Category Archives: DIT E-learning
Blogging through WordPress
WordPress is a fabulous facility that allows any member of the public to create their own blog / website. A blog is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. There are a selection of tools available to help you with your blog; the most common of which is “WordPress”.
There are two different sites – WordPress.com and WordPress.org
WordPress.org is the website where the free WordPress software can be downloaded. For no charge, WordPress.org provides downloadable blog software, community mailing lists, community support forums, documentation, and free themes and plugins.
WordPress.com is different. You do not have to download software, pay for hosting or manage a web server. When you sign up for a WordPress.com blog, you will get a URL like “andy.wordpress.com” or you can map a domain so your blog is available at “example.com” without the “.wordpress.com” portion. You do not control the software or the database; FTP and shell access are not included. As a result most first time bloggers opt for wordpress.com. For more information on the differences between wordpress.com and wordpress.org please click the link below
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
The selection of video tutorials below are taken from YouTube and will help you to set up your own blog through WordPress.com. Click on the small box in the bottom left of the youtube screen to get the full list of youtube tutorials available through this list
I also have collated a series of links related to blogs and they are available through http://www.diigo.com/user/markglynn/blogs
Mahara – open source e-portfolio system
As an online portfolio, Mahara is a place to store institutional and personal learning articles or ‘artefacts’. Students can use these artefacts to demonstrate their development over time to various audiences including prospective universities and future employers.
Mahara also provides a comprehensive blogging tool, social networking and a CV builder. Users have their own personalised profiles which they can use to add employment and education history, accreditations, achievements and goals.
Communities can be built within Mahara – users have the ability to connect with other users, create and maintain lists of friends. One of the features that differentiates Mahara from other ePortfolio systems is that users control which items and what information within their portfolio other users see.
For a short video introduction on Mahara click here
For a series of instructional videos on performing a variety of tasks in Mahara – visit my “How to guide…...” for Mahara
Collaborate through technology; literature reviews
Sifting through the literature can be a daunting task. Digging through 1000’s of papers in your area of interest trying to find the most relevant ones. Then how do you store the stacks of papers that you have collected. Working with colleagues can help reduce the workload but then how do you share what you found. There are many technology based solutions that available – one of which that I have discovered recently through one of our sessions on the DIT MSc in E-learning is Endnote Web. The screencast below shows how you can share papers with colleagues after your long hard search through the literature
For more detailed instructions on using Endnote I would recommend your friendly DIT librarian as a great start
Technology Enhanced Learning 