And the winner is...

Shane Hickey: Return of the Blog

Brewed Awakenings cards are on their way!

Coffee for Things!

13 Things by the Numbers

45: number of people that "signed up" initially (probably before knowing what they were being roped in to!)

36: number of participants that started a blog

19: number of participants that completed all 13 Things as of Today (Monday, August 23)

2 Things to Do Tomorrow:

1. Get Brewed Awakening Cards for the following bloggers: Teresa Wille, Amber Mulnix, Peggy Knott, Shane Hickey, Sara Pitcher, Gavin Cross, Sandy Blanchard, Dan Lehn, Jane Nesmith, Karen Sindelar, Christy Wolfe, Bruce Nesmith, Rachel Neal, Jenni Archibald, Tom Hicks, Susanne Gubanc, Erica Geers, Mike Vance and Kellie Griffin.
2. Have Dean Baehr draw one lucky winner for the iPad. I will notify the winner by phone (and by blog and by email and perhaps on Twitter, too).

Thanks so much for your enthusiastic participation. If I have inadvertently missed anyone on the list of finishers, please let me know. One thing for next year is a better tracking method!

THE LAST THING!

We've made it! Thing 13. Congratulations for sticking with the program, perhaps stepping out of your comfort zone, and being so willing to try new things. I hope you've found some benefits in experimenting with a few new tools and reading each others reactions to them. I know I have!

We'll keep things simple for our last THING.

Thing 13 is REFLECTION. Write a post reflecting on your summer Web 2.0 experience. Did this turn out to be what you expected when you started? Did you discover anything new that could be helpful in your day-to-day activities? How did you feel about "self-discovering" as opposed to coming to a workshop (bound by time and date)?

One idea for reflecting is to create a word cloud using Wordle. Wordle generates "word clouds" from words that you supply. Wordle gives weight to words that are repeated in your supply of words. You can create a Wordle by supplying the URL of your blog.



This is the Wordle of the 13Things blog. I talk Google a lot!

You can create a Wordle and link it to your final reflection blog post. You'll have to save it to the public gallery, but this does not require you to create a user name or password (whew!) After saving to the public gallery, your Wordle will have a unique URL that you can link to from your blog post.

Here is an interesting use of Wordles to compare presidential inauguration speeches.


Minor Housekeeping:

1. The iPad is sitting on my shelf waiting for a new home! I'll tally results on Monday evening (just for the benefit of everybody that works best in the last minute!).
   
2. Brewed Awakening gift cards will find their rightful homes next week.
3. Don't worry if you didn't get as far as you wanted - I will leave this blog open and you are free to re-visit as you have time and inclination.

And lastly, a big THANK YOU to everyone participating. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people signing up and sticking it out.

Thing 12: Video Tools

The second-to-the-last Thing! You're almost there...we're only a few steps to the top of the Web 2.0 mountain! Woo hoo!

Thing 12: Video Tools

Have you ever tried to explain how to use a computer program, web tool, or software application to someone? It can be pretty frustrating, especially if you are not actually teaching them in person. Have you ever used an online tutorial when you were learning a new application? Screencasting is the perfect tool for these scenarios. Screencasting is a way to create short videos where you can record what's happening on your screen while you're narrating via microphone or webcam. And if you don't have a microphone or webcam, you could add subtitles AFTER you've recorded.

There are a lot of different ways you could go about recording your screen. If you're on a Coe-computer, we've loaded software called "CamStudio" into the Coe Specialty Apps folder in your program menu. CamStudio will capture everything on your screen, and record your voice, too if you've got a microphone plugged in.

For Thing 12, though, I'd like to show you an online tool called ScreenToaster. The advantage of a tool like ScreenToaster over CamStudio or even a camera behind your shoulder is that once you've recorded your screen capture, it's just another click of the button to have it available to anyone that needs to see it!

Here's the screencast I created using ScreenToaster: Lisa's Screencast. I have a Logitech webcam with built-in microphone attached to my computer. You could also use just a USB mic, or in the absence of both, you could add subtitles to your screencast after recording. (note: if you're having trouble seeing the screen in my screencast, you can enlarge it by clicking the little square in the lower-right hand side - directly under my lovely videoface)

Other options for screencasting tools include Jing (free, but requires a download) or Screen Jelly (no downloading requirements, but videos are limited to 3 minutes, and geared toward posting on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites).

