Share your links as tabs

I love to use delicious to save my bookmarks on the web and I love sharing those bookmarks with others. But I found another quick way to share bookmarks with others by using ShareTabs you can create a large list of bookmarks and then send one link to your friends that will show them all of the bookmarks in one page with a preview of each page not just a link. Check it out and see how you can implement it in your online/hybrid/ or face to face courses.

What we need from e-books

Gizmodo did a nice comparison between the Kindle.app and iBooks on the iPad. In addition, they talked about what we need, to really flesh out the potential of e-books.

What no one is doing is trying to figure out how all this stuff can be combined to help create better learning environments around digital text; though, some of what Gizmodo says is directly or indirectly related. The idea of integrating social networking into a text is great. But note-taking is missing. What students need are tools to help them learn:

• A way to create a glossary of terms on the fly with words and definitions and examples coming straight from the text;
• A way to ask a question of a teacher or classmates, straight from the text (quoting the part they don't understand);
• Analysis that will help students see over arching themes between notes taken between differing books...I just threw this one in...not sure how it will hold up after thinking about it more.

Anyway, good review. Check it out.

Best Practices in Screencasting

ANtimated Tutorial Sharing (A.N.T.S) Project is a site that allows libraries to share open source library tutorials. And while that won't be of interest to everyone, the site has published a list of links concerning best practices in creating instruction screencasts and online tutorials. The links provided can be helpful to any instructor seeking information on how to design effective tutorials effectively and measure the effectiveness of tutorials.

Integrating Facebook into D2L

Facebook has recently implemented a "Like" button that can be put on various websites. Fill in the wizard, and out pops the code to embed the button into a webpage (or news item, or discussion question, or whatever). This is kind of neat as it puts using facebook for a class only a click away for students, where before it might be several clicks away.

Still haven't tried it, but from what I can tell, it should work pretty easily. Set-up a group on Facebook for your class, get the button, and see what happens.

What will become of bit.ly?

Bit.ly is a wonderful link condenser with the added bonus of tracking link clicks and providing statistics about those links. We use it with this blog, and ECC Library also uses it to track the clicks on our Twitter and Facebook fan page feeds. One of the great assets of bit.ly is that it allows you to post your "Tweet" directly through its interface - there's no need to long into Twitter to do it - because of the relationship between the two services. However, Twitter's CEO Evan Williams just announced that Twitter is going to create its own link shortener which may mean a questionable fate for bit.ly. It remains to be seen whether the Twitter link shortener with feature tracking and statistics and whether bit.ly users will transition to it. This is something to be aware of if you use bit.ly to track student use of any of your links.

New Service for Video/Screencast distribution

Tubemongul OneLoad is a free one-step service that allows you to upload a video or screencast and have it distributed efficiently to number of different video and social networking sites including Google, Yahoo! YouTube, vimeo, viddler, and myspace. It may come in handy if you use a number of different sites to distribute content to your students. The service also includes analytics in case you would like to track viewership and engagement.

New Google Docs opportunity.

ReadWriteWeb reviews some of the new updates on GoogleDocs. Lots of things instructors might be interested in.

Free & Secure Remote Desktop Access

Ever wanted to help someone with a computer issue? Or walks someone through a program on their computer that they cannot figure out? And doing this type of help support without paying or having to drive to someones house? Well I found a nice little tool called LogMeIn Express it allows for you to share your computer screen or have someone else share their computer screen as well as allow for remotely controlling their computer. It has End-to-end, 256-bit SSL encryption which is used by major banking institutions so it is safe to use.

Here are the highlights:

It's Simple

•	Session code generated by the host instantly shares screen with one or many

•	Small download for the host; no client required for the viewer

•	Easy-to-use chat capabilities

It's Secure

•	End-to-end, 256-bit SSL encryption — the same security levels used and trusted by major banking institutions

•	Permission based — end user must approve remote control

It's Free

•	Express Beta is free for both commercial and non-commercial use

I've used this program several times with family and friends that need computer help and it's saved me countless back and forth phone calls and emails. There is also an app for the iphone and the new iPad, it's called Ignition and of course that one isn't free.