Arts & the Social Web

Introducing the eLearning Wiki

2007-11-15T01:29:06Z

At our last session, I introduced the group to a project I've been working on for the last few months - the elearning wiki or, as it's affectionately known, the "Test Tube".

A wiki is a lot like a Google Doc, people can collaborate on each page, adding or editing the contents through their web browser. The main differences are that a) a wiki is made up of many pages, linked together, and b) people collaborating on a wiki can not only add text to or format an existing page, they can even link pages together and even create new pages "on the fly".

The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia. The Test Tube aims to be a sort of local wikipedia where people can share ideas on using web technologies in academic life, especially teaching. The hope is collaboratively express and refine the know-how we collectively build up in the course of experimenting with these technologies.

On Tuesday, I handed out a guide to getting started in the wiki, which (like everything in this course) is a little easier than you might expect. It's available from the link below:

* Getting started with the elearning wiki

Introducing the eLearning Wiki

2007-11-15T01:29:06Z

At our last session, I introduced the group to a project I've been working on for the last few months - the elearning wiki or, as it's affectionately known, the "Test Tube".

On Tuesday, I handed out a guide to getting started in the wiki, which (like everything in this course) is a little easier than you might expect. It's available from the link below:

* Getting started with the elearning wiki

Session #5: Publishing Podcasts

2007-11-15T01:17:48Z

Last Tuesday, Charles Humblet from here at the META Centre showed the group how to set up a new podcast series on the Faculty of Arts Podcasting page, and make it possible for students to subscribe to the series.

He also showed us how to add a new podcast "episode" to the series, and showed us some examples of podcasts that have already been created by staff in the faculty for teaching purposes.

Charles distributed step-by-step guides on both these topics which are available from the links below:

* Creating a Podcasting Series (Step by step handout)
* Adding a Podcast Episode to an existing Series (Step by step handout)

Follow up from the Podcasting workshop

2007-10-31T00:57:09Z

At the end of the workshop I referred to an example of a video created from powerpoint slides; this example can be found on the TeacherTube site-What is Podcasting?. You may find that the pace of display of each slide on your computer is a bit too fast for reading. Placing these slides in a podcast constructed through Garageband (or any other podcast creation software) would allow individual allocation of appropriate display time for each slide.

During the workshop we used iTunes to search for, subscribe and listen to/view podcasts. We then used Garageband to create a podcast. See the guide on how to use iTunes and Garageband.

]]> Finally some examples of podcasts in Higher Education (which I had included in a previous email):
• Dr David B. Miller’s iCube podcasts, for an undergraduate psychology course at the University of Connecticut. He is using podcasts to communicate with students, have “pre-casts” and post-casts” before and after lectures and publish his lecture recordings.
• examples of podcasts created by students in the Communication Studies Honours course, "iGeneration: Digital Communication & Participatory Culture" run at the University of Western Australia. Scripts of the podcasts created by students can be found in their class blog. The podcasts can be accessed by clicking on links such as [iLecture/Lectopia Download - Mp3 - 42.9Mb] under the blog posts.

Session # 4: Podcasting

2007-10-28T11:35:05Z

Next Tuesday's workshop will first examine the different types of podcasts and the use of iTunes to view and subscribe to podcasts. We will then use Garageband to develop our first podcast.

There are three types of podcasts:
1. audio podcasts [example: http://www.edupodder.com/podcast/podcastdemo.mp3],
2. enhanced podcasts (audio recording with visuals), and
3. video podcasts.

Garageband comes free with all Macintosh computers. It is primarily a software program that allows everyone to create music (a garage band being a group of amateur musicians). It is a mini audio recording control room, with multiple tracks for different instruments and vocals. These tracks also allow voice recordings, music and/or graphics to be combined to create podcasts.

In the workshop, we will be creating an enhanced podcast.
If there is a specific topic you would like to develop in your podcast, please bring corresponding graphics to the workshop; otherwise, we will create a podcast on a generic topic and musical tracks and images will be available on the lab computers for it.

