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ozrural — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:43:05 CDT

Welcome to eWiki, a page for anyone with an education interest in eBusiness, eCommerce, eLearning and any other aspects of the digital economy. Initially we are building a directory of resources, but also welcome commentary, articles and general chat.

I have been wondering what to do with this wiki. There are so many good wikis already. So many in fact finding the best is hard work. The following Directory of Learning Tools is hosted by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies a page from the UK. It has hundreds of links for all manner of learning tools. What I thought I might do with this page, is just list my favourite learning tools because, sometimes people don't want choice, they just want an opinion i.e. what is your favourite screencapture program, or Youtube downloader? I will see how it goes.

The number of main categories have now been reduced to three, to allow for the continued expansion of eWiki.These main categories are eLearning, news/geneal interest Information and finally Software and hosted solutions. Also try using the search function to find the content you are looking for.

The eWiki is open to anyone with interest including academics, students, teachers, researchers and industry practitioners. You are welcome to use eWiki simply as a directory. We also hope eWiki develops a vibrant community of researchers so we can exchange ideas, develop links, and collaborate if suitable opportunities present themselves.

Current News Items of Interest -

Blackboard Vs Desire2Learn why not add add your comments?

More on the Blackboard patent

Image & Video Hosts & Editing Tools

ozrural — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:32:18 CDT

This page includes anything to do with images or video. Entries include, hosting, editing and screen capture solutions. This is a changing space. The great thing about Web 2.0 applications is that many are free. The bad thing is they can disappear or change overnight, as they need to move to profitable models. Bolt is an example of a popular player that fell over in 2007.

Video Copying
Vixy - a greatonline video converter

Flash Video Downloader - personal favourite

Album Town
This site offers both a free package for photo sharing for the hobbyist, as well as a professional package (for a fee) for the keener users. Very well managed and ran site, that is user friendly.

Bolt
Another great site that has now gone. This site was predominately a video sharing host that also allows users to upload photos. Easy to sign up to, and has quite a large database of videos for sharing/viewing.

Fotoflexer - simple online photo editing

Fotolog
This site has a huge database of online album from over 10 million user accounts. Simple to upload your own photos and easy to navigate around the site.

Google Video
Working in conjunction with YouTube, there are millions of videos to view at Google Video. Easy to upload videos. No size limit on uploaded videos which is a major positive.

iFilm
Very professional looking site. iFilm seems to have the authority to post a lot of copyrighted materials eg. Film clips etc. Signing up only takes a few minutes also.

Imageshack
Upload your images to this site to make it easier to post these on your own websites etc. Very user friendly.

Photobucket
The largest image hosting site on the net. You can search other people's images or upload your own online album.

Photobloggers
One of the easier sites to navigate and host your online photo albums. Recommend.

PicOodle
This site is very plain, but offers the pretty much the same features as others such as Photobucket and Imageshack.

Ringo
Very popular site used by millions of users. Once photos are uploaded to the site, users can then invite others via email to view these. Great way of updating family and friends whilst on travels.

Twango
Very basic looking photo and video hosting site. Upload photos from a camera phone or your PC with ease.

Video egg was my favourite but online video is a changing space. Video egg has evolved from free video upload to an advertising video site.

YouTube
Massive online collection of videoclips. Dominates the video hosting on the net.

Screen Capture Solutions

BrowserCap
Allows you to capture the screen you are currently working on. Also allows users to print the Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox webpage as you see it, and not in a printer friendly view. Limited but can be handy.

Cropper
This is a very basic screen capture tool. Would recommend others above this one if you are after simplicity and other features.

King Kong Capture
Great tool. One of the best free options available. Has many different options for capturing images including rectangle, free hand or whole browser page.

