Reflection Post on youtube v. 2.0 * pick something to learn * FINAL

There are other ways of searching. If you look at " search options" in youtube, and you click on search option, you will a lot of result types. Here are examples of result types. You can see by  

 

result types, sort by, upload date, categories, duration and features. What I am saying is that you can choose whatever you like about your search option. 

 

For instance, I chose " result type is vdo; sort by view count; upload date this week; categorieseducation ; duration short; features all

http://www.youtube.com/results?uploaded=w&search_category=27&search_query=google+docs&search_duration=short&search_type=videos&suggested_categories=26%2C28%2C27&uni=3&search_sort=video_view_count

My way of search on google gives us recent google doc vdo. If you do not choose " this week" but you choose " this month", you will see lots of vdos for the whole month.

Search is important because with some technology, you need to learn the most recent version rather than the very old one.

YOUTUBE HELPS US SEE THEM ALL !

Reflection Post on youtube v. 2.0 * pick something to learn *

If I want to learn about any topics, I can search from youtube as it has the collection of VDOs in my expert fields. It is not always true that in every topic, there is always youtube vdo on it but since youtube is free knowledge base, it is good for you to explore with simple search.

For instance, let's say if I want to learn about " how to use google docs", what I should do is to type the word " google docs" in youtube search. Then, what I will see is a lot of information on google docs in different topics related google docs, such as google docs basic tutorials,etc. Those keywords convey that some people have posted google docs with those keywords so it is there. For example, keywords like google docs tutorial, google docs in plain English, etc. Those keywords are easily seen when you type google docs because the youtube search engine has picked it up. I do not know why but to my experiences, I think it depends on number of searches. If people have searched a lot with those keywords or people view a lot, you will see those keywords come up in youtube searchbox when you type the word " google docs".

You can also type google docs with other keywords which you did not see in search box, such as google doc iphone. You do not need to limit yourself to what you see in youtube search box. You can definitely search with new term because it is right there but because youtube tends to pop up with the keywords which people like to search often and/or which people viewed often. I do not know the real logic of search popped up but I guess what my experience of usage.

The best way to learn is to use the right keyword, such as google docs tutorial or google docs.
There are other vocabs such as " what is google docs?"  or " google docs with sharing options".
There will always be something you want to learn about google doc in different angles or use.

The best tactics is not only to search with the right keywords but also to refer to number of views.
It does not necessarily mean higher number of views means better or more effective vdos. But, there is a high chance that vdos will be quality vdos given that there are many viewers. We can also look at comments in google docs to see if there are positive comments or negative ones. Comments help rate the quality of vdos. If possible, please look at year the vdo is made. Although it does not say year straightforward, it says XXX months ago the vdo was produced; the implication of year is very important here. Earlier year may usually tell  the older version or the basic introduction. Later year might be the recent one. It is all dependent on how each of us finds ways to explore. My approach would be to find out what google docs is first. After I know what it will mean then I will try with keywords , such as " basic", " intermediate", or "advanced" etc.  Sometimes it is great if we type the word like " tutorials". In this case I tried to type intermediate but I did not see one. I only saw basic tutorials or google docs with spreadsheet. " Advanced "and "Intermediate" keywords can be used with some other learning topics but not with google docs ( after I started typing I saw nothing).But, it is always good to use "tuitorial", " introduction", " basic", " intermediate", and "advanced".

Also, remember the type google docs with s.   Another type is to see the number of minutes or length of VDOs. That helps you picture how long you will be taking your time to watch it.

Reflective Post on Other Elearning Tools

Although I am extremely tired tonight, I just found out that there will be another blog post on elearning tool due on Nov 22. So, I have to finalize my post before I forget and since I am leaving to Boston and won't come back till Dec 1, 2010, I need to do what I have to do to get my grade from Dr. Katherine. I decided not to select any specific tool because if I post something related to facebook too much, then I am afraid that Dr. Katherine will think I copied my own book published in Thailand. Skype and Google docs were my post during my first few weeks of the course. I did write on youtube post, so there is no more to write. Camtasia can be boring because it limits to certain VDO post. So, I came up with the idea tonight to frame elearning machanism for future elearning generation who might have limited budgets but would like to learn from online sources.

Here we go:

Google Books ( Books for elearning)

http://books.google.com/ 

I believe that Google Books are the great elearning source. I did not really use it much until now I started using it especially tonight Dr. June, professor of organizational behavior,  assigned us to research any topics related to OB. I chose effective leadership in crisis. To get ebooks for free at lowest cost, I decided to go tonight to google books by looking at

" crisis management", and there I found many crisis management books.

This was one of the books I found tonight.

http://books.google.com/books?id=5BZ_Jc6hJ18C&printsec=frontcover&dq=crisis+management&hl=en&ei=SbjTTPSALYrTnge-wPTfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

What makes elearning interesting is that with google book site offer lots of ebooks there. Some of ebooks are given away for free whereas other ebooks are only displayed in certain pages.

