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iLeonardo Research Notebook

I learned of a new tool for researching topics of interest from the Mashable.com article about 12 Notebooks. It is ileonardo.com and I just received my invite to join the service from Joshua Rosen, founder and CEO of ileonardo.com. I did some work with it and created a notebook (usually on one topic – as you can have many notebooks) on Social networking in education and searched a couple of others interested in the same topic among others. I spent the next hour or so browsing others selected articles and blogs and had to make myself quit. The idea is to combine social networking and research. You create notebooks about your research topics, and you can search ileonardo users for any who are researching the same topic. Basically, you share your research and others work in a wonderful open community of some pretty serious folk. I had no problem finding other members interested in topics I am interested in. While this is a new service there are already enough members to make the social aspect worthwhile.

Then there is the notebook. You save your work, resources, articles, blogs, in your library for that notebook. You create pages in the notebook, with images and other media possibilities, and you have a bookmarklet to save anything you find – even highlighted words on a website, into your notebook page.

So far this is one of the more interesting new social software I have seen in a while. I plan on participating enough to offer my work on several topics, and see how the community develops. I invite you to visit and see what you think. The URL above opens to a video that explains the concept.

12 Notebook Tools for research

One of the most valuable tools for your learning environment is a digital notebook tool that is capable of capturing practically any digital file, image, video, or other type of presentation. Mashable.com has an excellent review of 12 notebook tools that should help you in choosing one of these tools for your personal needs. If you want to find new ways to manage information you choose to capture, this type of tool may be of value to your arsenal.

I you still don’t grasp RSS….

A new video about Google Reader from the folks at Common Craft:

Trapping Frustrations!

I have to admit that I was surprised to see most of you frustrated with the process of finding the information you need and with expressions of too much information out there. Yet your topic was about how to proceed to trap and process the information your want and the many tools that are available to accomplish this.

A lot of the tools (applications) that we have been experiencing this quarter are all about new types of technologies that give us more control in managing the information flow of the Internet. There are more advanced methods for using search engines like Google, and there are many specialized search engines that perform differently that Google. RSS allows us to collect our favorite sites that are useful to us, and allow us to quickly and conveniently scan the latest additions to those sites and choose which articles are of interest to us. We have found new tools that assist us in continuously scanning a particular topic and get updated emails when changes occur; customized search functions with Google and other engines to go after our primary topics of interest; sites that tell us when there are changes to a selected or targeted site; a bot that can be scripted to tell us when certain kinds of information is changed or available, and our growing of a personal learning environment that pulls together all of our resources and experiences of creating.

My concern is that it may be assumed that these tools along with social networking and forming a trusting community of learners is a simple thing to occur. We read about something and expect it to happen. But each of these processes are new to most of you, and have not been extensively practiced. It is not easy to understand how some of them benefit you. And there is always the difficulty we face trying to change and instill new habits and processes into our lives. All of these activities take practice and time to develop the skills necessary to use them effectively. They will not suddenly make sense to everyone. You have to adjust, make a concerted effort, and most of all, you have to want to improve your skills. We are fortunate to have a trusting and capable group to share our learning experiences with. You may have some fear of expressing yourselves, but so far it is only helping each of us to grow. The benefits of becoming skilled at managing the information you need is a lifelong learning process that continues to become richer and more valuable to you as you move from student to career professional.

Give it time. Practice even when you don’t want to or it doesn’t make a lot of sense to you. It will come. And with it, the joy that you are in control. That you truly can find whatever you need in a critical career decision. And remember too, that it is not just about formal or academic learning, but informal learning also. It can bring rewards in all aspects of your life.

Alex and Sara’s Sites Address Correction

Alex has a corrected blog address listed in Sum08 – please check his blog and make comments when you get an opportunity.

Sara has also had an incorrect address and she has posted all of the assignments, please visit her site as soon as possible in Sum08.

Note Taking Tools

LifeHacker is an interesting blog related to the Getting Things Done principle – based on a book by David Allen which will be part of our course at a later session. This article about Note Taking tools describes the top five tools in that category, based on an online survey by LifeHacker (which is also available). The top five include: Evernote (Mac & Win versions, plus web version), pen(cil) and paper (has some very interesting links such as a Geek to Live: Take great notes article by editor Gina Trapani), Microsoft One Note, Google Notebook, and Personal Wiki (GTDTiddlyWiki).

I would also add the Zoho Notebook, one of the many excellent Zoho productivity applications (all free and web based), and one of my favorites.

The article is valuable if you just evaluate some of the products and your current process of taking notes – a major part of learning about how you learn – and adding some new support for your self-directed learning skills. So whether you are ready for web based tools, new types of desktop based tools, or even new ways to approach the ol reliable pen(cil) and paper, there is something here for you to evaluate and ponder.

Information Overload

“Trying to organize the information deluge can be a challenge. Fancy new software might help, but it does take some self control. Such is the life of a working professional in the technological age. So much information, so little time to make sense of it. We examined the growing problem of information overload, and how it’s affecting our ability to relate to each other”. Anna Maria Tremonti

This quote from Anna Maria Tremonti’s blog, seems appropriate as we look at learning how to learn in a digital environment with all the distractions of email, IM, MySpace etc, cell phones, text messages, and too many websites to explore. She also introduces the Information Overload Research Group that was formed in June of 2008, which is committed to working “together to build awareness of the world’s greatest challenge to productivity, conduct research, help define best practices, contribute to the creation of solutions, share information and resources, offer guidance and facilitation, and help make the business case for fighting information overload”.

I reference this because this is a major obstacle–at least it has been for me–that we have to be fully aware of, before we can begin to refocus our efforts to become more self-directed and independent in our learning and personal growth. It is not simply an “organize yourself” task, as much as it is developing some skills that we haven’t practiced a lot – at least not in a learning environment. We will be working on developing new skills, refining existing practices, and mainly focusing – so that we can put more energy into what we really want to be learning.

New blog on WebTools

I just upgraded one of my blogs to WP 2.5 and decided to begin a site I have been wanting to do for several years about WebTools. I continue to be fascinated by the quality and usefulness of web-based applications and some open source applications that are downloadable. The purpose is to write about specific WebTools tha I find meaningful and to have people contribute articles on tools they find interesting and useful, so this is your chance to get involved! As you discover new tools that meet your needs and interests, send a comment to WebTools and if you contribute regularily I’ll add you as a content provider and you can log in and write posts.

Next article coming soon, my PLE set of tools I use most often.

Top 100 Tools for Learning

Jane Hart provides a Spring 08 version of the Top 100 tools for learning which is developed from suggestions from 155 learning professionals. This is appropriate to your research on Personal Learning Environments, as you will discover that the tools you choose become a vital part of your learning process.

While I agree with Jane’s dividing the tools into Personal Tools and Producer tools, I would point out that you probably will want to categorize the tools into your own categories, which is a good way to develop your PLE. As an example, I revised my PLE recently to include the categories of Environments, Navigation/Finding Information, Content Creation, Content Management, Connecting/Networking, Personal Management. This process came out of viewing what I was actually doing on my laptop regularly. Everyone will have their own needs in terms of how you organize your PLE or learning space/process. I thought these tools for learning would give you some new ideas, and you may want to check out some of the tools you may not know.

If you don’t find what you need in the 100 tools list, get really into it and check out Jane’s earlier list of 2,200 tools for learning! You also might find some other interesting articles on the site, as I read it often myself.