Tech+Tools

=Possibly useful technologies.... =

//Please feel free to edit and add to this page.//

A bit of encouragement for you all, found tonight by reading R. Keith Sawyer's book, //Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration//: > "We're drawn to the image of the lone genius whose mystical moment of insight changes the world. But the lone genius is a myth; instead, it's group genius that generates through innovation. When we collaborate, creativity unfolds across people; the sparks fly faster, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."


 * Let those sparks** **faster** **fly!**

Wikispace features. Some Wikispace features listed on the linked page at left are not available at this basic level.

RSS feeds. These "really simple syndication" links can help you keep tabs on what your teammates are doing with each chapter. Click on the "Notify" tab at the top of your work page and choose the RSS feed that you prefer -- or both. Depends upon your group's working style and how you want to keep contact and informed. You may want to use an RSS reader like Vienna [see below] to keep track of the changes & work done here and also on the MSU course website. I do!

RSS reader. I use Vienna, a Mac-based RSS reader. Its benefit is that it also works like a web browser, too. Others for the Mac include the built-in Mac Mail or Safari RSS readers. Check the preferences for these. //[I'm not a PC guy, so perhaps someone can replace this comment with some sources?]//

Widgets. You'll be using many of these. Here's the help file that explains a bit about them. And here's a video showing how to insert a video via a widget.

Glogster. Creates online, interactive graphic blogs (glogs); the glog here is a simple poster, added via a widget. Other example glogs here. Plus a tutorial: media type="youtube" key="80NISdsoouE?fs=1" height="154" width="192"

Resizing a photo. If you have a Mac, but don't have Photoshop, the Preview application does an excellent job of resizing a photo so that it loads into a page more easily. It helps to not only change the dimensions (and they will change proportionally), but also to change the resolution size. A resolution of 72 dpi is sufficient for online view and can reduce the size of some files enormously.