Web Browsers

Your web browser, originally called Internet Browser, is your window to the web and impacts on how effectively you interact with content, your social networks and websites on the Internet.

A common misconception is you can only run one web browser. Wrong! Web browsers are just programs; just as you can install/use several graphics or word processing programs on your computer so can you have several web browser without causing any problems.

Just because a web browser is incorporated in the operating system of your computer doesn’t mean you have to stick to using that one web browser. There are quite a few free open source web browser that can enhancing your browser experience.

Whilst Internet Explorer dominates, contributing 74.88 % of market share in February 2008, FireFox is increasing in popularity. Check out this article for a comparison of web browsers.

Statistics used in graph above were taken from Market Share Report prepared by Net Applications. If you compared these statistics to results from Google Analytics, or similar application, for browser usage by visitors to your blog it’s likely that FireFox will feature highly (Note: Statistics for Flock are normally combined with FireFox).

FireFox

Firefox, a free open source web browser which runs on various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, is very popular with e-learning professionals with most preferring it to Internet Explore. It was nominated 2nd top tool in the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list by 155 learning professionals.

It’s regarded as the best Web browser in terms of add-ons that users can install to modify or add to existing functionality of FireFox. There are hundreds of FireFox add-ons which can be downloaded from here

Everyone who uses FireFox has their own personal favourite add-ons.

My favorite add-ons include:

1. Del.icio.us Bookmarks add-on – great for adding the sites I bookmark to del.icio.us plus excellent for searching my bookmarks in del.icio.us
2. CoComment add-on – automatically activates coComment when you write comments on all major blogging platforms, on services like Digg, Flickr or Youtube and some Forums making it easier to track responses to comments you leave on other people’s sites.

Glen Gatin nominated Zotero add-on in his top 3 tools because it’s easy-to-use and helps you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. Zotero was nominated 72nd top tool in the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list by 155 learning professionals.

Flock

Flock is another free open source web browser that also runs on various operating systems and is based on open source FireFox’s code. It’s becoming increasing popular because of the social networking features built into it’s interface.

Dean Groom, John Larkin and ozesteph1992 all twittered that Flock is one of their 3 favorite tools. Ozesteph1992 says “I feel like sitting in planes cockpit where I have all ‘controls’ on my fingertips, just a few clicks” when I use Flock.

One cool feature of Flock is once you’re logged in into your favorite sites such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter the far left side of your flock browser window becomes a mini-people’s feed showing the latest updates from these sites by your friends.

Check out this excellent video by Liz Davis on Figuring Out Flock.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://ca.youtube.com/v/crB8CcYBnBQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Liz Davis has created an excellent range of videos on “how to” use a range of web 2.0 tools and she has located them in this post on her blog.   Make sure you take the time to watch her three video on how to use Google Reader if you are still trying to set up a feed reader.

Blogging and Web Browsers

People’s decision to read and/or subscribe to your blog is based on appearance. The various web browsers display your posts differently so every now and then it’s important to check what your blog looks like in various web browsers.

I’ve had my posts display lovely in FireFox only to be upset to discover they looked terrible in Internet Explorer because my image sizes where too large for the web browser making the posts untidy.

FINAL THOUGHT

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?
• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Getting More Out Of Blogging And Edublogs
• Using Your Twitter Network For Help & Providing Their Recommendations

What’s your favourite web browser, and why? What’s your favorite add-ons, and why? What tips and tricks do you have for using web browsers?

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Larry explained that Edublogs is his #1 best Web 2.0 tool because “it’s so easy to use and not blocked by my School District filters”. While Rafa agreed with Larry saying “especially with the new facility to create blogs for my students. I have a small group project started which involves every team running a blog, and this made it so easy to monitor!”

So let’s check out resources for getting more out of blogging and Edublogs in our latest post on our ongoing series on Best Web 2.0 tools.

Blogging Resources

I’ve set up a Getting Started With Edublogs page on this blog to provide a central location for information, provided by the edublogger community, on the “basics of getting started blogging” including:

1. “How To” Manuals

These Introductory manuals are both excellent with fantastic “how to” explanations; both can be viewed online or downloaded and printed to provide excellent guides to step you through the process of setting up your blog and writing posts.

