The Water Cooler

With thanksgiving only a day away, I thought I would take some time to reflect on and give thanks for 10 free and useful Web 2.0 applications. These online tools have made my life easier and more pleasant and all for free.

10. Pandora Radio

Pandora creates customized internet radio stations that play music centered on artists or songs I like. I Just type in an artist or song and start listening. Pandora will play music that sounds similar to my entries. Adding more entries to a station creates more variety. If it plays something I don’t like, I can block it from the station. Pandora also allows for sharing stations with other users who I designate as friends. With the Christmas season starting, according to retailers, on Friday, there are a number of premade holiday music stations in different genres to build up your holiday cheer. If they hadn’t added commercials to their stations, it might rank higher on the thankfulness meter, but I understand the need to generate revenue.

9. Twitter (mbgough)

Twitter is easy to get addicted to. I have found that the key to tweeting is to limit tweets to interesting ideas or articles that are worth sharing with colleagues. I recommend saving the daily play by play commentary for Facebook or a private twitter feed. I follow interesting people and colleagues in instructional technology. Twitter has been great for finding and sharing ideas. Twitter is placed at number 9 on this list because of the large number of “spam followers” I have to clean out every week.

8. WordPress

I suppose I should be thankful for the tool that I am using to publish this post. I have been impressed with WordPress’s professional look, easy to use back end and flexibility with handling different kinds of media. It is easy to add in plug-ins and there are tons of themes to choose from. The hardest is to keep the posts coming!

7. Drop.io

Coming in at number 7 is the underrated Drop.io. This is a great utility that stores larger media files for distribution with others. It creates RSS feeds, generates embed codes for media, and allows for password protected “drops” to lock down content to only those you trust. Drop.io also has chatting and presentation/conference calling features, though I have never used them beyond testing. This flexible application has nearly an unlimited number of uses.

6. Skype

Skype has been a wonderful tool for staying in contact with family and friends. The video call quality is quite good and the sound quality has improved, so long as you have a headset. As an online student, this has been a great way to collaborate with classmates on projects and bounce ideas off each other. It’s nice to be able to put a face with a voice.

5. Gmail

Gmail’s simple and elegant web interface is very easy to use. Tagging email is superior to placing them in category folders since many email messages need to be in multiple categories. Gmail has all kinds of options for setting up filters and rules to auto tag email as it comes in. The hard part is sticking with a common lexicon.

4. Delicious

This has been wonderful for sharing instructional technology articles with colleagues as well as for tagging for personal research or interest. As with gmail tags, the hard part is staying with a common lexicon. I have several tags that I have only used a couple of times that really should be tagged with a more general tag.

3. Google docs

Google docs back to basics online office suite is refreshing, even if it is lacking the advanced features of Microsoft Office. The document sharing and recently added folder sharing options are very useful for collaboration and sharing. Also the forms feature is a great way to collect survey data and track it in nearly real time.

2. Netvibes

This application has created a portal to the web with mini rss blocks of all of my favorite blogs, news sites, and even delicious feeds. This tool has allowed me to listen to technology related podcasts, read news articles, and update my facebook or twitter status all at the same time (a post coffee endeavor). This application allows me to be more productive at staying up with the latest trends and news in technology.

1. Dropbox

Dropbox has been a wonderful tool for synchronizing files between computers and backing up data. Adding files to Dropbox is as simple as dragging and dropping the file into the folder. The Dropbox application, a free download, automatically uploads it to the web. You can share your files publicly or privately and all computers that are connected to the same Dropbox account will automatically be synchronized with the latest files. It even keeps a revertible archive of the changes made to the account in case you need to go back. Say good bye to flash drives! This is truly an awesome, easy to use, free application and I am very thankful to have it.

The learning management system (LMS), also known as a Course Management System (CMS) has been used for several years by instructors to augment face to face teaching with online content and to teach completely online courses. These systems, such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle, and Sakai have all been designed to offer instructors a feature rich closed-in virtual environment for teaching and learning. However, since the boom of web 2.0 applications, these features have lost some of their luster. To many tech savvy instructors, the LMS is boxy, and sometimes inflexible. Development of cool new LMS teaching tools is slow compared to Web 2.0 applications. These issues have caused many instructional technologists and savvy instructors to believe that the LMS is going out of style, and will be replaced by feature rich web 2.0 applications used from a central class portal page.

