And Yet Another (basic) Collaboration Tool...

If you want a very simple approach to documenting collaborative learning consider ClassChatterhttp://www.classchatter.com/). The user interface is primitive by current standards, but the tools are easy to use, secure, and private. It comes with a free edition, which “… offers free blogging and web tools for teachers at all levels of education.” Personal blogs created by students in ClassChatter are “… viewable to the entire class or just the teacher (at your option), and visitors can make posts or leave comments as well.” There is also a space for group work “… where students and teachers can share ideas while discussing a common topic.”

Assignment Blogs allow:
….teachers to post assignments for the class and later grade them in a private secure setting. Students can work on assignments over multiple online sessions and then submit them when they are finished. Teachers can subsequently grade the assignment, offer guidance or comments, or return the assignment to the student for further work.

cMail is an e-mail-like option which provides an internal means of exchanging messages without the need for e-mail addresses, similar to features in PBWiki and Wikispaces. While the creator of ClassChatter characterizes it as a site for protected blogging, it seems to me to be more similar to use of a private wiki, offering the same basic features and the advantage of being easier to setup a class workspace.

ClassChatterLive (https://www.classchatterlive.com/) is a considerably more sophisticated version, with upgraded features, such as the ability to upload and distributed podcasts, electronic drop boxes, and permanent archiving. ClassChatterLive is available for use by all teachers in a school for a single price, $150/year; an individual account can be purchased for a fee of $30/year.

Another Collaboration Tool

Ive been working on a manuscript for several weeks and have reached a point where I need to find an easy and free way for contributors to share there stories and/or case studies about using free Web 2.0 tools to support teaching and learning online. Show Document, mentioned here previously, works pretty well for synchronous editing, and allows edited files to be downloaded in PDF format, using a GUI similar to WiZiQ's tools, but doesn't support file storage for distributing documents for asynch operations. After a short search, I found Box.net, a file storage operation, that has a free "lite" version, which allows file storage for asynchronous use by invited "editors and" "viewers." The file owner sets the access privilege when collaborators are invited. This seems to fit my needs rather well. During the file upload process I can capture the embed code for a widget that allows readers to access the file in any application that accepts the HTML code (see below). Box.net offers some additional collaborative features, including a disucssion board.

Rollover the file icon to see the upload date, capture a file link, download , or preview the file contents, or use the Menu tab for other options. Try it and give me your feedback as comments to this post. The sample file contains a list of Web 2.0 tools that are discussed in my manuscript. If you use any of these tools and would like to contribute a vignette or case study about how you are using them to support classroom instruction or eLearning, please contact me through http://k24x7now.ning.com/

3-D a Reality?

An early effort at making 3-D web sites ubiquitous is now available from ExitReality (http://www.exitreality.com/). The premise is simple, the implementation is difficult – create an interface that allows every web page to be viewed in 3-D. Try if for yourself. Download the free ExitReality plugin “…that allows anyone to view every web page in 3D”
View the introductory video and try it out using the “Visit any website in 3D” URL box or the “Web 3D Search.” Some sites clearly site work very well, others poorly. Try launching the 3-D version at http://3d.exitreality.com; sign in, choose an avatar and take a stroll around the Plaza. Navigation is simple compared to Second Life; use the arrow keys or hold down the right mouse button. Download the plug-in; installation is simple by following the instructions. When installation is complete, the ExitReality icon will appear in your browser tool bar.

At the time I was writing this, ExitReality was still in beta, so there was little to see and few users to meet at the site.It does allow you to include audio files, as I learned on a visit to “Hades.”I suspect it will follow Second Life in supporting live voice chats, possibly using a third-party multi-voice application, such as Ventrilo (http://www.ventrilo.com/).

Will the Smart Phone Take Over the (Virtual) World?

Many Web 2.0 applications and gadgets originally written for computers have been, or are being adapted, to run on smart phones. As the cost continues to drop, more and more applications useful for teaching and learning will, if the iPhone experience is any indication of trends, be integrated into smart phones, with video podcasts , social networking , internet searching, and blogging leading the way.

The small form factor limits their utility, but can be remedied with the addition of a Bluetooth laser virtual keyboard and a pair of video goggles for a large screen viewing experience; a pricey solution, but already available and almost certainly the precursor of more effective add-ons to make smart phones an all-in-one solution for entering the virtual world. When you search the web for video goggles, you will find that there are already models available for a 3-D viewing experience on the iPhone.

