This is the first online course I take. Like all people my age I learned the regular face to face lecture way. Go to class, sharpen you pencil, and sit there for one or two hours. This course was an eye opening and mind blowing experience. From a student perspective the fact that you have the learning material and access to your teacher available 24/7 is fantastic. From an educator perspective I am amazed by the large variety of online tools available. I am so glad I can now go beyond powerpoint. More importantly I have some rationale and backup knowledge when and why use those tools.
During this course I reviewed BibMe, TitanPad, Xmind. and Screenr and collaborated using voicethread, Skype, and google docs. I based my decision when chosing this tools on their potential for teaching medical residents. The one that impressed me more was voicethread. In my opinion the most comprehensive tool. Is a one-stop shop to create content, distribute, collaborate and provide feedback.
Is online education for everyone?.....YES!. Nowadays we cannot conceive a world without ATMs, smartphones, GPS, TV, and internet. Technology is all around us. The smart and creative use of online tools can provide an engaging way for teaching the next generation of medical professionals.
I want to thank my classmates for all their feedback, my collaboration group for teaching me a lot, and the coordinator for putting this amazing module toghether.
1. Name of the Web 2.0 Tool: BibMe 2. URL of the Tool: www.BibMe.org 3. Please select the one, primary category for this tool: Productivity tool 4. What is BibMe? BibMe is an online citation creator and bibliography generator. It helps the user to find references, build a library, and format the citations. You can search books, magazines, newspapers, websites, journals, films, and other sources. BibMe uses Amazon.com, FindArticles, Yahoo! News, and CiteULike Academic Papers as sources of information to auto-fill the data. The citations are formated using MLA, APA, chicago, or turabian styles. BibMe was built using the Ruby on Rails framework, and uses asynchronous Javascript for visual effects. BibMe also makes use of the Scriptaculous and Prototype Javascript libraries.
4. Select your source (book,
magazine, etc) and type the title, author or ISBM on the search filed
5. Click on the "select"
button to save your search into the citation screen entry and fill in the
fields
6. If you cannot find a match you
can select manual
7. You can
"dowload to word" to use
the bibliography in your document
6. What do you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?) It is good to know the exact referece to your citation (author, year, ISBN, etc) since the sources are not great for scientific search. Also, get familiar with the citation format you need. Even though MLA, APA, Chicago and Turabian are the most common types the Journal you wish to publish may ask for a different one.
7. Please describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (150-250 words). This tool can be used to search for scientific literature and create a library with citations. I see this tool as an easier version of pubmed or scopus. It may be used to teach new trainees the way of findings scientific literature since BibMe interface is simple and easier to use than more advance tools such as pubmed and scopus. Trainees may be given an assigment to find for some literature and play with the different citations formats.
8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this tool in a formal or informal teaching environment?
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Free
Very limited sources
User friendly
Limited citation formats
Unlimited bibliography storage
Cannot personalize citation
formats
Export to word document
No advanced search mode
No word integration
9. Would you recommend this Web 2.0 tool to others, or suggest that they explore a different tool? The short answer is no. This is a very simple and limited tool not very suitable for medical literature. I would probably recommend it only for very basic use and not for professional use. BibMe just generates a list of the bibliography it can find on the limited sources available. Probably you will find yourself reformating the citations one by one to fit the journal's requierements and playing with word citation manager get the bibliography on your document. I dont see this site any better than the reference manager that microsoft word already provides. Also, pubmed provides the same service than BibMe but with better features.
10. Other tools similar to BibMe:
OttoBib OttoBib generates bibliographies automatically. OttoBib looks up all information by ISBN for you. It can generate a full bibliography and a permanent URL. http://www.ottobib.com EasyBib Automatic bibliography formatting, alphabetizing, and printing services. http://www.easybib.com Son of Citation Machine Interactive web tool which helps teachers and students produce reference citations. Includes information on how to format MLA and APA citations. http://www.citationmachine.net NoodleTools
Online MLA and APA bibliography composer, available to students, teachers, schools, and districts on a subscription basis.
RefWorks Online bibliographic management program that allows users to create a personal database of references and generate bibliographies in a variety of formats including ...
SourceAid Offers research and citation tools and resources for students, professors, and institutions. Includes various editions of citation builder to create and manage MLA, APA, CMS, and CSE bibliographies, in-text citations, footnotes, and endnotes.