Cool web 2.0 applications that could be used for teaching and learning include using Voice Thread for digital storytelling, dropping content in drop.io to be podcasted or embedded elsewhere, Meebo for virtual office hours, RSS aggregation for organizing and bringing in timely news articles and of course YouTube videos. This is certainly not an exhaustive list and it seems as though new web 2.0 applications seem to pop up every day.  These exciting tools are not usually found integrated with the LMS.

Some believe that an LMS will be replaced by a combined communication tool such as Google Wave. Google wave is supposed to combine synchronized chat and IM with asynchronous discussions and email conversations all in one easy to visualize communication tool. Customized social networks and web portals such as NING also can fill the role of the LMS. Both of these tools would have lots of potential for facilitating online classes and providing a rich virtual learning environment, but could it really take the place of the LMS?

Web 2.0 has the advantage over the standard LMS because it has a nearly endless toolbox for educators to find the right tool for the lesson or activity. Also, these tools are not constrained to educational uses. They can be used after graduation and possibly in whatever career path the student chooses. Unless the student is interested in a career in education, they are not as likely to encounter an LMS again. Using web 2.0 tools such as blogs and social networks, one could bring in guests to the classroom to get ideas and opinions from people in the field. Behind the firewall of an LMS, it is more difficult to do this.

But let’s not judge the LMS too unfairly; it does have some redeeming qualities. First and foremost, many LMSes are designed specifically for a course. They are modeled around a typical classroom and have the tools already in the box for someone to get started. The LMS is contained and FERPA compliant. It is a secure system that is behind a secure login and it is possibly hosted onsite. Activities inside the LMS are constrained to the class roster, keeping content that could possibly offend or infringe on others and their works behind a closed door.

Perhaps we are not yet ready to give up the confines of the LMS. The security and the scaffolding afforded by it allow instructors to create assignments and provide timely feedback for students in a closed system. However, the system isn’t and shouldn’t be completely closed. Many of the Web 2.0 tools listed above can be used in conjunction with the LMS and are often best when done so. The LMS can serve as a portal to any other learning tools that bring a pedagogical benefit with them. These tools are of course going to vary by discipline. The best of both worlds allows for the rigidness of the LMS with the flexibility of Web 2.0. Projects like the Google – Moodle integration are a great example of how combining tools may afford teaching and learning gains in the future.

Thus far all the rumors have been false that Mac was developing a tablet. Apple may be developing one this very minute, and if they aren’t they should be and here’s 5 reasons why a Mac Tablet would be a good idea from someone who supports both Macs and a Tablet PCs and uses both.

1. Tablets are taking away Apple’s Lead in the education realm because of their versatility in the classroom.

Many of the educators I work with are Mac users. They love their Mac and I don’t blame them. When we started introducing tablets, some of these folks were excited about using a tablet because it offered new possibilities for teaching and learning. Instructors could write on the screen during class, with DyKnow software these notes could be “beamed” to the students screens where they could take notes. All of the digital ink can be saved and no paper is used. A few people have tried to do this using a wacom tablet as one blogger professes as being a better option. Those who chose this path in order to keep using their Mac in the classroom usually end up frustrated due to the fact that they can’t see what they are writing on the plane they are writing it on. Therefore, my Mac user friends must use a second machine, a Tablet PC, for classroom use. If this is occurring at every other university or school experimenting with tablets, then this is a huge one up for Microsoft and a market loss for Apple for not accommodating their beloved Mac users with a tablet.

