Improve your communication
Topic: All subjects
Here is a great blog that focuses on communication. "Communication is one of the most important skills anyone can have, in business and in life. As individuals and as a species, I believe we will be happier and more productive if we can improve our ability to communicate. This blog is dedicated to that effort. Join the conversation!" Posts link to more comprehensive articles and include, 'How to know when someone is lying to you'.

10 Steps to Boost Your Creativity
Topic: All subjects
This site has lots of resources for boosting creativity and innovation planning. Use the techniques for creating projects that demonstrate your creative genius.

Blog Tutorial - Tips For Blog Templates & Blog Design In Photoshop
Topic: blogs
Here is a great tutorial to help you design the Web's most creative blog template. Once you choose a blogging service and set up an account, you will be provided with a standard blog template. To be noticed your blog needs to make a splash - as there are more than ten million blogs out there. So what this tutorial concentrates on is working with some design elements that can help you add more zing to your blog.

More on Web 2.0 Services
Topic: All subjects
Here is an attempt to list all the available Web 2.0 applications. Many services are expected to replace desktop applications. Try some of the services they have great potential for students and teachers. Highly recommended is BaseCamp for managing progects and Writely for word processing.

WikiBooks - Free text books for students?
Topic: All subjects
Here is a very interesting Web 2.0 example.WikiBooks is a collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit. Wikibooks is a Wikimedia project, set up on July 10, 2003. Since then, volunteers have written around 13,930 book modules in a multitude of books.Is this a model for the textbook of the future with international contributions...I like the concept of free textbooks for students.

What is Web 2.0?
Topic: Website design
Web 2.0 refers to a new generation of Web sites that are far more dynamic than their predecessors. Instead of a solitary experience, like reading a newspaper or a catalog online, these Web sites allow users to interact with each other and help shape what appears on the screen.

RSS Ideas for Educators
Topic: All subjects
Here is a great article for teachers about how to use RSS and Atom feeds to:
* Filter WWW information
* Automate the task of finding new WWW information
* Share information you find with other teachers and students
* Quickly find new WWW tools and information
* Make connections with other teachers.

A free collection of essential software
Topic: All subjects
Google Pack is a free collection of essential software from Google and other companies. The software in the Google Pack helps you browse the web faster, remove spyware and viruses, organize your photos, and more.
Google Pack also takes the hassle out of downloading, installing, and updating software. You can download and install the entire Google Pack in just a few clicks. And the included Google Updater helps you discover new programs and keep your current software up to date.

Wikis described in plain english
Topic: Website design
Normal web sites are usually developed offline and then presented to users as a finished product. By comparison, wikis are first presented to users as a blank slate- an empty page. A new wiki is an empty wiki, no pages, no links. Instead of a team of designers developing a web site in private, a wiki is developed in public by the users of the wiki over the life of the wiki. Wikis are websites that are revolutionising the way organisations manage knowledge and their relationships with customers.

Resources for students and teachers
Topic: All subjects
Great resources for all students and teachers from the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Resources include texts, moving images, live music and audio.

The Best Web 2.0 Software
Topic: All subjects
Here is a list with links to some exciting Web 2.0 software.
Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.
"A tidal wave of innovative, high-quality software has been released this year. Here is a list of some of the best Web 2.0 software that I've come across so far."

Learn about Wikis - Create a Wiki
Topic: All subjects
Here is a Wiki to support a Wiki workshop. It uses Wikispaces to create an interactive read/write website.
A wiki is an "open-editing" system where the emphasis is on the authoring and collaboration of documents rather than the simple browsing or viewing of them. The name "wiki" is based on the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki", meaning "quick" or "super-fast". The basic concept of a wiki is that (almost) anyone can edit any page.

Wikipedia Research Browser
Topic: All subjects
This product will assist your Wikipedia research. "Gollum is the name of my newest crime of invention. By reducing the complexity of information, I have created a fast and eyefriendly browser through the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. Originally this invention was built up for my daughter but now I have expanded it to the world for free as an open source project under GPL."

CSS Tutorials and Templates
Topic: Website design
Here is a link to excellent CSS tutorials and templates. Like HTML, CSS is standardized by the W3 consortium. CSS is an open, independent and freely usable standard. As with HTML, a working group exists for CSS who concerns itself with development of the standard. This is being done in accordance with W3C rules.

How to give a great presentation
Topic: All subjects
Employers value students with good communication skills. The advice in this article should help whether you’re presenting the features of a design proposal, giving a small internal presentation to staff or classmates or presenting your portfolio to a potential employer.

Web Design Podcasts for your Ipod
Topic: Website design
The giants of the Web world were at the WebVision 2005 Conference last week to explore the future of design, content creation, technology and business strategy. From podcasting to universal usability, attendees discovered how the Web is interacting with digital devices to change the way we communicate, access information and do business. Download or RSS feed these podcasts to your Ipod or equivalent.

Next Generation Website
Topic: Website design
An example of a next generation website. “This interactive magazine foreshadows the future with its use of hip new story forms and highly video-centric Web tools.” -2005 Batten Advisory Board Judges. This quarterly netcasting magazine integrates ISP broadcasting and print magazine information produced by individual backpack journalists ("solo-jo's") from England, the United States and South Africa.

Blogs Usability Study
Topic: Website design
This usability study reveals that current blog design
standards – at least in terms of navigation, nomenclature and taxonomy – are a barrier to consumer acceptance. In fact, the design of most blogs can incite “net rage” (in the words of one test participant). Catalyst Group Design set out to test just how well, from a design perspective, blogs would perform for a typical end-user. This is an important study for web design students whose workplace role will increasingly involve the design of blog sites.

Searching for resources
Topic: All subjects
Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere — the world of weblogs. Technorati displays what's important in the blogosphere. Technorati tracks over thirteen million weblogs, up from 100,000 two years ago. The Pew Internet study estimates that about 11%, or about 50 million, of Internet users are regular blog readers. A new weblog is created every 7.4 seconds, which means there are about 12,000 new blogs a day. Bloggers — people who write weblogs — update their weblogs regularly; there are about 275,000 posts daily, or about 10,800 blog updates an hour.

Welcome back to semester 2 - games
Topic: All subjects
This website is definitely not for access in the classroom. Mark Hurst has made a listing of online games that in his opinion offer a good experience: “good game design with an overall attention to quality”. The links to games are in turn links to other games that are in turn links to other games that are in turn........