I Have Been Elluminated!

Hi,
I have been elluminated! This week I decided to check out Elluminate Live! software this week. This is my review of this software:

ADVANTAGES
*it's free
*it is available through the University of Saskatchewan so technical support is only a phone call or email away
*it has a white board so you can post agendas, word documents or entire power point presentations
*it has a cool feature that allows other to raise their hand so one person can't monopolize the conversation
*it has cool little things like a happy face you can click on when you are happy and a confused face that you can also click on when you don't understand what the speaker is talking about
*what is really neat too is that people can join the session and features are available to type in your responses if you don't have a microphone and/or videocamera
*the EASIEST thing is that I could set up the meeting and simply email the link to anybody that wants to join it
*a nice feature is that the whiteboard automatically erases the whiteboard when you are done
*if you want to, you can also videotape the session which is nice for doing up notes

DISADVANTAGES
*it takes a lot of time for the technical support person to walk the moderator through all these features
*I had trouble with actually getting my agenda to show up on the screen --> any other windows I had open tended to cast a shadow or get in the way so others couldn't see it --> I haven't quite figured this problem out yet and how to fix it
*it isn't very intuitive --> I thought it would be a breeze to attach the agenda but it was quite tricky even after the tech person explained it
*it does take a small amount of effort to get viewers set up to join the session including them clicking on boxes to allow the software to download and remembering to pick LAN for the university network

All in all, it wasn't as bad as I expected to use and with a helpful IT person available I don't think you could go wrong trying out this software to facilitate online collaborations. Why don't you check it out and get Elluminated today!

Karen

What's New on the Web - From Budgets to Bookmarks

Hi,

I was checking around on the web today. Here are a couple of things I found:

Plan2Spend

This is cool. You can keep track of your budget and expenses. Check it out!

http://budget.10try.com/Account.aspx

Delicious

This is neat. You can use it to book your favourite websites and stuff.

http://www.delicious.com/

This is all.

Karen

U-Tube to the Rescue Again!

Hi,
I can't believe it. I think I am really starting to cozy up to this new technology. I love U-Tube. I wanted to figure out how to insert a video into a powerpoint and voila! U-Tube had this great video. Here is the link in case you need to figure out how to do this too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChq5drjQl4

This is all for today.

Karen

Technology Ain't So Bad!

Hi,

I checked out a couple of things in the last week. Here is what I found out:

iGoogle

I love this page. I can see the date and the time and the temperature. I will use this everyday. I should have tried this much sooner. It is really cool. What I loved the most was I signed up for Epicurious.com recipes. I have tried for so long to find a fish recipe that Stewart likes and so I picked one and it emailed it to me. Stewart really liked it. Here is the recipe for you if you want to try it too:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Salmon-with-Mustard-and-Brown-Sugar-Glaze-234419

Tagul

I signed up for this. I couldn't quite figure out how to use it. You can use it to make clouds. What would I need a cloud for anyway? I don't have any more time to waste on this site to figure this out. 2 Thumbs down. If you figure it out, let me know.

http://tagul.com/cloud/1

Doodle.com

My co-worker told me about this one. It helps you organize meetings. I wasn't impressed as how can anything beat Meeting Wizard? So I gave it a try this afternoon and I am so impressed. You don't even need an account to sign up. It just emails you the link and you can send it to whoever you want and most important you aren't restricted to 10 meeting slots. Give it a try! I highly recommend it. The website link is listed below:

http://www.doodle.com/

This is all folks. Have a good weekend.

Karen

Technology is Great - Check Out Survey Monkey

Hi,

I tried out survey monkey which is used to create surveys:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

It worked great. I did up a quick survey effortlessly in under 5 minutes. If you need to do any surveys I highly recommend it. Feel feel to give it a try.

Karen

Blogging Could Become Addicting

Hi,

Blogging could become addicting now that I am starting to figure this out one little piece at a time. Two blogs in one day - this is my new record. Actually, I am old school and I felt bad about not finishing my homework, so here I am. Speaking of bad, I hope my last two entries didn't sound too negative; I think I was suffering from Bloggers Anxiety Disorder (BAD). Ha! Ha!

FLICKR

Now in regards to my assignment, I checked out flickr. I didn't find it too useful. I couldn't find pictures I was looking for, for example, a screw compressor. Even worse when I went to narrow it down like I do when I pull photos from google.ca under images, for example, using pneumatic compressor and bearings, then nothing came up at all. It doesn't combine searches. I googled 'bearings' alone and a whole ton of pictures came up like flowers and butterflys and Big Ben but nothing that looked like a bearing. I am extremely disappointed that this wasn't useful to me when I am doing powerpoints. [Although it did have some nice photos on flowers. Maybe I should put one on my blog homepage.]

QuizSnack

I didn't find this one useful at all either. It just had three types of quizzes: poll, survey, or personality quiz. I tried to do a quiz from work but it didn't give me the right options for the answers. The same thing with a little quiz I was working on for someone I am tutoring. I had no luck whatsoever with QuizSnack. Maybe it will work better for your purposes. I definitely prefer Question Writer 4 compared to this.

This is all. My homework is done. Talk to you tomorrow.

Karen

All This New Technology Makes Me Feel Old

Hi,

All this new technology makes me feel old. I didn't grow up with a computer and a blackberry and twitter etc. I didn't have a lot of time this week to really check out anything new in terms of technology so I will share a couple of gems with you that I have previously discovered that I think could be most helpful to you:

Question Writer 4 Software

This software is great. There is also a free download version. If you need to make up quizzes this software makes it a snap. I hope you will appreciate it as much as I do.

http:www.questionwriter.com/download.html

Jing

This product is amazing. There is also a free version. It is easy to use. It helps you make little videos rather than just sending screenshots if you are trying to explain to someone else how to do something. It is perfectly amazing. I hope you will like it as much as I do.

http://www.techsmith.com/jing/

I must admit that I didn't get much out of the session last week on how to do a blog. I still wish somehow I could figure out how to add a calendar to my blog and do other cool things. I prefer a class where the instructor shows which buttons to click on to do a specific task.

In my desperation today I googled it under videos on YouTube. Here are two very helpful videos that I found:

How To Create a Blog with Blogger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnploFsS_tY

Adding a Google Gadget to Your Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OVRlXn9mAs&NR=1

They are both great. I hope you find them useful as well.

Talk to you tomorrow. I don't feel so old anymore now that I have figured it out. All I can say is "Thank God for YouTube" and "Happy Blogging".

Karen