2. Many Graphic Artists area already using a Wacom tablet to try to do their work

I alluded to this above, I’ve used a Wacom for graphic design before and found it better than a mouse for lassoing and drawing, it is still inconvenient to not see what you are drawing on the plane in which you are drawing it. A tablet can fold over to allow the user to write directly on the screen. While you hand does hide some of the screen as you write, it usually doesn’t cause an issue as you can set the menus to come up on the side your hand is not on. When you write on a piece of paper, are you concerned about the part of the page you can’t see? When it comes to digital ink, a Tablet PC is definitely better than a wacom tablet, though I believe a Mac Tablet would be even better still if it were ever to come to fruition.

3. Tablets need a “rock solid” operating system that just works

Many of the quirks in Windows frustrate me on a daily basis. When at home using my Mac, I feel a sense of relief that my computer just works. No annoying unexpected pop ups, forced updates and restarts when I’m working on a big project.  My mac allows for an easy way to organize all my tasks in spaces. Unfortunately the time I get to use the Mac is limited as my wife who was reluctant to switch to a Mac in the first place, has hereby claimed it for her teaching!

Mac OS X for the most part is rock solid because it is designed for the components that make up Apple’s computers. Windows computers cannot ever achieve this performance level because of the fact that there are thousands of different components windows has to work with. Furthermore, Tablet PCs add on a lot of new components that all must be supported in addition to the normal fray. If these were included in the Apple’s line up, Apple could support the tablet components such as the screen digitizer and pen options better than Windows because they are only dealing with one type of digitizer and a handful of hardware configurations. This solidarity of the tablet operating system will draw those Mac and Tablet PC users away from the PC very quickly and could pull a few more new Mac users with them.

4. The existence of the mod-book indicates a market exists

An innocent victim if Apple were to come out with a tablet would be Axiotron who makes the Modbook (a Macbook modified into a tablet). The fact that the Modbook exists at all is a sign that a market exists for a Mac tablet. If the modbook was officially made by apple, it would be much more feature rich and useful than just a modified aftermarket Machine.

5. Many of the handwriting components for Mac already exist

While the number of applications that exist for a Mac tablet are currently few, Apple does have some handwriting recognition capabilities already. Also, if a few applications were to be created such as Microsoft OneNote (part of the Microsoft Office line for PC) and PDF Annotator then users would be able to do some real work with their Mac tablet right away without having to wait for expensive software to be developed. Perhaps this is the biggest hold up for Apple’s tablet, maybe they believe that without the applications, a Mac tablet isn’t very useful.

With the world’s information at our fingertips begging for us to search for it, what could make this super-technological information age better?  How about information that finds you.  That’s what technologies created by Google and yahoo now do.  It’s now possible to use a web application that aggregates search results, filters and sorts RSS feeds, and allows the results to be displayed on your home page or any page you can edit.  Somehow this seems too good to be true.  No work research right?  Well not exactly, while these tools will save you time in the long run, perpare to spend some time up front setting all of this up.

To do this, here is a summary of what you have to do:

• 1. Subscribe to a web aggregator like Netvibes or iGoogle. You can use this tool to subscribe to regular RSS feeds and add fun applications such as Weather, email, twitter and even facebook.
• 2. Search Yahoo Pipes to see if someone has already made a pipe that gathers the information you are looking for. Keep in mind you can clone and tweak it if it’s not exactly what you are looking for.
• 3. If you can’t find a pipe, run a search for all of the blogs or news feeds on a particular topic. You might hit a gold mine and find that someone has created a list of all the blogs or news pages about a topic. Copy all the URLs onto a text page or spread sheet.
• 4. Create a Yahoo pipe that combines all the feeds into one. Paste the urls into a Fetch site feed module or a Fetch feed module. Be sure to add a filter that looks for the key terms you want and a sort module to put the newest posts first. You can also add a Yahoo or Google search feed into the mix. There may even be library databases that generate search feeds to add more scholarly articles to the mix.
• 5. Save and run your feed, then click on the “get as a badge” button, and click on the aggregator you use, if yours is not listed, click on the embed code. Copy the code and drop it into your favorite webpage or aggregator in an html box to create a badge that will always give you the latest information on the topic of your choice.
• 6. You’re done, obviously I have left out several complicated steps using Pipes, read the pipe documentation for tips on creating efficient pipes.

