e-wot?

Talking to Olivier about this over lunch. How to add a #hashtag feed into Twitter.

I asked around and here’s how to do it – [now edited for accuracy 17 Sept 09]:

1. Set up a Twitter account.
2. Set up a #hashtag at http://hashtags.org
3. Go to the page for the #hashtag you’ve just created and subscribe to the feed or copy it (each #hashtag has it’s own feed).
4. Use twitter search for the #hashtag you want (http://search.twitter.com/)
5. Subscribe to the page for that search
6. Use http://validator.w3.org/feed/ to make sure you have a working feed
7. Go to http://twitterfeed.com/ and set up an account.
8. Feed your #hashtag feed into Twitterfeed

Now each time someone #hashtags a tweet with your #hashtag, it’ll get fed (via Twitterfeed) into your Twitter.

[edit: point 3 above. If you've just created a new hashtag, it might take a while for it to load on the hashtag website. Make sure the the Twitter account you've set up is 1. following hashtag.org - 2. make sure that hashtag.org is following your Twitter account.]

[edit. hashtags.org are having financial difficulties http://hashtags.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/buying-some-time/ - this is a real shame, because the service they provided was great.]

[edit. now it appears that you're able to subscribe to feeds from twitter search results, nice.]

Click for this great list

Fantastic.

Thanks to @elizabethkoh for tweeting this (follow her, she’s great).

I needed a tool that could capture screencasts (video of screen activity) with audio, so that I can create training videos, without installing any software on my computer. I found a few options that can record screencasts from a web browser (java required). Here are the two that I liked best:

Screecast-o-Matic. All sizes and formats (including HD). Drag a black frame to anywhere on your screen and record anything. You can upload to YouTube, or download to your desktop. Exports in .avi, .mp4, .flv. Simply great.

ScreenJelly. Captures the whole screen. Requires you to log in with your Twitter ID (OAuth). Can share on Twitter, Facebook, or send a link to the screencast in an email. Screencasts are hosted with Screenjelly.

They’re both free.

Here’s a list of online apps (games, chat, forums, social networks, blogs) with the age restrictions as seen in the sites’ terms of service/use. I made this list because I needed a list to show some teachers what they could/could not use with their students depending on age. This list is by no means complete, just a few online apps I’ve heard about.

This is purely informational. I haven’t tried them all, so I can’t say how well they safeguard minors. It’s best to be thorough and try them out properly yourself. YMMV

Ones I’ve tried and I think are good, though not with age restrictions in mind: Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, Ning, Club Penguin, FreeRealms, Writeboard, 21Classes, PBwiki & Delicious.

RPG = Role Playing Game

Must be at least 16

• Friendster social network

Must be at least 13 and in high school

• Facebook social network

Must be over 13

• Bebo social network
• Blogger weblog publishing tool
• Chamber of Chat Harry Potter multiplayer RPG (no private chat, moderators)
• Gaia Online community with games, message boards etc…
• Hi 5 social networking site
• IMVU chat with friends in 3D
• Jaiku microblogging
• MySpace social network
• Ning social network created around an area of interest (can be open or private)
• Runescape multiplayer game
• Tokbox video chat (works with Twitter & others)
• Twitter microblogging Twitter is now for over-18s. See comments to this post.
• Vox weblog publishing tool
• Weebly website creation tool (includes blogs, forums)
• Wetoku video interview tool (requires parents’ approval)
• Wordpress.com weblog publishing tool
• Writeboard single wiki pages for writing activities
• Xanga weblog community
• 12Seconds video microblogging
• 43 Things microblogging site based around personal goals

Download & install application required

• There virtual world
• Teen Second Life virtual world (13-17 yo)
• vSide virtual world

No Age minimum specified, but require parental approval

• Awol chat, games, diary, friends, & cribs
• Boom Bang chat, make friends and explore a virtual world (moderated)
• Club Penguin virtual world for kids populated by penguins (moderated, ’safe’ chat)
• Endless Online multiplayer RPG
• Graal Online multiplayer RPG
• Marapets virtual pet site with games and chat community
• Neopets Virtual world for pets
• Millsberry Home building community (pre-scripted chat, monitored)
• Sanriotown Hello Kitty games, blogs and forums
• Shining Stars Chatting, naming stars, star worlds (’safe’ pre-constructed chat)
• Typepad weblog publishing tool
• Webkinz virtual pet community (’safe’ chat)

Download & install application required

• Dofus multiplayer RPG
• Eternal Lands multiplayer RPG
• Furcadia multiplayer RPG
• FreeRealms multiplayer RPG (restricted chat, moderated)

I couldn’t find anything definitive about age restrictions on Wikispaces, EduBlogs or 21Classes, but considering that they’re aimed at teachers and learners, I’m guessing that they must be OK for all ages?? I couldn’t find anything in PBworks’ (PBwiki), or Delicious‘ Terms of Service mentioning age either.

As a rule of thumb, when checking out an online tool that you might want to use with younger learners, check the Terms of Service (sometimes called Terms of Use) and their privacy policy. This should be somewhere on the homepage (usually at the bottom). Then do an inline search (hit Ctrl+F) for ‘years’ or ‘guardian’ or ‘13′ or something like that to jump to the bit about age restrictions, and then read the small print.

By the way, blogging tool tumblr. requires subscribers to be over 18.

And thanks to Denis for helping me with the list.

If you’re into web usability and web analytics you should try Crazy Egg. It rocks.

I use Crazy Egg, Google Analytics , Google Trends, and the Firefox/IE addon SEOQuake. Essential tools I reckon.

