EduTechnorama

At MCC I’ve consulted with other faculty who enjoy using online tools for collecting feedback from their students (especially if they are free).

Our staple is Mount Royal College’s FAST (Free Assessment Summary Tool) at http://getfast.ca . Some of the things that are noteworthy about the tool are:

• It not only collects data but also aggregates it so that you can see things in summary forms such as charting and graphing
• It supports short-answer feedback as well as likert and paragraph-style feedback.
• You can download a special MS-Excel Spreadsheet that contains a special feedback connection link that will download collected data directly into the spreadsheet. This is great if you like to have an offline version of the data all ready to print.

Sunset

Originally uploaded by midiman

I’ve been a flickr.com participant for over a year and a half now. As far as a great way to store pictures, they’ve also been one of the premiere second generation Internet social networking apps. One of the reasons they’ve been successful is the creative commons licensure model. Where everyone on the web has the ability to scoop up and use content with the understanding that it will be attributed to or given credit to the individual or entity that put it out for consumption in the first place.

I’ve had several of my pictures ’scooped’ up this way. Some of the websites and entities that have taken advantage of this are:

http://answers.yahoo.com
http://www.thefriend.org
http://www.downtownatlantis.com/ (Adam Zeisler - a professional juggler. I took a picture of him at an event he was performing in)

…among others.

One of the really cool ways these pictures get used is in other applications. Schmap.com does it in a way that allows them to make online traveler guides, and then make little smaplets that display little local things to do around where the pictures were taken: