Keeping on top of the daily multitude of tasks we all have in our work is like having another full-time job. There are a number of tools available to the most casual computer users, from the tasks and to-do lists in Microsoft Outlook, to Apple’s Project X, to a variety of Web programs like blist.com and Zoho. In IDD, keeping up with the dynamic nature of the academic environment is especially challenging. Anyone stepping into my shared workspace in the IDD offices at the DePaul Center will quickly notice my own low-tech yet cutting-edge (I think) solution to task management: sticky notes and a wall.

Here at DePaul, we have the DePaul Online Teaching Series program (DOTS), where we work with faculty to help prepare them for the unique challenges of teaching online. It’s an intensive program that begins with a crash course in designing an online or hybrid course and goes all the way through working with a design consultant to get the course completed and evaluated.

In order to help the faculty effectively accomplish this, we give them the tools they will need to create their course, including a laptop computer, a webcam, a headset microphone, software, and a portable voice recorder. Doing this ensures that they have all the technology they will need to produce a robust, dynamic, and interesting course.

In my last post, I gave quick overviews of PBwiki, Zoho Wiki and Google Sites. This time we’ll look at three others: Wikispaces, Wikidot, and Wetpaint.

Wikispaces

Things I like about Wikispaces:

• WYSIWYG editor is a breeze; love the preview function.
• Easy to add widgets.
• Extensive default widget list with video, audio, calendar, spreadsheet, polls, RSS, chat and IM, slideshows, map, bookmark, and custom html plugins.
• Easy to add a logo.
• Easy to invite users with a personalized greeting.
• Built-in user statistics, with an overview and breakouts by members and pages.               

A professor I work with recently decided to use Ning to create an online social network for a course. Like Facebook, Ning provides a space where users can communicate and share links, images, and videos. However, Ning allows instructors to create a space that is used exclusively for course-related collaboration and is only accessible by their students. This increased level of privacy and focused purpose helps everyone involved maintain boundaries between their academic and personal lives.