Yes…you guessed it, more DEN Academic Excursion stuff. I found the notebook that I was taking notes in, buried in the rolling backpack that I brought along with me. 120Gb external HDD, extra headphones, 8 plug power strip, USB cables, USB speakers, and power cord for laptop. What else could a guy need to go on a cruise?

I’ve been very lucky to see Steve present for the first time at last year’s DEN National Institute in Silver Spring, MD. Since then, I’ve sat in on a few more and always walk away feeling like I’ve learned something. When I saw that he would be presenting on his Top 7 Free Collaborative Online Tools, I just had to ask him if it was really necessary for me to be there (Thinking: I’m on a cruise, stuff I’ve just seen him present on at NECC, have talked to him in private conversations about, sitting in the pool on the sundeck). I’m glad I stayed as I did learn something. I’ll go down his Top 7 List one by one and add my thoughts to each of them.

1. Second Life: I’ve blogged about my thoughts on Second Life before. I still can’t get over the smut that can be found there. I know Tom…get over yourself. I had a very good conversation with fellow DEN member and DEN SL Leadership Council Anne as we were going down to our cabins following a session. She convinced me in that conversation to basically give it another chance. I’m doing it, baby steps of course. I’ve seen some cool places since I’ve returned from the Bahamas. NOAA and NASA being probably the best 2. Steve used a pretty great term, I’m sure it’s been out there I’ve just not really paid that much mind to it, “Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming”. As an online MMORPG gamer the acronym MMOEG came to mind. Why not? It sounds cool.
2. Bloglines: RSS aggregator to pick up blogs, news and podcasts. This was the first aggregator that I used. Notice the past tense as I’ve just moved onto Netvibes based in part to Jeff Utecht’s recommendation. However, if you are teaching RSS and RSS aggregators to first time users, I would give bloglines my highest recommendation to teach them. It’s very easy to use, very no muss, no fuss to understand. The only thing that I miss the most from bloglines, that I’ve yet to find a comparable feature in netvibes, is the Save as New check box that bloglines has. I found that to be a great tool to refer back to posts that I found had great links to share, etc.
3. Del.icio.us: Social Bookmarking. Can’t really say more about it than that. I still like diigo better with the fact that you can set up groups. Yes, I know you can make private accounts, etc. But the fact that diigo has a toolbar extension for Firefox is my selling point.
4. Twitter: Don’t really have a great name/description for Twitter. I think that David Warlick coined it best when we were sitting in the Blogger’s Cafe at NECC by calling it “microblogging”. It’s a cross between IM and blogging, with a 140 character max that you can use. See my widget to the >>> side here and you will see my twitterfeed. I’ve looked at some people’s twitfeeds, numbering well into the hundreds of people that they follow. Personally my goal is about 50ish that I want to top at out (at 48 now). I’ve learned quite a bit from Twitter so far, dating all the way back to NECC and following people’s thoughts about certain sessions, etc. Definitely see a role of some sort in the educational arena, even above the use by just the adults.
5. Skype: Combination of text, video and voice chat all rolled up into one neat little package. Again, saw the great use of this by sitting at NECC and being a part of a conversation with someone sitting in their Lazyboy recliner at home, while I’m in Atlanta. See “Learning is Messy” blog to see how great of a tool Skype can really be to a classroom.
6. Gcast: Great way to record, upload and store podcasts. Oh yea…it’s free too. Upload your own audio file, or call in via cell phone to record your podcast. Podcast People is out there as well, I’ve not used it, but I’ve read from others that have used it, and would mark it as comparable.
7. Meebo Rooms: Meebo is another cool tool I fell in love with at NECC. For the better part of the last 2 years, I’ve used Trillian as my primary IM chat tool. It was a sad day when I parted with it, even though in talking with Steve after his presentation, he still uses it, but advised to pay for the ‘pro’ version of it. Back to meebo though. Meebo is a web based IM chat client. You can set up for your msn, yahoo im, aim, ICQ and gchat all in one condensed place. But this is the truly cool thing that I found out in this session that you could do with it. You can create ‘private’ channels and embed them into a blog or webpage. Imagine the great conversations students could have from home, from across the room with regards to topics they are studying in class.

Just for the very last part with meebo, I’m glad I stayed to take part in Steve’s conversation with us. The unfortunate part is, that I know for fact already that it is blocked by my school district, along with skype, twitter and bloglines. Time to start hitting the pavement with my district contacts to get some of these nice tools unblocked.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: DEN DNI07 web20 webtools