Formerly relegated to scary movies and Massively Multi-player Online Games (MMOGs), 3-D is becoming increasingly popular for television and the Internet, where Linden Lab’s Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com) leads the way. JoKay and Sean FitzGerald’s wiki page, “Second Life in Education,” (http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses) is a great place to start your own investigation into a 3-D version of a classroom.

If you are a Moodle user, most of the work has already been done. On its web site (http://www.sloodle.org) Sloodle describes itself as "...an Open Source project which integrates the multi-user virtual environment of Second Life^® with the Moodle ^® learning-management system. … Sloodle provides a range of tools for supporting learning and teaching to the immersive virtual world; tools which are integrated with a tried and tested leading web-based learning management system.” The illustration from Sloodle (http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/sl/index.php/) shows how it works:

Sloodle has a growing user base, but it’s too new to have generated a substantial research base, so its effectiveness as a teaching tool is untested. Students (and geeky adults like me) will love it, administrators and parents will be more skeptical nd probably resist it, so tread lightly. It’s close integration with Moodle, for which there already is a large community of users, suggests Sloodle will set the standard for the entry of 3-D Web applications supporting teaching and learning in the virtual world

A (semi-)Random Walk on the Web

If you are not sure what you are looking for in the Web World, SimilarWeb (www.similarweb.com/) is a Firefox Add-on that can be very helpful. After download and installation, a SimilarWeb icon appears in your main toolbar.


When clicked, it opens a sidebar on the left side of your browser screen, in which sites similar to your open page are automatically displayed in one of three formats: a thumbnail; list, or small icon. For example, if you were looking for a web analytics package other than Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics/) and had found Woopra (www.woopra.com/), the SimilarWeb sidebar List View will show a list of similar sites, as shown in the illustration below.


Try using SimilarWeb in conjunction with StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com/) for a really wild trip through the Web World.

Ning-ing a New Social Network

This called learning by doing -- to learn about Ning, I used it to set up a social network - "A place for all educators to share do's and don'ts, notes, tips, and tricks about technology applications for teaching and learning." It has the same name as this blog - visit it at

http://k24x7now.ning.com/

If the topic interests you, please join.

Speech-enabled Blogging

Today, I received a comment to my last post about Talkr suggesting ReadSpeaker as an alternative. As you may infer from the new "Listen" button under the title of each post, I'm giving it a try. To visit the ReadSpeaker site, you can use the above page link or the ad link which appears when you click Listen button.

In keeping with my "Free is Good" theme, I'm using a "free" edition, the price of which is the ad buttons. ReadSpeaker is available in three other ad-free editions with varying features; costs range between 39 and 149 Euros with ad buttons, significantly more costly without.This an excellent solution for bloggers who want a "barrier free" site. Intended for individuals and small businesses and currently in Beta, ReadSpeaker appears to be a scaled down version of WebReader from VoiceCorp International BV.

After registration, installation was simple: Fill in a short form, choose a male or female voice, and click a couple of buttons. In my case, using ReadSpeaker's Blogger widget made editing a gadget in the Blogger Layout--Page Elements quick and simple, no HTML coding required. Saving the gadget put a Title in my sidebar and a Listen button for each post. Installation is much easier and more goof-proof than for Talkr. No feed reader is required, only a sound card with speakers or a headset; three of four minutes of button clicking, a bit of text entry, and you're in business.

The conversion from text to voice is reasonably good, still recognizable as a computer, but understandable without difficulty. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it reads my entire page header text before each post. Obviously, I could shorten this text or eliminate it entirely -- but I don't want to. I suspect I will be hearing from the ReadSpeaker folks shortly with instructions about how to limit the audio output to posts only.

ReadSpeaker supports four languages, with more promised in the near future. With the Listen button clicked, you can both listen to a post or click a link to download the audio file. Since Quicktime is currently my default player, I was given the option of saving it as Quicktime movie. In effect, I can use this feature as an on demand, quasi-podcast or convert and re-publish the file as a true podcast through iTunes.

Since this is considerably more diffucult than the Talkr approach, unless I missed something, for the blowner ReadSpeaker and Talkr serve different needs and listening styles. For the moment, I'll keep both as blog enhancements, at least until someone comes up with a version that seamlessly combines the features of both.