Resources
British Periodicals Collections I and II
These terrific resources trace the development and growth of the periodical press in Britain from its origins in the 17th century through to the Victorian ‘age of periodicals’ and beyond. The collections comprise six million keyword-searchable pages and form an essential record of more than two centuries of British history and culture. Each collection is available, free of charge, to universities, colleges and research councils.
www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/british_periodicals
The Burney Collection
This archive represents the largest single collection of 17th- and 18th-century English and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757–1817). The collection includes nearly one million pages from more than 1,000 pamphlets and newspapers from the period, including the first successful London daily and first illustrated newspaper, all dating from 1600–1800. The newspapers and news pamphlets were published mostly in London, however, there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India. The collection is available, free of charge, to universities, colleges and research councils until December 2013.
www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/burney
Tools
Create a multi media timeline
Dipity is a free, online ‘time creator’ that is very easy to use. Create a timeline on an interactive web page and either save it online or embed it in your own website/web page/online course using JavaScript. You could create one for use in a live seminar or lecture instead of PowerPoint. It is also possible to attach your own photos and link to YouTube videos as well as add geographical info. Think about how this could be used with texts/authors or themes you are working on that have would benefit from a visual perspective. There are examples on the Dipity website.
www.dipity.com
Record audio from the web
MP3myMP3 is another free and easy-to-use recording tool. This software will record any audio that is playing on your desktop. You might, for example, want to record the audio from a Skype conversation as an MP3 file. This could be useful if you are providing oral feedback on work and you would like to keep a record of it, or your student could record the conversation for storage in an online portfolio.
http://tinyurl.com/bgwvu
Capture audio from YouTube
FLVto is another simple to use audio tool with a more specialised function. FlvTo will extract the audio from a YouTube video as an MP3 file, which is great if you want to decrease file sizes for students and/or if the video is not central to your needs. Simply browse to the web page below and copy and paste the YouTube link (usually to the right of the viewing window in YouTube), the online converter creates the file for you.
http://flvto.com/
Highlighting text on web pages
If you want your students to focus on a particular part of a web page they are accessing from a link you give them, it can often be frustrating to wade through the text to find the key point or paragraph. The Awesome Highlighter works from a web browser or, more conveniently, as a Firefox extension. Key in the page URL from the web link below, highlight the text on the page, then circulate the URL generated. Easy as!
www.awesomehighlighter.com/
Firefox extension www.awesomehighlighter.com/user/welcome/
Publications
• The Theory and Practice of Online Learning – Second edition
Edited by Terry Anderson
Publisher: Athabasca University Press, 2008
Text is available as soft-cover or free e-book
Focus On …
JISC Digital Media - Is the newly rebranded service (formerly TASI) which focuses on providing all the information you might need when using digital media (i.e. moving image, still image and sound) in your teaching. There are tutorials on topics like uploading images/video to popular websites like Flickr and YouTube, optimizing large images, creating your own image archives, basic audio editing, where to find copyright-free images, etc. The site details a comprehensive range of training events (e.g. Building a departmental image collection on 23rd June), contains a useful blog highlighting new trends in digital media and even has a helpdesk offering free advice!
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/
Other Bits ...
What is a Tiny URL?
Some of the URLs that you see on this page, and throughout this issue, were generated by a free utility which takes long URLs and resizes them for you. Access the utility yourself at http://tinyurl.co.uk
... and Bobs
• You may need to consult your humanities librarian about access to some of the resources mentioned in this area
• Where possible, I try to recommend software that is open-source, free of charge, copyright cleared, shareware or freeware
• All URLs on this page were last accessed in March 2009
• You can access all the links on this page directly in the online version of WordPlay