Now the filtered information comes to you.  No more sorting through hundreds of web pages looking for current news.  No more going to several sites each day to get your information.  Your information is delivered to your doorstep in the form of a fully customizable newspaper.  The best part is that no trees were sacrificed and no money was spent!

No I don’t mean booting your laptop when you’re en route to JFK or O’hare, I mean computing using web 2.0+ programs that have become more prevalent in our daily lives.  Combine this with the recent popular movement to compact portable underpowered devices used specifically for accessing the web.  Specifically, iPhones, Blackberry’s netbooks, compact tablets ect.   There is a real push to put data back onto the sever.  In a cloud computing world, very little content will be ran on the client pc.  Let’s face it, data on the client is dangerous.  Hard drives fail, computers get a virus or can be lost or stolen and files are often only accessible from that machine.  Also, files on client machines are hard to share with a team of authors.  These are all problems that cloud computing solves.  Files that are on the web can be shared with others and are backed up regularly.  They are not specific to one client machine and therefore the file is much safer from being lost by a client computer problem.  Google docs, Zoho, and others are already offering successful cloud computing productivity solutions that allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more that all are saved on the web and sharable for collaborative authoring.  The quality of these solutions is now beginning to rival professional client side options such as Microsoft Office or Open Office.  The drive toward cloud computing has caught Microsoft’s attention as they are now looking into integrating a cloud computing solution into future Microsoft Office projects.   

Also, with mobile computing options ever growing, people can use a device to access the cloud on the go instead of at their desktop.  With the cloud, one could take their office with them anywhere they want to.  The blackberry addiction that occurred recently before the iPhone took off, is an indicator of how people can become chained to the work even when away from their desks.  Now we can be productive while waiting in line to buy tickets to a movie, while we wait to get a table at our favorite restaurant, or even while we wait for our car’s oil to be changed.   Now, applications that connect to the cloud can allow us to do things with these mobile devices that even a desktop can’t do.  Examples include GPS specific searches, finding the artist and name of the song playing on the radio, and many more that are being developed all the time.

The risks:

Like every solution, new problems can often arise in place of those that were solved.  In a cloud computing world, data must be safeguarded.  The main way this is managed currently is through passwords and security questions.  Like most of you, I have nearly a dozen passwords that I often forget, and I feel uncomfortable choosing a canned security question that anyone who stalks me could figure out.  Therefore, for cloud computing to be the norm, we must find a better way.  We’ve all heard the risks of moving toward biometrics, but this could be part of the solution.  Perhaps if we had one central authentication system that was secure and could plug into different web applications, we could pull off a complete cloud computing system.  However, such a system will always be a security risk. 

Finally, with data in the cloud, can we ever be complete sure it is ours?  If it is on a server somewhere, can someone else access it and take our ideas?  These sorts of conspiracy theories definitely have some merit.  Do you feel comfortable having your personal diary in a place where everyone can see it?  Some might, but a good handful of people would prefer to keep it on their client computer even if it was password protected somewhere in the clouds.

The movement toward cloud computing has already begun.  This is why Microsoft is bleeding programmers and Google is growing.  However, until we mitigate the risks, cloud computing will remain, well where it currently is, out there in there in the clouds.

There has been some buzz about how to leverage different social networking tools to increase communication ties between people in a work environment.  This is especially a good idea when a department is large or spread out geographically and thus finds it difficult for people to meet at their conveniently centralized water cooler, conference room, or break room.  It can be very useful to know what a colleague is working on so you don’t duplicate her work, don’t interfere inadvertently with the goal of her work, and can share ideas and tips to make the outcome of her work better.  Public social networks such as facebook, myspace, and others could be utilized to share information between colleagues, however, they are more social and can be perceived as a procrastination time sink than a productivity tool. 

To make proper use of a social network for work, the tool needs to be separate from these well known web applications.  Many folks may be apprehensive to share their social network pages with employers or professional colleagues.  While I’m a firm believer that you should never post anything on the web that you wouldn’t want your mother-in-law to see, sometimes even benign information about your social life can be distracting toward the professional world you work in.  This coupled with the fact that a social network dedicated to work might be an easier sell to managers and directors who might see myspace and facebook as a procrastination tool rather than a productivity tool. 

