Post XX. Lynda.com

I decided to do a brief review of Lynda.com in case if there are people in our class who are not familiar with this wonderful learning tool yet.

Lynda.com offers a collection of learning materials related to different topics, from Instructional Design to Photography. Usually, you get access to a set of video-lectures that are often accompanied by exercises to assist you in processing the new information. The quality of lectures is very high; they represent short videos, no more than 10 minutes long. What is important for me as an international student, the lecturers speak clearly and slowly (in a normal way), which helps me follow them with no additional effort involved.

There is a wide range of learning activities available on Lynda.com, and, what is more, this web portal is absolutely free for FSU students. This is great news because the regular monthly price is $20 minimum, depending on the chosen plan. In the Secure Apps folder on my.fsu.edu, there is a direct link to the Lynda.com website that enables you to get your free access. 

Lynda.com also has an iPad application for those people who prefer being mobile.

Watch a short video about Lynda.com below. What courses would you like take (or are taking) on this eLearning portal?

Post XIX. Memrise

Memrise is a beautifully designed web-based technology for memorizing things. It allows you to create your own sets of flashcards to be remembered or use the sets developed by other users.

What differs Memrise from services like Quizlet is that the study and self-assessment processes happen simultaneously. For example, you created a list of 10 new words to remember in the word-and-its-definition format. When you start a learning session, the software introduces you to the words from the list and then alternate the blocks containing the assessment items about the words you study with the blocks stating the words and their definitions. The idea behind Memrise technology is you better remember new words when you continuously repeat those words and solve problems related to them. The assessment items include matching a word with the correct definition option, typing in the word appropriate to the displayed definition, and answering multiple-choice questions.

At the end of the session, you get statistics demonstrating your progress through the session and the amount of points received for correct and quick answers. You can see the words you mastered and the words you need to work on more. 

I am learning HTML 5 vocabulary now via the flashcard set somebody developed. The results of one of my learning sessions are showed in the picture below. The flower image means I have mastered the word.

I really like Memrise for its pretty design. In addition, the software developers assure it is research-based. So, I believe Memrise deserves a tryout.

Do you use any memorization apps to enhance your learning activities?

Post XVIII. Haiku Deck

When working on my SlideShare presentation for the Knowledge Sharing and Tracking project, I noticed that the SlideShare website outsources the in-built presentation-construction service to another company, Haiku Deck. I became interested in that company, especially after finding out they offer an iPad application for creating and sharing presentations.

I recommend Haiku Deck for iPad to everyone who constantly need to develop presentations and prefer being mobile at the same time. This is a great tool for both study and business purposes. It provides the user with lots of slide templates and a big set of Creative Commons pictures to choose from, which makes the process of the slides development significantly faster. The application also includes a collection of fonts and alternatives for slides’ layout.

What I like most about Haiku Deck for iPad is that the app has intuitive editing options, so every content piece can be relocated or redesigned in seconds. The company presents the software as a tool for quick idea sharing, and my perception of it is the same.

Watch the demo video below and download Haiku Deck for iPad for free to test its functionality. 

Are you familiar with other mobile applications for presentation creation?

Post XVII. SimilarWeb

Data is my passion, and I prefer to have a lot of different statistics available to form my opinion about a certain subject.

Since I started blogging, I was wondering what blog platform is more successful: Blogger or WordPress? Do the platforms have the same amount of users? What countries are the primary source of the traffic for the platforms?

If you are interested in answers to similar questions about any website, there is a cool web-analytics software called SimilarWeb. It utilizes big data technologies to collect, measure, analyze, and provide user-engagement statistics for websites and mobile applications.

On SimilarWeb, you can receive lots of data related to the specific website of interest for free. For example, for Blogger.com I got global, country, and category ranks; traffic sources; referrals; organic key words; traffic from social media; audience interests, and many other interesting facts.

Unfortunately, the free websites’ comparison service SimilarWeb offers is limited to ranks and traffic overview only (everything else you can get by paying the subscription fee). Still, I know now that WordPress is quite more popular than Blogger (see the picture below for some graphs; Blogger is orange, and wordPress is blue).

So, those of the Blogger users who plan to continue blogging for professional purposes might considering moving to WordPress.

Post XVI. PowToon

Nowadays, there are a lot of tools that aim to make content presentations not only informative, but also engaging.

PowToon is a web-based software of that kind. It is a constructor that allows you to create animated videos and presentations by using a set of predesigned templates. The process of the creation of a video is very simple. When you are in the construction mode of the PowToon software, you generate a group of slides just like you usually do while working on a presentation. Then, PowToon combines this collection of slides into a video so that each slide represents one video scene. PowToon has a drag-and-drop interface, which enables the creation process to be very fast. The software is integrated with GoogleDrive.

