TDU E-Learning Blog

Over the last few weeks I’ve been looking at Evernote as my tool for taking notes. Last night I came to the conclusion that I am now addicted to it.

Evernote allows you to take text notes, graphic notes, photo notes and audio notes. These notes are then uploaded to the Evernote server where they live online for you to retrieve when you need it. Granted, you don’t always want to go to a website to take notes, so Evernote comes with a sweet set of tools!

• Evernote PC Desktop Client (a great replacement for notepad!)
• Evernote Mac Client
• Evernote for the iPhone
• Evernote for Windows Mobile 5 & 6 Devices
• Evernote Firefox / Flock extension - Great for making web-clippings! (and it stores the source)

Evernote synchronizes your notes across all the different clients allowing you to always have access to your notes.

You can categories your notes into notebooks (think folders) and can also share any of your notebooks.

Evernote has FREE as well as Premium services. The FREE service alone is pretty good and makes Evernote a handy productivity and learning tool.  Here is a comparrison between FREE and Premium:

Here’s a few things that I use Evernote for:

• Interesting Quotes
• To-Do List
• Recording Attendance of a Youth Group
• Web Clippings, for research.
• Photos of Audio Settings on a Sound Desk
• Code Snippets when I develop software
• Quick-Reference Sheets when I work with different Software and Web Services

I am sure there are many other things that I will use it for in the future, but these are just a few practical examples which might cause you to think of your own uses. Please let me know!

Three expert consultants in the E-Learning field, George Siemense, Jay Cross and Tony Karrer have organized the second annual on-line Learn Trends conference.

Here is a line-up for this year’s conference:

• Alvaro Fernandez: Brain Fitness for Peak Health and Performance
• Dave Gray: Visual Literacy, Learning Innovation
• Kevin Wheeler: The Future of Talent
• Dave Pollard - Working Smarter: Improving the personal productivity of knowledge workers.
• Dave Wilkins - The Amazon Model and Forum Model - the intersection of LMS and Learning 2.0
• Jane Hart - 25 Free Tools Every Learning Professional Should Have in their Toolbox
• Mark Sylvester - Social Networking as a Strategic Part of Your Learning Strategy
• Nancy White - Online Social Architectures - Networks and Communities
• Robin Good - Best Online Collaboration Tools for Learning
• Tony Karrer - Work Literacy - Implications for Learning Professionals
• Jay Cross, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, and Clark Quinn: Learnscape Sandbox
• Marcia Conner and Jon Husband: ROI of Web Learning
• Allison Anderson: Corporate Learning Ecology

I’ve had the opportunity to have seen some of these presenters at past conferences and am looking forward to seeing their key notes in the virtual space.

This conference will run from 17 - 21 November 2008.

To sign-up, visit the LearnTrends 2008 Sign-up Page.

Spread the word to those who don’t read the blog. This conference is well worth it!

Mindomo is a tool that allows you to do your brainstorming collaboratively, on-line and anywhere.

Here is the official description:

“Mindomo is a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, delivering the capabilities of desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser - with no complex software to install or maintain.

Create, edit mind maps, and share them with your colleagues or your friends.”

The free version allows you to create anunlimited amount of mindmaps, that are publically viewable. If you prefer to keep your mind maps private, the free version only offers you 5 free private mindmaps (unlimite for the paid service).

If you are looking to do mindmapping and not collaborate (boring), you can still make use of another freebie called: FreeMind.

I got this scoop from one of my RSS feeds and thought I’d share it with everyone who have heard of Web 2.0 and would like to get their hands a bit dirty and actually find out what it means.

The entire learning experience will be happening inside a ning network (this is a social learning space using the NING webservice)…

You can join as a Spectator (learn), a Collector (dig a little deeper) or as a  Creator (get your hands dirty with the tools).

CLICK HERE TO JOIN

The Scedule for the 6 weeks are as follows:

• 29 Sept - Introducing Social Networks
• 6 Oct - Free your Favorites / Bookmarks
• 13 Oct - Blogs
• 20 Oct - Aggregators  [RSS things]
• 27 Oct - Wikis
• 3 Nov - Implications of Web 2.0 / Summary

Give it a go… What do you have to loose?

CLICK HERE TO JOIN

Original scoop from: eLearning Technology Blog

Here’s a list of 5 great tools that allows for video conferencing.  I will also mark those that does not require any downloads, which is ideal for conferencing with easy to anyone (even those friends of yours who might still be trying to figure out how to e-mail properly).

Skype
Still my personal favorite, because I use it for calling International land-lines. It simply is my all in one VoIP solution. Having the video functionality is a bonus, but not my primary use.

TokBox (no Dowload, unless you want to!)
This was one of the pioneers in the field of “no-download” conferencing… REALLY REALLY simple web-based video conferencing that anyone can use. Log-in, send an e-mail to your non-tech savvy friends… they click on the link and soon you’ll be “face to face”

ooVoo (client only required for initiator)
New comer, but worth a try. They support 6-way conferencing as well as recording your conferences. Primary use is using an ooVoo client for ooVoo-to-ooVoo users, but the client also allows you to send ‘ooVoo Chat Links’ to non-ooVoo users, which ends up working just like TokBox.  My favorite feature is the number of users, though video recording has it’s purpose too.

SnapYap (no download)
Like TokBox to some degree, but I’ll let them explain it: “SnapYap is a video communication tool that allows you to participate in live video calls, record video messages, and send and receive video emails with absolutely no downloads. Designed to be as straightforward as possible, the applications on SnapYap.com make video technology available to anyone with a webcam and an internet connection.”

SightSpeed
SighSpeed offers two flavors, the free personal client and then a commercial client for organisations. SightSpeed certainly spent a lot of time on stability and video quality, rather than interface. It might not look as pretty as the others, but it is a worthy contender.