Discovery Exercise

• Look at ScreenToaster, Jing and Screen Jelly - pick which you'd like to use for this exercise.
• Create an account as necessary (ScreenToaster will require a new account, Screen Jelly will use your Twitter account or Facebook account).
• Create a screencast. It can be as simple as recording a few clicks in your favorite website, or perhaps you've discovered a new gadget in Blogger you'd like to share.
  
• Put a link to your screen cast in your next blog post. Can you imagine other uses for this in your class, department of discipline? Would you benefit from screencasts that might show you how to navigate Google Apps or my.coe.edu functions? Would you consider having your students create screencasts (perhaps of them working formulas in Excel or online calculators even?)
  

Thing 11: RSS Feeds

There are a lot of websites out there, and most of us have certain websites that we check regularly. Now that we are all "following" different colleagues' blogs, we have even more websites to check. What if you could check for updates of all your favorite blogs, online newspapers and other regularly-updated sites by visiting one simple page? That's the beauty of RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication. You may have noticed that some of your favorite websites have little orange icons that look like this:


This orange RSS icon lets you know that you can subscribe to the website using a news reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines. You simply have to create an account* with one of these news readers and then start adding websites that have RSS feeds. Watch this Common Craft video to learn more about RSS feeds and Google Reader:

Your job for Thing 11 is to sign up for either a Google Reader (no need to sign up, you already have a Google account) or Bloglines account, add the blogs of the colleagues you're following, plus at least 3 other blogs, online newspapers, or websites to your reader. Chances are, some of the websites you already visit a lot have RSS feeds available! Post about your experiences with Google Reader or Bloglines, if you think you would use it, and how you could use it professionally.

If you'd like to keep things really simple, use Google Reader; you already have a Google account (if you're logged into your blog, you're already logged in to your Google account!). Here's how to set it up:

1. Go to Google.com
2. From the "more" drop down on the left-hand top of the page, select "Reader"
3. Now, go to your favorite, regularly-updated website (see some suggestions below) and find the RSS feed icon (shown above...usually orange, but not always). Click it. You'll be asked if you want to add the feed to your Google Reader or your Google Homepage. Choose Reader.
   
4. Repeat step 3 for other newsfeeds/blogs/sites.

Now instead of going to all these sites daily to read what's new, you go to Google>Reader (log in) and the news comes to you!

Here are some education-related sites with RSS feeds to get you started:

• Cedar Rapids Gazette (look for the RSS icon on the right-hand side column, about half-way down)
  
• Education News- The New York Times (scroll all the way to the very bottom of the main page to find RSS icon)
  
• U.S. Department of Education (on the left-hand column, you'll see "The Blog" - the RSS icon is to the right, but it's the same color, so it looks hidden)
  
• NPR (scroll all the way to the bottom, in the black section prior to topic lists, you'll see RSS; they even have an Education-specific feed you can choose)

Discovery Exercise:

• Sign up for Google Reader or Bloglines
• If you've followed any blogs from your companions in 13 Things, they should already show up (in Google Reader)
  
• Add at least 3 other blogs, online newspapers, or websites
• Write a post reflecting on your experience with RSS feeds and news readers

*Our Google Apps for Education currently does not include Google Reader. You will need to use the Google account you created when you set up your blog. I understand more Google tools, including Reader, will be available for educational users sometime this fall.

Thing 10: Creative Commons

Have you ever found a great photo on the Web and used it in a PowerPoint, on a blog, or even in a print publication you were making? Did you feel guilty about it? I know I have! We're not technically supposed to use someone's work without their permission, but, getting permission can be time consuming, and besides, what if the creators don't mind? The people at Creative Commons have given creators of original works an option to give their works a Creative Commons license. This license allows people to use their works, always with attribution, sometimes with other optional stipulations.

Watch the videos below:

Now visit the Creative Commons website for an overview of the CC philosophy and the different licenses creators may choose for their works. Also, CC licenses aren't just for photos: they can be used with video, music, writing, scientific research, anything that would normally be covered under a copyright license!

Discovery Exercise:

• Watch the videos
• Visit and explore the Creative Commons website
• Post your thoughts about Creative Commons. Does CC seem like a good idea? How could you use it with student projects? Could this help or hinder their understanding and respect of copyright law?