After I look at google ebooks, now I think it is not enough for my elearning tonight so I am going to youtube now to find out by putting keyword " crisis management".

Let's see my experiment. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=crisis+management&aq=f

Now I find different crisis management info on youtube. But, do I trust youtube completely? 

No way. There is sometimes false representation on youtube. It is better for us to look at credible source such as youtube documenting series of talks by Steve Jobs or someone whose credibility is high. Even that it is better to cross check because there could be false misrepresentation so to speak.

I think this is NOT enough because I have to find some ways to write blogs about elearning, so I decide to go to facebook and look for crisis management by typing keyword search. What I find out is that who is talking about crisis management on facebook and other information about crisis management on facebook. It is interesting to find friends from social network reading this topics. That's the way to get information from social networks. Isn't that beneficial to find people whose interest is the same. ( It is great so that you can ask them information on it ONLY IF THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT).

Why do you want to have social network friends if you are not interacting with them.

Ok it seems not enough. We gotta do more. Now I go to twitter just for fun right after searching on facebook. * I recalled that twitter is becoming popular search besides google search *.  The world now has started searching on words of mouth.  The world is crazy now. They trust word of mouth more than PR released directly from companies.

Now I see this twitter search under my keyword.

http://twitter.com/search#search?q=crisis%20management

There we go. We saw lots of folks talking about crisis management now while I was typing.

Nothing is enough now because my head is spinning at night to finalize this homework.

Ok, I decide to now go back to itunes university.

Here is information about itunes university. 

I have to credit my friend, Cheeptham Kumvisate, who introduced me to itunes university.

He learned by itunes university. I myself did not trust itunes university much unless I think it is the famous school with famous professors in key areas. Schools, of course, promote themselves thru this channel.

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/whats-on.html#itb-topten.

Itunes University is run on Podcast. Itunes University is in your apple itunes application.

Now there is another thing called open university run under Itunes University. I found this open university on my own.  Open University is similar to youtube education channel except that it is on Itunes University which allows you to view class lecture in longer hours.

I now try to search  " crisis management" and I found many universities. For instance, MIT and Harvard talk about this topic. It is great to listen to professors without spending money to attend real classes. With virtual classes, it is great but I think it is not enough without google books.

In case we want to see which books are great, what we can do is to go to dig out more information on PDF file by visiting website like http://www.pdffinder.com/ to find out more about PDF.

There are some websites like limewire.com, frostwire.com,etc. Limewire is peer-to-peer mechanisms of elearning( peer-to-peer sharing / learning). Basically you can download other people's files from the network but the judge ordered to close it now.  There are constraints on the right to use information.

Going back to Open University, I can not help mentioning MIT Open Courseware, ocw.mit.edu.

They put lot of information on power points on ocw.mit.edu. You can look at MIT courseware and find vdos on Open University in Itunes University. Basically, my proposal for you is to match VDOs from google books, PDF.com, youtube, open university, information suggested by facebook, information tweeted by twitter..... you will be able to learn a lot because twitter and facebook will give you information on instant update on crisis management at the same time other tools will give you information.

After we learn those tools, guess what we have to use skype or oovoo.com to conference call with friends and classmates to ask them. You can definitely use skype and oovoo to write paper together with your teammates, and then you can go to camtasia or youtube to record your project to present to classes. So, imagine if you are distant learner, you can still present your " presentation" in virtual world which definitely helps.In addition to that, if you want to share your document/presentation with friends, you can share by using facebook group, twitter, interactive blog, slideshare.net and scrid.com

What I like to emphasize here is that I do not want to use any specific tool.

Let me sum up the process of researching, generating content, presenting and releasing content.

1) Define your " learning topic"

2) Go to amazon.com to find books in ranking 

3) Use Google Books to get free books ( and if your language is not English, then use Google Translate) Or dictionary.com. If you have iphone then use dictionary on iphone.

4) Go visiting VDO library like youtube, itunes university, open university....along the way, running search facebook and twitter....

5) Go to MIT Open Courseware to look for courses related to " Crisis Management". Better looking at syllabus

6) Go to Skype and OOVOO to do conference call with your pals/ classmates

( assume you find folks who understand crisis management. Just conduct interviews using skype) You can run group interviews on skype and oovoo, but you have to pay for it.

7) After that, when you learn " crisis management", you have to pretend that you can present in virtual world. Then, you use camtasia or podcast to present yourself. Afterwards, you need to store your document in PPT or word in slideshare.net or scribd.com

8) you release your knowledge via all social media channels....youtube, twitter, myspace, facebook, etc.

I think this is enough now. I have covered elearning tools tonight.

I think social media is great for elearning. We gotta learn from society.

Then, we got to back up by books and articles!!!.

