Learning about Skype

Ok, some more free stuff on the web that I found useful. Skype - you can connect with friends over the internet using their voice call or video call facility. And surprising, the voice quality is really good. Nice and clear. Lucky thing the web cam worked after I swopped my computer with another one that someone returned to the office :) No problem if you just do a two-party video call, but once you do add people (that's the button on the top right-hand corner), the video goes poof and you end up with a three-party voice call instead. Not too bad really, but they should have made it quite clear upfront that the video calls are just between 2 parties and no more.

Surprised me to that when you add people, you can select up to 24 participants to join your call. But if the group gets too large, it would be quite difficult to tell who's speaking isn't it? One probable use for this skype facility would be doing like a video call in class - an external speaker could be invited to speak on a certain subject, and this call could be projected on screen. Could be used during elearning week/business continuity week too, for students to ask questions, or for colleagues to interact outside of the office. Ah.....Oh yes, must remember to click on that video icon to turn on your video function. And you could also do a grouping, so that you call all relevant parties at one go too.

One other feature on Skype would be the Share screen feature where you can open up a document and show it to the other party online.

Here's the link to Skype The latest version is 4.1. Here's the user guide on Skype for video calls.

Some useful videos to explain graphs in IEF :)

These videos are provided by Phil Holden and available on Youtube.
1)Producer Surplus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MinxczZXtKA&feature=related

2)Consumer Surplus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTxniCLYgok

3)How tariffs work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQTbd2iJtY&feature=PlayList&p=B86750878E31892A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=28

4)How quotas work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQTbd2iJtY&feature=PlayList&p=B86750878E31892A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=28

5)How subsidies work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NykcR3RhyR4&feature=related

6)How current account deficits lead to depreciation of a currency
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCjwXz7ZXwU

7)The components of the current account
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKRBpJZ92QM&feature=related

Still on Web 2.0 tools - Twitter

Looks like Twitter has a gone big time in Singapore! Attended a course at TLC on 8 July to learn what's so cool about people wanting to send out tweets (140 characters). Looks like there there's no need to even create an account if I didn't want to. I could just do a search on the twitter home page if i wanted to learn about the latest buzz about stuff in town. Anyway, I did create a tweeter account for myself, well not that I have really interesting stuff to tweet about (oh well, at least not right now:.) Well, I am hoping to learn how to use this tool to complement classroom learning in the future. Here's my url on tweeter: http://twitter.com/ttwizz

Will log to an online class sometime this week to see how people use tweeter for learning via an online lesson at http://www.wiziq.com with Preetam.

Musical rendition of Demand and Supply

This is a great way to learn - singing about the concepts instead of memorising them.
Enjoy this one on the law of demand and supply.

The Jing On screen Video Capture

Did not really have the time to explore Jing during the Web 2.0 course, but hey, was enlighted with tips and tricks at one recent Mel Bytes session. This is what I tried to do - using Jing to explain how to do sound recording in MS Powerpoint 2007. This sound recording feature wasn't available in the 2003 version, and we had to download something (can't remember what!) from Mel in order to add a voice-over to the slides.

I have uploaded the file on to the Screencast website

This is the link to the material uploaded in Jing Recording_a_Narration_in_PPT2007

Not sure why, but the video appears skewed to one side, and ahem, you can't see quite so well! Got to figure that out..

week no.10 - reflection time :)

Yeahh... this is it! Have given myself many pats on my back for EFFORT! Yup.... hasn't been easy plouging through the 23 things over the last couple of months. Many a times, I wasn't sure if I was clicking on the right thing, and also my Ie went bonkers as I must have downloaded some things I shouldn't have. Too many add-ons I think.

i haven't quite finished exploring all these web 2.0 tools but this course has certainly been such an eye-opener. Some tools were really COOL and easy to pick up and others ... I am still figuring out what exactly they do.

I have not exactly had time to do the following and am not sure I know what to do:

1. Join a Ning connection.
2. Do a Jing Capture.

Can someone point me in the right direction, pleaseeeeeee. Also. I haven't really quite grasped Technoratti yet, and would like to find out more. Will probably attend a Mel Byte programme to learn more. In fact, now that I have some knowledge about these web 2.0 tools, it going to help me decide which of those Mel Byte programmes will be useful to attend. The challenge will of course be infusing the relevant web 2.0 tools into the curriculum so that teaching and learning can be enhanced. Ah... exciting times are ahead....

Oh yes, forgot to mention in my earlier post that we do use Wimba podcasts in Mel currently to do 5 min summaries of individual lecture topics. Easy to use and good for aiding recap of key concepts.

Week No. 10 - ebooks and audio books

These are the websites I visited and found some FREE stuff - e-books for downloading and audio books I could listen in to.

The British Library

Many Books

World Public Library


Lots of classic books to read (like Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll, old photos, transcripts; there's even this tool you could download so that you can flip the pages of the e-book, just like an actual book. For this other website, strangely I couldn't locate the download button, although I had wanted to do so for an Excel 2007 for Dummies book. Hmm....

This is the website: The school library

Have subscribed to a feed on Google Reader so that i get free short stories (audio) -Weekly Classic Short Stories from Librivox.. Just go to this url: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WeeklyShortStoriesFromLibrivox