I still refer to both these manuals for extra tips — thanks Gail Desler and Janetta Garton for taking the time to create and share them.

2. Blogging With Students

Some really excellent posts explain the benefits of student blogging plus cover all the different aspects of blogging with students from parental consent, setting up their blogs, and student blog management to effective use of student blogs.

Let me know if you have a post to add to this section.

Don’t forget that Edublogs has now added a new feature that allows you to create blogs and usernames for your students and colleagues in batches of up to 15 at a time.

3. “How to” Video Tutorials

Edublogs has created excellent short “how to” video tutorials that step you through the process of setting up your blog and writing posts. I’ve added some of these to the Getting Started With Edublogs page (just click on the image and the video plays) and included the entire collection link.

Like the Introductory Manuals, I still refer to these videos for extra tips.

Latest News

Edublogs is committed to providing you the latest news of what’s happening in the Edublogs community and lots of great tips but are you receiving these updates?

Here’s how you can receive the latest updates:

1. Subscribe to Edublogs

James Farmer writes blog posts to let us know what’s happening.

The fastest and most efficient way of being notified of these is to subscribe to Edublogs’s URL using your feed reader (i.e. add http://edublogs.org/). Now whenever James writes a new post it will be delivered straight to you.

If you aren’t currently using a feed reader read this post on Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using RSS? Plus check out How I Use RSS To Make My Life Easier.

2. Follow Edublogs on Twitter

Edublogs has set up an account on Twitter to let the community know of the latest news.

Make sure if you use Twitter that you follow the Edublogs Twitter account.

Alternatively, if you don’t use Twitter you can still receive these updates by adding the RSS feed from the Edublogs Twitter account to your feed reader – here is Edublogs Twitter accounts RSS feed.

If you’re currently not using Twitter check out this post on How I Use Twitter plus read How A Twitter Network Can Be Used For Help & Providing Recommendations.

3. Subscribe To The Edublogger

The Edublogger was set up by Edublogs to help educational bloggers with emerging technologies in education, share their own experiences, and promote the blogging medium.

The fastest and most efficient way of being notified of the latest tips from The Edublogger is to subscribe to its RSS feed in your feed reader — here is The Edublogger RSS feed.

Help And Support

If you’ve got a problem with your blog the best place to access support is through the Edublogs Forum.

Before asking for help take the time to search the forum because more than likely the questions are already being asked and answered.

If you can’t find the answer by searching the Forum, reading the FAQ, or watching the videos, then post your question to the forum — please provide as much information as you can including:

• The exact URLs you are referring to (i.e. add the address of your blog to your post), if it is an issue with your blog
• A detailed description of the issue (the more the better)
• Sample of the code you are trying to embed, if you are having trouble embedding

The Edublogs crew does an excellent job supporting the community in the Forum but they can’t be expected to help 24/7. Please subscribe to the Forum Feed in your feed reader, and if you know the answer to a question take time to write a response — here is the Forum RSS feed. Let’s give back their support by helping as a community in the Forum :).

Don’t forget to check out the benefits of being an Edublogs Supporter — only costs $25 per year and you get lots of extra features.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?
• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Web Browser?
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Using Your Twitter Network For Help & Providing Their Recommendations

Don’t forget to let us know about resources or posts suitable for Edublogs Help info pages.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

Let me show you, as part of our best of Web 2.0 series, how I and others use Personalized Start Pages to bring information to us.

What Are Personalized Start Pages

The idea of a personalised start page (some call them Personalized Homepages) is to bring all the content you consume on a daily basis onto the one page. It’s all about convenience, saving time and providing what you want in one handy location — which you can access on any computer anywhere. They’re called personalized because we can customize our start page to our own personal preferences and needs.

Examples of start pages are iGoogle, NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage. They all use two components: feeds and widgets (widgets are mini web applications that you can put onto your website). Please note Pageflakes widgets are called Flakes and iGoogle widgets are known as Gadgets.

The feed component means that you can use the RSS feed from websites such as your favorite blogs to feed their latest posts onto your start page. Widgets lets you run cool applications like email, weather, world clock, to-do lists, sticky notes, bookmarks on your start page.

Popularity of Start Pages

Several in my twitter network choose their start page in their top 3 indispensable Web 2.0 tools — Sue Hickton, John . Curry, Awyatt included iGoogle; Graham Wegner listed Pageflakes and Mike Romard likes NetVibes.

Start pages were included in Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list (compiled from the top 10 learning tools by 155 learning professionals) and ranked:

• 15th for iGoogle
• 31st for PageFlakes
• 43rd for NetVibes
• Protopage didn’t make the top 100 list.

Choosing Your Start Page

Each start page has its pros and cons; your choice depends on how you want to use it.

The biggest difference is that NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage all provide you the option to create:

1. Private pages – only you can view what is on your private pages
2. Groups pages – you can share the page with a group of people
3. Public public pages – viewable by anyone

Whereas iGoogle focuses mainly on your personal needs and you can’t create public pages to share content.  However you can share tabs with a group using email.

iGoogle is my favourite start page and is my default home in my web browser.  My next post will show you why I use iGoogle and how to set up your own iGoogle but in the meantime check out these examples on how the public NetVibes, PageFlakes and Protopage are used:

1. NetVibes

Vicki Davis (Cool Cat Teacher) likes to use NetVibes for checking all her students spaces from a project with one quick look. Here is an example of a NetVibes page Vicki created for educators to promote Advocates for Digital Citizenship, Safety, and Success.

Another example is Crimson Connect which is a student run web portal for Harvard Students.

2. PageFlakes

Technobabble created The Giver PageFlake for her English 7 class who are reading the novel The Giver. While the elearning Guild Annual Gathering 2008 Conference and Expo used the AG08 PageFlake to bring together the content being generated by their conference.

3. ProtoPage

Elearning07 conference protopage is an example of a protopage created for sharing information on a conference program with participants.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Web Browser?
• Getting More Out Of Blogging And Edublogs
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Using Your Twitter Network For Help & Providing Their Recommendations

Are you using a Start Page? If so, which one and why?  We would love to check out examples of start pages used with students.  If you have any examples, can you please share?

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

CoComment

Is it wrong to say I love Martin Weller? Probably but I truly mean it (but you will need to read on to see why I feel this way).

Blogging is far more than just writing blog posts. Making a conscious effort to take the time to comment on posts of other bloggers is an essential part of blogging. I personally sacrifice time I could spend writing more blog posts to comment on other bloggers posts.

Don’t be afraid to comment! What you say is of value and is encouraging to other bloggers (especially new bloggers). Every blogger loves comments regardless of their status in the blogosphere .

So getting back to Martin Weller his current favorite blogging tool is cocomment which he uses for tracking comments he posts on other people’s blogs.

Martin says

cocomment makes me more likely to comment on blogs and thus a better blog citizen

If I had one wish it would be for us all to be better blog citizens.

When you create an account with coComment you install a CoComment add-on which automatically activates coComment when you write comments on all major blogging platforms, on services like Digg, Flickr or Youtube and some Forums making it easier to track responses to comments you leave on other people’s sites.

By subscribing to your cocomment RSS feed using your feed reader e.g. Google Reader or Bloglines you’re automatically notified whenever a person comments on a post that you’ve commented on so you can choose to immediately respond back if you want.

Comment tracking tools make commenting more meaningful because you no longer feel like you left comment drifting in the wind never to be seen or heard again. As a blogger you should be using a comment tracking tool like co.comment!

Jott

William “Bud” Deihl has got me seriously pondering Jott’s benefits for translating voice from a phone onto text to write blog posts (read his explanation in this post). Fortunately for Australian drivers I can’t write my blog posts by talking into my mobile phone as I drive to work since it appears Jott is only available in US and Canada.

Jott is far more powerful than just a tool that we could be using for blogging. So many people have found Jott increases their productivity.

Ken Pendergrass included Jott in his top 3 Web 2.o tools because he uses it everyday to give himself reminders via SMS and/or email. Michele Martin has written an excellent post on how she uses Jott to increase her productivity.

And yet Jott has even more potential. Karen Janowski highlights how Jott is a 21st century tool for learning by providing excellent examples of how we could use it with students in our classrooms.

Phone photo from Flickr by JaJah licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.0.

