Sunday, December 18, 2005

Blogger Web Comments for Firefox extension

Love this new extension for Firefox - Blogger Web Comments for Firefox which makes it easy to see what bloggers are saying about a page you are viewing (in Firefox). Up pops a message, date it was posted, a link to the blog comment and an opportunity to respond with your own comment. Cool!

The best Web 2.0 software for 2005

Dion Hinchcliffe's "Best Web 2.0 software for 2005" provides links to a range of innovative Web 2.0 software releases in many categories as well as giving credit "to all the hard-working folks building the next generation of the Web." The list highlights the amazing range of web apps with a focus on the quality releases for 2005 and an invitation for community input to broaden the list.

Dion's posting has already attracted a considerable number of additional suggestions including new categories for consideration. And links to other collections of the top Web 2.0 apps for 2005 including Mark Millerton's "Top 10 Innovative Web 2.0 Applications of 2005"

Well worth a browse!

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

In search of Learning Object Metadata Editors

I was alerted to this resource from Stephen's Web for highlighting Norm Friesen's page on LOM Editors .

This resource provides an overview of a range of LOM editing/creation tools which "support the creation of high-quality learning object metadata" necessary for successful implementation of the IEEE LOM standard. It provides brief descriptors and links to a list of tools (updated post 2004 and readily available) which users can test and evaluate.

"CanCore suggests that tools for metadata editing and management should generally expose their users to as little of the complexity of LOM element names and structures as possible... (as the) ... significance and complexity of many of these names and structures are likley to be challenging except for very specialized users."

Tools include the popular Reload v 2.0. Alas, some of the other links were dead when I tried to access them tonight.

Also interested in exploring the potential of the New Zealand open source eXe tool (off-line authoring environment to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup).
Anyone else trialling eXe?

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Shortlist for the 2005 Edublog Awards

Browse the Shortlist for the 2005 Edublog Awards (see previous post) and keep up to date with comments tagged in Technorati. Even more feeds to add to my aggregator!

Less than a week to vote for your favourites in each category. Alas, only one vote per category.
Register your votes before Dec 17th.

Del.icio.us now in the Yahoo! stable

Social Software tools are proving to be a big hit with Yahoo! Del.icio.us is now officially part of the Yahoo! stable just like Flickr earlier this year.
Thanks, Joshua Schachter, (founder of Del.icio.us) for developing a brilliant Read/Write/Web social bookmarking tool for a growing and empowered community (power of folksonomy!).

I'm a big fan of Web 2.0 tools and Del.icio.us is one of my favourites. Richard MacManus expresses a concern: "Yahoo! acquires del.icio.us - just don't make it a walled garden, like My Web 2.0!" Hopefully, we will continue to see improvements but not at the expense of keeping Del.icio.us free and open, including its handy integration tools. What's that about "shutting the stable door..."?