I’ve been remiss at adding new resources to this blog. I’m at the Educause Annual Conference this week and am learning many new things. Stay tuned for future updates!  Visit my Bookmarks link for links to many good resources.

An Adobe employee attended my NMC session and kindly mentioned that Acrobat.com could serve the same purpose as some of the other apps I’ve mentioned below.  I checked it out today, and it looks quite interesting.  Once I play with all it has to offer, I’ll post more information, but didn’t want to leave it out as another good tool.

www.acrobat.com

The following eight posts contain materials from the Web 2.0 session on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at the New Media Consortium Annual Conference.  Each one gives ideas on using  Web 2.0 applications inside the LMS, followed by a tutorial or instructions on how to accomplish what is described.  There are many Web 2.0 applications – click on the link and see for yourself!  I especially like to explore them and find new cool ways to do things. In the Links section of this page, links are provided for each of the websites discussed in the following eight posts.  To avoid information overload and mass confusion, a brief summary of each application to be discussed is shown below. 

• Toondoo – use cartoons to convey messages because… well, it’s fun
• Jing – screen capture and short video capture (less than 5 minutes)
• Screencast – online place to store Jing captures
• Slideshare – online area for PowerPoint presentations which are converted to Flash format
• Authorstream - online area for PowerPoint presentations with audio (limited to 10 presentations in free version)
• Vimeo – online area for students to upload videos, share with class members, and post comments or critiques
• Box.net – online storage area for files – I use it for storing Flash presentations because I can hide the supporting files required by Flash
• Shutterfly – create online groups for classes to view and comment on one another’s images all in the same group

I teach Photoshop.  For projects where I want the students to critique each other’s work, they load their completed projects in a “class”  or share site  created in Shutterfly.  You can create this type of site by clicking on this link.   I’ve also posted links to free Photoshsop tutorials on the web, and other information on this site.  I posted it all here rather than the LMS because it seemed to make sense and kept the LMS cleaner looking.  The tutorials are coming from RSS feeds into my Google Reader, and then I choose the ones I want the students to see, which is explained in further detail below.  The Shutterfly group was made private so only members of the class site can see it.

Toondoo.com is a Website that allows you to make your own cartoons.  The site offers many items for cartoon design, as well as the capabability to upload your own content.  The header on this page was made in Toondoo.  It’s fun to start the class out with a fun activity, no matter how serious the content. Click on the link below for instructions on using Toondoo.

Using Toondoo in LMS

Use Google Reader to share content from RSS feeds with your students.  This is good in any type of course, and would be especially useful in courses where current events are discussed.  Once the RSS feeds are set up, all you have to do is check the content on them, and share the ones you want your students to see.  You can update content very fast and easily.  I use this for my Photoshop class, where I subscribe to free online tutorials, and then share the ones that fit what we are doing in class at that time.  It only takes a few minutes each week, and provides huge amounts of new content to students.  Click on the following link to download a .pdf tutorial on how to set this up.

Using Google Reader to Share Content

An equine science instructor asked me how he could put videos of his students riding horses, online, where other students in the class could see their videos, and make comments. In courses such as this, students can create an account in Vimeo and upload their videos, send the link to the instructor to place in the LMS, and all students have access to each other’s videos.  This would also work well in a digital video production class for short video clips. Rather than storing the video in the LMS, which would get cumbersome after a time, use the link to each of the Vimeo pages.  Instructors of Public Speaking might also find this useful.  The reason for using Vimeo is that it supports movie file formats, and allows the students to create their own space.  There may be others that do the same.  Vimeo does contain a setting that allows the student privacy options to restrict viewing to members of the class.

Sharing Student Video Instructions

When using Captivate to create activities, quizzes, and other interactive applications, the lesson is packaged into a folder with the .swf file that runs it, and all the supporting files.  In our LMS, to run this, I would have to put all the files in compressed format and upload.  The student would then have to download the compressed folder, extract, and run the lesson.  To have a cleaner look, I put all the files in Box.net, and put a link to the .swf file in the LMS, so the student never sees the supporting files and only has to click on the link to download the lesson. 

Box.net Instructions

You may have a PowerPoint presentation with audio that you want to include in the LMS, but since all students may not have PowerPoint software, you can  use authorstream.com to convert the presentation to a Flash file that opens as a simple presentation inside the LMS.  It can be included anywhere in the LMS that you have an iframe (shown as a text box with an html option).

Narrated PowerPoint Conversion Instructions

Jing is screen and/or video capture software that is a free download.  Screencast is a related site for storage of media.  Used together, they have many purposes!  The video tutorials provided in on this site were created using Jing and Screencast.  This software can be used many ways. Following is a useful way I’ve found to use them.

Not all Learning Management Systems have an option to load a picture into the question area of online exams/quizzes.  For example, I want the students to identify different parts of a diagram or screen shot of a software application, but my system doesn’t provide an option for uploading images into the question box.  To work around this, Jing and Screencast.com (free apps), can be used to hold the image, and the image can be embedded into the LMS.

Jing and Screencast