1. Name of
the Web 2.0 Tool: TitanPad 2. URL of
the Tool:
www.titanpad.com 3. Please
select the one, primary category for this tool: Feedback tool, networking/social tool 4. What is TitanPad? Titanpad is a real time online document editing and collaboration tool. It provides a free collaborative space where a team can work on one document simultaneously. It is based on a similar platform called "EtherPad" now discontinued. A user creates a new document or uploads an existing one into titanpad and all changes from the collaborators are tracked in a timeline. It also provides realtime chat for realtime communication making this a simple but powerful collaboration web 2.0 tool.
5. How does TitanPad work? When you first go to the website you have the option of creating an account or proceed as a free user. A unique web address is created that can be shared for online collaboration. If many people are on the same document at once you can chat with them to make the experience more interactive. Each user can pick a color so you know who is making what within the document. 6. What do
you need to know before using this tool? (What skills do you need to have?) No skills are necessary to use this tool besides some computer knowledge. The site is very easy to use. 7. How do
you use this tool? (Write the basic steps using a numbered list) 1. goto www.titanpad.com 2. Click on "create a public pad?
3. Wait for the site to connect
4. On the small right upper screen type your name and select a color
5. Begin typing your document.
6. Alternatively you can import a document (HTML,pain text, microsoft word, PDF, bookmark file, or open document). This option is under the import/export menu at the top.
7. revisions are saved automatically but when you are done hit "save" if you see this option highlighted on the top menu
Editing text
8. At the top of the editing screen there are several options to format the text, change color font, indent, and undo. This works similar as other word editing software.
Inviting other to participate
9. On the small top right window there is an "invite option"
10. This will pop up a window with 2 options:
a. paste the link over email or IM
b. send email invitations
Chatting
11. on the bottom right there is large chat window. This works like other online chats. You can leave messages or chat in real time with other participants
8. Please
describe a scenario of how you might use this tool in a teaching environment (150-250
words). A) brainstorming projects: When starting a new project all people involved can use titanpad to put their ideas into the pad. Collaborators can comment and discuss about the many ideas B) editing manuscripts before publication: Titanpad may not be ideal for professional editing and writing but it does its job when collaborators want to edit and discuss a scientific manuscript in realtime. If you couple this with videoconferencing the experience is amazing. Collaborations can happen anytime with anyone all over the globe. C) give feedback to students: If students are given an assignment using titanpad the teacher can leave feedback even in realtime. This is an example of a TitanPad project I worked in. Here is the link to the entire titanpad project.
9. What are
the advantages and disadvantages of using this tool in a formal or informal
teaching environment? The main advantage is that is free and very simple to use. It has a chat option where to leave messages and collaborate real time. You can track your changes with the time slider. The disadvantage is that nobody knows how long this projects are kept on the titanpad servers. There is no way to format text beyond the given option. For example you cannot create tables or embed html code. I also encountered a formatting problem when importing a word document. You cannot export the document with the user color tracking. Finally, there is no security password request making security an issue. 10. Would
you recommend this Web 2.0 tool to others, or suggest that they explore a
different tool? I would definitely recommend this tool for simple projects that do not require major text editing and if not sharing sensitive information.
Here are other interesting collaboration tools. Some are similar and others better (I tried to stay away from google docs since most people may be familiar with it).
This is a great collaboration site. Try it!. Painless Team Collaboration. Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more productive than ever. No plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo - it's all here, ready to go when you are. Browser-agnostic, user-friendly. http://www.twiddla.com/
is a highly customizable Open Sourceonline editor providing collaborative editing in reallyreal-time. Another one just like titanpad using the same etherpad platform http://etherpad.org/index.html
Vyew. Share your view. Vyew allows you to meet and share content in real-time or anytime. Upload images, files, documents and videos into a room. Users can access and contribute at anytime. This one does the same thing as titanpad but with a nicer platform and more options http://vyew.com/
This is the first online course I take. Like all people my age I learned the regular face to face lecture way. Go to class, sharpen you pencil, and sit there for one or two hours. This course was an eye opening and mind blowing experience. From a student perspective the fact that you have the learning material and access to your teacher available 24/7 is fantastic. From an educator perspective I am amazed by the large variety of online tools available. I am so glad I can now go beyond powerpoint. More importantly I have some rationale and backup knowledge when and why use those tools.
