Educational Information Sources Online

I've designed two new blogs, as companions to my Web Tools Workshop and my Educational Uses of Weblogs Workshop. Here they are:

Web Tools

Presentation Blog 

CLUSTY is the newest search engine idea, that goes beyond meta-searching (such as Dogpile, which offers results from multiple search engines in one query). The idea is to group your search results into clusters that are connected and in a heirarchal format. Try it. Very interesting. You can see your FAQs answered here.

I found this site, somehow, I can't remember now how I came across it. Oh, someone linked to my other site via this and I saw it in my stats. It's a search engine for grabbing archived (cached?) website information. Kind of a neat concept. Still experimenting with the Internet Archive WaybackMachine. Cool name in any case. I think it would be useful if you have a date or dates you viewed info but can't remember the URLs, etc.

Here's a great tool that I happened across today. If you're interested in doing podcasts or making your own (or editing) sound files for presentations, among other things, the Audacity Free Audio Sound Editor is perfect. It's a cross-platform application that is cost free as well as being open source. I've already downloaded it and it's very userfriendly and working great already. I've used at least three other costly programs that never worked correctly, didn't translate well to other platforms, and cost money that ended up being wasted. This is a great program. Try it :)

Popurls is a site that compiles headlines and "buzz" from numerous feeds across the web. It includes news, blog posts, photos, video, and more. The look of the page can be customized for easier reading (larger font and white background) by clicking on the top right hand buttons on the page. Lots going on here, but can be useful if you need the latest rumblings on the net.

    The ArchiveGrid is a portal where one can search through information on archives all around the world. Plug in your search terms and see what comes up. This site would be invaluable to serious researchers. Here's what they say on the site:

ArchiveGrid is an important destination for searching through historical documents, personal papers, and family histories held in archives around the world.

Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.

ArchiveGrid is available to both individuals and institutions free of charge through May 31st. If additional grants funds or sponsorship are obtained, ArchiveGrid will remain free of charge; otherwise subscriptions will be available for institutions and individuals alike.

I've decided to start starring sites I think are extra useful. So now when you see the stars, it's a must see. 

A great bookmark site for those of you in multiple places is del.icio.us

You can add it to your toolbar and also post to it from your toolbar (you have to install it there but it is very easy to do--instructions on the site).

You organize your sites by adding tags, yours or ones that are suggested for you (very nice) which also link to other people's favorite sites, so you can browse the favorites of everyone on the site. You can also search the site for other people's favorites. For each bookmark you can add notes and there is a date that it was added (so when you look up a certain category, they are listed with most recent first).

I have a job category and I add the date the application is due and other interesting info about each job in the notes section and it is really helping in keeping track of my submissions. When I submit something, I add that to the notes. Very useful site. Try it.  

The O'Keefe Library of Ambrose University has a great site that collects links to the Best information on the Internet. Try the alphabetical listing for your topic, or for older students, try the resources by major.

Librarians check out the resources just for us :)

I'll be adding this site as a link in the sidebar also.

Another colleague shared this extremely helpful site:

I Keep Bookmarks

You can save all your bookmarks here and access them from any computer anywhere. No more writing them all down so you can remember them later when you get home or when you get to work.

You can also set up a school account so all your teachers and students can access the same bookmarks by visiting the same URL (web address).