Don’t be without Karen

Read the Web version of Power Tools online, get her wonderful tools on CD.

• http://www.karenware.com/newsletters/2007/2007-09-06.asp

Learning About the Web in Plain English
Having a background in computer engineering has been a great boon to me when it comes to blogging. … I have had an edge from being genuinely interested in the technology behind how things work and finding ways to get them to work for me. But it can be very hard to try to explain how technology works to other people. That’s why I’m such a big fan of the “in plain english” series of instructional videos on [...]
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/learning-about-the-web-in-plain-english/

offers some additional tutorials.

These would work best if not on dial-up. So, I tried to track down the great tutorials that can be downloaded and saved. These originally came from New Zealand (Life-long Learning tutorials, http://www.cit.ac.nz/smac/csware.htm), developed by R. Brian Brown and were mirrored in various places. I bookmarked these for you at the edublogs.org collection

• http://del.icio.us/edublogs

(see sidebar).

Here is a list of mirrors which may be up to date.

• http://lifelong.freeservers.com/csmirror.htm

• “Self Study Guides Currently Available”
  http://learnat.sait.ab.ca/cit/cscourse.htm

• http://physinfo.ulb.ac.be/cit_courseware/

or

• http://physinfo.ulb.ac.be/cit_courseware/ma200/tutors.htm

Here are mirrors available through the Wayback Machine but not all are complete.

for example,
Learning HTML Basics

• “Welcome to the Central Institute of Technology’s free online self-study IT courses
  mirrored at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.”
  http://web.archive.org/web/20010301212755/goforit.unk.edu/

“Self Study Guides Currently Available”

• http://web.archive.org/web/20010203135500/cit.rcc.on.ca/cscourse.htm

8051 Microcontrollers 80×86 Assembler C Programming Data Communications Data Structures Embedded Systems Excel 2000 Hardware Introduction – I Hardware Introduction – II Internet: An introduction Internet Management MS-DOS Networks: An Introduction Operating Systems Pascal Programming PowerPoint 2000 Research: An Introduction Windows 2000 Server Windows 3.1 Windows 95 Windows NT Server v4.0 Word 2000 WWW/HTML/Multi-media Unix Visual Basic 6.0

• “JPM Asia Pacific Institute”
  http://web.archive.org/web/20010309114305/www.etraining.com.au/llcourses.html

Social Bookmarks:

Site Search Tags: newbie, tutorials, Life-long+Learning, html, Internet, guides, //engtech, Lorelle

Scot’s Newsletter makes a good point.

3. Don’t unsubscribe because you’re going to use the RSS feed instead. The SFNL RSS feed is meant as a convenience service for subscribers only, not as a replacement for your subscription. Please, there’s no future for a newsletter in RSS distribution. If I were to focus on that, I would just transform the newsletter into a blog and send you a newsletter notification. I’ve polled the newsletter’s readership on that very point — and you’ve said loud and clear you don’t want me to do that. At the very least, keep your subscription and use it as a notification to check your RSS reader.

10 Things Good Newsletter Subscribers Shouldn’t Do
—————————
Scot’s Newsletter
—————————
Operating Systems. Broadband. Issues. Reviews. Info You Can Use.
July 2007 — Vol. 7, Issue No. 92

By Scot Finnie

Read the neater website version of Scot’s Newsletter!
http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/92.htm

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Site Search Tags: scotsnewsletter, RSS, newsletter, Email, blogs

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As far as the

PLEASE ASAP!!!

I suggest you start at the beginning of where you are then proceed at a rate you are comfortable with. Some things you have to learn yourself and the Internet and computers are examples of those.

Refdesk is excellent for many things. Start here. http://www.refdesk.com/factbeg.html

after you know the terminology
“bare bones 101: A basic tutorial on searching the web” http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/pages/bones/bones.shtml

“The Whole Internet User’s Guide & Catalog” is old but still relevant (for advanced beginners) http://www.archive.org/details/wholeinternet00krolmiss

From The NSDL Scout Report for Math, Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2007. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Internet Mathematician [Microsoft Word, rtf] http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/maths

Internet Mathematician is offered through MathGate, which is part of EEVL: the Internet guide for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing and based in Information Services at The University of Birmingham. The website “is one of a set of free tutorials within the RDN Virtual Training Suite, created by subject-specialists from universities and professional organisations across the UK.” The tutorial offers tips on Internet searching and suggests ways to evaluate the resources you find. Some pitfalls of Internet searching, such as the cost for subscriptions on some sites, the reliability of information, and the sheer volume of information are also discussed. Throughout the website are periodic quizzes and suggested websites (some of particular interest for mathematicians), which can be added to a “links basket” for retrieval later. The “reflect” section offers three scenarios for practical ways a mathematician might use the Internet. The Teaching Pack section provides materials that can be used in a classroom or workshop on using the Internet. A Glossary also reviews some Computing and Internet terminology. [VF]

16. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: Internet Guide [pdf] http://www.unece.org/highlights/internet_guide/ig_index.htm

This online guide, published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, aims to “lead teenagers to discover the Net and show them how they can use the World Wide Web in a safe and fun manner.” The guide is presented from a fictional standpoint of four students who met on a foreign exchange program. Upon returning to their respective countries, the students learn to use the Internet to stay in contact with each other. Leading them on their journey into cyberspace is their professor, with whom they had all studied under during the exchange program. Many Internet essentials are covered, including netiquette, safe online practices and scam identification, features of the Web, and more. The 64-page document is available in English, French, Spanish, and Russian versions. [CL]