File Hosting/Sharing Tools

There are so many file hosting and sharing tools that can help us with our blogging. Here are just a few that made it into the Top 3 Best Web 2.0 as recommended by my twitter network and our readers.

Isabelle Jones recommended Scribd because you can upload documents and share them with others i.e. your communities as well as publish them on blogs. I’ve never heard of Scribd before so Kevin Gamble explained “it’s like a YouTube for documents”.

Scribd was nominated 64th top tool in the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list by 155 learning professionals. I would love to hear more about Scribd if you are using it

Whereas Marlene Manto says she couldn’t do without Box.net because it’s great for storage, sharing and collaboration. Box.net allows you to upload large documents, photos, spreadsheets, videos, or zip files to your online space which can then be accessed from anywhere. It means you can store large files online at Box.net instead of using your blog storage space; all you need to do is link across to the Box.net storage location.

Here are Marlene’s instructions on how to use Box.net.

What can we truly say about SlideShare? Not only is it an excellent location to store and share your PowerPoint presentations online but it’s also a great resource for:

• To discover other people’s presentations and slideshows for sharing with your readers
• Visiting to learn the art of crafting a presentation; great for inspiring ideas when creating your own presentations

If you’ve not used SlideShare you definitely need to check it out!

Thanks Dean Groom for including it in your Top 3 Best Web 2.o tools. SlideShare was nominated 14th top tool in the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008 list by 155 learning professionals.

Here is one of my favourite SlideShare’s by Kim Cofino.

Search Box

Having a search box on your blog matters! As Chris Brogan nicely says

The #1 thing I seek in a blog I’m returning to (versus a newly discovered blog) is a search bar. Why? Because often, I’m returning to a blog to find a story.

Put your search box WAY up high on your page, above the fold, if at all possible. It matters.

Martin Weller included his Lijit search box in his top 3 best Web 2.0 tools (visit Martin’s blog and do a search see how Lijit works).

Definitely I like the idea of Lijit is because I have my content located across lots of websites and this search allows readers to search content on my blog or all my sites (by clicking on the My Content Tab). Plus it provides some really cools statistics on how readers interact with my blog that are emailed weekly or I can check them out online in my account.

But I’m still debating Lijit with myself because when readers click on My Content tab the search will also shows results from other websites – which is really bad. You want readers to stay on your sites not go to other peoples sites.

Would love to hear your opinions about which Search box(es) you like to have on your blog and why? My mind is still very open to the idea of Lijit — so please share your thoughts.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?
• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Web Browser?
• Getting More Out Of Blogging And Edublogs
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Using Your Twitter Network For Help & Providing Their Recommendations

There’s still time for you to share your thoughts on “What Web 2.0 tools (apart from Twitter, delicious & Flickr) you find indispensable? Name your best 3?” by writing a comment or your own post on your favourite tools.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

As Frank commented “the secret is to create a sizable enough network for twitter to make sense or to “get” it”. Unfortunately most new users don’t have the sizable network, established personal connections with followers or skills at using twitter clients to leverage twitter power.

Yesterday Linda, one of my new twitter followers, asked:

Realizing responses would be limited and not show twitter power I decided to utilize my sizable twitter network to show her and convince others of the value of twitter. Plus it’s an excellent idea for a follow up to Are You Twittering? Here’s How I Use Twitter post.

Disclaimer:

• Be very, very careful; use the force wisely.
• Don’t use twitter for only asking questions — you need to build rapport with your twitter network by balancing your tweets with mundane/absurd aspects of your life while also making an effort to help others.
• Asking her question, following up responses, is something I limit to “Once in blue moon” because you can incur twitter penalties and friendly remembers to consider others.

The Results

Of 560 followers I received 24 responses to “What Web 2.0 tools (apart from Twitter, delicious & Flickr) people find indispensable? Name your best 3?” which I added to Favorite to make it easier to compile the results.

Best part of this question is everyone has different favorite tool so you’re introduced to new ones or ones you haven’t paid enough attention to.

Downside for people new to Web 2.0 tools is too many choices is overwhelming — my advice — take your time, pick and choose, learn when you have time and don’t be afraid to ask advice from people like me.

