Manage information resources in classes
Strategies
Share research with students and colleagues - Social bookmarking can allow you to store, sort, and share your bookmarks and resources with students and colleagues from any computer or device with web access. Several sites have cropped up in the past couple of years and there's no general consensus on a single tool, but de.lico.us is popular for general social bookmarking and Connotea is a popular tool aimed at academic users.
Receive and generate automatic updates - RSS lets you easily get "feeds" of current information in your field and offer feeds to your students for use in their research. Using RSS feeds from other types of sites and tools (such as the blog tool in Blackboard), you can more easily organize your student's work. Feed2JS is a tool that let's you add an RSS feed to a Blackboard course or website.
Manage instant messaging with students - You can use instant messaging to managing office hours and other communication with your students. Some questions that students have, for example, might be answered with a quick IM, rather than an email exchange.
Some faculty use multiple IM names for different audiences - a chat name for personal use and one for use with students. There are several applications, listed in the Tools section below, that let you use all of your IM accounts at once, even with different services like AIM, Yahoo IM or iChat.
Use email more effectively - Automatic filtering of email into folders can be useful for isolating material from mailing lists and other sources for viewing at a later time. Email filters can work based on the email address or name of the sender or keywords in the subject line. Filters vary depending on the email program you use, so contact your local IT support staff for more information.
Integrate library resources into courses - Librarians can "sit in" on your Blackboard courses and provide help and resources to students in your courses to help you save time in a course. The Library offers other resources, such as electronic reserves, that can also help with your course.
The Library offers help for faculty and staff via instant messaging and also has tools you can use in courses; one tool that's just been introduced allows you to place a Library search box and tools in your Blackboard course or another website.
Tools
Connotea - A social bookmarking site aimed at academic users that lets you store and share web references with other users; it can export references in standard formats for integration into citations managers like EndNote.
del.icio.us - A popular social bookmarking site for general use that allows you to store and share web references with other users.
Feed2js - Allows you to place an RSS feed on any website or page within a Blackboard course site.
Adium - Instant messaging client for the Mac that allows multiple logins using different services.
Pidgin - Instant messaging client for Windows that allows multiple logins using various online IM services.
RadiusIM - A new instant messaging client that accepts multiple simueltaneous logins and also includes geographic specific features.
Duke Library Tools - A collection of small tools offered by Duke Libraries that let you use and search library services in new ways.
