06.27.06
Google Portal and Gmail
If you’ve been dying for a Gmail account but haven’t had the right friends to invite you, you may be happy to learn that Google Accounts are now somehwhat open, at least, if you have a mobile phone (which also may explain why my Gmail has slowed down a bit…grumble grumble).
Have you noticed that the Google search page can be personalized now?
- Go to Google’s homepage and click on the “Sign In” link in the upper righthand corner.
- Click on “Create an account now”
- Follow the instructions to obtain your Google ID.
- Click on the “Personalized Home” link on the top right corner of the Google Homepage.
- Then click on the “make it your own” link under the search box.
- There’s an “Add Content” link in the upper lefthand corner that allows you to choose from a wide array of RSS feeds or feel free to add any RSS feed you’d like!
Pam
Free Tutorial Creation Software
Carol Phillips received word of this freeware product from another IT person on campus who sai: “I found some free software that I’ve been playing with. You can capture computer screens and mouse movements, then edit the frames to add cometary and navigation buttons. When you are done, you can render a Flash movie to show it in a browser. You can also export as a PDF and the navigation buttons work in the PDF. They have a new 2.0 version that came out this week that adds audio recording and editing.”
Check it out here: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/
–Pam
Customizable Library Webpage Article
New articleof interest in the latest version of College & research Libraries:
Usability Testing of a Customizable Library Web Portal
Steve Brantley, Annie Armstrong, and Krystal M. Lewis
CRL 67(2): 146-163
–Pam
Gaming
For those interested, the April issue of Wired magazine has a special section on gaming. A few of the articles are online, for example, “You Play World of Warfcraft? You’re Hired! Why Multiplayer Games May be the Best Kind of Job Training” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html
–Pam
Library Podcasting Examples
>Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:45:06 -0800
>To: cyamus@lists.oregonstate.edu
>From: “Steve Watkins” Steve_Watkins@csumb.edu>
>Subject: Library podcasting examples
>
>As a followup to our discussion of blogs, wikis and podcasting,
>here’s one academic library that’s started a fairly active series of
>podcasts that may be good examples of the potential of that
>technology:
>
>http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Borrowing/Podcasts/
>
>–Steve
>
>Steve Watkins
>CSU Monterey Bay Library
>100 Campus Center, Bldg. 12
>Seaside, CA 93955-8001
>(831) 582-3793
>steve_watkins@csumb.edu
–Pam
Developing Tools for LMS – T.I.F.
Sent to Pam by Carol Phillips:
There is an on-going effort on IMS TIF (http://www.imsglobal.org/ti/) - Tool Interoperability Framework. The hope is to enable adoption of tools of different LMS’es into others with ‘minimum’ effort of re-engineering; i.e. Bb’ers can use WebCT/Sakai/Moodle tools thru a B4 (Bb Building Block) and vise versa. This will really encourage CSU campuses in favor of different LMS’es to co-op on developing “common interest” LMS tools, and, perfectly, in open source.
If you are interested, email me to join this blog: http://ims-tif.blogspot.com/
Cheers -Max
–
Max J. Tsai
Development Lead and Integration Specialist
Digital Campus, California State University, Fresno
