Information is Beautiful

David McCandess is an independent data journalist and information designer from the UK. His website, Information is Beautiful, features his and other's artwork turing raw data into meaningful information. Besides being fascinating to look through, this website reveals how good presentation and design can make information come to life.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

For example, ever wonder how to reduce your odds of dying in a plane crash? Click on the picture of find out...

Have you met TED yet?

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) began as a conference in 1984 to bring together from these three worlds. It has expanded to encompass the brightest minds in science, business, and the arts. From the yearly conference in Long Beach, TEDtalks emerged, free video of each of the TED conference lectures available at www.ted.com. According to the website, "We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other."

There are currently over 500 talks available, covering a wide range of topics and each around 20 minutes or less. These videos were released under a Creative Commons license, making them perfect for use in the classroom or online. The website allows you to search through the videos based on subject or theme. Each video is closed captioned and many are translated into multiple languages.

Be careful... once you start looking through TEDtalks, you may find you can't stop! Here are a few of our favorites:

Pattie Mayes demos the "SixthSense"
Mike Rowe celebrates Dirty Jobs
Jane Chen: A warm embrace that saves lives

Attentionomics

It's a fact: people have a finite attention span. Your students have a finite attention span. Are your PowerPoint presentations helping student grasp the course content? A traditional bullet-point layout may not be the best way to go.

Chris Atherton, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire at Preston in the UK, developed this PowerPoint to demonstrate a different and possibly more effective way of presenting information. This type of presentation would work especially well in distance courses.

Chris Atherton at TCUK09

View more presentations from Chris Atherton.

For more information, check out Chris Atherton's blog, finiteattentionspan.wordpress.com.

twitter

You may have heard of Twitter in the news or from your students, but did you know there are uses for this social messaging utility in higher education? For example, tweets between students and faculty can help minimize the pscyhological distance that often occurs in an online course.

For ideas for your own course, read how one instructor has successfully utilized twitter with his students.

For a quick overview of Twitter, view the 7 Things You Should Know About Twitter from Educase.edu.

For a different take, read this thoughtful essay on the limitations of online communities from Christianity Today.

NoodleBib

If you have ever wasted hours sifting through your preferred style manual (my department uses APA) looking for more information on how to cite that one, obscure source, then NoodleBib may be a good option for you. According to their website, NoodleBib is a:

“Powerful note-taking software that promotes critical thinking and creativity combined with the most comprehensive and accurate bibliography composer on the Web. MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles.”

I’ve been using it for about 5 years and recommend it to anyone who asks about online bibliography management. It’s loaded with features, flexible, and easy to navigate. Well worth the $8/year subscription. Check out the trial today at: Noodletools.com.


Bill Ventura, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Communication, School of Undergraduate Studies

Open Educational Resources Commons

“Learning is sharing,” states this website. A collection of higher education course materials and resources that is completely searchable, the Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons presents great potential for providing supplementary online resources for an array of disciplines including: Arts, Business, Humanities, Mathematics & Statistics, Science & Technology, and Social Sciences. Visit them at http://www.oercommons.org/