I am an Australian creative arts
academic. My current position is Associate Professor
and Deputy Dean Faculty of Arts at the University of
Southern Queensland. I teach, research and work at
voice and text study for performance, theatre
history, and professional development. As a new
technologies research practitioner, I am interested
in the potential for developing e-learning assets
for use in the creative arts. I have integrated
several of these technologies into theoretical and
practical university courses in which I teach. I
blog regularly to assist in building up commentary
on research projects and practice. Blogging is also
a way to facilitate communication amongst a global
network of communities of practice. Website:
Spinning a Learning Web;
Blog:
Groundling
Kate's Top 10 Tools as at 10
August 2008
Twhirl a client for
Twitter.
A well-designed desktop app that can be
customised to receive and post without ever
going to the web. Twitter remains a good way to
get started with social networking and to
introduce community. Easy to post via web or
mobile phone.
Firefox - my
browser of choice. With an apparently infinite
source of extensions, plug-ins and add-ons,
Firefox is quick, customizable and clever.
Feedly - works via Google Reader but in an
easier to read, customisable, 'magazine' format
- lovely design.
Wordpress -
open-source software for creating blogs. It's
free, flexible, and has great support from the
team.
Tumblr:
'lite' blogging but a way to collate and 'dump'
web quick finds for later sorting and for
sharing
Seesmic. Blogging posts, commenting and
conversation with video.
- What more to say about this delightfully
delicious tagging application which makes it
easy-peasy to save sites, and to collate and
share with colleagues. Free
Friend Feed. Gather all your social
networking apps and services and blog posts into
the one spot and share. I can't do without
Friend Feed in these busy days.
Omni Outliner
- a proprietary product from the Omni software
group. I use Omni Outliner in so many ways: for
creating class schedules, to- do lists,
outlining research papers and so on. $
Flickr
- and all its add-ons and tools. This is a
wonderful source of materials for learning and
teaching. Images can be saved or accessed in a
variety of ways. I find the Creative Commons
licensing search to be particularly useful as I
look for appropriate images to use in blog posts
or presentations which I like to be image rich
and text-light. Free or $ for the Pro version.
Kate's Top 10
Tools as at 4 January 2008
Wetpaint Wikis - free and easy to use. One of
the best ways to introduce people to online,
collaborative writing and learning. Contains related
ads.
Wordpress -
open-source software for creating blogs. It's
free, flexible, and has great support from the
team.
Linkify
-
a bookmarklet which takes the time and
effort out of the tedium of manual
hotlinking to sites within blogposts. A boon
which makes for richer postings. Free
Firefox -
my browser of choice. With an apparently infinite
source of extensions, plug-ins and add-ons, Firefox
is quick, customizable and clever.
del.icio.us
-
What more to say about this delightfully delicious
tagging application which makes it easy-peasy to
save sites, and to collate and share with
colleagues. Free
Garageband
-
Part of the Apple iLife suite. Comes free with Macs.
My personal podcasting assistant. Easy to use and
integrates perfectly with all other Mac iLife tools.
Quicksilver
-
a Mac only onboard tool which makes it a snap to
find open and work on anything on the computer.
Keyboard driven. Free
Omni Outliner
-
a proprietary product from the Omni software group.
I use Omni Outliner in so many ways: for creating
class schedules, to-do lists, outlining research
papers and so on. $
Google Reader
-
the best feed reader bar none. Customizable and
simple to use as are most Google apps.
Flickr
-
and all its add-ons and tools. This is a wonderful
source of materials for learning and teaching.
Images can be saved or accessed in a variety of
ways. I find the Creative Commons licensing search
to be particularly useful as I look for appropriate
images to use in blog posts or presentations which I
like to be image rich and text-light. Free or $ for
the Pro version.
