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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Blogs and Wikis at IACON 2008

IACON 2008 is where it IS HAPPENING in Iowa this week.

I will be presenting a Web 2.0 Tools workshop with Will Coghill-Behrends and Rebecca Anthony from University of Iowa. They will be discussing ePortfolios and Social Networks. They will cover Classroom 2.0 (even talk with Steve Hargadon over Skype) and then introduce the group to Ning - Your Customizable Social Network.

Classroom Blogs
Overall Blogging Examples
Blogging Utilities
Create Your Own Blog
  • Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
  • WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.
Wikis
  • Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Wikimapia - The People's Mapping Utility



Wikimapia combines Google Maps (including satellite imaging) with a wiki system. This was created in 2006 to allow users to "Describe the whole planet Earth." This is your opportunity to identify your favorite place and then add descriptive information. It will allow you to embed the image like the one I have here on this posting or you can just have a link to it like this one.

Above, you can see an aerial view of the local Kwik Star here in Cedar Falls. For those of you who don't live in the midwest, Kwik Star is a convenience where you can purchase everything from gas (petro) to coffee to pizza to soda. It is a popular haunt of students and local residents alike.

You can add your own comments to the description of this Kwik Star (or anything else in WikiMapia) by just clicking on the box and then adding your comment. You can also add a vote as to whether or not it is an accurate description of the area.

WikiMapia is a Wonderful way for bring geography alive for students and teachers. It allows us to be part of the mapping process. You can mashup blog postings with mapping with audio commentary with ????

Give it a try.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

How to Combat Griefing

This is a continuation of an earlier posting where I told you about begin griefed (also known as a strong-arm robbery.)

I don't want to sound like a whiner, because there are many things worse than having a rude Italian (see earlier posting) invade your house and demand money. But I want to share some of the things that I have found out about griefing. Many you can post some of your own ideas as comments.

Griefing is, in simple terms, harassment. It can come in all forms from "just talking badly to you" to "caging you" to "shooting you". The important thing is to know what to do when you have been bothered.

The first thing that you need to do is document the happening. I know that it's annoying to have to think about documentation when you are being bothered, but it will pay off in the end. You need to document by taking a photo of the happening. Take a snapshot so that you have proof of it happening and you have the offender's name. This can be used for later actions.

Taking a Photo: Just go up to the File menu and select "Take a Snapshot." This will complete a screen capture that will save to your desktop.

Sit Down: One of the things that griefers can do to you to harass you is to "Cage you." This means that they actually put a cage around you and then they can spin you, fly you or just detain you. Apparently, none of this works when you are sitting down. So if someone begins to harass you, you might want to just take a seat. No chairs around? Either create a box or have sit on a chair that is in your inventory.

Get Out of There: Griefers are there because they want some attention. Vacate the premises and there won't be a reason for them to be there. The easiest way is to hit the "Teleport Home" button under the World menu. But even if you don't go home - go somewhere else. Stay there 5 minutes and then return.

Report the Incident: Second Life has a system for reporting abuse. Go to the Help menu and you will find a Report Abuse selection. This will bring up a report screen that will provide you a place where you can fill out the details. I haven't reported last night's incident yet, but I can do it today if I wish. It appears that I just need to tell them the location and the approximate time and the investigating committee can open the scripts to find out what was said and to verify what happened. They will then act accordingly. You can find out what happened by checking the "police blotters" a little later.

While this is indeed Second Life in a Virtual World, no one has the right to invade your privacy or take things from you. This is true in Real and Virtual worlds. Following these steps for dealing with such actions are good practice for whatever world you inhabit.

Z

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

I have been Griefed!!!


It never rains in Second Life and we never have to worry about crime, right?

WRONG!!

I was in our Ed Central Center in Second Life the other night when an individual came into our house and said "Give me something to do. I need some money." Taken aback, I talked with him. He claimed that he needed money to get a motorcycle like I had. (I don't have an SL motorcycle but found one parked outside our house a little later.) He said that he needed this motorcycle to get a job.

I don't remember his name but I did find out that he was Italian. I asked "Why are you being so aggressive about getting this money?"
"Because I am Italian," he replied.
"Does that give you an excuse for being so rude?" I queried.
After that, he was still insistent but prefaced each of his demands with "Please".

I just wanted this guy out of my life so I gave him a 4-wheeler car that I got for free at a freebee SL site. He left with this, only to return a couple of minutes later asking how to get it to work.

After he left, I realized that I felt violated. This guy had come to my house demanding money and I paid him off to get out of my life. Do I feel unsafe in SL? Not really. My SL account could disappear and my Real Life wouldn't be any the worse for it. But I AM somewhat concerned about the safety of the stuff that I have been working on in SL. It isn't the value of the stuff in the sense of money, but the time that I have spent developing the environment in which we live.

What should you do when you are being griefed? I will discuss this in my next posting.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Yugma - a FREE solution for Webinars and Courses


Looking for a free way to broadcast those webinars or provide course connections where you can share your computer screen while you discuss ideas with your students? Then Yugma might be your answer.

This online solution will provides an interface that is relatively easy to sign onto and very easy to use.

In all fairness, only the introductory package of Yugma is free. It is limited to 10 attendees, desktop sharing, free teleconferencing, whiteboard, public/private chat, and MS Outlook/Skype compatibility. THAT'S ALL. But that's ALOT!

My colleague, Robin Galloway, did a great review of Yugma after we played around with it last week. You should check it out.

I searched YouTube for some video support and found 3 videos about Yugma (also found a cute young boy named Yugma whose parents like video record and post them on YouTube as well.) This video shows how Yugma can be integrated with Skype.




If you want to enjoy other YouTube videos about Yugma you can go here.

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Google Sites ROCKS!!!


Just found out about Google Sites. It appears to be the next step in the Google Tools quest to create a world of online application tools.

"Google Sites, a new offering from Google Apps, makes creating a team site as easy as editing a document. Use Google Sites to centralize all types of information -- from videos to presentations -- and share your site with just a few people, your entire organization, or the world." sites.google.com

I must admit that I haven't been able to do much more than create an account but it is an interesting process:

Google asked for my email address. Since it was Google, I thought that I would insert my gmail account (leigh.zeitz@gmail.com). Interestingly enough, when I hit the Return key, Google responsed with "Sorry, we are not servicing this domain yet." 0-;

So I entered my regular email account at the University of Northern Iowa and it took it. Google Sites told me that it would send me an email to validate the email account.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE that the email the sent me said that they had validated the domain, uni.edu, and it had the UNI Panther connected to it? How connected it that? Actually, I looked at the list of the 20 UNI folks who had discovered this before me and it was good to see that some of them were students in our Educational Technology minor.

This looks like a wonderful addition to the Google tools and it will revolutionize the meaning of collaborative writing/invention/innovation.

First thing I did to keep from having to read anything was to jump to YouTube.com and here is a video that was create by the Google folks. It is narrated by Scott Johnston who was the VP of Product Development at JotSpot.com As you may know, JotSpot was purchased by Google a while ago and this is the first JotSpot product released under Google's name.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Great Resource for Techies

Just found a great resource for videos on how to use technology. It is called Ask the Techies. I was amazed by depth and breadth of the videos that are there. It's over 60 videos.