Two for Tuesday

I thought I would borrow an idea from a new blogger I am reading who is really pushing my thinking. Every Tuesday, she posts about two technology tools that she has found that she believes she can integrate into her work. I am thinking that since the purpose of Grand Rounds is not just technology - but really learning and teaching - our "Two for Tuesday" might be technology (as it is this week) or might be articles on a topic, strategies for the classroom or other things. As always - Jenn and I look for additional contributions so if you have ideas that might fit - let us know and we can make you guest authors!!!

So - for this week:

1. Zotero : This is a new bibliographic software (think EndNote) that is actually a Firefox extension (in other words - FREE!!) Billed as being built by researchers for researchers, it has some pretty powerful capabilities that even this non-PhD candidate finds interesting: drag and drop use, works with online tools like Google Docs and it integrates your annotations and notes. Another cool feature?

"[O]ne of the distinctive features of the system is its ability to detect and extract bibliographic information for a range of sources during research. When Zotero senses information on a page you are viewing—a book, a journal article, a filmstrip, a newspaper, or whatever kind of item the system senses—it places a small icon in the location bar of your Firefox browser. When you click the icon in your location bar, Zotero captures the bibliographic information on the page and saves it in your Zotero database. You can then organize the items you capture through the Zotero pane, which you open by clicking on the Zotero logo in the bottom right corner of your browser window. From the Zotero pane, you can organize these items into collections, you can tag them, search them, sort them, annotate and highlight them, take notes, and drag and drop attachments like images and audio and video files onto them."

Thanks to Innovate for the "heads up" on this tool.

2. LiveScribe : This is a "paper based computer platform" (say that three times fast) which includes a a smartpen, paper, and software applications. This tool will record the lecture as you are taking notes - and you can listen to them when tapping on the note page!! You can send the file (including the audio) to classmates via email or post on the web. It also looks like this tool might have ELL applications as it will translate a word or phrase that is written and with the play-back, students can practice their pronunciations. Cost? The pen will be under $200 and the paper will cost about as much as other computing paper products.

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Give us a rating on the tips for this week in your comments!!
5 - WOW! What would I ever do without you? I'll be back every Tuesday!
3 - Interesting reading but I wouldn't use these tips!
1 - Please stop blogging!