My twitter network named so many free Web 2.0 tools, from various tool categories, as their “best 3” that I’ve decided to break the results into a Best of Web 2.0 series to make the information more manageable.

Google Tools

Google has so many great tools which so many people are totally unaware of; tools that are incredibility useful for increasing work productivity, collaborating with others and using with students.

John H. Curry teaches preservice teachers about Google Docs, Gmail, iGoogle, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Apps etc and said they freak out because they had no idea Google had so much. Like so many people, his students thought that Google was a search engine only.

Here are the Google Tools recommended by my Twitter network:

1. Gmail

Gmail is a very popular web based email that you can access from any computer. Besides being easy-to-use with massive storage (6591 MB), Gmail includes search which means you can search emails and chats for particular words/terms.

Graham Wegner, Jo Mcleay and John H. Curry all included Gmail in their 3 best tools.

2. Google talk (Gtalk)

Google Talk is Google’s tool for instant messaging (chatting with others) and talking to people (VOIP) using the Internet. If you don’t have a VOIP application, like Google Talk or Skype, on your computer this is a definitely a must – means you can talk or chat to anyone, anywhere, using the Internet, at no cost.

Jo Mcleay also included Gtalk in her 3 best tools. Features I like about GTalk include:

• Ability to search gmail and chat messages for previous conversations
• Integrated into gmail so you can access gtalk using your gmail if you’re another computer
• gtalk client that you can download onto your computer.

3. Google Docs

Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application provided by Google. Users can create and edit documents online plus collaborate in real-time with other users.

No more emailing documents back and forth then forgetting who’s done or where you’re all at; it can now be done online.

Use of Google Docs for your work and with students is only limited by your imagination; this is why Jo Mcleay, John H. Curry, Awyatt and Ken Pendergrass are all included Google docs in their 3 best tools.

Check out these video tutorials on how to use Google Documents (link twittered by Liz Davis) or this how-to guide (link twittered by Kate Olson). Here is Tom Barrett’s post on how to embed Google presentations into an Edublogs blog.

4. Google Reader

Google Reader is Google’s RSS reader (i.e. takes the RSS feed from a site and present in a readable form for the user). Instead of visiting numerous sites the RSS feeds from these sites comes to one location — your feed reader, where you read the information.

Sue Hickton, Awyatt, Britt Watwood, Chad Lehman and Allison Miller chose Google Reader as part of their 3 best tools. It’s a popular feed reader because it’s fairly easy to use, can be accessed online anywhere, provides options for tagging and sorting RSS feeds into folders, provides search facilities so you can search for specific terms within your RSS feeds, and has excellent tools for sharing your favorites posts with others.

Read these posts to learn how:

• To Make Your Life Easier By Using RSS
• I Use RSS To Make My Life Easier
• To Get More Out Of Google Reader, Update On Get More Out Of Google Reader and Be More Sharing And Caring With Google Reader

5. iGoogle

Personalized Start Pages are homepages on your web browser where your information is brought to you via RSS and where you can check all your important bookmarks/links. They normally have options for embedding widgets or gadgets onto the page. iGoogle is Google’s personalised start page.

Sue Hickton, John H. Curry, Awyatt included iGoogle as one of their 3 best tools. Check out what an iGoogle page looks like on John Larkin’s post.

6. Google Earth

Google Earth puts the world’s geographic information at your fingertips by combining the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings.

Sonja selected Google Earth as her top 1 best tool because:

has to be one of the best tools out there that I can think of. There are so many ways this application can be utilized for just about any class and learner. There are also many, many resources out there showing you the golden brick road to best useage of Google Earth.

Check out Sonja’s post for links to help educators use Google Earth with their students and Tom Barrett’s excellent Google presentation on Eighteen Interesting ways to use Google Earth in Your Classroom.

FINAL THOUGHT

Twitter can save lots of time searching for information; because your friends help you find it and are able to give you their recommendations.

Other posts from this Best of Web 2.0 series include:

• Are You Making Your Life Easier By Using A Personalized Start Page?
• Setting Up iGoogle For Your Personal Learning
• Blogging Tools To Help You Blog
• Getting More Out Of Blogging And Edublogs
• Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Web Browser?

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!