Klout, Klouchebag & Sponsored Tweets

I feel soooo old and out of touch!  How had I never heard the word Klout before this semester...?  How on earth did I exist, survive, thrive even, with no Klout?  I always thought I wanted clout, heck maybe even lots of clout.  Sigh... never knew I was supposed to hunt Klout instead.



Well, doing a project in my analytics class led to a more in-depth introduction to Klout.  My group actually used a case study focusing on the use of social media analytics, which is really interesting.  As much as I would rather just share the xtranormal video with you, this one seems a bit more thorough!  What's your score?  I'm going to assume I don't have one, since (I think) I managed to keep my Twitter account private.

Community Facilitation

In order to find some additional information on our discussion topics this week, I searched a bit and found this terrific ScoopIt! called online community facilitation.  Some of the articles are really interesting; I especially benefitted from the 'using data to prevent rules violations' and 'choosing an online collaboration tool' sections.

Bugs are Bugs...?!

I've been thinking about infectious, zoonotic, and vector-borne diseases recently... and about what examples of eye-catching media I might share with students in the future.  I remembered seeing this video a while ago, but of course it took me a while to track it back down.  Be warned, this video is gross- but fun!  I certainly don't envision students creating something exactly along these lines, but it should at least serve to get them thinking outside the box and maybe even considering this sort of project enjoyable (oh, the horror...!).

Thank Goodness for Tutorials!

Wow, I am now crazy excited for Popcorn Maker!  I have had a hard time figuring out this week's technologies... why on earth I didn't search for tutorials earlier, I have no idea!  At any rate, this video offers a great walk-through of creating mashups at Popcorn Maker; I did find a few quicker versions or more succinct 'tips and tricks', but I needed something a bit more step-by-step.  Hope it helps if you were looking for any review of this technology- it sure helped me get it!

Assessment of Students in Web 2.0 Authorship

As we discussed assessment this week, I decided to hunt some resources that might help me better design and implement assessments in the future.  There are SO many interesting articles, reviews, and even companies focused on student assessment in an online environment; it's almost overwhelming...  One journal article that I found very interesting recognizes student use of web-based authorship tools and forms, and discusses the challenges that educators now face in academic assessment of these student efforts.  
 

http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/gray.pdf

Pipes

I have had a challenging time figuring out the Yahoo Pipes technology this week... I can't seem to get the search function on the website to work; has anyone else had this experience?  I'm not finding pipes that are functioning in ways that would be professionally useful to me, so I've been a bit frustrated.  I did find one super neat pipe for movie trailers (I am a HUGE sucker for movie trailers... although sometimes they contain all the good parts of a movie, don't they?!):

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=9KUs2CRI3hGF2JCZ3rVd_w

I think it will be interesting to read others' experience with Pipes and see if anyone has better luck than I have had...!

Collaboration Tools

This is sort of carry-over from the discussion boards... about various collaboration tools and ways that groups might most effectively be able to work together online.  I like the Blackboard tools just fine; I've never had any trouble with them.  I don't love google docs; I find that the lack of formatting and editing abilities within the document just lead to more work.  And have you ever gone in to see that somebody took apart everything you did yesterday...?!  That can get sensitive quickly...

Recently I have started using a very simple screen sharing tool for a few projects:  https://www.join.me/

This tool allows primarily for screen sharing and audio or text-based conferencing.  What I like about it is the simplicity.  Users only have to go to the website and enter the nine-digit code that the meeting originator provides them.  No software installation is necessary.  Then the meeting originator shares their screen, and participants join via phone over internet or text in an on-screen window.  Since I am sharing my screen, I can pull up documents, ask questions of the people that need to contribute to that document, and make changes immediately.  It seems as though not being able to share controls could be a drawback, but sometimes I find too many cooks in the kitchen slow things down.  Everybody can see the document and offer feedback while the person who is screen sharing makes the changes.  Less painful (in my opinion) than learning Monday morning that the lone missing group member finally showed up Sunday night and rearranged everything in the google doc... yikes!