Screen Hunter
Very simple and basic to use. Either save your cropped images directly to a selected destination or to your computer's clipboard. Personal favourite

Super Screen Capture
Great free software that gives you a 7 day trial of their pay products. Free version offers 3 simple screen capture features that are very user friendly for even the beginners.

eLearning

ozrural — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:08:43 CDT

Dimdim - a virtual classroom. Has a few glitches but works pretty well, is simple and free. Can be server based or used online. I found using notepad to copy paste text was better than direct typing on the whiteboard but it may have been my connection.

wiziq - another free virtual classroom and conferencing host. I have found dimdim better at this stage (simpler) but this is a rapidly evolving area. Found this good blog post on wiziq

LAMS - simple is not always that simple. LAMS (says about itself) 'is a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration'. Probably ok for control freaks but I find it too tedious and too structured.

Multiple choice generator -
A Complete Multiple-Choice includes traditional (right answer only) scoring with a full item analysis and know/don't know scoring all on the same test. Feeware.

2007 edublogawards
http://edublogawards.com/and-the-winners-are/

Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (UK)
More than online courses! Discover new trends, technologies and tools
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/bulletin/2008-06.html

A nifty little communication tool (very simple!):
Allows video chat, video messages and 6 way conferences. No registration needed. SImple and works well.
tokbox.com

Wiziq - a free virtual classroom
http://www.wiziq.com

An Australianvirtual classroom. Charges on a per use basis.
http://www.spreed.com.au

The Welsh Moodle Users - good open site
http://moodle.coleggwent.ac.uk/
http://www.rsc-wales.ac.uk/index.asp

Lifelong portfolio push
http://www.eife-l.org/activities/campaigns/epmou

open source ePortfolio with good backing.
www.mahara.org

eZines/Blogs/Newspapers

ozrural — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:54:00 CDT

eBusiness and technology

Webware - web 2.0 applications - blog hosted byCNET great content and includes webware awards.

eKazbaah - Not quite as important as many of the blogs/ezines listed here but it belongs to one of the eWIki editors as does The Virtual Enterprise :-)

Click - The BBC Technology Program Archives. Some excellent episodes.

CNET
Tech news reviews, videos

Mashup - Australia's own Sydney Morning Herald blog. Not jammed packed, but it's good.

Techcrunch - One of, if not the best.

Technology Guardian - Very thorough, up-to-date blog from the UK, with plenty of categories to browse.

Wired
In-depth coverage of current and future trends in technology, and how they are shaping business, entertainment, communications, science, politics, ...

ZDNET Australia
The Australian edition of the international ZDNET.com Tech news reviews, videos - great site

Marketing

ClickZ - Leading Marketing eZine. The ClickZ Network is the largest resource of interactive marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion, research, and reference in the world, online or off. From search to e-mail, technology to trends, coverage is expert, exclusive, and in-depth. Well so says ClickZ about themselves anyway.

Fraser Mcculloch
Simple blog from a marketing guy in the UK, but he has sme good entries and comments

Newsflash
This eZine is for the beginning entrepreneur with online advice, tips and even tools to help get you kick started in the right direction.

Revolution
UK magazine. Revolution has news, analysis, features and reports on developments in digital marketing. Very good.

Seth Godin's Blog - One of the best.

Top Tips and Tools eZine
This is a must visit website for any online marketer or website owner as it provides plenty of articles, links and partners for the user to browse. You can also sign up for a newsletter to be sent directly to your inbox. Highly recommended by a large net audience.

WS Marketing News
Online source for anything that is going on in the online marketing sector. Very detailed and simply to navigate around for any keen user. Includes ebooks, articles and software.

Miscellaneous

Andrew Bolt
One of Australia's most talked about columnists shares his views on many contentious issues. Have your say here at the Herald Sun website (Melbourne's leading newspaper).

Blogflux - Has a wide range of categories to search, but once in these categories it can often be hard to find relevant blogs with a lot of blogs seeming meaningless.

Daily Telegraph
One of the UK's leading newspaper invites users to comment on the stories dominating the world news.

Gdayworld - Australian blog. Podcasts and blogs on science, technology, politics and the media.

Hello World - Well its different and quirky.

The Onion - America finest (satirical) news source.

