Alvin's Educational Technology Blog

I started a new pilot today. UF is comparing Elluminate with Wimba. We used Elluminate last semester. I had the training for Wimba today and I start using it in class tomorrow.

Both of these programs are synchronous tools designed to create a face-to-face class experience for an online class. On the surface both are similar products that run through a web browser. With a headset microphone one person can talk to the entire class. The interface allows sharing of presentations (PowerPoint, pictures, Flash, movies) in addition to applications. As the presenter, I can run Excel on my machine and share the application with the class. Everyone can then see my desktop. I can even pass control of the application to someone in the class.

Wimba has one feature that I liked. In the session, there is a phone icon. If someone has a problem with an Internet connection, he/she can dial a phone number, type in a passcode and be right back in the discussion via the phone.

I haven’t had experience running a session with Wimba. That will happen today. I’ll give you a report once I’ve taken it around the block a few times.

Protopage still rules.

I have been exploring other options for my start page: Pageflakes and iGoogle. The basic functionality of Protopage leaves them all in the dust. No other site has the flexibility of resizing windows and infinite placement on the desktop.

Pageflakes and iGoogle lock you into three columns of equal width. That doesn’t work for me at all. In addition, too much desktop real estate is used by the borders on the windows.

Here are things I use a lot.

Links – I have about 50 that I use all the time. I have three groups – UF – Personal – Current Courses.

RSS Feeds – I have two windows of feeds – Tech News – Education News. These windows are big enough that I can read abstracts of article. I have about 30 feeds total.

Notes – I use Protopage to write notes to myself all the time. I keep my notes from phone calls, emails, courses… just about everything. I use a window that looks like Notepad. Anything important goes in. When it’s done I delete it. I can leave myself a note while I’m on the office computer. It’s on my start page when I get home.

I don’t use widgets. I have link to weather for my area code. I can look in the corner of my Windows desktop to see the time.

In my last post I was concerned about the load time of Protopage. I found out that the others are just as slow if I load the same things that I have in Protopage. It’s the RSS feeds that do it. I tried moving them to Google Reader, but it complicated my life too much.

I’m sticking with Protopage. It does everything I need and does it nicely.

Imitation is best the compliment.

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a “citizens’ compendium of everything,” is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a co-founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on that model by adding “gentle expert oversight” and requiring contributors to use their real names. As of May the 13th, 2007, we were working on over 1,815 articles.

I would hope that all 1815 articles are spectacular, especially when being compared to Wikipedia’s 1.8 million.

I do wonder what a “real name” is. Will someone run a “wiki background check” on each author? At any rate I wish them all the best. The more resources we have, the more chances our students will have to compare and contrast.

I hope the masses never decide what is fact and what is fiction based on the number of hits in a Google search.

Try this. Type “recieve” into Google. It looks like 13 million people have misspelled this word. Would you “beleive” is at 4.8 million? “Noticable” is hardly noticeable at 2.1 million and “aparent” is anything but… at 1.1 million.

Hopefully we never write a dictionary based on mob rule.