PowToon offers free and paid usage plans. The produced video presentation can be shared on YouTube and Facebook freely, but to download the video to your computer, you should pay for subscription. Unsurprisingly, paid versions of the software have more animated and still templates to choose from.

Watch a short video about the history of presentation software created using PowToon.

Do you like the idea of such entertaining presentations? As students, would you like your professors to invest their time, money, and effort in this software? As teaching personnel, would you try it on your lessons?

Post XV. Good Notes

I didn’t expected to have so many readings in the PDF format when beginning my master’s studies at FSU. Since I am not comfortable with lengthy reading on the computer, I needed to figure out how to deal with all those PDF files. That was the time I found the Good Notes iPad application. I decided to buy it basing on rapturous reviews of users and never regret it.

Now, Good Notes costs $6.99 (one dollar more), but it is worth every dollar spent. The app combines the functions of a note-taking space and an annotation tool for PDF files.

GoodNotes recognize handwriting beautifully. The app works very smoothly enabling you to take notes in a creative manner by using different pen and marker colors, geometric figures, textboxes, etc. The notes are searchable, which makes Good Notes an assisting media in going paperless.

Talking about the PDF annotation functions Good Notes provide, they are absolutely stunning. You can handwrite on a PDF and then export this annotated document to the cloud service you prefer (GoogleDisk, iCloud, Box, or Dropbox). The app also allows inserting pictures in the document and typing on it. All the changes you made can be synchronized between different devices.

Here is a video overview of the Good Notes app demonstrating its practicality.

I also would like to share the annotation methodology I utilize while reading PDFs via Good Notes. It may be useful for international students J
On the picture below, you can see the first page of the Kosonen (2009) reading we had two weeks ago. To make PDF annotation more organized, I use color codes. I mark definitions with the brown color, unknown words – with the green color, and the unknown synonyms for the words I know – with the blue color. I use the yellow color for marking the author thoughts I find to be useful for my class projects. You can also see that I type the Russian translation of the unknown words above them so that it will be easier for me to work with a text when I come back to it for assignments.

Do you use special applications for reading PDF files? I would be happy to hear about any counterparts of the Good Notes app you are familiar with.

Post XIV. FSU IS Application

Have you known that the ISLT family at FSU has its own mobile application?
The FSU IS APP was developed by Taehyeong Lim, a doctorate student and great guy J
You can download the application from the App Store for free. It is nicely designed, works smoothly, and, what is more, helps tracking ISLT news. The app also contains information about our faculty and staff. A catalog of program courses, providing a brief description for each course, can be found there as well.

Finally, the app includes a list of the networks related to our program. For example, it allows you to start following interesting Facebook groups, like FSU IS Program or IS Student Association.

Post XIII. Language Learning Resources

Greg’s vlog post about a crowdsourcing translation web-tool, Duolingo, gave me an idea for my Knowledge Sharing project (thanks Greg!).
I attempted to create a collection of web-based learning resources for the people who, like me, are interested in languages. Below, you will find the list of the open-access websites I find to be helpful in learning German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Russian, and Japanese.

Languages Online

German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin

This website offers lessons for language learners at all levels of proficiency. The utilized teaching methodology is quite simple. You will be asked to match pictures and English phrases with the ones in the language you study.

Mein Weg nach Deutschland

German

This web-portal was developed by Goethe-Institut - Germany's worldwide cultural institute. It contains a lot of engaging activities for practicing your German. For example, you can play a hidden objects game or watch an educative TV show about a Turkish girl immigrated to Germany.

One World Italiano

Italian

This website includes a variety of classic language activities, such as video courses, grammar explanations, and dictations. In addition, there is a set of entertaining exercises enabling you to explore Italian via movie trailers or interactive mini-games. 

Digital Dialects

Spanish

This is an example of how game-based approach can be used in language learning. The website represents an assortment of games of varying levels of language difficulty.

Master Russian

Russian

If you wish to make yourself familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet or are interested in understanding the Russian culture, this website would be of great help. It has different learning materials, including the dual-language translations of Russian greatest novels and folk music videos.

Melnyks Chinese

Chinese

This is a collection of podcasts for the learners of Chinese aiming to master their speaking skills. You can get access to 267 audio lessons with word-for-word PDF transcripts and worksheets for self-assessment.

Kids Web Japan

Japanese

This website declares being a portal for kids, but any adult interested in learning Japanese can find it to be useful. There is a course of animated lessons to introduce you to the language, and the Quick Japanese section enables you to increase your colloquial vocabulary. 

I would be happy to hear from language learning fans. What languages do you speak? Which language would you like to learn next?