Dimdim, Yuuguu and Goo Goo Ga Ga!
April 30, 2009
If you think those are great names for software applications (albeit the latter), then wait until you see how really awesome these applications are! For instance, Yuuguu.com might be of interest to you if youre collaborating on a project and need to share your desktop screen. Lets say you’re co-writing a journal article in Microsoft Word and you have to insert photos or tables of data, but you’re not sure which photos to select or how to format the data table correctly. All you have to do is connect with your colleague via Yuuguu.com and you two will be able to see the same screen together, while working in the Word document. Here’s an example of YuuGuu.com in action:
Whereas Yuuguu.com is recommended for smaller groups, Dimdim.com is receiving praise for its ability to connect 20 participants… for free!!! If you’ve ever had the need to hold a virtual class session or online seminar, Dimdim might be your savior! Take a look at its feature rich webcam abilities:
If you find these tools useful, be sure leave a comment and let us know how you have used them!
Skitch: easy and free screen-capture program
April 24, 2009
Software-design team Plasq has created Skitch, a one-step screenshot-sharing webapp. Want to share a snapshot of your desktop or picture with the world, sending out a link rather than attaching it to an e-mail to each person you wish to share it with? Look no further than Skitch. Skitch lets you resize, crop, add text, etc., then publish. Skitch saves all your thumbnails for easy re-access. You can even use the thumbnails on your blog posts, then link to the full-size shots on Skitch (or Flickr, or FTP to your own site, or your .Mac account…).
Check out this video to learn all about Skitch in three minutes.
To tweet or not to tweet?
April 23, 2009
Do you tweet? Do you know what the point of Twitter is?
In this New York Times’ opinion piece, Maureen Dowd writes about her visit to Twitter in San Francisco with Twitter creators Biz Stone, 35, and Evan Williams, 37. Before she grills them, she challenges them to keep their answers under 140 characters. She asks, “Are there any thoughts that don’t need to be published?” and “If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on?”
It’s an amusing read. Check it out.
To Tweet or Not to Tweet? [New York Times, April 22, 2009]
Learning.Richmond: Revamped
April 20, 2009
Check out the latest issue of Learning.Richmond, a thrice-a-semester publication created by the CTLT liaisons. Learning.Richmond highlights ways the University of Richmond faculty integrate technology into their teaching and how these in-and-out-of-classroom experiences enhance students’ learning.
Learning.Richmond [.pdf]
This month’s issue features Linda Hobgood, Director of the Speech Center. Next month’s front-page story will highlight Dr. Amy Howard and UR Downtown. If you would like to nominate a UR faculty member to be the next star of Learning.Richmond, please contact aczapracki AT richmond DOT edu.
Podcasts@Boatwright: Drs. Catherine Bagwell and Jen Erkulwater
April 16, 2009
Have you heard the buzz about Podcasts@Boatwright? It’s a new blog-and-podcast series started by Boatwright librarians consisting of five-to-eight minutes of conversations with faculty authors at the University of Richmond. In the latest soundbyte, Catherine Bagwell (associate professor of psychology) and Jen Erkulwater (associate professor of political science) discuss their new book (co-authored with Rick Mayes) Medicating Children: ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health.
Dr. Doug Hicks, associate professor of leadership and author of With God on All Sides: Leadership in a Devout and Diverse America, was featured in February’s inaugural podcast.
Be sure to check out Podcasts@Boatwright every month to hear about some of the new and engaging works of your favorite UR faculty.
Reflections on Joe Hoyle’s “Last Lecture”
April 14, 2009
Sharon Tully from The Collegian wrote an excellent piece on Joe Hoyle’s Last Lecture, the first in UR’s annual series, which I encourage you to check out. In this post, I wanted to recap what I saw as highlights from Hoyle’s talk, and provide my own reflections on his main points.
Tuesday night’s 7 p.m. lecture was well-attended; by 6:45 p.m., the ballroom was filled to capacity with alums, people from the community, and current students, faculty and staff. Attendees that continued to pour in were directed to an already-crowded Rosenbaum room. The lecture finally started around 7:10 p.m. after everyone was situated.
Hoyle focused his talk on a William Faulkner quote: “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” Though much of his advice was geared at graduating seniors, such as “Even though it’s easy to be average and mediocre, don’t just run out the clock [on your three weeks left at UR],” it applied to other audience members like me, who falls into the categories of alumna and staff. He presented a series of questions that got everyone in the room thinking. (And a week later, I’m still thinking.) Hoyle started off with, “What is the biggest dream in the next one to two years of your life?” It’s easy for most people to say, “In five years, I want to be X,” but often tough (at least, for me) to think I could achieve a “big dream” in just a year. Hoyle conjured up some excitement in me that I had the power to achieve things, soon, and I realized I needed to be thinking often about working toward these achievable, in-reach “big things.”
Next, Hoyle asked, “What are you going to do about all the people you don’t know in this room?” (Later, he asked the audience not to applaud, but to “introduce yourself to someone you don’t know.” If you didn’t know what to say, talk about the questions he posed in his talk.) “When was the last time you did a good Samaritan act?” Good question. I don’t remember off the top of my head. But that one should be easy. Ouch. “What was the most important thing about your college education?” Most people would say friends, Hoyle added. I’d agree that for me, “friends” is near the top, but “life lessons” might tie for first. Though, I suppose, friends pretty much shaped my collegiate life lessons, so maybe that’s a moot point.
“When is the last time you did something you were excited about?” With their busy lives and wide variety of experiences, UR students probably can answer this with ease, but what about the person whose sole focus is work, or someone who’s slid into a career he’s not passionate about but lacks the motivation to make a decision to take a jump? How easy it is to get stuck in the day-to-day rut and forget to seek out new experiences. Hoyle followed that question up with, “When is the last time you did something you describe as bold?” and ended his questioning with, “Who are your heroes?” while outlining his personal heroes, which included Mr. Rogers and Dan Wooley, an always positive 2005 alumna whose “interesting fact” on his first day of Intermediate Accounting was: “I have no kidneys.”
Hoyle concluded with a challenge: “Think of some way you can make a difference in the world, and go for it.” His assignment to the audience was to “be different, and make a transition — NOW.” Yes, the graduating college kids are ideally poised to make transitions, with their glistening resumes, stellar educations, and international suaveness. But he spoke to me, too. As a working professional at this fine institution, I can consciously choose, every day, to work toward transitions I can make that will positively impact both the lives of the students and faculty I serve and the fields of educational technology and new media.
