Wednesday | The Harold Lounge

Website Wednesday

Ivan Tejeda sent in a pair of additional suggestions to supplement the awesome architecture site and post he put up a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s the first one (as a bonus the post is on Women in Architecture; it’s called ArchDaily, and it’s a dedicated architecture blog that is going to eat a lot of my time in the next few weeks, I can tell.

He also passed along a suggestion from Paul Wandless called ArtBabble, that looks really, really great–featuring lots of videos about art and art installations (like this one about the MCA’s current show).

Check ’em out, and h/t to Ivan (and Paul).

Website Wednesday

Welcome to DiRT, people; your one stop shop for Digital Research Tools.

It’s a Wiki with categories for a variety of tools. I found it while reading about the latest and greatest in Digital Humanities Research (HERE & HERE), which is all the rage with the kids I hear, and it’s loaded with great stuff–tools for an alyzing text, collecting data, brainstorming, mashups, dynamic maps, bookmarks, transcription, note taking and more.

Best of all, because it’s a wiki, it’s the kind of place that you can both contribute to and rest assured that it will keep growing with time and be new the next time you return.

Enjoy!

Website Wednesday

Website Wednesday is a regular feature in which we highlight one (or a couple) of sites from the Billions floating around the Intertoobz that just might help you with your Herculean task of educating inquiring minds. Any and all suggestions for future editions are welcome.

After being on hiatus for a couple of weeks, due to my inability to find the time to review my tech sources owing to a grading back up of painful (but not unprecedented) proportion, Website Wednesday returns, now with comedy!

I found THIS ONE about student writing yesterday, while skimming through Leiter Reports, (the new Philosophical Gourmet is going live any day) where I saw the blog post title, “Some Students Ain’t Writing So Good…” and it may me laugh out loud. I think I even snorted.

Just so you aren’t surprised, the site is called Sh*t My Students Write, only the first word doesn’t have an asterisk, so if you’re a little squirrelly about cuss words on your work computer, you might want to wait until you get home. I’m not, though (it’s a WORD!), so I think you should go check it out. RIGHT NOW. It’s hilarious. Seriously. Just what you need. Go here and you won’t be sorry. Great for composition classes, too!

I presume it is modeled after the spectacularly hilarious site called Sh*tMy Kids Ruined, which turned into a book and has been a source of mirth (and coping) for parents for a few years now. So if you didn’t find the first one funny, maybe its inspiration will be…

I swear.

Website Wednesday

Here it is: Spicynodes.

Click on the link and then click on the picture to see what they do–radial mapping, animation, interactivity…my next “powerpoint” opportunity is going in Spicynodes. Check it.

Website Wednesday

Ok, I’m woefully behind on everything all of a sudden–I was sitting pretty and then whamm-o…100% buried in the weeds.

So, I haven’t yet had time to check out any of these for more than 15 seconds since I initially found them. Maybe you can?

Apologies if any of them are bad. Please let us all know what you find out…

Website Wednesday

Today’s featured Web site comes from Michael Heathfield (Applied Sciences/Social Work), and it’s put together by something called “The Equality Trust” and full of fascinating correlations related to Income Disparities and Social Goods.

To see the goods (as it were) you can go to the main site (HERE) and then click on the part that says “See the Evidence or you can skip the main page and just click HERE to go straight to the evidence.

Of course, there is criticism, too, and the authors/researchers behind the trust post their responses. In short, lots and lots of interesting, thought provoking stuff here.

Thanks, Michael!

Website Wednesday

Ok, this is another one that I’m not exactly sure what it does or how it would be used, but it’s called DoodleBuzz, and it appears to be some sort of search engine combined with a doodling application, so you open it up and then enter a search term and then draw a picture and the findings get arrayed along the picture.

It’s odd, and fun. Especially if you like to doodle. Check it out and give it a whirl. It won’t cost you a thing…

Website Wednesday

Who doesn’t need a timer now and again? I know I do, and nearly every day…

Here’s one for both of us!