Another way to back up source of information is to go to e-library. For instance, you can go to Pepperdine library.  http://library.pepperdine.edu/

Afterwards, if it is not enough, what I suggest you to do is to http://e-library.net/ to look for more references. And, if it is enough, go to find webboard. Get the interactive one to chat.

 http://crisismanagementforum.com/index/

If it is still enough for elearning, then form facebook fan page and group page to chat only this topic.

Pepperdine VDO we made!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yguo--mGcw

Reflection on youtube usage

Last week we did youtube together with our classmates.
Here is the youtube vdo from our 25 classmates.
The power of what we made was to do it together with 25 people to create youtube vdo about us. 
It took us together in about 4-5 hours with all concepts of storyboard, research, and all workload. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yguo--mGcw

Heidi, one of our classmates, spent 7-8 hours on editing this vdo. I need to give her the credit on that.
Besides that, I would like to give credit to ChiChi's husband who came all the way to shoot VDO for us professionally.

As for my reflection on youtube blog post, I believe that youtube is such a great vdo library for students everywhere in the world to do their research. I consider youtube as VDO world library which is great source for students, and professionals.Youtube, to me, is like Wikipedia of VDO. However, youtube might not have references in complete sense. Wikipedia is gathered by different editors and writers whereas youtube is done by the owner of that youtube account or a small group of people without the work being edited and refined like Wikipedia.

When we look at youtube VDO library,  the greatest benefits of youtube are as follows:

1) it is a great place to inform the world about vdo.  Like in our case, we are able to put together Pepperdine Leadership vdo and release to the whole world of international community. Everyone in every corner of the world who has access to the Internet can see our classmates' face in our VDO. Without youtube, we will have a hard time trying to release the influential VDO to the world. Of course there are other providers like VIMEO but that is less popular with number of viewers.

2) Youtube is free media tool. If we look at cost of social media, we can see that it is free of charge. So, many corporations use youtube channel for release information with pictorial illustration. For instance, home depot uses youtube to release information about their firms and equipment, so does Starbucks.

3) youtube can be interfaced with other social media tools such as twitter, facebook, email, etc. By its interfacing with other social media tools and other email tools, youtube vdo can be watched by social network, enabling the speed of vdo release to our friends and families who can be reached by facebook, and twitter. The world now has changed with youtube's social media interface. People can watch things faster than before. In the past, we had to wait for broadcasting and vdo tapes to come up  but not anymore nowadays.

4) youtube can be tagged with certain names, or categories which allow search engines to track and to search for vdo. As a matter of fact, when you search my name in Thai for instance, there are many VDOs popped up under my name. That's easy for people to watch me or find out information about me if I tag my name. Just today I uploaded my trip to see monkeys in Lopburi, Thailand, now my classmates who follow my blog can see if I cut and paste link here....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3NkX7sFK9Q. Now they can see how monkeys in Thailand are.
With youtube vdos, we can promote travel to Thailand or our culture. Youtube is not only social library where people can comment and share but it is the medium of cultural transmission.

5) For a person who looks for past news, they can find that youtube is a very useful source of news because it records the past news and documents it. For instance, when I want to look for news about Thai political crisis, I can go look at youtube. If I go to websites, sometimes I can find vdo but sometimes I can't. So, going to youtube is a place to dig out old vdos of Thai politics, especially when we want to compare domestic and international news on Thai politics.

6) For music lovers, youtube is a great place for people who have no chance to see broadway or opera to go to listen to rare music or to watch and to listen at the same time.

7) youtube does offer free movie channel for people to watch movies. 

8) youtube offers embedded code which helps web designers/ bloggers to copy embedded code and display on their website.


Dark sides of youtube are as follows:

1) People with bad intent can release nude vdos very fast and a lot of time youtube does not sensor that part. I tried to type something related to nude vdo just to illustrate on my blog post, and what happened was that they asked me if I was over 18 years old. I clicked yes, then they let me see inappropriate scene. I am now pondering if kids pretend to be adults and look for sex related content vdo on youtube, what would happen to our society. Crimes .... etc. Although youtube has policy of prohibiting porn vdos, I see some contents which are not straightforward sexual action. However, it leads youngsters to commit sex crime. Please read youtube's community guidlines:  http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines

2) youtube, once posted, is released to the whole world. The world is recording it. Therefore, right of privacy and concern has to be considered. Before, when there was no VDO site like youtube, it is hard to find audit trail or track record but now things have changed. VDO can be audit trail to trace back about a person's background.

3) youtube does takes a lot of time to upload VDOs, and it has limit of minutes to be uploaded.

4) With youtube screen, sometimes it is hard to see which vdos are priority or should be seen first. The file collection has not been organized in a way that it is easy for viewers to view.

