the massive body of blogs. However, when I tried to go to their web site, I received the message the page no longer existed. They did list alternatives by providing links to home page, technorati top 100, blog directory, and the Tag pages index. But even some of these listed the "No page available." Obviously, they are in the process of developing new pages to handle the onslaught of new blogs. They also listed new channels that contained editorial content under the categories of technology, blogging, videoes, business, sports, and entertainment, and lifestyle.
I personally would not expect much from Technorati, not because of its missing pages that may re-appear at some later date but because it seems more related to business. Perhaps teachers in the business department may be able to utilize some of the information listed here, but it doesn't do much for language and literature.
I personally would not expect much from Technorati, not because of its missing pages that may re-appear at some later date but because it seems more related to business. Perhaps teachers in the business department may be able to utilize some of the information listed here, but it doesn't do much for language and literature.
Week 6 #13 Tagging and Delicious
Everytime I read about the idea of social networking I cringe. I personally don't like social networking. As a result, I normally have all sorts of bad vibes and consequently I am not very receptive to this type of learning. My basic aversion was further underscored when I logged onto the "Libraries that del.ic.ious," and was wisked away to a German website, where everything was written in German. My thoughts immediately turned to the question of how useful would this be if it were written in another language that I could not use. Well, the answer is obvious: if you can't read it, you can't understand it. One of the German articles pointed out that it would be beneficial to know who was the original author was the artcile was but even more important would be to know who posted so that the site could be evaluated as its revelance or its fluffiness. I'm not sure how one would do that in a meaningful way. In a sense who reviews the reviewer or who evaluates the linkster seems as if we are going ever deeper in a morass of obscurity.
The Ed Talk Net seems somewhat more appropriate than the simple organising individual web sites; however, it also seems as if the Ed Talk consists of nothing but blogs that offer a personal insight into something. It is the old idea of it's opinion and everyone has one. Ironically, these personal opinions are what I consider fluff because they are without literary or scholastic merit. While something of value may actually be found, I sometimes wonder about the fruits of our labor in terms of time spent to find these little jewels. Rather than search, it seems to me that the RSS feeds and the Rolyo would not be more informative and easier to gather information.
The Ed Talk Net seems somewhat more appropriate than the simple organising individual web sites; however, it also seems as if the Ed Talk consists of nothing but blogs that offer a personal insight into something. It is the old idea of it's opinion and everyone has one. Ironically, these personal opinions are what I consider fluff because they are without literary or scholastic merit. While something of value may actually be found, I sometimes wonder about the fruits of our labor in terms of time spent to find these little jewels. Rather than search, it seems to me that the RSS feeds and the Rolyo would not be more informative and easier to gather information.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Week 5 #12 Rollyo
Rollyo would be an excellent tool for facitating research for students. It will, however, require extensive work on the part of the teacher. Since Rollyo provides teachers with the ability to develop their search engines, they must preview and find the best, most reliable sites to include in Rollyo. The process of adding sites to one's own personalized website will save students time and energy because the teacher has already examined a particular website. This way the student will be afforded the opportunity to examine only the most useful, informative websites rather than waste his time exmaining questionable and inferior sites that are of no value. Another added feature that Rollyo offers is the opportunity to be in contact with other teachers to learn of even more search sites that are valuable.
One disadvantage that I see is the sheer amount of time it will take teachers to conduct their searches and to evaluate the sites usefulness, especially given the tremendous number of search sites that are available. However, it is far better for the teacher to search these sites than for the student to do so since students tend to become to frustrated and overwhelmed in an effort to determine whether or not a particular search site is valuable or not. Nevertheless, it will require a lot of leg work on the part of the teacher to create a good, informative site to add to his own personal search list. But, the student will benefit enormously since he will only have to visit one web site for a host of valuable websites rather than to have to search the entire web.
One disadvantage that I see is the sheer amount of time it will take teachers to conduct their searches and to evaluate the sites usefulness, especially given the tremendous number of search sites that are available. However, it is far better for the teacher to search these sites than for the student to do so since students tend to become to frustrated and overwhelmed in an effort to determine whether or not a particular search site is valuable or not. Nevertheless, it will require a lot of leg work on the part of the teacher to create a good, informative site to add to his own personal search list. But, the student will benefit enormously since he will only have to visit one web site for a host of valuable websites rather than to have to search the entire web.
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