The end user can break the connection at anytime.

Instructions

1. Download the application to a location you can remember.

2. Contact LoboSoft support at 678.833.9046

3. When instructed, launch the application.

Download Now

The first Skypecast will be held on December 4th, at 8am est  You can visit the LoboSoft Skypecast pages to see a list of upcoming events.

The sessions will be recorded and transcripts released here on LoboSoft.com

The problem has always been how to collect and inventory online resources.  Many educators use their browser bookmarks, or online bookmark sites such as del.icio.us or Murl.  But bookmarking is not really collecting and then there is the problem of citing your sources.

Enter Zotero.

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

Getting Started

The developers have written a rather thorough Quick Start Guide.  The guide will walk you through installation.

After you have restarted FireFox 2.0, to access Zotero, either click the Zotero name in the status bar or hold CTRL-ALT-Z, and the Zotero interface will appear.

Manage

The first pane is the Management area.  Here you can organize your items into collections.  You can also create and save searches across your collected items. Very useful if you have been click happy and just grabbed anything vaguely related to your topic.

Collect

So what are we going to collect?  Lets start with a newspaper article.  We visit the NY Times and find an article that we like.  Zotero recognizes that this is a newspaper and places a newspaper icon in the address bar.  Click the icon, and the article is added to your collection. 

Zotero allows you to collect snapshots of web pages, add notes, books, journal articles, newspaper articles, and films.  Other entries such as art works, audio, bills, emails, podcasts, and a host of others are also available.

Not only can online resources be used, but local files can also be added or linked to the collection.

Cite

Remember that article we pulled from the NY Times?  Zotero parsed the article when we added it to our collection and pulled out the title, the author, the publication, the date and even the ISSN.  Wait, that sounds like the information we need for creating a citation.  Exactly. When you right click on the newspaper item, there is an option to “Create Bibliography from Selected Item…”.  Zotero asks if you would like the citation to be in the American Psychological Association, Chicago Manual of Style, or Modern Language Association formats.  Here is an example in the MLA format:

Nagourney, Adam, and Robin Toner. “G.O.P. Glum as It Struggles to Hold Congress.” The New York Times. (2006). 5 November 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/us/politics/05elect.html?hp&ex=1162702800&en=2053acbcb6f551e1&ei=5094.

Conclusion

Zotero seems to be a very robust application that we expect to be very useful for educators.  Our brief article here does not do this plugin justice.  Grab Zotero and give it a try for yourself.

The distinctions between oral and visual learners remain relevant to our methods in the classroom or in the lab.

Business organizations, with what seem to be endless resources, rely on 3rd party stock photography companies for their graphics. With deep pockets, they are willing to drop $50-$300 for an image.

Educators, however, live in a world of self finance. A world where the employee buys the supplies and is rarely reimbursed. In that world, the word ‘free’ has a beautiful ring to it.

We will first start by defining our terms:

• Free = obtainable without charge
• Royalty-Free = able to be used without paying additional usage fees

The best way of getting the photo you want for free is to take it yourself. Most schools now have at least one digital camera available to them. For many of the simple things we use photos for (pictures of pencils, papers, books) this is a great resource, free of the legal usage restrictions associated with purchased images.

However, since not all of us are photographers or have access to a digital camera, we have compiled a list of websites from which you can obtain free, royalty free, images:

http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml
Free high resolution images, registration required

http://www.morguefile.com/archive/
thousands of free, high resolution photos, no registration required

http://www.stockvault.net/gallery/
high resolution stock photography, no registration required

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php
high resolution stock photography, no registration required

flickr.com
flicker can be used to find royalty free images if you do an advanced search and check the “creative commons” box.
no registration required

http://www.ourmedia.org/images/publicdomain
not everything is open for commercial use, but there is a public domain section

http://freestockphotos.com/
what the url says, registration required

http://www.imageafter.com/
tons of free high resolution images, no registration required

http://www.freephotosbank.com/
high resolution stock photos, no registration required

http://yotophoto.com/
Probably the best free stock photo site in existence. yotophoto is a search engine which searches all the other free photo sites.
no registration required.

http://www.geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm
photos are free to use, but highest resolution is 800×600; good for web use, no registration required

There is nothing quite as satisfying as sitting down in front of your new lab and having content ready for your students.

At LoboSoft we believe that the “out of the box” experience should be just that.  If your lab is installed on Friday, you should be able to start using it on Monday.

We can digitize your VHS content, audio cassettes, and even your CDs.

Initial On-Site Training

The first, and most important tier is the onsite training. One of our trainers will sit with your administrator and assist in the setup, organization, and configuration of your new system. The trainer will then instruct your faculty and staff in the operation and usage of the new system.

Follow-up On-Site Training

Some companys force you and your staff through three or more intense days of training. At LoboSoft we understand not only the difficulty in setting aside that much time, but also the difficulty in learning so much information all at once. We have had great success with our two part training method. Three to six months after the initial training, our trainer will return to your site. In that amount of time, your staff will have been able to utilize the system and will have questions and a better understanding of the system during training.

Online Tutorials

Sometimes you just need to see it done again. When we find that a particular question is being asked frequently, we create an online flash tutorial for you to reference.

Workshops

Peer brainstorming and sharing are some of the most powerful methods of learning. Often we find ourselves in a rut and seeing how other institutions approach education is often helpful and refreshing.

LoboSoft offers IT outsourcing for small business and some educational institutions. We remotely manage your computer systems and networks. Should a problem arise that can not be handled remotely, one of our trained technicians will come on-site to handle the repair.

Information technology can make your organization more efficient and profitable. Contact us to discover how we can help your organization.

• Groupware/Workflow systems
• Network management
• System repair
• Website design and maintenance
• Database Design

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