5) I found out that some vdos in youtube might be in false representation because the VDOs might be edited and changed it in a way to mislead people especially when it comes politics news or some news which are important for countries. Youtube can be used as a viral marketing of rumors to reach mass targets of audience within short period of time. 

I believe that world is changing. That's why so many people uploaded VDOs to youtube.
If you look at Susan Boyle's song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk, there are over 50 million viewers.

Or, if you look at Connie Talbot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNoiVrJDsE&feature=related, you will see over 80 million views.

In my opinion, I do not think British Got Talents Show is that famous internationally. But, when youtube about the singers on the show was released, people all over the world recognize this show.
The international viral marketing has changed the whole world of communcation over the Internet !!!

Looking into elearning, youtube can be used as a tool to teach all of us.
For instance, I used youtube to teach students about building personal vision.
http://www.youtube.com/iamorapak#p/u/23/T--9g-XlqFA
The beauty of it is that I can teach the rest of Thais without repeating classes again just by uploading vdos. I hope I can teach in English and post on my youtube channel. It will be great if I can teach in English and translate in Thai as subtitle. I hope in one day youtube has merged with google translation and whatever I teach in whatever language will be translated and dubbed in other languages.

The world of education will merge with the world of entertainment via youtube.
Talking about edutainment, I refer to the term by my understanding...
education + entertainment = youtube
So far, youtube has youtube university channel. http://www.youtube.com/education?lg=EN&b=400&s=pop. I think this is a start of the journey of edutainment but it is not the end of it.
There should be more entertainment part in my mind.

Another part I like to add is that the beauty of youtube is the web board. People can comment on youtube vdo openly but the dark side is that sometimes people can be rude and silly, and worst we do not even know who they are. They can use username like h45fasfasdis and you don't know who that is. In the new world of social media,
we are allowed what we call " freedom of speech" but at the same time many social criminals can get away without being penalized. What are e-norms? In some days, we might have police on youtube. But, if there is such an e-police, then the world will not live freely over the Internet.

That's for today. Today is Nov 4, 2010. I just want to handle my blog post before this coming Monday because I have a lot going on to do.

Experiences Learned from Google Docs ( Continued)

More experiences gathered from using google docs.
I realized that when I looked at revision history, it was very difficult to understand who changed what. Although revision history stated who changed what. To me, it was still difficult compared to PBWorks. I felt the interface was still difficult for me to understand and if someone clicks to restore, the version will go back to the version we choose to restore but the problems are that we want to remain some changes others make.What I am saying is that if we want to delete some changes A makes but we want to remain what B changes, it was difficult to see how I am going to keep the editorA , and the editorc work changes without keeping part of changes B made. It is really hard to control the paper once the big big group edits together. In case we all 5 people edit at the same time, and let's say that our group has captain who has power to override the rest. What I mean is that if I want Ora to be the most powerful editor or chief editor, what am I going to do here? Of course not.
Google Docs treats everyone on an equal basis.

Apart from that, you only need to have gmail in order to use it so it is a waste of time for group participants which do not have individual gmails. They have to go to open a new account. I believe that google doc should support hotmail, yahoo mail,etc but again it is company's strategy.

There is no calendar linked or planned calendar for team collaboration. There should be calendar alert for team collaboration. For instance, if I said " whoever changes my sentences has to alert me", it will be better for me to monitor my words. In case someone changes it, google doc has to alert me that editor A changes my words. You know why. Sometimes some words are very important to someone but someone else.

There should be post-it paper noted that this sentence or this is paragraph we need to focus as our team's first priority. If the member does not act on that priority, the system will alert the second person to do the work instead. Or, there must be a subtask of edit which a person has to do prior to moving into next pages of work.
There is no priority of tasks assigned on edit empowered by googled doc.

When people do not have much time to work together, there should be tracking alert of work by series of due dates. Say paragraph 1 has to be finished by date XXXX and ora is responsible to close with her summary or to check APA style. Paragraph 2 has to be finished by date XXX by another person. Mindmap should be helpful in this to confirm the check of final closing