Website Wednesday

Speaking of computerized recommendations, I came across this site a few weeks ago, and wasted a good hour playing with it. It’s called “What Should I Read Next?” and it’s super easy to use. It works better with better known and more widely read books (really disappointing suggestions for W.E.B. DuBois, for example), but even the disappointments are interesting for what they say about American reading patterns, I think.

One question that always comes up at the end of the semester, from some student or other, is “What should I read next?” It’s always a fun conversation to have, but even with 30 of us, it’s limited by the experiences in the room. It would be fun to have that conversation with this tool.

And if you want to know more about the people who run the site (and what they’re doing with your data!), you can read about it here. Have fun!

And, I figure, the more registered users they have, making recommendations, the better the tool will be.

Website Wednesday

Tired of pasting links into emails and then emailing those to yourself for reading at another time? Tired of long bookmark lists that you never get back to and never clean up? Tired of combing through your browsing history to find “that one site” that had that article whose title you can’t remember about that subject that you can’t quite recall with enough precision to find it in Google?

Well, it’s your lucky day. Check out “Instapaper.” Just create an account, do the simple drag and drop as directed, and then, whenever you come across a site you think you’ll want to read later, click the button you dragged to your toolbar and whammo–you have a reading list to return to whenever you want.

When you’re ready, you go to Instapaper and your saved links are all there waiting for you in one spot. It’s super easy, and nice to have everything in one spot rather than relying on my cluttered memory.

Website Wednesday

One from the audience! Kristin Bivens (English) was kind enough to write up (and record!) this one about one of my favorite freeware options. Thanks, Kristin!

About two years ago, Audacity showed up on my radar. Audacity is an open software program for recording mp3s (amongst other functions). Currently, I use Audacity to record mp3 lectures for the hybrid course I teach (ENG 102 for science majors), to record feedback to my students’ writing (they have the choice between verbal or recorded feedback), and to record mp3s to clarify f2f lectures (when there’s a need to do so).

Truthfully, I have found, from the composition perspective, that using recorded feedback for student writing is incredibly well-received (my students have found it to be effective) and it really helps to handle the paper load (increasing both the quantity and quality of the feedback I provide to my students). They are able to listen to the feedback numerous times; they are able to download the mp3 to their players or phones; and I am able to keep a paperless record of their writing journeys throughout a semester.

At first, I was hesitant to use this technology—it intimidated me. When I decided to teach a hybrid course, I knew I would need to just get over it and use the technology and benefits Audacity offered. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert when it comes to Audacity, as I only use it to record and export mp3s (and it has so much more functionality), but I am proficient using Audacity now. I intend to continue to use Audacity in my f2f and blended learning teaching.

If you’re interested in Audacity, you can download it for free here.

There’s a tutorial for Audacity here.

So, if you have the inclination, try it out.

UPDATE: More evidence of my rampant stupidity; I misspelled Kristin’s last name! Sorry! Mea Culpa. I have corrected it above.

Website Wednesday

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Faculty Council hosted focus group on Professional Development with Franklin and Alicia from the Development Task Force, which got me thinking about various things I want to learn and this list that I stumbled on a few weeks ago. It’s not just one Web site this week, people; it’s 12 dozen. That’s right…144 sites, compiled by a blogger for a list of places to go to self educate.

The blog where this post resides, “Marc and Angel Hack Life,” might be a legitimately helpful destination in its own right for a lot of people. They do lists there (with links!). Things like this or this or this.

Lots of resources here to explore. And they might even take requests!

Website Wednesday

Datamasher is a web site for playing with numbers. It’s easy and potentially useful in all sorts of ways. First you have to register for an account–no big deal. It’s free.

Next you pick a data set from among hundreds available on the site. What’s that? You’d like to do something with the data for “Refugee Arrivals in 2008”? Ok.

Next you pick an operator (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division); I chose division. Then you pick a second data set. How about 2008 state populations? Done. Then you press save, and “Voila!” You’ve got yourself a “Data Mashup” like this one.

There are interesting data sets and lots of possibilities. Have fun with it.