Software & Hosted Solutions

ozrural — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:55:58 CDT

This is a large category that contains mainly open source software links, and online hosted solutions such as blogs, wikis, photo hosting and virtual worlds. The focus is on FREE but some commercial software or solutions will also be included if it is inexpensive or particularly useful. See the separate categories in the Navigation Bar.

Drupal is a powerful publishing and content management system. Users can add all sorts of content to Web pages through a system of modules. The software itself is free and open-source.

Google Documents - Perhaps not as good as Zoho but because it integrates with gmail, it is so convienient. You can manage your life in Google Docs!
http://docs.google.com

Zoho - A complete suite of online applications
http://www.zoho.com/

Wiki hosts

ozrural — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:49:50 CST

Free Wiki hosts

Wikipedia article (Very good list of wikis)

atwiki
Popular wiki, looks ok but I have not used it.

Mediawiki
MediaWiki is a free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis. Needs to be downloaded so not as easy as the web based wikis.

pbwiki
Must be the easiest wiki to set up. Great to use. Clean pages.

pmwiki
Basic look but good FAQ. Default upload limit 50k but it can be changed to 1MB.

Seed Wiki
This has both a free (some ads) and paid version. Often quite hard to navigate around the site and not really user friendly.

Wetpaint
Has side bar with ads, and right side bar with menu so it takes a lot of screen space. Tedious setup compared to most but gives good choice of templates etc. Seems to work well (used for this wiki).

Wikicities
This wiki is not really for the beginner. Often hard to navigate. Does have some nice features though.

Wikispaces
Very good wiki. Generous upload. Looks a bit ordinary is only downside.

Xwiki
Very complex and hard to understand for the beginner. Need to have a decent wiki background. Registration required.

Zoho
Full function wiki. Good WYSIWYG editing and pages can be locked.

Software

Psimyn — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:01:56 CST

This page is specifically for any useful PC or Mac based software not included in other categories.

Axiom Picsizer - A personal favourite. Used for batch resizing images. Free.

Launchy - Easy way to access all your Programs/Documents without having to search for them. Free

eLearning Articles/Blogs

ozrural — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:45:16 CST

Moderating New Sessions in a Virtual Classroom
- this is a good checklist. Having recently sat through an illuminate session where the presenter hardly drew breath, the suggestions about inclusion are really good.

http://synchfacilitation.wikispaces.com/

Bookmarking/link sharing solutions

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:42:14 CST

Del.icio.us

Digg

Blue Dot

StumbleUpon

Backflip

Random Chatter

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:59:21 CST

This page is regularly cleared, but can be used for suggestions, projects, student interaction or any other short term purpose.

Misc Articles

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:58:21 CST

General Interest Articles on Anything eeee....

BRW Top 10 Digital Media Companies from an Australian Perspective

Google to Expand into Mobile Phone Market Also?

Managing the Digital Enterprise (Excellent E Biz digital text)

Online for a Bright Future

Swiss to Pioneer 'Unbreakable' Encryption Method in Upcoming Elections

TIME 50 Best Websites 2007

TIME 25 Sites We Can't Live Without

TIME 5 Worst Websites

Virtual World Articles

I was a Second Life B-school student (Business Week)

Avatars at the Office: More Firms Create Virtual Worlds Second Life (WSJ)

Hip Intro to New Scion Models (WSJ)

Alternative Worlds Life after Second Life (BizWk)

Marketing in SL doesn't work... Here's Why (gigaOM)

Palmisano Gests a Second Life (BizWk)

Will The Last Corporation Leaving SL Please Turn Off The Light (TechCrunch)

Screen Capture Solutions

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:33:09 CST

BrowserCap
Allows you to capture the screen you are currently working on. Also allows users to print the Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox webpage as you see it, and not in a printer friendly view. Limited but can be handy.

Cropper
This is a very basic screen capture tool. Would recommend others above this one if you are after simplicity and other features.

King Kong Capture
Great tool. One of the best free options available. Has many different options for capturing images including rectangle, free hand or whole browser page.

Screen Hunter
Very simple and basic to use. Either save your cropped images directly to a selected destination or to your computer's clipboard.