Experiences Learned from Google Docs

Google Doc is an online document which you are allowed to use if you have gmail account. Google doc is not only a place where you store your document file but you can use google doc as a collaborative tool to share word document, excel, powerpoint with users who can be public users, or private users. Google Doc is like an online storage which we have space in sever without being charged. You can store word, excel, powerpoint, pdf, etc in google docs. From time to time we can collaborate and help each other edit/revise our papers together at the same time we can store paper after we edit to re-edit together online or even to load our research paper to share with public audience to edit or to view. Although google doc is very useful for us, it has weaknesses as follows:
1) There is no page number on google doc. So, we do not know how many pages we have
2) There is no track change so when you want to edit, you can not see original text next to new phrases/ sentences
3) There are no names assigned who write what.So, it is hard to know who write what sentences. In terms of measuring productivity, we are not sure who contributes the most. There is no tracking of productivity and efficiency.
4) There is no line number so when we chat in chat box, it is hard to communicate which line we are talking about. If there is line number, it will be more helpful when we edit.
5) There should be online face-to-face box similar to skype so that we can do conference call or vdo calling seeing each other face while we are editing.
6) I suggest that we should have mindmap to create collaborative ideas from google docs, and it will be great if we know who generates which idea so that our group or teacher can know who has done what. Easier Grading!
7) There is no project tracking or progress tracking. It will help us function more effectively if there is a tracking of what we have done, so that we can plan more effectively on working on google doc.
8) There is no place to divide tasks and subtasks. It will be great if we can have task lists next to google doc. It will help us focus on the right tasks needed to be accomplished first.
9) There are no files /images or anything to store in file to refer to. In PBworks, we can store files or images to refer to but with google docs we do not have that.
10) It is good that google doc is allowed for public share by giving URL link. It is great because people can release their news by using google doc and posting on facebook fan page instead of puting web link on fan page. Companies save costs on their web cost. Same web link can be generated by publishing google doc.
11) Google doc should be fed into blog or RSS. It will be great if Google doc can do that.
12) There is a lack of web publishing tool for google doc. Word doc can be saved and published as web page. But, google, the most it can do, is to release web link but not whole published web page.

Please read next.

How to use Google Docs

My ipad learning experience shared on TV channel in Thailand

In the future, the world will use tool like ipad to learn about anything.
In the future, I believe there will be a learning technology which makes our lives easier than ipad and kindle. Maybe something similar to ipad or kindle but you can use it as a phone, conference call, etc.......whenever you want to listen, to eat, to talk, to do anything... the machine will customized to your life style and remember everything you do or your say. It will be more than calendar because it will make you function like robot + human. When you speak to it, it will speak to you. Human might think less than before...in some aspects.

Today is Oct 12,2010. Let's see if my prediction is true.

Mozart for e-learning : the future of music e-learning.

Listening to Mozart makes people feel more relaxed and take breath.
Maybe there should be a page to listen. Students can have customized page...for their own music pooling from youtube.

Even for music class, e-learning students can listen to music.

Music E-learnin !

Benefits of PBWorks

For all versions...

1) Time saving for collaboration
2) Cheap for startups
3) Test bed for new products / brainstorm on new products
4) Paperless tool ( minimize use of paper)

PBWork VDOs ( how to use)

PBWorks version 1.3 ( performance measurement)

In fact, when I look at model like http://www.ideastorm.com/ ( Dell Ideastorm) and
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/

It is great if PBWorks can incorporate ideas of students/ collaborators and put them on votes in order to create the list of idea executed.

With polldaddy.com or surveymonkey.com, you can generate polls on students' idea or whatever which needs consensus to be reached.

Google Book and PBWorks

I believe that it is good idea to link google book to PBWorks for the purpose of e-learning. Google Book, and Google Translator have to be tied to PBWorks, at the same time library, wiki, dictionary and encyclopedia need to be there.

PBWorks Version 1.2

I would like to refer to " Lessons in learning, e-learning and Training" book written by Roger C. Schank.

On pp 7.0,
" Principle # 1: Just-in-time information delivery makes information useful...Or, dont tell people things that they can not immediately make use of.

What I can see from PBWorks is that we can have JIT information delivery by students' clicking on sending emails with PBWorks. In reality I do not believe that every information people put on PBWorks is all equally important. Therefore, PBWorks does not actually rank importance of document/idea. There should be a feature that important ideas are ranked and email can be set as automatic email alert instead of clicking one by one. It is tiring. PBworks, although prioritize ideas, does not send email based on priority of tasks so to speak. In real world, no one has time to read everything. How can PBWorks solve this problem?

PBWorks Version 1.1 ( continued)

If PBWorks is linked to ocw.mit.edu, that will be great.

Looking into MIT Open Courseware, I believe that if we can incorporate courseware into PBWorks, this will love more. Because students can download courseware in PDF file and link it into their ideas. Not only that if PBWorks is linked to online museums or libraries, students can refer to those PDF file, online library, online museums, etc as their references.

If we think of PBWorks as shelter or frame, we can link courseware, library source, museums, apa style writing references, encyclopedia, dictionary, wikipedia, etc....
The more PBWorks is linked, the more students are motivated to learn of course.

In order to create learning environment,
1) there need to be timely feedbacks
2) there need to be sources available
3) there need to be vdo, dictionary, wiki, apa, etc for students.
4) there need to be time schedule together with task assigned
5) there need to be a checker and a marker. Teacher checks on students

What I do not like about PBWorks is boring interface. Sometimes people feel the interface is boring. I believe PBWorks can be created in a more robust way.

PB Works version 1.0

PBWorks is a very good online social collaboration tool. For instance, we can use PBworks to collaborate on working on different projects. PBWorks fit business, education and personal purpose.