I think we have to be careful, however, not to take ’social’ away from social networking.  Some fun information about colleagues should be shared so that we get to know each other.  It is always easier to work on a team when you know the teammates well.  Even something as simple as knowing their likes or dislikes is useful.  This information can give team members information that can be used to relate to each other and help build a more cohesive team.  There seems to be an invisible line between what’s appropriate for a work social network and what’s appropriate for other more general networks.  At first it might seem difficult to distinguish between the two types of networks, however, I believe the mores of a work environment, whether spelled out in policy, or assumed implicitly will govern the work network to keep a certain professionalism that may not be present in the general social networks.

Useful network tools within the social network could include many of the Web 2.0 applications we use every day.  An editable profile that list job duties and report structures is useful so that colleagues in a large department know who to contact for what.  A social network is often better than just a directory as the duties that define what our job is often changes dynamically depending on the tasks that need to be accomplished.  A micro-blogging system such as twitter is also a handy feature.  Using this tool, members could state what they are working on and how they are doing.  This feature is central to the network as it lets everyone know who is doing what at any particular time and if they have questions or need help.  This is much better than email because often times you don’t know who to email when you have a question.  Team workspace such as a wiki or discussion board also could be used to allow folks to keep meeting minutes, setup agendas, or discuss matters outside of the conference room.

Social bookmarking and public web aggregators could also be employed to share what people are reading.  Articles from these tools could spark discussions and direct members toward an important topic that might have been overlooked if it was not shared via the network.  Because we cannot always keep up on what’s up and coming all of the time, a sharable repository such as the bookmarks and subscribed rss feeds will allow for the whole team to keep up with what’s new in their fields.  

A work oriented social network should not replace face to face meetings, but augment them.  Small amounts of time taken to update wikis or discussion boards could have large benefits to the overall productivity of face to face meetings as many of the logistics could be worked out online.  If managed carefully, a meeting leader could create the agenda, ask for updates, and start a pre-discussion online so that when the face to face meeting begins, no time is wasted bringing members up to speed and the meeting can jump directly to the real issues that need to be worked out.

So this all sounds wonderful, what’s holding us back?  The biggest drawback toward a system like this is buy in. If members are not using the tools, don’t know how to use them, or don’t believe it will work, then it will not be successful.  A proper design and roll out and support structure needs to be in place before jumping in with both feet.  Also, like any network, it is only going to be as valuable as the number of people using it.  Therefore, a small department or organization will not be able to benefit as much.    

Sorry, this isn’t so much an idea as it is a grype with a sudo-solution.  I received an email that was in all caps and I needed to change it to lowercase to add the text to the web.  First of all, in case you are new to the web, all caps in digial communications means you are yelling.  Some people really do yell all the time and therefore it is appropriate for them to type in all caps all the time.  But all caps from a realatively quiet person just doesn’t seem right.  Anyway, to end the babelling, I needed to convert the all caps text quickly into lowercase.  I found through a google search that you can do this in word by selecting the text and pressing shift+F3.  However, words that needed to be capilized had to be changed by hand. Grrr, why can’t word be smart enough to capitalize all the words that should be capitalized?  It does it while I type, why not when I hit shfit+F3?  Anyone know if there is a keyboard short cut to let Word guess at how to capitalize all lowercase words that should be capitalized.  I guess what I need is a wordprocessor that can read my mind.  Perhaps that’s a little to creepy.  Anyway, that’s my watercool bubble of the week.  Let me know what your thoughts are!

The water cooler is a blog I use to open discussions on ideas that bubble up.  Just as you share ideas with a colleague while enjoying a cool drink, this blog allows the sharing of ideas around a virtual water cooler.  Posts, or “bubbles” are ideas that are usually related to the use of technology to solve a problem.  Please register if you have an idea you would like to share.

Thanks,

M. B. Gough