Edtechkat

LET link of the week

Experiment with your browser. Try:

• Ubiquity, a plugin for Firefox that makes it much, much easier to do things like find something on a map, find a definition or search Wikipedia.
• Google Chrome - a very fast and lightweight browser from Google.

Interesting session this Wednesday in the Academic Work Matters series

Wednesday 26 September, 12:30pm in FTLR. Follow the link to book: Web conferencing
Web conferencing systems are collections of tools which allow people to meet and interact synchronously at a distance. Users can talk to each other in high quality even at low bandwidths, send text messages, use a shared electronic whiteboard and share applications with others. Newer systems also provide video. In some ways they are like videoconferencing, except you are not tied to a specific facility, and you have extra tools to share. Sessions can also be recorded for later playback.

This session will explore ways that web conferencing systems can be used in academic work, showing examples of use at Murdoch and elsewhere to:

• facilitate research collaborations with other universities
• provide one-on-one support to external students
• provide virtual tutorials to students
• support students at remote campuses
• facilitate classes to students at multiple campuses

23 Things update

The blog is here http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/23things08/

Please register. Before 13 October 2008. Unless you are already 23 Things Certified.

Finding me in the next few weeks

I’ll be hard to catch in the next few weeks, as I am going on holidays and then will be attending a couple of conferences. I will, as usual,  be updating my Twitter stream, which you can view on the sidebar of my work web page: http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/kathryngreenhill/

I’ve been playing with google’s new browser, Chrome,  since lunchtime yesterday. I’ve even read the google comic book about it: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/

What is on top feels like any other browser, but more lightweight. This is a Good Thing.  What is underneath makes it more likely to be stable and less likely to hog memory. It is meant to allow more privacy with your browsing too.

It’s reported to work faster on older machines, but I don’t notice much difference. Techcrunch have summarised speed comparisons between Chrome, Firefox and IE8. Chrome seems to come up top: So Is Chrome The Fastest Or What?

You can’t use any Firefox extensions with it (like LibX or Zotero). It allows basic plugins like Flash and pdf, but doesn’t have others.

When I tried to edit a PBwiki document using the “Point and click” editor, PBwiki told me to go get another browser to do it.

The biggest limitation is that Chrome is not yet released for Mac or linux.

The library web pages seem to work OK with it with no problems. The library portal seemed noticeably faster, as was Informit. LIDDAS was fine.

Here’s a screenshot of browser - as you see, very clean. Each new browser opens with screenshots of the most recently visited sites. I didn’t manually create the links on it.

Here’s a list of links that I want to show Margaret during our meeting this afternoon

MEC Blog

• http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/silviar/

Julia’s blogs

• http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/juliah/
• http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/tlc27708g/

MGB blog:

• http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/tlc27708b/2008/08/12/introduction/

Darien library  and the SOPAC 2.0

• http://www.darienlibrary.org/
• http://www.blyberg.net/2008/08/16/sopac-20-what-to-expect/

Edge of the Web Conference

• http://www.edgeoftheweb.org.au/

Bridging Worlds Conference

• http://www.bridgingworlds.sg/conference_programme/index.html

Ubiquity

• http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/

LET link of the week
Georgia Tech CeLIBbration 2008 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DNFXMeb_Fc Georgia Tech Library celebrates the new semester with a welcome back evening. The evening included: Turbo Poker; Dodgeball; Rock, Paper, Scissors; XBOX games; Speed Dating; Project Runway; Improv; and more.

More info about the event from Brian Mathews in many posts on his blog, including GT CeLIBrates the New School Year: the biggest library party in the nation?