collaboration

Online Collaboration--VSTE ITRT Summer Camp June 21, 22, 2007

General:

What is Collaboration? Why collaborate?

Collaboration and online collaboration sites help people work together on a project. Collaborating is something that most people already do, usually by sending attachments back and forth or having a shared list of bookmarks that each person can refer to. In addition, collaboration can be achieved when many miles of space exist between the users. Today we will look at some of the more commonly known collaboration websites that exist. In addition, we will cover some general tools that can handle documents and spreadsheets, as well as collaborative chat sites and mind-mapping sites.

What are Tags? How are they different from just a category?

Tags are names of categories created by users. They are not necessarily created by the "experts" in a given field, but rather by people who wish to place sites in categories. By placing them in these categories, a person can search based on the "tag" name and get a list of sites that have been "tagged" with that name. In addition, depending on how the search is carried out, one can search only their tags or one can search the larger group's tags for more sites. This relates specifically to social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us.

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[|Del.icio.us]

-How do I set up a [|Del.icio.us] account? -What is it good for? Stay tuned/see below. -What is tagging?--see above. -How can I use this in my classroom? -How can I make sure that my students are being safe? -How do I share my bookmarks? -Can I embed them into a blog or other website? -What is my "network" on Del.icio.us? -What are "subscriptions" in Del.icio.us?
 * Set up del.icio.us accounts for students to use to keep track of sites they visit on a particular subject area
 * Set up your own del.icio.us account and add sites based on specific tags for your students to use as resources.
 * Explain ways of organizing information--based on tags--so that your students know about how to "tag" specific websites.
 * Subscribe to specific topics in del.icio.us
 * Add other educators to your network in del.icio.us to keep track of what they are using.
 * Add specific educators that you might be doing class-wide collaborative projects on to keep track of sites that are added.
 * Common sense Internet Safety practices
 * Verify verify verify--make sure websites have reliable information
 * Give others your URL for your del.icio.us account
 * Yes, just get the code from the "Settings/Blogging/Link Rolls" area of del.icio.us
 * These are other people's del.icio.us links that you are following. You add them by adding their del.icio.us username. Great tool for following what others are tracking.
 * You can follow bookmarks by tag name. Great for following the whole social site of del.icio.us on a particular tag or tags.



[|Google Docs]

-How does this work? -Can I share a document with others?
 * You can create spreadsheets and word processing documents that can be either shared online or set up for others to edit.
 * You can also upload a document that you have already created in another program (Word or Spreadsheet) for others to then work on and edit, add comments etc.
 * Yes, you can both share a document for the to edit, or you can share a document for others to view.

-How do I share my documents?
 * Click on the "Share" and/or "Publish" tabs to the right of the page.

-What kind of documents can I make?
 * Only Word documents and Spreadsheet documents are possible at this point. Note: spreadsheets will not import a chart that is already present in a spreadsheet document that has been uploaded. You can always add a chart with Google Docs from the data in the spreadsheet though.

-How can I use this in a classroom setting? -http://docs.google.com/support/?hl=en--a great help file for Google Docs
 * Collect data in a spreadsheet for a variety of things and then create charts. Data can be in Google Docs so that it can be changed and added to from any computer that is online.

[|5 things you probably didn't know you could do in Google Docs & Spreadsheets]:
[|Here!]

[|Zoho]

-How does Zoho work? -What can I do with this collaboration system? -How does it integrate with Microsoft Office? -What kind of applications are there on Zoho? -Documents -Spreadsheets -Show creation tool



[|-Meebo] -What is Meebo? -Web based Instant Messaging -How can I use meebo?



[|Skype]

-Internet telephone -Internet video calls -Internet conference calls -All Skype-to-Skype calls are FREE. Nominal fee to call a regular telephone.

[|go2web20] -This is a repository of "Web 2.0" sites that are tagged, allowing you to search by tag and then explore the site. Some sites are free and others are fee-based. Check it out when you can and see what tools you can use. Some of the tools that we are covering today are listed here.

[|Wikispaces]--This site.

-Free for educators. -Does have some Google Ads in the sidebar -Is very user friendly. -Can be used by students to create collaborative projects. -See: http://bentley-wwii.wikispaces.com/ -The teacher put students into groups, had them join the wiki and then create the pages themselves. Great collaborative project with the students. -Because of the nature of being able to see the history of the wiki, the teacher could evaluate the student participation based on the number of entries in the wiki under their username.



[|Gliffy.com]

-What is it? -What can I do?
 * An online mind-mapping program similar to Inspiration.
 * Create mind-maps
 * Have students create online mind-maps
 * Share the mind-maps with other classes and groups
 * Work on projects from a distance with other educators
 * Assign as homework for students.
 * Export mind-maps as images to be used in other documents