A quick post on a little idiosyncrasy with Zotero.

Normally, when I click the icon in the address bar, Zotero automatically downloads the cite to whichever folder I have highlighted (e.g., Instructional Design), but when using Gale this doesn’t seem to happen. Not a big deal in the grand scheme, … so I’d do a quick global library search, then find, select and drag it to the desired library.

Still curious, though, and looking for an opportunity to procrastinate, I did a little investigation. It turns out that the Gale cites are downloaded as a top-level item to the main, “My Library” folder. While it still requires a drag-and-drop, I’m spared the extra step of entering a title search.

Maybe there’s a work-around or something obvious I’m missing. If not, I hope this little tidbit is helpful.

… the problem was not that companies overpromise, but that schools often do not properly deploy the products or train teachers to use them.

Finger-pointing aside, I think there would be many teachers who would actually agree that one of the factors is the lack of training (and lack of money to make that training possible). Of course, training also has its detractors who argue over ROI. But where I think training gets a bad reputation is its short-sightedness. Instead of a quick one or two-day workshop to learn the basic functionalities of the software, why not also complement it with a more sustained learning initiative designed to facilitate creative strategies for engaging students? Why not have the teachers work with the tool on a regular basis and collaborate with their colleagues on different approaches to using it in their classrooms? Instead of setting it up as a workshop, perhaps a studio concept might be more appropriate?

Wikispaces is definitely distinguishing itself here. While lots of wiki platforms have comment features, the comments aren’t contextualized; instead, they’re typically aggregated at the bottom of the page which requires the user to first scroll down the page to the comments section and then to scroll back up and then carefully search for that section of text that the comment corresponds to (and hoping not to forget the gist of that comment while hunting down that specific piece of text). This requires too much work. Wikis are well known for their ease of use and the process of commenting should be just as easy.

For the Mac users out there, it’s looking like the next version of OS X is going to make podcasting quite a bit easier. 9to5Mac gives a glimpse of what may be happening with the upcoming Podcast Publisher. If its final final form surfaces as described, one feature that might especially capture instructors’ attention is the split screen, where students could view demo actions as well as their teacher’s friendly mug. This rich combo could certainly do a lot to boost social presence.

One other thought … added ease of use to this tool also makes it ideal for encouraging more student-generated podcasts. (Who says teachers should have all the fun?) With all that goes into making a good podcast, it seems like there’s plenty of potential for rich, authentic learning experiences.

1. Click on the Application icon to launch the pdf in Acrobat
2. Make whatever highlights desired
3. Toggle back to Scrivener and click the Reload icon

So if I’ve added a pdf to my Scrivener Research folder (e.g., research article), it will automatically sync any highlights I make while reading that article in Acrobat. Pretty nifty.

Originally, it piqued my interest because it uses Ubuntu packages — my favorite Linux distro. Later on, I learned that it has plugins for Moodle and WordPress (among others). Of course, Moodle is well-known among ed tech’ers. And while WordPress is known more for blogging, you can find a good post over at ProfHacker on scaling it into a better LMS.

Here’s a quick synopsis of my experience.

After doing my usual university-credential login, I went to download a pdf and was greeted with a message to install missing plugins.

Initially, I tried skipping over the plugin-install prompt (figuring it was to install Adobe Reader which I already had), but ran into a dead end. So even though I have the full Adobe CS Suite, I went ahead and complied on the second go-round and clicked the button to install the plugin. I was hoping my plugin acquiescence would solve the problem, but that was not to be the case as I was then greeted with this sad output:

Feeling it was time to take it to the next level, I shot off a quick email query to my university library and got a very prompt and helpful reply explaining that the problem was with ProQuest, and they were aware of it, but didn’t have a timeline for fixing it.

So what’s a Mac-research-geek to do? Start a support group? (Marginalized Macs?) I thought that with all the massive popularity of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad that this compatibility problem would disappear. But apparently not. Up until now, I’ve had no problem with ProQuest whatsoever. I understand that these things take time, but it would be nice if they at least gave us Mac users the option of using an older, more compatible version. They could even spice it up with a clever little marketing tagline: Old School.

Posterous recently announced a private groups option. Like a lot of people, I really like the ease and simplicity of Posterous (writing a post is as easy as sending an email). One of the best advantages of this new feature is that it doesn’t require individual group members to sign up because all the posts can be sent via a simple email. In an educational setting this is a big help because one of the more time-consuming logistical tasks instructors encounter is getting all the students either registered with the main class blog or helping them set up their own. All too often valuable class time is lost with keeping track of who’s signed up and who hasn’t.

Posterous Groups