Simple video explanations of modern Internet technologies

Via a blog dedicated to technology for education, LearnTech News, I found out about some videos that give good, simple explanations of some modern Internet technologies can help you in your daily work.

The videos show how things like RSS feeds, social bookmarking and wikis can help teachers (or anyone).

If you don't know (or aren't exactly sure) what those are, then just watch the videos :)
(They're lower down this page)

The videos are produced by a group called Common Craft, a group of educators producing simple video explanations of many things (not just technology). You can watch the videos on their site, but they are also available on TeacherTube (online videos for education) and dotSUB (a site that includes subtitles in various languages).

Because I work with Spanish speakers, I've embedded versions on dotSUB: there you can choose subtitles (Spanish: Castillian) from the menu at the bottom of the video.

After you watch the videos, why not try out these technologies yourself? After all, I found about these videos because I'm subscribed to an RSS feed. And I can always find these useful sites (like LearnTech News) again because I use social bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

I haven't experimented much with the "social" aspect of social bookmarking; the main reasons I use it are that I can save and access bookmarks on any computer anywhere, instead of these bookmarks being divided up across many computers.
Also I find that doing a search on delicious can sometimes be more productive than just doing a plain web search.
And if you find a useful site searching on delicious, you can click on the user who bookmarked it and see what other useful sites they have found.

RSS in Plain English

I found out about these videos because I subscribe to LearnTech News using Google Reader. Here's a Common Craft video specifically about that.

eBook - "Using Moodle"

I found this eBook via some Moodle demo course (unfortunately I don't remember where). Anyways I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone: share it with you AND test out the sharing function of Dropbox (which I wrote about in Sharing Files Across Computers).

Download: Using Moodle (PDF, 6.2mb)

Using Moodle
Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System
(2nd Edition)
Jason Cole & Helen Foster
(O'Reilly Community Press, 2008)

I've only skimmed it quickly, but it looks very useful. Here's an Amazon link with reviews.

EDIT: The download link timed out the first time I tried it, but worked perfectly when I retried. So thumbs up for Dropbox's sharing.

Sharing Files Across Computers

I have a laptop. I also sometimes work on the computers in the lab (around 40 PCs there?), sometimes in the library, sometimes in an internet café, sometimes on my girlfriend's computer.

So how can I make sure I have all the stuff I need whenever I need it, no matter which computer I'm on? Instead of one file here, another there and the third someplace else? There are several solutions and I'll talk about two here.

1. Have a flash drive and use "sync" software.
Flash drives have many names: USB drives, thumb memory, pen drives etc. Basically it's some computer storage you can carry around with. You can plug it into any modern computer and access the files on it. They are cheap and widely available.

At first, I would manually copy a complete folder (e.g. "Teaching") from my laptop onto the USB drive, then plug the USB drive into whichever computer I was using. Then when I got home I would try to remember which files I'd modified or created and then copy them back to my laptop.

But once I lost my keydrive. After that I started copying the entire folder onto every university computer I used, so that if anything ever happened to my new USB drive or to my laptop, I would have a copy as backup. Again, a manual process.

But it can be much easier. Just use some sync software.

I used Toucan (review, another review) from PortableApps.com. It's a fairly small, free Windows program that you can use on any Windows computer (even if you don't permission to install software) because you can install it on your flash drive, or just copy it onto any computer. Toucan is portable software.

Sync software can take care of all the tasks for you: checking which files have changed, which have been newly deleted or created, which need to be copied etc. It makes life a lot easier.

Advantages to flash drive/sync software combo:

• Have your files with you everywhere, even without internet connection
• Flash drives are getting bigger (in terms of the amount of data they can store) and cheaper all the time.
  

Disadvantages:

• You might forget your flash drive
  
• Flash drives can be lost/stolen
• Sync software usually only works on a specific computer operating system, e.g. Toucan works on Windows computers but doesn't work on Mac or Linux.
• Often before leaving the house, I'd have to remember to plug in my flash drive, run the sync software and unplug before running out. :)
  

2. Online Storage/ Sync / Backup
I recently changed the operating system on my computer, from Microsoft Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux 8.04. So I couldn't use Toucan anymore, and I wanted to find an option that would work on any computer, no matter what operating system. That's when I started really getting into online storage/sync/backup services.

There are many of these services around, and I've tried several but not all of them. The one I like most right now is Dropbox (wikipedia, review, artículo en español). You can just use it via the Dropbox webpage or (much better) install it on your computer: Windows, Mac and Linux :)

It creates a Dropbox folder on your computer. Just put the files you want there and you'll be able to access them from any internet-connected computer, via your Dropbox page or installing the Dropbox software on other computers you use.

Other similar services I'm looking into are SpiderOak and Wua.la.

Advantages to the online storage/sync/backup I've mentioned:

• You don't have to remember to plug in, sync and unplug and take your flash drive with you.
• No flash drive to forget, lose or get stolen
• Work on all major personal computer operating systems: Windows, Mac and Linux
  

Disadvantages:

• No internet=no files
• Free options have size limit (1 or 2 gigabytes) (although interestingly wua.la has an option to increase this by trading space on your hard drive for extra storage online)
• Pay services are a regular cost (you only pay once for a flash drive but every month/year for online storage/sync/backup)

What I'm doing now
Principally I'm using Dropbox; it's just so easy. I work on my computer and I know that without lifting a finger, I'll be able to access those files from any internet-connected computer anywhere. I also occasionally copy that folder to my USB drive. And I've also opened a SpiderOak account, to have extra capacity online (Dropbox 2gb free + SpiderOak 2gb free = 4gb free!)

• Also found this: Top 10 ways to use Dropbox  (Edit fixed link.... I hope)