PBWorks is one of social network collaboration tools.

Unlike Blog, PBworks allows more effective collaboration in timely manner. Blog is dead and comments are dead and dry like web board because blog is static whereas PBworks allows more lively information input in the front page. Comparing facebook and twitter to PBWorks, PBworks lacks some aspects of social media integration to fan club or to events arranged. However, PBWorks help people work on collaboration with various tools such as on editing page, PBWorks has tools which you can edit word, link to HTML, link to youtube, create table,etc. Looking into facebook and twitter, yes those social media brainstorms ideas but the fact that they have no extra tools on keeping collaboration and comments, we can not create identity of tasks to do on facebook or twitter. With PBWorks, you can use edit menu to edit papers together, to create topics/sub topics for discussions, etc in organized ways which facebook and twitter can not do. You can not create aligned organized piece of work on facebook. Facing140 letters, twitter can not do much more than posting direct marketing and linking to specific websites or youtube vdo.

For Business side, after downloading business version of PBWorksto use, I realize that there are many benefits of using PBworks.

First is the online real time chat like skype or MSN chat which helps people collaborate better and effectively; the real time chat help me get immediate feedback. If you compare PBWorks to wavenet, Pepperdine Wavenet also has a chat room which is great but I believe it is better if chatroom is built like facebook chat or PBworks chat. With window on right side, chat will work better than wavenet putting chat in the room. But, that’s just my opinion.

Second is the project management dates which allow people/ collaborators to update the due dates of projects and tasks. Although there is not grant chart / bar chart to see due dates. With PBworks business version, you see due dates of each tasks. So, every collaborator knows what tasks are done. Comparing wavenet, wavenet does not have tasks arranged by due dates. So, students can not keep track of their tasks in very detailed forms.

Third is the calendar which we can tie back to outlook and google calendar. With PBWorks business edition, calendar is linked /updated to outlook and google calendars.

As for PBWorks education version, which was the one we used in class. I believe that PBWorks is very effective collaboration tool for students working together on a piece of project. Students can work with teachers and vice versa. Students can work on creating a report by putting images, text file, PPT file, excel file, word file, etc. Not only reports which can be created, some brainstormings on certain topics can be done as a test bed. Basically for brainstorming on idea or for producing reports students can create reports together by putting all files each individual has and link all files to front page. By creating front page and link,it is easier for everyone to read and to comment on each topic without headche.If you go to website, and you see web board, sometimes you are just really tired to see where to comments. With PBworks education version, life is easier once it comes to comment.

In addition, students can edit work together to create any work. The good aspect of PBworks is that everyone who goes to comment/edit whereas Microsoft word is more confusing once it comes to many revised edits by too many people.
In this regard, PBworks is doing better job. But, I would think PBWorks should have track change feature of MS word and time of track change needs to be monitor.
Also, with more complicated edits on big paper, PBworks help students do work more effectively than google doc.Google Doc is for documenting whereas features of PBWorks allow us to do more than Google’s editing and storing files in folders. PBworks help students really work together. Power of learning is enhanced on the fact that they can share ideas, mark ideas and edit ideas.

The fact that there is a front page on PBWorks helps us navigate to the whole work for edit. Unlike microsoft word and google doc,PBWorks has been equipped with navigation system. By clicking at front page, we are navigating into different documents in different folders. That makes students’ life easier.

In addition to basic edit features, Students can build their own person pages with embedded images, youtube video, slideshare, vimeo,etc. Students are encouraged to participate more when they see other students participating. With VDO, images, slideshare, RSS, etc in page edit feature, students can create more useful presentation based on those information/ resources retrieved from other sources.

The fact that PBWorks has e-mail alert to their mail box, students will feel more motivated to learn and to participate. It is hard not to partcipate when you see other students partcipate too. Especially when it comes to footnote at the page document PBWorks help students write report with footnote references.

The dark sides of PBWorks education version are as follows:
1) PBworks does not link to Mindmap. With mindmap embedded, students can create more brainstorming. I believe that by creating mindmap before, a paper or an idea is better constructed than to write whatever in each file.

2) PBworks does not link to MS Project. Maybe if PBworks can be linked to MSProject, it will be great. Just imagine if we see grantt chart with PBworks linkage...Microsoft Project will be more fully effective. Because each task on MS project will show piece of brainstorm ideas ( or scratch paper on how they form idea).

3) PBworks needs to link to google docs. In order to retrieve document from google doc or dropbox, PBworks might be easier to upload or download data. Sometimes when people receive mail of document, they download to google doc. With PBworks' linkage to google doc, students do not need to spend time on attaching or loading files or texts on PBWorks. In other words, students need to store doc once in google doc or dropbox, and PBWorks just retrieve those doc to use. If you can think of how to install facebook application on facebook, PBWorks should be ready platform for any talk with other applications such as google doc, and drop box. Sometimes PBWorks should link with blogs to feed information from blog to use. Just imagine if there are some people who love to write blogs, they are very lazy to write again on PBWorks. It will be great if PBWorks can feed blog as RSS or feed texts in the ways that collaborators see it clearly. Let’s put it this way. Blog should be imported to PBworks workspace.