Lorelle VanFossen is starting a series on BlogHerald, http://www.blogherald.com/2007/05/21/web-browser-guide-for-bloggers/

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plus others

I am a newbie to edublogs. I heard about this site during an English conference this past weekend. I really like it, but I’m unfamiliar with all the things going on here. I’m high school teach who hopes to use edublog for my classes. I’d love to see faq page or if someone can point me in the right direction to get oriented with this site I’d appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.
Posted: 2006-10-18

#

there isn’t a faq but this may help

1. ask questions
2. search the forums first before asking a question that’s already been asked and probably answered already
3. visit these:
http://archive.org/download/Wordpress_Posting_Video_1/wpposting1.1.swf
http://archive.org/download/Wp_1.1_links/wplinks1.1.swf
http://archive.org/download/WP1.1._Presentation_2/wppres1.1.swf
4. experiment with your blog, change the themes, make some posts, encourage visitors to it, and share your work.

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Some of the questions to ask are already in the forum.

Also, be very aware of the distinctions between commercial blogging platforms and volunteer (typepad and blogger vs wordpress, for example.)

Dario.be is a volunteer platform; small number of users; run by an individual.

Blogsome is similar to dario.be, more users; much less support than edublogses or wordpress.com; much greater allowance to mess up your individual blog (i.e., change of the scripts; add javascript) etc.

For most teachers/schools who wish to have absolute control over a non-Internet (by definition) blogging platform, I would suggest using WordPress MU on your own local server. It’s free. However, it does require an investment into the school’s tech support, including user support. The alternative is to invest in the proprietary webCT or Blackboard or First Class.

Blogger (blogspot.com), MSN space, MySpace, etc. may indeed be the best for bells and whistles, not WordPress. However, blogger/blogspot has severe reliability shortages as well.

Also, re: spam. Only Blogger (and TypePad, a commercial host) still uses a CAPTCHA (type in the funny words). This does NOT eliminate spam. All the wordpress blogging platforms use Akismet, which shuttles what it thinks is spam into another area (if you the blog owner tell it to.) If you moderate comments then the email you get is clear as to whether a legitimate comment or spam has been left.

Also keep in mind that the most reliable system is one you pay for at your own hosting server. If you have the money, Typepad or Moveable Type or one of the others on a secure, redundant server located in a major metropolitan area is best.

2A] Posted: 2006-10-29

I wanted a blog because it’s easier than doing the coding myself. Ideally, blogging should be like using a typewriter: you think of something, you type it up, badabing, it’s online. When you spend too much time dealing with the mechanics of blogging then you’ve essentially given up the advantages that blogging was supposed to provide (i.e., less thinking about technical aspects of webpages).

My primary reason for using edublogs in the first place was the fact that hardly anyone else was, which was important to me since it’s essentially neutral ground in my work with different blogging communities.

I also went with edublogs because this was my first blog and I thought it would be better to be on a community full of other first-timers; however, I barely used the forums and mostly figured out stuff on my own.

As for spam, I don’t want to auto-close trackbacks or comments since I’ve actually had people wanting to discuss posts weeks afterwards. A lot of my posts are also densely theoretical and the discussion on theory blogs tend to last a lot longer than on other types of blogs. I am wondering where the Akismet plugin is, since it’s certainly not on the plugin page, where one would think to look for it.

Anyway, the only thing left now is for me to decide where to get hosted. I’m not afraid of scripts, so there’s that out of the way. I like the idea of the greater flexibility on Blogsome, actually. I’m also considering Blogiversity. It’s like edublogs but you actually have to prove that your blog will be an academic blog and it is of sufficient quality. I’m not sure if I like the whiff of elitism that much, but there’s also Anthroblogs, which is specifically for anthropologists. Or I could just get hosted on my friend’s server space, though that’s more of a backup plan.

2B] Posted: 2006-10-30

That is why I encourage people to think about why they want to blog. There are many venues and people do indeed move as their needs change (I certainly have).

The two group blogs you mention I think might fall into the multi-user type of platforms. The specific software differs between them.

Many or most of these did not exist even a few months ago. (e.g., dario.be Even Wordpress.com only opened recently to anyone.) I would check the number of users for these hosts and who is the owner. Easy come and easy go.

One significant factor for those wanting a semi=permanent or public face– choose the blog name carefully. Anthroblogs will stick you with the A-word, maybe not such a big deal if one’s life is only other anthros however the A-word alone is sufficient to ban people from jobs they are otherwsie qualified for. But this is a topic for another forum than edublogs.

3] The other needed area, I think, is something along the lines of Philosophy, not so much a “how do” as a “why do”. This is essential before a blog is used (so one knows what is needed to set up the thing) and should continue to be re-thought as people use the blogs in their teaching.
http://edublogs.org/forums/topic.php?id=479#post-1960

————————–

6. Encourage teachers to become a part of the virtual world.

According to Guhlin, the education necessary for Internet safety isn’t really about sites like MySpace, though. “It’s how to be ‘digital citizens’ and get along in the virtual world we have all created,” he says. Districts need to help teachers get over their fear of the unknown-in this case, the online unknown. San Antonio, for example, has successfully introduced teachers to blogging. The district held teacher workshops and set up a Web site, http://itls.saisd.net/scribe, where students and teachers share their work.

7. Use the many Internet offerings that can contribute to educational creativity, but do it inside a “walled garden.”

San Antonio has blogs, wikis, podcasting, and image gallery access for its students and teachers, but those Internet tools are on school servers. For example, instead of teachers using a site such as blogspot.com, where the next blog is just a click away, San Antonio installed b2evolution, a free “blogging platform.”
http://www.schoolcio.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604300

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