Tag: publishing online

Map Your Thoughts!

Do you struggle with organizing your class notes or research papers? Does the thought of writing an outline make your palms sweat? Are you a visual or non-linear learner and want to see the big picture? Then mind mapping may be the answer!

What is Mind Mapping?

Mind mapping is a creative way of brainstorming and creating a visual picture of information in a manner that’s easy to digest. A mind map allows you to create a diagram of ideas that can be arranged to show relationships around a central key term. So what does a mind map look like?

Mind Mapping Software

Okay, so mind mapping looks cool, but you’re not sure if you can make one yourself? Never fear! There are some great mind mapping tools available on the internet that are free and easy-to-use. A good place to start for a newbie is with FreeMind. This downloadable, open source software allows you to create and save mind maps right on your computer. FreeMind software lets you create as many maps as you want and has many cool features. You can export your maps into multiple formats including PDF, JPEG and HTML and you can even insert hyperlinks into your maps! If you need some inspiration, check out

FreeMind’s Mind Map Gallery to see examples of maps others have made!

Maybe you’d rather create maps that you can save online and share or collaborate with your friends. Maybe you want to see what kind of interesting maps other people have made. No problem!

If you use Google Chrome to surf the web, check out the Connected Mind web app from the Chrome Web store. You can import maps from FreeMind, insert images and create super colourful maps online that you can save directly to your Google account! Don’t have a Google account? No worries, there are many other online mind mapping tools available online such as MindMeister and bubbl.us. Not all of these tools are free, but many of them offer free accounts with limited features.

Media Moment

Keep in mind when using online software from the U.S. that your information is being saved to an American server and is subject to U.S. privacy laws which differ from Canadian laws. Always remember this when saving personal information online.

NetworkEducation

Go to the bubbl.us site.
If you want to save your map, click ‘allow’. If not, click ‘deny’.
Now you can start making a map on this site without even registering!
Click on ‘Start Brainstorming’.
Click on ‘Start Here’. Choose a topic for your map and type it into the bubble (e.g. Living Beings) This is your parent node.
Click on the arrow pointing down from your parent node to create a child node and type a subtopic into the bubble (e.g. Plants)
Click on the arrow pointing down from your child node to create another child node and type in another subtopic (e.g. Grass).
Click on the arrow pointing next to your last child node to create a sibling node and type in another subtopic (e.g. Oaks).
Let’s try moving some of the nodes around. Click and drag one of your child nodes to the other side of the map. See how easy it is!

Map of Mind Mapping Software

Here Bloggy: Technorati Scavenger Hunt

Post author By Willow
Post date February 26, 2011
No Comments on Here Bloggy: Technorati Scavenger Hunt

Over 1 million blogs can’t be wrong.

No doubt you’ve heard of blogging and maybe you subscribe to a few great/informative/thoughtful/entertaining blogs or maybe you’re a hardcore blogger yourself, posting a half-dozen times a day (TMI!). With everyone from university profs to modern moms blogging these days, how is one little web surfer supposed to navigate the great big blogosphere? The answer is Technorati.

What exactly is Technorati?

A massive blog search engine that has amazingly comprehensive tagging and ranking features, “Technorati was founded to help bloggers to succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the online global conversation” (About Technorati).

And boy does it succeed. Through the Technorati website you can access over 1 million blogs on the web covering virtually any topic imaginable — from A-list celebs to Zen and everything in between!

You say you’re not interested in blogs?

You may want to rethink that one. The e-heads at Technorati also publish the annual “State of the Blogosphere” report that features some pretty amazing stats and insights from the world of blogging. They report that while consumer trust in mainstream media is dropping, more and more people are relying on blogs to stay informed. Blogs are becoming an important and respected form of online media – it’s up to you to keep up!

Blogs also offer a personalized approach to any topic you can think of – something that you’re studying right now in class, something that you’re thinking of getting into for a career or anything that you’re just plain interested in. Plus, they’re so dang convenient. Just sign up for RSS and you get notification of new postings to your reader or portal, making them easy to enjoy at your leisure.