4) PBworks should link to google calendar, outlook calendar, and apple calendar. Maybe if there is an option to link with calendar, students / collaborators can collaborate more. Most of the time people put their calendar by using those google calendar, outlook, apple, etc. So, it might be great if PBworks can link to those items. To make people coordinate effectively, personal calendars from google calendar, outook, apple, etc should be fed to PBWorks.

5) When we want to edit page, we can not put javascript or any too long complicated HTML script to embed on edit page so with these constraints, PBWorks' usefulness is limited. For instance, when I visited web page like VIMEO, Youtube, etc, I could embed source. But, when I try to embed javascript clock or embed some social media gadgets by embedding those long HTML and Javascript code, it did not let me to. I tried many times to embed code from http://www.docstoc.com/search/fashion-marketing?catfilter=1,

it just did not work. Or even when I want to embed code like google map code, facebook code, etc, it did not work at all.
Fortunately, I could embed youtube code, slideshare.net code, vimeo code, etc.

Please look at this page.
http://elearningpepp.pbworks.com/w/page/Copy-of-Benefits-of-WIKIS
If you see this page, you can see that I embed my photo from flickr.com, it works.
I embed source code from VIMEO and slideshare, they all work out.
So, there are some uncertainties on which codes PBWorks allow us to put there.
If in the future there are more source codes we can put, I am sure we will learn a lot more.

Sharing Wikipedia Paper by Using Scribd

I would like to share my paper on Wikipedia by using Scribd embedded code on Blog.
The power of Blog is enlarged by using scribd. By using Scribd.com, I can show the long paper or essay in the readable report format.



Is Wikipedia a Blessing or a Curse

Experiences Learned from Wikipedia

In reality, I used Wikipedia as a way to search more about information rather than posting information.

In the eyes of users, I believe that Wikipedia has given me a lot of useful information.
However, with too much information, often I do not know what to read given the time constraints.
If you only have a few minutes to look for information and to read about information, you can not really find which information is relevant to what you are looking for.  For instance, when I type the word " e-learning", there is a long listing of information. Quite honestly, sometimes I only need to read 10 sentences.  It might be better or more effective if Wikipedia proposes short form and long form.

Long form might be useful for research whereas short form can be used as quick pocket book reference.

Once I compared information on Thai Wikipedia and English Wikipedia, I found out discrepancy of information on year information. Often Thai version provides much shorter form. I believe that
it will be great idea if Wikipedia finds ways to motivate people to submit more information especially in the non-English version of Wikipedia.

I often ask myself why I do not like to update Wikipedia. The answer is that I am very scared to input the wrong data and would not be able to do undo it.Even though some people say that Wikipedia's tools are easy to use. Often I find that it is difficult to me to find Wikipedia manual on how to use/edit messages on Wikipedia. If Wikipedia makes manuals easy to read, I am positive that people will go there more to share their information.

Overall, the information on Wiki is great. Given some errors occur from time to time, Wiki is still a viable source of information.

For the education purpose of e-learning, I have included this video on how to use Wikipedia for everyone.



And, for those interested in useful information about Wikipedia, please see this powerpoint.

Dynamics Of Wikipedia

View more presentations from syeo.

Wikipedia in the Eyes of Beholders

I found the VDO of Wikipedia. It is great to see how people in different fields use Wikipedia to respond to their needs. This VDO helps me in writing formal essay on Wikipedia.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Blog

I believe that there are lots of benefits of using Blog.

First is the ease of use. Blog is very easy to use and importantly it is free of charge. If anyone wants to post blog to tell stories about their personal interest, they can do that easily. Whether it is in the classroom or at work, blog can be used in several ways, namely, educating, entertaining, and communicating.

Second is the aspect of opinion sharing. People are allowed to comment on blog which makes e-learning become more powerful.

Third is the linkage of blog to other social tools, such as youtube, facebook, twitter, msn messenger, and photo album make blog a powerful medium of communication on certain knowledge once it links with other social tools, such as my blogs I created before coming to Pepperdine University.
http://mitocwclubthailand.blogspot.com/
http://thaikindle.blogspot.com/

Some companies use blog as a marketing strategy. For example, Marriott uses blog as a marketing tool.
http://www.blogs.marriott.com/

Whether it is for commercial or education purpose, blog is very useful.
Even for a small business which does not have money to pay for web hosting, blog can be used as a website to communicate to audience.

