Free Range Learning

Would you like to make writing and responding in discussion boards easier for your online class? Having an extra monitor for your computer can be a great tool to easier interactions on the web. Most modern computers will allow you to have multiple monitors or if you are a laptop user, to add an extra monitor. In addition to having a bigger screen for laptop users there is an even greater advantage. In most cases you can desktop users can spread expand their desktop over two monitors and laptop users …

Last week I wrote a post on how Google's autocomplete function gives us an interesting insight into what theological and biblical questions are being asked .

Well, last night I ran across a December issue of the NY Times Magazine that had a fascinating article on the Google Search Algorithm as Extinction Model . Apparently a couple of research scientists recently had a bright idea:

Google's search engine uses an algorithm called PageRank to identify the most important Web sites on a given …

Jennie (from the library ) and I have recently been playing around with wordles. What's a wordle, you wonder? Well, it's basically a tool on the internet that generates word clouds. Word cloud? What's that? It's an image that is formed around text that you provide; words that are frequently used in the text are bigger than words that are used less often. The graphic image they produce offers a different perspective you might not otherwise see by just reading the text.

For example, …

 Hat-tip to BoingBoing for this article on how to reduce your online stress: delete your emails .

I used to have loads of folders, date-based folders, even … but for me all that amounted to was this elaborate procrastination system. I realized that if something can't be dealt with immediately, it needs to stay right in front of you. So it's either in my inbox or it's deleted. And if it sits in my inbox, then it has to be turned into action.

I have been trying over the past few months to keep …

Here is the video of our most recent Tech Talk. The Student Network Access Portal (SNAP) allows students to transfer files from their home computer to and from their campus HomeDrive. See how below:

We seem to talk a lot about PowerPoint on this blog, yet is seems that all of us have the experience of being bored to death by bad presentations. The presentation below is one of the most-watched on SlideShare.

It's a classic, because it's so well done.

I have recently become enamored with Flickr . There are dozens (if not hundreds) of photo-sharing websites out there, and I have previously used Snapfish to upload photos, e-mail them to friends, and have them printed at my local Target .  But I'm quickly becoming a Flickr nut.

I've known for a while about their Creative Commons search function, which has been wonderful (even for use in this blog). I have also often checked out Flickr's Interestingness page and, even though I wish they'd get rid …

Join us for the new Tech Talks for students, faculty, and staff hosted by Learning Design & Technology and the Library. These succinct, thirty-minute talks will touch briefly on some new, exciting, curious or interesting aspect of technology. A brief presentation on how to use the technology will be followed by a roundtable discussion to answer questions and generate ideas for using the technology.

Our topic this week is PowerPoint. Explore how you can get more out of your presentations and lectures. …

This week, in conjunction with the Library , we are excited to begin new, bi-weekly Tech Talks . These thirty-minute talks will cover some new or exciting aspect of technology and will be offered Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons, every other week.

We'll spend the first few minutes of each talk providing a very high-level overview of the technology and then open it up for discussion to generate ideas about creative and useful ways to use the technology.

Having people from all sides of the …

I finally had 1:20 free to watch the Google Wave demo. It looks like it is going to be a very powerful communication and collaboration tool that combines, email, chat, wiki, and photo / video sharing all into one open source tool. I'm excited for it to be released so we can see how it might be useful for us here at Luther.