Thing #15

From what I managed to gather from the cute and interesting YouTube video, the owners of a permanent / original work have to pay a token sum of money for the Copyright law to enforce the law that ONLY the owner has the right to use the copyrighted work.
Copyrights can be for a lot of things such as movies, music, articles, etc. In order to encourage the creation of ideas, only the form of the idea can be copyrighted, not the idea itself. Hmm…what exactly does it mean?

Initially the copyright lasts only for 14 years, after which anyone can use it in the public domain. Eventually, copyrights last 70 years for an individual and 100 years for a company...which is as good as a lifetime really.

The limitation of a copyright is that depending on the nature of work, anyone can borrow a small amount of a copyrighted work to teach for non-commercial use.

In the present context of collaborative learning, Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that allows owners of original works to change their licenses from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved” so that their works can be improved on through sharing. In particular, ccLearn supports open learning and the sharing of educational resources. But I’m wondering…for an educational institution, all the notes prepared by the academic staff belong to the institution. So does it mean that the educational institution is the owner of the notes?

Thing #14

Well, I signed up for Technorati and checked out their Blog Directory, Popular Tags and Blog Central. The search for "Classroom Learning 2.0" in Blog Directory for entire posts returned 2,688 results while for posts that are 'tagged only', it returned 2 results - one post on Week 6 & another on Week 7 - surprise!

In Popular Tags, 650 results were shown comprising of tagged posts and images. Blog Central returned 2,610 results - similar to that shown in Blog Directory. Looks like searching under 'tagged only' option in Blog Directory brings us to specifically what we want to locate. The number of results also changed each time I search... strange ...perhaps posts have been.

I like to use Popular Tags to search blogs as the layout of the different text sizes looks interesting. Blog Directory is a more organized way of looking for blogs, while I find Blog Central difficult to use.

After having used Flickr, Del.icio.us and Technorati, tagging seems to be an easy way to 'bookmark' photos, webpages and posts respectively. Having a few relevant words as tags allow our information to be read by many. However, it can also mean that too much time is needed to sieve through all "unwanted" information to get to the ones we want. But at least we know what software to use to search for photos, webpages and posts, instead of using a general search engine. :)

Classroom Learning 2.0

Thing #13

Well, initially I thought Del.icio.us has something to do with food. Guess not...

It is definitely an easy-to-use social bookmaker. It's nice to be able to access my bookmarks at a common "place" rather than tied to a particular computer. However, being a private person, I'd rather not let the whole world know what I'm interested in, and have kept it private for now. I would love to share it with my friends though when the software allows us to share bookmarks with friends only. I also like the way that it can be tagged and sorted for easy access.

Still, having more pictures than words as the bookmark may offer a more interesting way to using Del.icio.us. In the meantime, I'll definitely recommend it to all my friends. :)

Thing #12

Managed to create a Rollyo search and am trying to post the link here. Now let's see...

Select Search Engine...MeaningsSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

Thing #11

Thing #11a:
Tried out StumbleUpon as a bookmarker, and found that the photographs that introduce the topics made it easy to select and explore them. It was easy to sign up for a free account also. I was able to see a video clip of the process involved in building a green house of soil in Nepal, and photographs of a economical and quaint house in the ground! Truly amazing what others are doing these days for a house to call home.

As for a relaxing time, try Last to listen to some desired music before purchasing. They have "Radios" that are made up of different artistes, including the one you want to listen to. In this way, you are introduced to other artistes within a catergory of music. Bloggers can write and comment on the music, and you can even upload your music if you want to. Unfortunately, Pandora is no longer available for people outside US, so I can't try that, but MOG's music is not as easily accessible. However, they allow users to buy music as ringtones or MP3s easily - only for US residents though. Definitely a thumbs up for Last from me.

Thing #11b:
I just became the second member of the Digital Photography Tips ning network. The webpage has quite a number of photo resources to get tips, which was the reason I joined despite the low membership. Well, let's see how it grows...

Thing #10 cont'd

Ok...here's another fun one - from Comic Strip Generator :)

Thing #10

Wow! Now I know that it's easy to copy the image's code here and it becomes an image. Used to think that it'll just be codes appearing. How silly...ha...ha...

Really love this image...I can hear the soothing sounds of water right here at my seat! :)

Thing #9

Feed on CAD...

The RSS feed on CAD is interesting as the users are already using the latest version of the software while we are not. I'll be able to find out what the new features are and if they are good tools to use.

The other thing I've been hoping to learn is using the software for 3D. It used to be very tedious and difficult to learn, but it seems easier now. I'll probably be able to get some help from some of the users.

Feed on hardscape...

The heading caught my eye : "Sustainable Landscape Construction: A guide to Green Building". It's precisely what I want to learn more about! Wow!

However, it turned out to be not as interesting. Most of the newer articles are from a printing company and the rest are not that related to Green Buildings. But it's good to know that there are people out there who are also concerned about the environment. :)

Thing #8

Finally, I managed to find time to learn about RSS and Google Reader, which is really easy to use. I highly recommend it, especially if you have a Blog and Email account with Google.

I've chosen three feeds, one each for CAD, softscape and hardscape. Will find out soon if they are helpful.