WLPI Final Presentation

Let's be honest. After a day of watching presentations, the last thing anyone wants to do is go home to review the material that she picked up. Knowing that, I wanted to create a mini-learning portal that housed the resources I used for the presentation. I can also move this to the LinkedIn WLPI group if others feel it is helpful.
Here we go:
I used Prezi to make the Zooming presentation. There is a bit of a learning curve with this cloud-based application, so it's worth it to watch a few instructional videos.
The presentation itself compared first impressions of Pinterest to Delicious for bookmarking articles (and inspiration). Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so it would be worthwhile to read a bit more about each one.
For taking notes, I love graphic organizers. I recently found an iPad app that does basic organizers very well. It's called Tools 4 Students. Another great one for adults is iThoughtsHD for amazing organizers on the go.
It's been a pleasure getting to know everyone in WLPI. I wish you all the best, and I hope you stay in touch! You've all taught me quite a bit.

Wow, What a Difference Training Makes!

The other day, I wrote a post about Twitter for Professional Development. Along with the post, I uploaded a screencast that I had made. Very shortly after I uploaded it, I took down the link. I decided that I wasn't satisfied with the final product, and I needed help quite desperately. 
I took matters into my own hands, and signed up for the free imovie and Garageband classes at the Apple store. (I blogged about that too). Well, here I am, three days after the training, and I feel like I have a totally different video. It is clean, fasted-paced, and fun. It is not necessarily a "training" video, but it is a good introduction for someone who is interested in getting a fast-paced overview of twitter. There are still some things I'd like to fix about it, but I think it might mean using a different screencasting tool. 
I'd say that training works, but you be the judge: 


And my original video below: 

Delicious: Sometime You Don't Want to Tweet It Out

And the winner is...Delicious 2012!

Like many users, I am on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin all day long. In that time, I read many well-written and intriguing articles. My usual response to my article lust is to "Share, Retweet, Share, Retweet, Repin!!!" (Say that ten times fast).
Lately, I have realized that when I find an article, I am not looking for a social response. What I really want is a way to save the information as a resource in usable, searchable folders, so when I have a specific question, I have a library of information at my fingertips--all in one place, no matter where the original information was found. I know I could use Pinterest to do this, but I really feel that Pinterest's value is in design and visuals, not in article collection. When I thought of my ideal tool I came up with some prerequisites: 

• Easy. I want a button in my toolbar. (no copy, paste, save as pdf--I could do that on my computer, but it's too time consuming) 
• It must live in "the cloud" so I have access to it everywhere
• I wanted to bundle the topics for later access

After a bit of research, I was down to a few different options. Pinboard (a ten dollar one-time fee for this service which calls itself "social bookmarking for introverts"), Evernote which I am already using to take text-based notes, or Delicious which I used in good ole 2005. 
Since I am a fan of using tools I already have, I tried Evernote. It worked well to give me a basic screenshot of my desired article or the url, but I just felt there was something better out there. Since Pinboard was a fee-based service, I decided to visit my old friend, Delicious, and man, it has evolved since 2005!
With some easy set up (much like Pinterest), I now had a "Save on Delicious" button in my browser. I quickly created a couple of "stacks" and added an article. When I went back to the link, I could see an image, the linkable url, and a long summary. 
Perfect. 
Apparently, finding the right tool for the job sometimes means revisiting a website from the past...

Images for Inspiration

Keyword "Inspiration" from Fotolia

Recently, I have been asked where I get my photographs for this blog. I can tell you what I don't do. I don't take images from a Google image search and plop them into my posts. When you do that, unfortunately, you never know when you are using someone's brand logo as your designated "art in the park" post. 

The last blog I wrote was a travel blog, so my photos were my own. For this blog, I had to get creative and research some inexpensive (or free) photo services. I decided to use Fotolia. The photography on the site is royalty free, so I can buy what I need (most of my images cost about a dollar each), then not stress about using an image that might belong to someone else.

An additional perk of paying for stock images is that many of them are slick, colorful, and creative. I am a huge proponent of making sure my images are aligned with the ideas in my text, so using this service allows me to pick and choose the more appropriate image. I think the image above from Fotolia tells a much better story than this: 

Not very inspiring (Free Microsoft Clipart)

Learning to Edit

Sometimes, I am my own worst critic. I just watched my last video tutorial and said, "The timing isn't quite right. I need to refine it."
I know in this day and age, perfect doesn't always matter, but with training, I think many videos are too long. My "Twitter for Professional Development" video fell into that category. 
Learning new technologies is sometimes about giving it a go, and deciding that you need a little more training. Screencasting and making video tutorials are like that for me. I started using them about two years ago, but had always worked in a team environment to produce the final content. This time, I am on my own. I have decided to take a class at the Apple store to learn how to better use imovie software. I thought I would have to pay for the workshop, but it turns out that the class is free. I don't mean to tout Apple products, but imovie lives on my computer already, so if I can learn a bit more, the quality of my videos will improve. Taking time to do it right is worth it--especially if it builds a stronger foundation for future projects. 

My Favorite Free Training Tools

A lot of organizations would like to have a training program or at least a collection of training resources. Sometimes that means being open to new technology, even if it means that the information lives in "The Cloud." Here is a list of great free resources that can be used to create free or low cost training:

• If you ever wanted to demonstrate how to use specific software, or a website, Screencast-O-Matic is a great tool. Film a video of your computer screen--even add narration; download it, then upload it to Youtube, or another service.
• You want to use Web-ex for the Cisco name, but it's too expensive. You can use Anymeeting for conferencing.
• You would love to use a Learning Management System to create designated coursework, but once again, it's too expensive. Check out Moodle instead.
• Animation and gaming is hot, but it can also be really expensive. Go Animate is great for simple animations, or Xtranormal is more in depth, but can be used to make animated movies. Although it's not my thing, you can also use Sploder to create free basic games.
• Last but not least, online quizes are a great way to learn as well. One of my favorite resources is ProProfs. You can even insert video content as one of the questions.