NetworkEducation

Go to Technorati.
Look around the home page.
- Check out the current headlines and featured blogs.
- Check out the blog categories on the main menu.
- Check out the Top blogs. Which blog is the top riser today?
- Check out the Top tags tag cloud for the buzz words of the day.
Take a quick peek at the State of the Blogosphere Report. It’s long and involved, but even just a quick glimpse at the information here paints a pretty vivid picture of the blogging world. Does anything reported here surprise you? If you are interested in marketing and the relationship between brands and blogging, be sure to check out WHO: Bloggers, Brands and Consumers – Day 1 SOTB 2010.

Media Moment

Remember, this is a for-profit site. We’re not saying that Technorati is spinning yarns, but as you browse this site, realize that (sometime) self-promotion = exaggeration.

The Technorati Scavenger Hunt

Time to make this personal! Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to find five blogs in your areas of interest. Check out the Blog Directory and look for:

A blog about something you’re studying. (1 point each)
A blog to help you learn about a career you’re considering. (1 point each)
A blog about improving your health or keeping up with current events. (1 point each)
A blog about a topic you love. (1 point each)
A wildcard blog – maybe a ranter, maybe a raver, maybe one that gets you all riled up! Find the craziest blog you can. (3 points)
A blog that you think is full of crap! (5 points)

Post some of your favourite blogs in the comments below.

Links

Technorati on Twitter

Twittorati

Blogs Canada

Canoe.ca Blogs

This post was originally created for the Digital Media Project, a joint project of UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies and the Irving K Barber Learning Centre. It has been modified from its original form.

Tags blogosphere, blogs, online media, online searching, publishing online, rss

Sharing Online

Facebook – Being a Smart User

Post author By Jessie
Post date February 11, 2011
No Comments on Facebook – Being a Smart User

Let’s face it, the world has gone the way of Facebook. Most of us are on it, or at least know tons of people who use it. The point of this post is not to trash talk the service, the point of this post is just to clarify some things for people with Facebook accounts. Whether you’re a casual user, a fanatic user, or anywhere in between the two, there are a few key privacy and security aspects you should be aware of.

One really important thing that not all users know is that your information, including your photos, might be made available for use that you would not want – depending on your account settings. If you are using Facebook, you should be aware of the security and privacy options available to you and set them to whatever level you are comfortable with, keeping in mind the internet forgets nothing.

Some Security and Privacy Options:

The first thing you should know is to use a secure unique password for your Facebook login.

Second, make sure your account is set to ‘Secure Browsing (https).’ The point of the setting is to prevent people from intercepting your account while you’re signed in on an insecure wi-fi connection and start browsing your account. [You can read more about this at LifeHacker’s article “Firesheep Sniffs Out Facebook and Other User Credentials on Wi-Fi Hotspots”].

Tags browsing, digital tattoo, facebook, friends, passwords, permanence, personal, photos, privacy, public, publishing online, security, social networks, tagging

Sharing Online

Wikis: Fast, free, and simple!

Post author By Naomi Schemm
Post date January 28, 2011
1 Comment on Wikis: Fast, free, and simple!

What exactly is a wiki?

Wikis are basically simple websites that do the coding for you and allow multiple editors. The word “wiki” is a Hawaiian word for “fast,” and they are indeed that! Since wikis use a simplified coding language, you don’t have to be a webmaster to create an online site – anyone can create a wiki, just as with blogs.

Probably the most famous use of a wiki tool is Wikipedia. It was created as a free, online, collaborative encyclopedia. Any user can quickly and easily contribute to update the site content. That’s right… you could update a Wikipedia article.

But unless you are an expert on Karmichael Hunt or the events of November 21, you are more likely to use wikis to collaborate on smaller-scale projects. Because they’re available online and editable by anyone who has the right permissions, they’re perfect for

group projects
taking class notes – easy way to get the notes from last week when you were, um, indisposed.
sharing thoughts
organizing events – everybody sign up for what you’re bringing to the party next weekend!
using all the great features of a website – hypertext linking, media sharing, easy page organization – without having to know any HTML coding.

There are lots of free wiki sites out there, and most are pretty easy to use. There are occasional issues with cutting and pasting from (or into) a program like MS Word, and sometimes the “back end” – where the magic takes place – does formatting things you don’t want it to do. If you’re using wikis simply for group collaboration and then will hand in a final project or paper in another format, you can copy and paste information from the wiki over to some other program, but sometimes the formatting will require a little correction. But for publishing your information online, 99% of the time, wikis are the fastest, cheapest and simplest way.

Tags collaboration, publishing online, wikis