A few weeks ago I went to the Chinese New Year annual Yu Sheng Lo Hei at the Straits Knowledge office in Singapore. I saw a big pile of freshly printed books, and in a quiet moment, I picked one up. It was ‘KM Approaches Methods & Tools – A Guidebook’. It looked great, so I bought one.

Since then I’ve dipped into it and I must say that it’s the best compendium of KM tools I’ve seen. The tips for facilitation are particularly useful. So here’s the pdf version for download. But really, you should buy it. It works better in book-form. It’s on my desk at work and is great to dip into. Patrick, Edgar and Wai Kong have done an excellent job in making the book, so it’s worth buying, really. Get it here.

We don’t all have great internet connections. It’s particularly embarrassing if we try to show a video on YouTube to a class and our internet connection stops the video from playing. A more reliable method would be to download the video before class, then play it from your computer. Here’s how:

The site Jamie uses in this video is http://www.savevid.com/ it works a treat.

For more fantastic tips from Jamie on using videos in EFL classes visit his awesome blog TEFL Clips.

Over the past few days I’ve been on a mission to put our teaching centres on Google Maps. Here are a few things I’ve learnt along the way. I’m a complete newbie, but I hope this’ll be useful to someone in the same position.

1. First off, create a Google account that you can hand over to your web team when you’re done. The tags you create will be linked to that account (so don’t use your personal account, m’kay?).
2. Use Google Maps’ Local Business Centre (LBC) to create the map tags.
3. Start simple, with just the basic info for each tag you create. I made the mistake of writing complex descriptions for each tag and these had words in them that Google didn’t like – they got ‘flagged’ as ‘waiting for content check’. Here’s an explanation of what to do if this happens to you. To avoid this happening at all, don’t write a description to start off with. Add it later, once the tag goes ‘Active’.
4. Add any pics and vids later too.
5. Next, Google needs to verify you are who you claim to be. To do this, you can opt for: a phone call where they ask you to key in a PIN they give you; an SMS text message PIN to a mobile phone; something that uses the postal service (I didn’t try this)
6. If you go for the phone call option, make sure that you’re near your reception/call centre switchboard to help your receptionist key in the PIN.
7. You can do the SMS thing quite easily though, with a little workaround. Here’s what I did for three out of four of our teaching centres. I used my personal mobile number. Got a text message with a PIN in it. Entered the PIN myself. Then once the tag turned to ‘Active’, I edited the tag’s info and deleted my mobile number. Ok, yeah right… Now that seems like a big hole in Google’s security, but hey, it worked for me, and it saved me a lot of time too.  [edit 6 Oct 09 - Our WebAdmin tells me that this doesn't work anymore. It appears that Google has now spotted this loophole and fixed it. ]
8. Once all your tags are ‘Active’, go back and edit them to add descriptions and stuff.
9. the first photo you add will be the one that appears in the listing, so add the best one first. See post on this.
10. If you add video, it seems to block any images from appearing in the listing. So if you want your tag to appear in the search list with a nice pic, don’t add a video to your tag. I could be very wrong here, but this is what happened to me. Any tips for fixing this, are most welcome.

In my limited experience, the whole Google Map tag creation thing seems a bit clunky. Not very slick. Too many workarounds and uncertainties. But I got it to work OK in the end.

[edit 24 March - here's an instructional video from Google, nice... but no help in avoiding the bugs. Recently 3 out of 4 of my listings on Google Maps have vanished from the Map, although they're still in the Local Business Centre lising. I'm growing to hate Google Maps. Shame really, because it's cool when it works. It's just that it doesn't seem to work very well most of the time, which is very uncool.]

I’m on a quest to find the simplest way of turning my old photos and slides digital.

There isn’t much that grabs my fancy. I Googled and was first drawn to the HP G4050 which looks pretty good, but apparently takes ages to scan stuff. This Braun looks like it could be quick, but it’s way out of my price range.

I then got thinking that it takes a split second to take a photo with digital camera, so why not take a photo of a slide or negative with a digital camera? Sure enough, someone’s tried this already with good results: Pete Ganzel

But that looks way too difficult for me to set up. Got to admire the guy though.

And then there’s Shot Copy, which I’m sure does the job, but somehow looks a bit funny.

So why isn’t there something that’s super fast, hi-res that I can effortlessly use to convert all my old photos with? If it exists, where is it? I’ll pay.

First the pros.

Wow, it’s fast! Damn fast. Faster than any other browser I’ve used. Woo!

I love the fact that they’ve put the tabs in the title bar. Title bars are a waste of screen real estate, I reckon. Good move Google!

Simple UI.

Installation was a speedy breeze on my home PC. Really fast and all my Firefox bookmarks and search engines were imported really quickly. Did I say how quick this was? I did? Well I’ll say it again. It was a very quick installation.

Drag a tab and create a new window. Add more tabs to that window. Wow! Very cool.

Now the cons

I can’t easily swap/select different search engines. I’m addicted to this function in Firefox. Can’t live without it in fact. In Firefox I can search one query across 10 search engines in under 5 seconds (I timed myself). Chrome won’t let me do this. Sad, but it won’t. Here’s a post explaining more. 

I cannot search my bookmarks. Crap. I’m so used to this in Firefox that it’s another thing I can’t live without. Seriously a pity.  One day, when I only use Delicious (or some other online bookmarking service), this might be ok. Until then, it’s not.

Sadly both of those cons are app killers for me. In every other way, it’s a nice piece of work. Can’t wait for it to come out of beta. Hopefully then they’ll have fixed it for me. =)