WEEK 10 Thing #23

These are my closing thoughts on this Classroom 2.0 Learning program:

• Web 2.0 tools are indeed useful in education, especially for students in the 21st century and who are internet-savvy.
• Students will be more engaged in learning at their own pace and more self-motivated.
• Many tools are useful and easy to learn, e.g. Zoho Writer which allows for collaboration in learning.
• In the course of learning about the various Web 2.0 tools, I can see examples of how these tools are used, and how I can implement them in my own teaching.
• This has been a useful course in my learning journey!

WEEK 9 Thing #22

eBooks are digitised books, normally in pdf format. Project Gutenberg is a free collection of eBooks and audioBooks. AudioBooks are useful for those who like to listen to books being read while they are travelling or engaged in some other activity. They are normally recorded in mp3 format.

WEEK 9 Thing #21

Podcasts are audio or video recordings that can be shared by linking them through RSS feeds. It can be used as audio book or tutorial for teaching a particular skill. Jing can be used to capture the steps in learning a software, with voice-over. This can then be shared through Screencast.com.

WEEK 9 Thing #20

YouTube is one of over 60 video sharing sites, but it's the most popular. One grouse is the long downloading time. To overcome this, start the video first before the lecture, so that when it's time to show it, hopefully the video is fully streamed and there will not be disturbing breaks in between.
Here's a short video from YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-vs98dAoc). I like the angelic voice of the boy. The singing is ethereal:

I remember once after a student used YouTube in his presentation, there were other "related" videos that were listed; and one of them was on an unsavoury subject, and the other students were clamouring to show that video until I asked the student whether that video was in any way related to his presentation. This is the distracting part of YouTube. Of course, we can always download first the video onto the harddrive for teaching purposes.
I have also attached a learning video on perspective sketching (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PmlVdZNCDg) into my module MeL site:

WEEK 8 Thing #19

LibraryThing allows us to catalog our own private library books, and at the same time, know whether anyone shares the same library. I tried listing 3 books (www.librarything.com/profile/critcrat), but got none who share similar interests.
This tool is useful also for listing any private collections and sharing this list with friends or publicly. In teaching, I could list the library books which are relevant to my module/topic and have students access the listing (with library access codes) so that they can then borrow the books from the library.

WEEK 8 Thing #18

Zoho Writer is free and you don't have to download the software. What's interesting is you don't even need to save your document on your harddisk. This means you can access it anywhere, plus, you can have collaborators to work on the same file and add comments in the document.


My grouse with MeL Blackboard's Digital Dropbox is there is no interactivity with students, i.e. I cannot comment or correct their assignments and let them read and revise them. With Zoho Writer, it's all possible!

WEEK 7 Thing #17

Played around with Educational Sandbox wiki. This uses Wetpaint. It's so easy to edit, add photo and video from other sites or harddisk. You can also insert a table.

Wiki can be applied to MeL. Suppose students are given an assignment to research into a particular topic each. At the end, they post the document into Digital Dropbox. We can change it to a wiki assignment. Each student will post an article in wiki, together with relevant pictures and videos. Other students can update, edit or add on to the article. Marks can be awarded for the research work as well as contributions to others' articles.

This is definitely easier to mark than to open each file in MeL. Also, the lecturer can give his 2-cents worth, and include some comments.

WEEK 7 Thing #16

Wiki is a fast way to build up an information database where people in the community get to create, add to or edit any subject. There is no control of what is written; each member in the community can be author and can correct others' entries.

Over time, the information would have undergone many changes and upgrading. With a responsible community, this information will become stable and more authoritative.

Wikis can be used for library cataloguing and content guides and course management. E.g. students can be asked to contribute to the history of design movements as an assignment. Marks can be awarded for contribution, editing errors, etc.

Examples of wiki farms include Wikispaces and Wetpaint.