Google docs homework

2007-10-24T06:26:49Z

Several people asked for us to provide a homework exercise to give people a chance to practice what we covered in our last session. So, we've come up with this fairly simple set of tasks for everyone to do before we meet next Tuesday. Altogether, it shouldn't take more than 45mins at most.

]]> 1. Think of a question you'd like the rest of the group to answer.
2. Log in to Google docs (http://docs.google.com) and create a new document with this question in it.
3. Invite me (jtauber@usyd.edu.au) to collaborate on the document, and I'll invite a few of other members of the group to respond to your question.
4. Naturally, you yourself will get an invitation or two from me to contribute to other people's documents.
5. Once you've got your invitations, open up those documents and answer the questions that others have written for you.
6. Here's the twist: on one of those documents, instead of answering questions, your job will be to vandalise the page in some way by adding or deleting text, moving paragraphs or words around, adding an unconnected image, inappropriate highlighting etc.
7. Keep an eye on your own document, undo the vandalism – using the Revisions function – and deny the vandal access to your document – by removing them from the list of collaborators.
In order to get this activity completed before our workshop, it's important that people set aside a little time tomorrow to create their google document, and send me an invitation.
If you have any problems, let me know.

Session #3 - Google Docs

2007-10-17T05:46:45Z

This week's workshop was on web documents or "web docs" for short. These are online word-processing documents which can be edited from any computer with just an Internet browser, and enable multiple people to edit the same document at once.

We went through the process of creating a web document with Google Docs, editing it, publishing it to the web and inviting others to collaborate with you in writing or editing it. The guide to using Google Docs is available online.

We also discussed ways in which the technologies we've looked at so far (blogs, social bookmarking and web documents) can be combined and used in teaching, research and administration.

Session #2 - Social Bookmarking

2007-10-10T05:38:09Z

This week's installment focused on social bookmarking web sites. These are web sites which enable people to store their bookmarks online, categorise them using tags, and share them with others.

We showed participants how to set up an account with one of these sites, called del.icio.us, and took them through the process of creating bookmarks, tagging them, and creating networks in which to share them. See the Social Bookmarking guide for all relevant instructions.

Preparation: In preparation for this session, we asked participants to have a look at the following short video introduction to social bookmarking, which is available on YouTube.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

After you've watched the video, we asked everyone to take five minutes to post a comment on their own blog about what you've seen, and to respond to the following questions: Does social bookmarking look like a helpful tool? How would you describe social bookmarking to someone who didn't know what it was? Can you imagine how it might be used in professional/research/teaching context? (Don't forget to include a link back to the video.)

This workshop was first run on October 9, 2007

Session #1 - Blogging

2007-10-04T04:53:24Z

The first workshop in our series was focused on blogging. We introduced participants to the University's blogging facility (Blogs dot USyd) and some common features of blogs. We also got everyone set up with their own free blog on Google's Blogger service.

The guide to setting up a blogger blog are available online (in pdf format). Please feel free to comment below on your experience of using blogs to communicate in a teaching, research or administrative context.

This workshop was first run on October 2, 2007

Welcome to Arts and the Social Web

2007-10-03T03:04:37Z

Welcome to our blog. This blog is for people participating in the Arts and the Social Web workshops, and anyone else interested in using modern social web technologies - e.g. blogs, social bookmarking, wikis or podcasts - for teaching, research or administration at the University of Sydney.

Social networking and collaboration technologies are rapidly becoming the backbone of the web, and already play a central role in the online experience of our students. They are also increasingly being integrated into our students’ educational experience.

In October this year (2007), the META Centre will run a program for staff who wish to become familiar with these technologies and learn to effectively incorporate them into their teaching. The program aims to help participants explore the way these technologies can be combined to create a collaborative learning space. Participants will get experience in using these technologies over a number of weeks in a safe environment. We will show you how to go beyond the limitations of WebCT and use the tools themselves to develop some online communication and collaboration strategies specifically for their discipline.

The workshop will be run by the director of META, Marie-Thérèse Barbaux, and educational designer, Justin Tauber.