Tools and Tutorials
Social Media in ELT will use or examine the types of software listed on this page. The bulleted lists point to recommended tutorials.
Browsers
Firefox - free, open source, graphical cross-platform browser
Flock is built on the Mozilla Firefox open-source browser and has been fully integrated with a wide range of social networking websites and popular blogging tools.
Helpful Firefox Add-Ons and Extensions
ScribeFire (previously Performancing for Firefox) — is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
del.icio.us bookmarks: this extension integrates your browser with del.icio.us , the leading social bookmarking service on the Web.
Sxipper accurately fills in forms, manages passwords and securely supports OpenID.
Blog
Wordpress.com: hosted blogging service — start and maintain your own weblog
- Wordpress Codex: documentation, tutorials, best practices
- Wordpress.com FAQ and Forum
- Blogging in WordPress by Spring Branch ISD Technology Workshop (PDF, HTML)
- Working with EduBlogs (WordPress) by Joe Freidhoff (tutorial with screencast clips)
- WordPress.com Tutorial by Chris Abraham (45 minute video)
Feedreaders and Start Pages
Bloglines:hosted feedreader — subscribe to syndicated content
- Preetam Rai: Using Bloglines (Or How to Keep up with Dozens of Blogs Everyday) (2005)
- David Warlick: Setting up a Bloglines Aggregator Account (PDF)
- Leigh Blackall: Using Bloglines to Subscribe to Podcasts and Webfeeds (Screencast, 2006), Bloglines Screencast (Screencast, 2005), Web Feeds (Screencast)
Google Reader: hosted feedreader — subscribe to syndicated content
- Josh Lowensohn: Newbie’s Guide to Google Reader (2007)
- Amy Gahran: Screencast Tutorial on Google Reader
Pageflakes: personalised start page — mix and match your own Web
- Edutech wiki (27th October 2007)
- Teachertube tutorial
- Pageflakes tutorial on youtube (15th November 2007)
Social Platforms
Flickr: photo sharing service — share and discuss photos.
- Alan Levine - Tagging Web Sites in Flickr (2007)
- Common Craft - Online Photo Sharing (video on You Tube)
- Jutech - Flickr tutorial (2006 video on YouTube)
- How to signup for Flickr
43Trio:
43 Things: discover others’ wishes and desires.
43 Places: places I’d like to visit or recommend.
43 People: whom I’d like to meet /admire
- 43 Things FAQ
- 43 Things and Getting Your Stuff Done 2004 blog post explanation by Leelefever
- 43Things: A Community Study - review by Michael Habib
Tagging
- Michael Wesch: Information R/evolution (Video, 2007)
- Leigh Blackall - Tagging for Collaboration
- Alan Levine: A Few (not all by any means) Tagging References (2007)
- Simon Fraser University - Tag, Tagging and Tag Clouds
Social Bookmarking
del.icio.us: social bookmarking site maintain an online library of links and share your resources with others.
- Del.icio.us help page
- Alan Levine Tagging Web Sites in Del.icio.us (2007)
- Social Bookmarking in Plain English flash video by CommonCraft (2007)
Micro-blogging
Twitter: share ideas with others and follow others’ ideas.
- Twitter Guide Part 1
- The Big Juicy Twitter Guide
- Twitter Fan Wiki
- Street Talk: English Survival Tips
- Twitter (Wikipedia)
- Twitter in Plain English
Jaiku: share ideas and create your networks of followers.
Networking Blog Add-Ons
Cocomment: lets you track the discussions on other blogs you want to follow.
Feevy: displays the latest posts from your favorite blogs in one column putting them in order according to the latest updates, which will appear on top.
Shared Multimedia Production
Community Walk:create a community of learners around a place.
- Robert Safuto’s March 2006 blog post : Taking a Walk . See example.
- How To Use CommunityWalk
Voicethread: allows you to record and invite multiple audio commentaries, add pictures and text.
- What’s a VoiceThread - voice thread demo
dotSUB: allows you to listen to films in many languages and also subtitle them.