Besides email applications and web browsers, most of us use Microsoft Word on a daily basis. Certainly Word has its benefits – compatibility, comfortable familiarity, general availability, steep academic discounts, etc — nearly everyone knows what to do with a ‘.doc’ file. However, with a newer version of Word out there (Office 2007 featured a pretty extensive overhaul of all the Office products, and Mac Office 2008 now offers them for Apple users), it looks like as good a time as any to reflect on one’s use of Word…is it the best tool for what we’re trying to achieve when we write?

A recent New York Times article includes several suggestions for other applications that work just as well as Word, and perhaps better, depending on your individual goals. The article mainly focuses on Scrivener, a tool that takes the word processor a bit further and actually encourages outlining, storyboard, and managing of notes and sources. Similar tools, such as the Mac-based DevonThink, have also begun to catch on with academics.

Not ready to take the plunge into a completely different set of software? Free, web-based writing applications give you a chance to spend some time outside of Word, and perhaps even increase your ability to write collaboratively with others. Companies like Zoho have been getting some recognition for providing entire Office-like suites completely online. Of course, there’s always the ever-popular GoogleDocs, which some suggest may be a great tool for the collaborative writing of books.

Several manufacturers have released pens over the past few years that do more than just let you write text – many, released by companies like Cross and Logitech, convert written words and scribbles on a page into images that can be manipulated on your computer.

LiveScribe is releasing a pen, dubbed the Pulse, that can provide some interesting functions.  In addition to capturing what you write and downloading it to your computer, the pen can also record a meeting and synchronize your written notes with the audio recording.  If that isn’t enough, the Pulse can do rudimentary language translation or act as a calculator – simply write down some numbers and it will display results on a screen on the side of the pen.  The company is also making a software development kit available to allow third parties to develop their own applications for the device.

A slideshow highlighting features of the pulse is at news.com:

http://www.news.com/2300-1041_3-6227830-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

EveryBlock is a new website that aims to collate localized information for major cities and urban areas. The site, which now includes information on New York, San Francisco, and Chicago brings together publicly available mapped information, such as Flickr photo feeds and restaurant inspections, with local news and other information from providers such as CraigsList entries.

Mapping is a larger trend on the Internet, with services such as GoogleMaps proving to be popular among users. EveryBlock, as it expands listings for other cities, could prove to be a useful resources for visualizing a wide range of information about cities for discussions and class activities.

http://www.everyblock.com/

Have you twitted? Twitter can be used to track friends and send short messages either to a select group of people or the world, online and by mobile phone. My colleagues use it as an in/out board. Can it be used to facilitate learning? Apparently, yes. AcademHack: tech tools for Academics describes a Twitter assignment in which students virtually followed classmates over a weekend to explore new media. The success of this assignment inspired 13 (thirteen!) ideas for using Twitter in the classroom.

For more, see the Educause Learning Initiative 2 page document “7 things you should know about Twitter“.

You may post your vacation snapshots on Flickr, the photo-sharing site, but the Library of Congress has bigger plans.

This week the library was overwhelmed by the public response after it put 3,100 of the most popular photos from its collection online at Flickr, getting them outside the Washington library walls and into the hands of people who want to use them. (The selected photos have no known copyright restrictions.)

See more at The Wired Campus

Some 200 science bloggers, scientists, journalists, educators and readers met on Saturday, January 19, 2008 for the second Science Blogging Conference organized by Bora Zivkovic and Anton Zuiker and held at Sigma Xi in Research Triangle Park, NC. Others participated online via streaming video (many courtesy of Wayne Sutton) and chat rooms.

The format was an “unconference”, where discussion, dissent and debate is crucial for each session; some sessions achieved this. As most of the attendees were bloggers, the sessions have been recorded in blogs, photos, video and audio. Below are descriptions of sessions with links to selected summaries.

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BiomedExperts.com, a social-networking Web site for health-care and life-science experts, was unveiled on January 11, 2008 at the American Library Association’s midwinter meeting, in Philadelphia. The site includes profiles of more than 1.4 million biomedical experts in 120 countries. Researchers can gain access to the site for free and search for colleagues based on their areas of expertise, where they live, or other variables. The site also allows scientists to share data and analyses, and view summaries of their colleagues’ research papers.

Article at the Chronicle of Higher Education

A recent new blog, From Toy to Tool Cell Phones in Schools, highlights new developments in web 2.0 applications focusing on mobile learning in k-12 and higher education. With the high proliferation of cell phone use among k-12 and college students across this country, more and more applications seek to structure niche social networks and experiences based solely on how users access information through cell phones. With the cost and use of cell phones significantly lower, than acquiring a computer with high broadband internet service, educators are designing course curricula around cell phone technology and the way their students communicate and access information.

The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) reports on a new study released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that documents Web surfing habits. Not surprisingly, video sharing sites like YouTube are seeing a strong increase in viewership, and a Pew survey found last spring that more of these folks are looking at educational content when they visit these sites. Many institutions are taking advantage of this to make content available that’s been created by and about their faculty, staff and students. Duke has done this as well – visit the Duke University News channel on YouTube to see a variety of videos about faculty research, library activities, and other information about our campus.

See also:
Thanks to YouTube, Professors are Finding New Audiences (CHE)

An interview with Drexel University’s Jean-Claude Bradley discusses educational uses of Second Life. Jean-Claude Bradley also indicates when Second Life might not be appropriate to use. Among the benefits mentioned are that students get to meet other students and teachers from around the world who are attracted by the content. Among the constraints is that students aren’t always familiar, interested or motivated to use Second Life. For Jean-Claude Bradley that translates to a strategy of providing Second Life as another channel for learning, not a required component of his class. He also wouldn’t use it for a course with a large number of students.

http://campustechnology.com/articles/57198/