Google Sites Now Offers Site Templates!

Google Sites Offers Templates; Claims It’s Easier Than Sharepoint – ReadWriteEnterprise via kwout

I am jumping for joy at the latest cool addition to my new favorite tool of the 2009-10 school year:  GoogleSites!  They are now offering pre-designed template to help you get started with your web design!  As someone who has used both SharePoint and GoogleSites, I can assure you it IS much easier to work with GoogleSites in terms of editing and filing documents—fewer clicks and a much cleaner interface.  Students and teachers who have used it at my school love it, and so do I!  Google Sites has been a staple in my Media 21 toolbox for my students this semester.

Here is a sneak peek of the templates—they are up and running this morning!  I encourage you to give Google Sites a try!

Filed under: Google Goodness, Media 21, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Tools, Wikis , cool, Fun, Google, Google Sites, GoogleSites, SharePoint, templates

Google Reader Bundles

Thanks to friends and fellow librarians Marianne Lenox and Andy Woodworth, I have discovered the beauty of Google Reader Bundles.  Essentially, a “bundle” is a package of RSS feeds–this could be from a folder of your favorite RSS feeds on a topic, such as librarianship, or tags you have in your Google Reader.  You can use the bundle feature to share your favorite “package” of feeds in your shared items; you can even add a clip of your bundle to your website, blog, or wiki!  You can also email your bundle or add a regular link to the bundle to your favorite web space.

Bundles are a terrific way to share and discover what your peers and colleagues are reading!  For easy instructions on how to get started with bundles in Google Reader, check out these two terrific and easy to follow “how to” blog posts/articles.

Happy Bundling!

Filed under: Google Goodness, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Resources and Articles, Web 2.0 Tools , bundle, bundless, google reader, RSS

Even More Sharing in Google Reader: Share Feeds for Specific Folders

I have been a huge fan of the “shared items” in Google Reader for several months now.  Until about five minutes ago, though, I didn’t think there was a way to publicly share my favorite feeds for specific folders/labels within Google Reader.  I just stumbled upon the fact that you CAN share individual folders, and you can even create a blogroll for those folders to put on your website or webpage!

I may be the last person to discover these cool features of Google Reader, but just in case I am not, here are two cool tricks I’ve learned through sheer luck this morning!

Share Individual Folders/Labels in Google Reader

• Go to your settings in Googler Reader.
• Click on “Folders and Tags.”
• You can click on the little RSS symbol (it looks like waves) to toggle that folder from private to public.

• Once you have toggled the folder to be shared publicly, you can then view your page, email that link to someone, add a clip to your site, or even create a blogroll!  YES! Just click on the option you would like, and you can grab the code to embed that sharing feature in your blog, web page, or wiki.

These are great ways to share specific feeds in your Google Reader account with your friends and colleagues!

Filed under: Google Goodness, Library 2.0, Media 21, Web 2.0 Tools , discovery, google reader, learning, sharing

Map Your Ideas with Mindomo

After experiencing a creative breakthrough while running in the Georgia heat and humidity this morning, I was finally able to pull together ideas that have been swirling in my head all summer, ideas that have been at the edges of my mind, but that I somehow couldn’t seem to verbalize in a more concrete format.   As I’ve been trying hard to get these ideas committed to print and out of my head in preparation for a presentation I will be giving to my faculty next week, I wanted to provide a visual representation of these ideas.  I decided to lay the groundwork for my “presentation zen” edition of the PowerPoint by creating a mindmap using Mindomo.

Why Mindomo?  I first encountered an example of a mindmap created with this web based software at the beginning of January 2009; I unfortunately didn’t take notes on how I found this first example, but it impressed me enough that I knew I wanted to try it this summer.  At first, I had difficulty figuring out the user menu, but after fumbling around, I finally figured it out for the most part this weekend.

Some advantages of Mindomo over some other mindmapping software I sampled:

• It is web based, so no special software is needed; you can enjoy the advntages of cloud computing.
• Many different menu options for formatting and embedding content are included.  I especially love that you can easily embed  YouTube videos!
• You can enable others to collaborate and add content to your mindmap.
• Several publishing options are available, including publishing your mindmap as a web page or embed code.
• Web links and videos work live in the web page version of your mindmap; viewers can also read your notes!
• You can go with a free version that includes Google AdSense ads or pay to have an account with some additional features and no ads.  You  can do a six month premium account or a twelve month option; I decided to go with the six month option.

You can view my map by clicking on this link here. You can click on the numbers 1, 2, and 3 in the upper right hand corner to expand levels of topics and subtopics.  If you click on the “+” symbol next to a box, you can also expand the content.  In addition, you an adjust the view by using the slider bar in the lower right hand corner to increase or decrease the viewing area of the map.

The map is a visualization of my vision,  mission, philosophy, and goals for my library program for 2009-10.  By creating this map today, I can now begin to organize my PowerPoint, which will incorporate the principles of presentation zen I have used earlier this year.  I am hopeful that my multimedia presentation will capture the minds and hearts of my faculty either refresh or reinvent their perception of the potential and possibilities of our library.

In addition to the striking visual appeal and organization of the map, I especially like that I can add interactive content to make my map more organic and dynamic.    If you are looking for a tool to create memorable mindmaps, I highly recommend you give Mindomo a try!

Filed under: Learning 2.0, Library 2.0, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 Tools , cloud computing, graphic organizer, mindmapping, mindmaps, Mindomo, visualization

Viewzi, the Visual Search Engine

I discovered several cool tools yesterday at the BIGGER Conference at Georgia Southern University—one of these tools is Viewzi, the visual search engine.  In a nutshell, Viewzi searches a wide range of content, including websites, videos, mp3 files , images, news sites, and Google Books; it can generate tag clouds related to your search and allow you to search content related to those tags, too!  Here is a visual representation it generated for me for a Google timeline on stem cells:

I think students, especially visually oriented learners, will enjoy this graphic way of searching and exploring results!  I am looking forward to exploring this fun alternative search engine.

You can read more about Viewzi in this Read Write Web article; you may also want to check out this TechCrunch article.  Follow Viewzi on Twitter! for updates and news on Viewzi.

Filed under: Web 2.0 Tools , cool, search engine, viewzi, visualization