Zotero 3.0 Beta Relase

Zotero, a free, easy-to-use tool helps us collect, organize, cite, and share our research sources.  

Zotero 3.0 beta is now available with duplicate detection and tons more. Runs outside Firefox with Chrome or Safari!

• Zotero 3.0b1 for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Since 2006, Zotero has run as a pane (or more recently, as a tab) within the Firefox browser. Many users, however, have expressed their preference to run Zotero as an entire separate desktop application. As of today, researchers can now download and install a version of Zotero that runs fully independently of the Firefox browser.
• Zotero Connector Betas. Today Zotero’s ability to grab bibliographic items with a single click now comes to browsers other than Firefox. If Zotero 3.0 is installed, Chrome and Safari users can now add items to their Zotero libraries with a single click.

Milestones completed in CPD23 journey

Here are my reflections on how I completed the milestones 8-12 in my CPD 23 journey.  

Free Webinar "Big6 by the Month" Overview

Free Webinar "Big6 by the Month" Overview session on August 18th will introduce a series of 9 monthly webinars. Mike Eisenberg and his team provide us with tools, templates and tips for a Defined, Predictable, Measured and Reported information literacy program at our school. 

When is it?  7PM Eastern, Thursday August 18th (4:30 am IST, Friday August 19th)

Where is it?  Online webinar.

Price: $0 Free overview hour.

Register to enroll. 

iConference 2012

The iConference is now accepting submissions for iConference 2012, the seventh annual gathering of scholars, researchers, and professionals who share an interest in the critical information issues of contemporary society. 

The iConference pushes the boundaries of information studies, explores core concepts and ideas, and creates new technological and conceptual configurations -- all situated in interdisciplinary discourses.

The conference theme is: Culture * Design * Society.

The iConference will include peer-reviewed papers, posters, alternative events, and workshops—all intended to push the boundaries of information studies, explore core concepts and ideas, and create new technological and conceptual configurations.

The four-day event takes place in downtown Toronto, February 7-10, 2012.  

Book Review - History Teaching with Moodle 2

Though the book History Teaching with Moodle 2 by John Mannion is intended for History teachers, educators of other disciplines would also find it useful for creating attractive and interactive courses on Moodle. It serves the purpose of all levels of Moodlers – beginners, intermediate and advanced.

 

With the help of stepwise instructions and screenshots, this book introduces beginners to the course structure, course format, blocks, forums, wikis, polls, and course administration. It enables beginners create attractive courses, add interactive content and create questions, using quiz module.

Intermediate Moodlers would find this book useful for: recording student’s performance and generating a variety of reports using gradebook; creating collaborative learning environments, using database module; blending multimedia resources with questions, using lesson module. Detailed instructions on how to use Audacity enable teachers to record quality audio and chunk audio files to prevent long download time.

This book guides advanced Moodlers through the use of Xerte for creating dynamic and SCORM-compliant uploadable learning objects. It helps teachers create workshops with appropriate settings for workshop introduction and instructions, access control, students work submission, rubric creation with grid layout, and allocating assignments to students for peer-assessment.

Detailed and stepwise instructions, screenshots, exercises and tips help teachers to experiment various modules and features for designing and developing dynamic courses. The best part of the book is, promoting open source software, namely, GIMP, Xerte, and Audacity for creating high quality interactive resources with ease.

But, the book does not detail the new and useful features of Moodle 2.0, namely, Conditional activities for restricting the availability of learning activities and resources to students according to certain conditions; and File picker repository for importing content from external repositories.   

In conclusion, this book from Packet Publishing is a useful resource for all levels of Moodlers – beginners, intermediate and advanced, who wish to create visually appealing, interactive and effective learning environment.