Super Screen Capture
Great free software that gives you a 7 day trial of their pay products. Free version offers 3 simple screen capture features that are very user friendly for even the beginners.

Virtual Worlds

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:32:35 CST

Virtual World Articles

Second Life CEO predicts end of web Silicon Republic [Ireland], (Aug 2, 2007) Interesting article from the Stanford Summit

In cyberspace, no one can hear you scheme ZDnet Australia, July 24, 2007

Virtual terrorists - The Australian Article from July 31, 2007

I was a Second Life B-school student (Business Week)

Avatars at the Office: More Firms Create Virtual Worlds Second Life (WSJ)

Hip Intro to New Scion Models (WSJ)

Alternative Worlds Life after Second Life (BizWk)

Marketing in SL doesn't work... Here's Why (gigaOM)

Palmisano Gests a Second Life (BizWk)

Will The Last Corporation Leaving SL Please Turn Off The Light (TechCrunch)

Don't show up for this interview (WSJ)

At virtual vanguard, IBM guidelines govern workers' avatars This should be an interesting article. For one thing it gives a very early look at how businesses may conduct affaires in an online virtual environment.

Blog Hosts

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:31:36 CST

Blogger
By Google, so one of the most popular sites. I find it a bit narrow and annoying for people to add comments.

Blogsource
Very simple blog host that doesn't allow a lot of extra features compared to other hosts.

Bravenet
Free web host with good blog page. Ads are a bit annoying (can be removed for a small fee).

Diaryland
Free blog host that allows you to create and personalise your 'diary'. Very animated compared to others and can be a bit of fun.

Easyjournal
Easy, simple blog host. Signing up is quite thorough, but once done, there are templates to choose from to help create your page.

eBloggy
This blog host is nothing special, and at times the pages can look very scattered and un-professional. However it has an easy sign up process, and is simple to create/manage your page.

Facebook
Like Myspace this can be described as a networking host. Once again it is free and is more interactive that Myspace allowing users to contact their 'friends' in various different ways other than just writing to them on their 'wall' (page).

Google Pages
Like most software created by google this offers the user quite a large amount of space to use. Is more of a webpage, but can be used as a blog, as well as having multiple pages that you can add. Easy to use, however they now require that you have a Gmail account in order to get you own page.

Multiply
Great site to express your interests, host photos and videos. The pages look classy and are set out very well.

Myspace
Although this can be better described as a networking host it allows users to create a database of friends, leaving posts, pictures, invitations, videos etc on each other's sites. It is free, but the blog section can often be overloaded with spam.

Lists

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:28:13 CST

Digg/News
Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by their users. People power. Often great, sometimes strange choices.

Newspapers

ozrural — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:26:53 CST

Age Technology (AUS)
Usually quite up to date with any new technology news.

Guardian Technology (UK)
The leading technology stories out of Brittain and the world.

Herald Sun Technology (AUS)
Great place to find any news on upcoming technology releases or reviews on new products.

NY Times Technology (USA)
Skip the ad to generally good content.

UK Times 'Tech & Web' (UK)
One of the better online coverages for technology and web from a leading UK newspaper.

Reseach Contacts

ozrural — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:46:17 CDT

This page is for anyone conducting academic research on eBusiness, eCommerce, Social Networking, eLearning or any other aspects of the digital world. Just include your name, contact details affiliation and research interests at this stage, and we may add some project collaboration pages in the future.

Ian Knox
University of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
email: i.knox@ballarat.edu.au
Lecturer in eBusiness and eMarketing. Currently enrolled in PhD looking at online auctions. Interests - online auctions, social networking, Web 2.0, eBusiness applications.

Mike Featherstone
Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, Alabama, USA
email: feather@jsu.edu
Skype: mfeatherst1
Assitant Professor in e-Commerce, College of Commerce and Business Administration
Retired IBMer, former manager at the IBM e-Business Innovation Center in Atlanta, GA
Interested in search engine marketing, Web business models, virtual team collaboration, network/complexity theory applied to the Web