30+ Cool Content Curation Tools for Personal & Professional Use | Social Media Content Curation 30+ Mind Mapping Tools We all need to organize our thoughts sometimes, and there seems to be no better way to do it than in a visual fashion. We've got 30+ mind mapping tools to help you do just that. And since we know some of you are on a budget, we've got free and paid suggestions for you. Don’t forget to check out our post where you can suggest future toolbox topics! Free Bubbl.us - A flash based brainstorming tool that you can share with others and also embed in to your site. Cayra.net - A desktop-only app that runs on Windows XP or Vista. CmapTools - Free to universities, students, federal employees, and individuals for personal use. CompendiumInstitute.org - A free mind mapping and brainstorming tool from the Open University. DebateMapper.com - A bit of a different mapper in that it focuses on mapping out debates, whether they be political or business. Gliffy.com - Draw & share all sorts of diagrams and mind maps. MindPlan.com - Free for personal use. RecallPlus.com - Geared towards students. See also:
Six Twitter Applications That Let You Tweet on Your Desktop If you’re an avid Twitter user, chances are you’re using one of these Twitter Desktop Applications that basically allow you to receive and post Tweets from your desktop. Meaning, you don’t have to visit your Twitter.com page from time to time to find out what’s new about your Twitter friends. If you haven’t used a Twitter desktop application before, well this might be the right time to do so. We’ve picked several of the Twitter Desktop Applications available for you to use. Twhirl – Runs on both Mac and Windows machines. TweetDeck – Allows you to split your Tweet main feeds into specific topics or groups in column formats. Seesmic – TweetDeck’s closest rival to date, Seesmic Desktop integrates all the functionalities of Twitter including auto-refresh, easily and quickly share links, pictures and video with your friends, and group your social contacts into lists like family, co-workers and best friends. Twitter Desktop App for Windows Twitter Desktop Apps for Mac
A Visual History of Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC] The Social Media Infographics Series is supported by Vocus' Social Media Strategy Tool, a free, six-step online tool that lets you build a custom social media framework tailored to your organization’s goals. Since its launch in the summer of 2006, Twitter has become the leader in microblogging, limiting even its most famous users to a concise 140 characters. This infographic details Twitter's most influential content creators, staggering adoption rates, and struggle to turn a profit. Curious about The Biebs' first tweet? Wondering which event caused the latest tweets-per-second record? Scroll on down for a bird's eye view (see what we did there?) Infographic design by Emily Caufield Series supported by Vocus This series is supported by Vocus' Social Media Strategy Tool, a free online tool which lets you build your own custom social media framework in six easy steps.
6 Free Sites for Creating Your Own Comics In the days of cold, hard newsprint, only people who could draw were successful comic strip authors. In some cases, this resulted in comic strips that had very nice pictures, but weren't all that funny (cough, Blondie). Thankfully, the Internet has taught us not to accept an inferior form of comic artistry, but a more flexible one. Comic strip enthusiasts who want funny but don't care about pretty drawing can have their strips, those who want artistry have theirs, and even those with very specific tastes can find something just right. The best part about these developments is that they allow you, regardless of any talent as an artist or comedian, to create your very own comic strip. 1. MakeBeliefsComix.com is easy enough for children to use, but there are enough options for adults to get a message across, too. One limiting factor is color. The pre-set options that make the site so easy to use can also be slightly limiting. 2. The site does have some rough patches. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Apps in Education 10 Infographics for Learning We all love infographics. Why? Well, they help us grasp information in a quick and fun way that appeals to our visual senses. 1. Knewton published an infographic on “Blended Learning: A Disruptive Innovation” that explores K-12 blended learning models by Innosight Institute and Charter School Growth Fund. 2. Voxy Blog published an infographic titled “Are We Wired for Mobile Learning?” Photo Courtesy of Voxy Blog 3. Rick Man posted an infographic, “Why infographics accelerate decision making,” that identifies the ways we traditionally present information versus the visual way we can present information through infographics. Photo Courtesy of Rick Mans 4. Matthew Bloch and Bill Marsh published an interactive map, “Mapping the Nation’s Well-Being,” on the New York Times this March. Photo Courtesy of the NY Times 5. Rasmussen College published an infographic titled “The Evolution of Online Education Technologies” that explores the evolution of learning from the 1700s through the Millenium. 6.
Paper Rater: Free Online Grammar Checker, Proofreader, and More Guide to iMovie <div class="greet_block wpgb_cornered"><div class="greet_text"><div class="greet_image"><a href=" rel="nofollow"><img src=" alt="WP Greet Box icon"/></a></div>Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to <a href=" rel="nofollow"><strong>subscribe to the RSS feed</strong></a> for updates on this topic.<div style="clear:both"></div></div></div> The following steps are included in the “Video” chapter of the forthcoming EPUB eBook, “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing.” After recording a series of videos using an iPad, the iMovie app ($4.99) can be used to edit and combine the videos into a single file. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. I challenge you to give it a try! Cross-posted to “Playing with Media.” On this day..
7 Ways Universities Are Using Facebook as a Marketing Tool Social media use by universities has become ubiquitous. When earlier this year, researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth asked a representative sample of U.S. schools whether they use some social media, 100% of them said they did. Four years ago, just 61% of them said the same. Facebook is the most prevalent social media tool in higher education — 98% of the universities in the study said they had a presence there. "Prospective students, parents, current students, alumni — one common area in which they are all present in one way or another is on Facebook," says Kevin Morrow, the executive director of public affairs at Syracuse University. For this and other reasons, schools are pretty much unanimous in their use of Facebook. "The book hasn’t been written," says Michael Kaltenmark, director of web marketing and communications at Butler. Here are seven ways schools are leveraging Facebook. 1. 2. Butler's particularly photogenic mascot, Blue II, has his own Facebook Page.
Beautiful web-based timeline software A Social Network Can Be a Learning Network - Online Learning By Derek Bruff Last fall, for my first-year writing seminar on the history and mathematics of cryptography, I posted my students' expository-writing essays on our course blog. The assignment had asked students to describe a particular code or cipher that we had not already discussed—how it came to be, how it works, how to crack it, who used it. About a week later, one of my students arrived at class excited. Online Learning: The Chronicle's 2011 Special Report BROWSE THE FULL ISSUE: News, Commentary, and Data BUY A COPY: Digital and Print Editions at the Chronicle Store Research by Richard Light, the author and Harvard University scholar, and others indicates that when students are asked to write for one another, they write more effectively. Since my course blog was on the open Web, my students' work could be seen by others, including Google's indexing robots and the cryptography researcher. I've been taken by this idea of having students create work for "authentic audiences."
10 Tips for Teaching Technology to Teachers I have been working with teachers to learn to integrate technology into their teaching for almost ten years. Here are a few of the things I have learned - in no particular order (number 10 is probably the most important). Please share your thoughts and suggestions! 1. It isn't really about the tool it is about how you use it: It isn't the word processing software, it's the skills and usefulness of word processing. 2. 3. 4. 5. Twitter, ask questions, share your frustrations. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
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