Research Journal Assignment #15

Post two times  in your blog (research journal), using the numbers, letters, and phrases in bold as the titles of your respective posts:

RJA #15a: Word Cloud–Create a word cloud with your research paper using Wordle.  Copy and paste the text from your paper (excluding the identification information on the first page and the Works Cited list) into the top box on the Wordle Create page. Then click on “Go.”  After you create the word cloud and format the font, layout, and color to your liking, be sure you save it to the public gallery.  (The button is at the bottom right of the page.)  Copy and paste the URL (web address) of your word cloud or put the word cloud itself into a post on your blog. If you need help, watch one or more of the following YouTube videos:  “Web Site of the Week – Wordle,” “Wordle tutorial,” “Adding a Word Cloud from wordle.net to your Blog,” or another video about Wordle on YouTube.

RJA #15b: Reflection on What You Learned–Write at least one paragraph about what you learned in this class this semester and how you will be able to use it in future classes and your professional and personal life.

Use the department and course number (ENG 1020 or ENG 122) and other appropriate tags (“Labels” on Blogger) for each of the posts.

Video: “Google Sites Tour”

I didn’t know until yesterday that Google had Sites, which are basically wikis.

Video:  “Google Sites Tour“

Video: “Introducing Google Sidewiki”

Video:  “Introducing Google Sidewiki“

Video: “Web 2.0 in D2L – Protopage”

Video:   “Web 2.0 in D2L – Protopage“

I found this video while I was searching for Protopage tutorials.  The Colorado Community College System will be switching from Blackboard to Desire2Learn next semester, so I thought it would be a good idea to keep track of this video.  I found quite a few videos about using web 2.0 applications in D2L using Blinkx, a video search engine.

StartPages

This semester I’m having my ENG 1020 classes at Metro and my ENG 122 class at Red Rocks use aggregators to track RSS feeds of news and blogs that they find in the process of their research.  I debated between having them use aggregators like Bloglines, which I use, or startpages like PageFlakes.  I decided that my students would probably enjoy setting up a startpage rather than using Bloglines.

I created an account on each of the following startpages and tested them, with the following results and conclusions:

• mysurfpad.com–I couldn’t find a web address specifically for my page, which eliminated it as a possibilty immediately.  I need to be able to see my students’ pages.
• Netvibes (my public pages)–I have separate public and private pages, which makes it too complicated.
• Pageflakes (my public page)–Apparently each page has to be made public individually, which again makes it too complicated.
• Protopage (my page)–When you sign up, you can designate your page as public or private, which is much easier than either Netvibes or Pageflakes.  It’s also easier to create widgets with RSS feeds.  It seems to have a good help section, but I wish I could find some tutorial videos in English for my students to use.

I’ll definitely be using Protopage for my classes.

My 2000th Bookmark

Today I created my 2000th bookmark in my Delicious account:

• Panabee
  Panabee is a faster way to search and compare sites. See results from Google, Bing, Twitter, Amazon, Wikipedia, and others with one click. View sites side-by-side.
  (tags: comparison metacrawler research)

It was included in an earlier post today with other bookmarks I created today.

Presentation: “Integrating Social Networking & Web 2.0 Applications into eLearning”

Presentation:  “Integrating Social Networking & Web 2.0 Applications into eLearning“

TweetGrid

Earlier this week, I posted a list of “Web-Based Tools for Searching Twitter in Real Time” in which I wrote that I liked Monitter because you could use it to “track three keywords at the same time.”  At the time, I had only tried TweetGrid’s search function and not its dashboard that searches up to ten keywords and updates in real time.  It also has party and widget options.  I’ll definitely be using TweetGrid more in the future.

I found several videos on YouTube that show and tell how to use TweetGrid:

• “Tweetgrid: Filter the Twitterverse in style!“
• “Twitter Tweet Grid Tutorial“
• “Twitter Guide to TweetGrid“
• “How to use tweet grid – Basic“
• “How to Watch Multiple Streams of Twitter Tweets Simultaneously with TweetGrid“
• “Twitter Tools“

Web-Based Tools for Searching Twitter in Real Time

After trying Monitter, I thought it would be nice to make a list of web-based tools that can be used to search or track trends in Twitter in real time.  Here’s what I’ve found:

• Collecta
• CrowdEye
• itpints (searches Twitter and other sites, including YouTube)
• Monitter
• Scoopler (searches Twitter and other sites, including YouTube)
• twazzup
• TweetGrid
• TweetMeme
• tweetzi
• Twitter Power Search
• Twitter Search
• TwitterTroll.com (not working when tested)

For me, Monitter has the advantage because you can track three keywords at the same time.

Are there any important ones that I missed?

Video: “Track Twitter trends with Monitter!”

Video:  “Track Twitter trends with Monitter!“