Over the past year, there's been a huge movement towards free online books and other learning materials. One distributor, WOWIO, has already seen some success in offering free books. Here's how they describe themselves:

“WOWIO is a new kind of online bookstore that enables readers to download ebooks for free, using commercial sponsorships to compensate authors and publishers. Readers get free ebooks. Sponsors get a powerful new channel to communicate their message to precisely the people they want to reach. Publishers get a new means of distributing their books, expanding their readership, and monetizing their intellectual property.”

On the upside: WOWIO users can instantly download free books, many of which are not in the public domain. However, WOWIO does rely on sponsors to fund these publication, which means you'll have to put up with some level of advertising. On the whole, this looks like a successful business model which in the future could work for academic authors.

See full article.

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WOWIO Publishing Free eBooks from Degree Space

StudentHacks.org recently published a list of 101 Web Resources for Students. The list was written by a student who has actually used the resources in his own studies. If you're learning online, you may want to take a look.

Included in the list are almanacs, biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, journal article databases, style manuals, year books, and more. You may also be interested in their list of Google Gadgets for Students.

See full article.

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Over 100 Web Resources for Students from Degree Space

Facebook is more popular than ever and many college professors are using the social networking site to help them teach. I'm not completely comfortable with students mixing their social lives and their studies (especially considering cases such as the student who was denied a degree due to a MySpace photo of her drinking alcohol). However, I can't deny that some very useful Facebook applications have been developed in the past few months. The CollegeDegree blog recently published a list of the 25 best applications for students. Here's a blurb:

“With so many students, teachers, and librarians on Facebook these days, the social media site has become somewhat of a platform, offering developers a way to create and share applications for education. This, of course, is great news for online education, as it provides all sorts of great tools designed to make learning and administration easier. Check out these applications that represent some of the ideal tools Facebook has to offer for online education.”

Take a look at the article for applications such as a notetaking system, a quiz maker, and an academic calendar.

See full article.

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Top Facebook Applications for Online Students from Degree Space

Microsoft is currently beta testing a website that may be very helpful to online learners. Microsoft Live Workspace will let students store over 1,000 Microsoft files (such as Word or PowerPoint documents) on a secure page. Students can they access their files from wherever they are or share them with others. Here are a few of the included features:

Access documents when away from your desk
* Save documents and access them from any computer
* Stay productive at home, an Internet café, library, airport, etc.

Share documents with others
* Gather feedback on a document, report, or presentation
* Share with people who can't access your corporate network

Organize a study group
* Work together on assignments and share notes from class
* Keep a shared schedule and task list for your group

Keep track of important school information
* Manage schedules from sports to registration deadlines
* Track your GPA and progress toward degree requirements

Microsoft Live Workspace is free. Although the website is still technically in beta testing, anyone can sign up and start saving their files online.

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Screenshots: Microsoft Office Live Workspace – 22 十月 2007

New Resource: Microsoft Live Workspace from Degree Space

We've all heard the stories: students getting expelled for Facebook photos, interviewees being rejected because of information on their personal blogs. As an online student, maintaining internet privacy is essential. To help with the quest to secure information, Google recently published a series of videos on maintaining internet privacy. Here's a blurb from the Google Blog:

“These videos feature Googlers sharing privacy tips, like how to use Google Chat's “Off the Record” feature, how to limit the number of people who can view your Picasa photos, how to unlist your phone number from Google search results, and how to make the details of your Google Calendar entries private.

Just as we're dedicated to innovation when it comes to making better, more useful products, we're also committed to finding new ways to educate you about how to control what information you share when using our products, and with whom.”

As we enter a new year, I'm going to take the time to double-check and make sure my personal information is secure. Better safe than sorry!

See full article.

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Maintain Your Privacy Online from Degree Space

I've posted a lot about Wikipedia's role in the online classroom. Now, a new and unexpected competitor is in the works. Google recently announced Knol, a collection of user-created articles meant to be the first place readers go for information. Here's what the Google Blog says about the upcoming project:

“A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read. The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions. Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors.”

It will be interesting to see how Knol compares to Wikipedia and other content-driven websites. Because users are free to write what they will, it seems that this site will have the same problem as wikis: without editing and oversight these sources cannot be trusted as an authoritative source.

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Google’s New “Wikipedia” from Degree Space

Top Education Degrees recently published a list of 10 useful online applications for teachers. Here's a blurb:

“Teachers for all levels of students today have so many more teaching aids than even just a few years ago. That's not just because of greater access to the Internet but also because of the growing number of web applications that they can use. Some applications are specifically geared towards teaching and learning. Other applications can be adapted for these purposes. Here's a list of some online applications, listed alphabetically, that we feel are excellent for teachers.”

Among the links are a multimedia content builder, an educational blogging system, and a virtual grade book. Online teachers, in particular, can benefit from many of these resources.

See article.

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Top 10 Online Apps for Teachers from Degree Space

Whether or not your online college offers a digital library, you'll probably want to check out the massive collection of books now offered from the Universal Digital Library.

A recent article from Physorg.com examines the differences between the Universital Digital Library and other book scanning projects:

“The Million Book Project, an international venture led by Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, Zhejiang University in China, the Indian Institute of Science in India and the Library at Alexandria in Egypt, has completed the digitization of more than 1.5 million books, which are now available online…

Though Google, Microsoft and the Internet Archive all have launched major book digitization projects, the Million Book Project represents the world's largest, university-based digital library of freely accessible books. At least half of its books are out of copyright, or were digitized with the permission of the copyright holders, so the complete texts are or eventually will be available free.”

The organization's website allows browsers to search for books by keyword or browse through their collections.

See article.

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Universal Digital Library Uploads 1.5 Million Books from Degree Space

Keeping track of assignments and due dates can be a chore. That’s why I’m always on the look out for new ways to get organized. If you’re struggling with staying up-to-date on your online coursework, you may want to check out the new website CollegeRuled. Here’s how they explain what they offer:

“CollegeRuled.com is a resource for university students. We are making tools, pages and features to help college students stay organized and connect with classmates.”

Take a look for free scheduling and organizational college tools.

See article.

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Organize Your Online Classes from Degree Space

More good news for online learners…Microsoft and Yale University recently reached an agreement to digitize books from the university library. Wired University shares the details of the book scanning project:

“Yale will start by scanning 100,000 of its English-language books that are out of copyright, according to a news statement.

Microsoft is sparring with two other groups in what has become a crowded book-scanning marketplace.”

Microsoft's book search will compete against Google Books. As book scanning becomes more competitive, we benefit from more available texts and more features. In a few years, perhaps online learners will be able to use the internet to access most of the books they need.

See article.

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Microsoft to Scan Books from Yale University from Degree Space