misc


 * Miscellaneous tools **

toc There are many tools that I could tell you about, but I chose three different types: microblogging, social bookmarking and browsers.

= Microblogging =



**[|Twitter]**is a very popular and widely used tool to send short messages called "tweets" with a maximum of 140 characters. It's a very useful program to be up-to-date on new tools. Here's what they say about themselves in their "About" page: "Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations. At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters in length, but don't let the small size fool you: you can share a lot with a little space." You can follow people you know and people can follow you. As soon as you have an account, you can send the link to your friends and colleagues. Click the yellow "Sign Up" button t0 create an account and start tweeting away!!

= Social bookmarking =

**[|Delicious]** is a social bookmarking site. Here's what they say about themselves in their "Learn" page: "Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can **save** all your bookmarks online, **share** them with other people, and **see** what other people are bookmarking. It also means that we can show you the most popular bookmarks being saved right now across many areas of interest. In addition, our search and tagging tools help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection and find tasty new bookmarks from people like you."
 * show my Delicious page

Click the green "Join Now" button (top right) to get an account and start saving your bookmarks or favorites online.

**[|Diigo]** is another bookmarking tool, but a more complete and comprehensive one, with more features. Here's how they describe themselves in their "About" page: "Diigo is two services in one -- it is a **research** and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a **knowledge-sharing community** and social content site on the other... instead of just bookmarking, you can **highlight portions of web pages** that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages... Diigo highlights and sticky notes are persistent in the sense that whenever you return to the original web page, you will see your highlights and sticky notes superimposed on the original page, **just what you would expect if you highlighted or wrote on a book!**"
 * show my Diigo page

Click the "Join Diigo" link (top right).

= Browsers = A **Web browser** is a software application that allows access to the Web, so it allows users to see, navigate, save, link, show pages... There are many browsers to choose from. I generally use **[|Internet Explorer]** (IE), but have come to the conclusion that I need other browsers when using certain Web 2.0 tools, because they don't work well in IE. So I've also started working with **[|Mozilla Firefox]** (more) and with **[|Google Chrome]** (less and only very recently). I advise you to look into these browsers, download and install them. It's a simple process. And when you have problems in one, just move to the other. Copy the URL you're working with and paste it in the browser you open.

= Additional resources =


 * **[|PDFmyURL]** is a program that saves Web pages as a .pdf (Portable Document Format) page and allows you to save it in your flash drive and show it to your students offline. Open the page, paste the URL in the field and click "Enter". You'll have you .pdf page in seconds ready to be saved.

Here's a version of this page in .pdf
 * **[|TinyURL]** (to make long URLs / Web addresses short!)
 * **[|The Amazing Web 2.0 Project Book]**, Terry Freedman (ed.). Web 2.0 projects from classrooms around the world. Great examples of innovative practice, explanations of the difficulties faced and how they were solved.