However, in reality blog is not as complicated as website. Website can be used more once you have lot of data to put on website. Blog does not have some limitations on link with some computer languages.
In order to create multimedia on blog with lot of information linked with database, blog can not be used.

Looking at other perspectives, blog can consist of junk information because it is free.
If it is free, one person can have so many blogs to write about anything, whether the information is right or wrong. One time I saw in my country that a citizen wrote information on politics on blog and release it by using email. I saw that blog in the email. Blog condemned Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinnawat.
I believe that we all do not know if that blog contains real information, facts or wrong data.
Many people believed that blog and forwarded mail on that blog. I saw so many comments on that blog.
The power of viral marketing using blog and email is so powerful that blog can be dangerous tool, especially when it is free.

With blog sitting there in the world of Internet, junk blog can pile up every day.
Can we imagine what will happen when the world is full of information in blog?

In summary, blog can be a powerful e-learning tool for class and for corporations at the same time blog can be social marketing tool to manipulate information in the case when Internet marketers use blog to put a lot of information to create links so that google can rank page as priority.

Lesson From Wikipedia

Based on my late research, Wikipedia is online encyclopedia which every reader can search to find terms in the Internet for free.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest quality to every single person on the planet in his or her own language." Wikipedia exists to bring knowledge to everyone who seeks it. "

Referring to Wikipedia,

" By law the contributions are still owned by people who donated them. These people are not bound by the license and can use their property in the way they like. However media with multiple authors require permission from every contributor to use them differently from the terms of the Wikipedia license"

The scary part is that Wikipedia is not as trustworthy source of information. Although many people like to refer to Wikipedia as their learning source. I once found the errors on Wikipedia. There were information discrepancies even between Wikipedia in Thai language and Wikipedia in English language.
As the world is now changing, people google everything they want to know. The more we search information on Wikipedia, the higher chance that Wikipedia will be shown in google search engine ranking. When massive number of people search certain keywords, they will find a lot of information on Wikipedia which can be right or wrong. In addition, people refer to Wikipedia as a source. The dangerous part is that people refer to the untrustworthy source as a source. Therefore, mistakes/errors will NOT be corrected if no one finds it.Garbage in will finally be garbage out. As students and teachers do not cross check or validate information on Wikipedia, they can end up telling others wrong information. The others will keep telling the same wrong information to others.

Especially now there are social networks, such as facebook and twitter. The  wrong information has become powerfully socialized. I will discuss more about Wikipedia in my official research paper.

Although I write the negative aspect of Wiki because it is related to my class research paper, I strongly believe that having Wikipedia is better than nothing. The way to benefit from it is to use coupled with other source of information. Like anything else in the world, Wikipedia offers benefit and disbenefit.

My last comments would be:
" Don't we think having Wikipedia is better than nothing?"  Just because some media condemns it, that does not mean it is bad. Nothing is perfect. Wikipedia is a form of social media which can be right and wrong.
Media is influenced as well as social media, and Wikipedia is one of the social media because underlying principle is based on information from different sources.

 

Second Lesson Learn : E-learning with Google Docs

We have learned in class that Google Doc is a very powerful e-learning tool.
After exploring more in my free time, I have found that we can learn to use google doc in many other ways.

One way is to use google doc with skype. We can combine the two tools together and use it effectively. We can share google doc and chat with classmates on skype to edit our paper

Second way is to use google doc with facebook fan page. You can cut and paste link of google doc and edit with fan club members on facebook.

Third way is to use google doc with twitter. You can paste google doc link on your twitter, and tweet google link in 140 letters to your followers. Using google doc with twitter is a way to send a long message to your followers.

I have found that there are some useful websites on using Skype with Google Docs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5HxF8TVfg8&feature=related

Besides using Google Docs with Skype, I found two more useful youtube videos on using and sharing Google Doc and using slideshare.net which I like to share with my classmates

Using and Sharing Google Docs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2EVCgUCPfI&feature=fvsr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MzcrQ4xUR0&feature=channel

Using Slideshare.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9ShKOeMKb0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY1zLdY-ZOc

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

Good Tools for Your E-learning.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

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Using e-Learning To Facilitate 21st Century Learning

Good presentation on E-learning

Using e-Learning To Facilitate 21st Century Learning

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Using Google For Online Learning

Example of using google in e-learning

Using Google For Online Learning

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The future of e-learning is social learning

Example of using slideshare as e-elearning.

The future of e-learning is social learning

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

First E-learning Experience about Google Doc in Class

My impressions about google doc were right there before coming to this class. But, I used very little of it. The first real time usage happened in this class of e-learning.

My first impression about real usage of google doc was the real benefits of document sharing and editing. We can collaborate on papers with our teammates to get job done, revised, and edited very fast.

However, what I felt annoyed about google doc was about the fact that there are so many people right on the same spot. Given that we have groups of more than 5, it will be really tiring if everyone edits at the same time.

Google doc can make any life changed.