Technology Learning Community » General

Facebook Goes Back to School

Rachel Wadham — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:36:36 +0000

A long, long time ago–about two years–students filled Facebook and found and “friended” others who were taking the same courses. They shared information and tips. Then in 2006 Facebook was opened up to nonstudents, and class interests got crowded out. A new Facebook program aims to bring it back, allowing members to view their courses and chat with classmates and friends that have opted in to the program. The new wrinkle: the program is going to run through the universities, with information fed into Facebook by the registrar’s office once students give permission. PC World reports that students who join the program, called Schools, can view their course calendar, and if they add or drop a course, changes will be reflected in Facebook as soon as the registrar’s office reports them. Schools also includes communication tools for student groups such as teams and residence halls. Each organization, class, and friend has a page within Schools where students can interact with people. The program comes from a small company called Inigral, which already has a student-controlled course calendar on Facebook called, predictably, Courses. But Schools aims to be more of a social network within the Facebook social network, and the company is now testing it at Abilene Christian University in Texas. –Josh Fischman

Tips for Social Networking

Rachel Wadham — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:13:39 +0000

10 social networking tips for libraries
Sarah Houghton-Jan writes: “Part of Library 2.0 is social software, and as more and more libraries put themselves out there on social networks it becomes increasingly important that we do so in a way that works well for ourselves and for our users. How can we best take advantage of these community-building tools? Check out this blog for 10 great tips.

More info on U3 Flash Drives

Rachel Wadham — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:41:00 +0000

For those that don’t have a U3, but do have a different flash drive with 30MB free, you might direct them to Portable Apps’ version of Firefox (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable). Any of the applications on the site can be installed to any flash drive and then run from their folder on the flash drive. I tested an installation to a generic Kingston drive, and installed Zotero, and everything worked fine. If people have room on their drive and would like a U3-style menu, they can install a full suite of software from the site also (see below for lists of the applications):

PortableApps Suite (Standard Edition): ClamWin Portable (antivirus), Mozilla Firefox – Portable Edition (web browser), Gaim Portable (instant messaging), OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite), Sudoku Portable (puzzle game), Mozilla Sunbird – Portable Edition (calendar/task manager) and Mozilla Thunderbird – Portable Edition (email client) and runs comfortably from a 512MB drive.

PortableApps Suite (Lite Edition): Uses AbiWord Portable (word processor) instead of OpenOffice.org Portable and runs comfortably from a 256MB drive.

PortableApps Suite (Base Edition): If you’d like to pick and choose exactly which apps to include, you can try Portable Apps Suite (Base Edition). This is a stripped down package with just the PortableApps Menu, PortableApps Backup utility and custom folders, icons and autorun. It’s less than 1MB installed, so it’s a great option for smaller drives.

The suite menu should launch in Windows when the drive is plugged in.

Tidbit from Cyndee Frazier

Rachel Wadham — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:36:23 +0000

Take a look at this link to EDUCAUSE Learing Initiative: http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?Section_ID=86 Cyndee Frazier sent this link that provides lots of great information. Take a look at the Learning Technologies section and post any comments or thoughts you have.

Tidbit from Gerrit Van Dyk

Rachel Wadham — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:05:52 +0000

Thought everyone might be interested in this tidbit from Gerrit Van Dyk in the Serials Dept. Take a look at this link and the ideas there and post your comments to let us know what you think!

Here is a link from Mike Stephens’ Tame the Web blog: http://www.tametheweb.com/talks07/HyperlinkedRUSA.pdf

This blog has lots of posts from all kinds of people making it a gigantic discussion on libraries and technology. Mike is a Library 2.0 mover/shaker and the link above is to a recent presentation of his. Also there is a discussion of an Emerging Technologies Group toward the end that seems like what we are trying to do — so take a look!

Welcome to the Technology Learning Community

Rachel Wadham — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:56:10 +0000

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by new technologies? Have you ever wanted to try a new technology but don’t know how to go about it? In an effort to find answers to these and other questions we are establishing an adhoc group where we can learn, share, try, and fail in the use of new technologies. We are self-organizing this group which will be called the “Technology Learning Community” or since we have to have an acronym the TLC. The general goal of our community is to support each other in our learning. The Technology Learning Community will hold monthly meetings as well as maintain this blog for communications. Our hope is that in these contexts we will be able to build a high level of dialogue, interaction and collaboration that will allow us to be creative and innovative with new technologies. Everyone who is interested is invited to participate with us in our learning. Currently, Rachel Wadham is heading the development of this community, but we anticipate that our goals, purpose, and the roles of the group members will emerge over time. If you are committed to the generation and sharing of new knowledge we encourage you to join our collaborative Technology Learning Community. Our first meeting will be in July. Our initial plans is to try technologies such as camtasia, podcasting, rss feeds, blogs, wikkis, and maybe even explore the potentials of text messaging and other communication technologies.