How to start a YouTube video at certain time (link & embed)

Update: Google has made it possible to copy the link via right-click menu in the meantime. Just click into the video and right click on the corresponding menu item (copy video URL at current time). 

Very often you would like to show a video not from the start but from somewhere in the middle because the beginning does not contain any relevant information.

It is very simple to get a URL that does exactly that. All you need to do is ad “#t=5m10s” to the URL (simply change the parameter to your needs). Alternatively, you can also get the link via the YouTube menu share/options (see picture), which also provides you with a shortened URL.

If you want to embed a video with a certain start time into a website or Moodle you need to add &start=60 (in seconds) to the URL inside the embed code.

Mindmapping in Moodle or Blogger with Shared Spaces

There is certainly no shortage of mind mapping tools on the web. One of my favorite tools which is also quite popular with students (partly because of its cute animations) is https://bubbl.us/. However, the problem with many web 2.0 mind mapping software like bubbl.us is that it allows you to embed a mindmap in Moodle or Blogger you can make changes only on the apps website itself.  That means, that  you have to switch back to the app after you have embedded the mindmap without being able to make immediate changes from within Moodle or Blogger.

How to create your own Google Maps data mashup

Ingredients:

• Google Search
• Google Fusion Tables
• Google Spreadsheets

Google Maps are among the most popular services for mashups. It is possible to put almost anything on a map: photos, diagrams, text, data, even video and audio files. There are many ready-made mashups, like city guides and and tracking a emperor penguin named “Happy Feet”. For some more creative examples check out: http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

I have already posted about how to put photos on Google Maps and in this post I would like to show how easy it is to put data on a map using Google Fusion Tables. Fusion Tables is a lesser known Google Service and it is not quite as intuitive as other Google Docs. Still it is easier to create a mashup with Fusion Tables than using Yahoo Pipes or using the programming API.

As an example I will use technical colleges in Austria.

Embedding public domain books in Moodle or on a blog

Ingredients:

• Google Books
• Moodle or blog

Google Books not only lets you read public domain books on your PC or mobile phone, but you can also embed them in Moodle or on your blog.

Directions:

1. In Google Books go to advanced search options and check “full view only”
2. Click on the “link” link and you get the embed code, which you copy

Sharing task lists like reading assignments using GQueues and Moodle or class blog

Ingredients:

• Gqueues lite
• Moodle, Blogger, etc.

While Google Tasks is great for personal task management, it has no social features. Gqueues is an app similar to Remember the Milk. In fact, it has the same yearly pricing plan of $25 for the professional version. One important difference is, that you and the people you want to share the tasks with do not need an additional account and Gqueues provides for gadgets for iGoogle and Google Calender (the professional version even syncs with it).  

Google apps support in Moodle 2.0>

Moodle finally has web 2.0 and cloud support starting from version 2.0. Here is a quick overview how to use it for Google applications.

Before you can use the Google apps the Moodle administrator has to enable them in the repository section. It is possible to enable

• Google Docs
• Picasa
• YouTube

Moodle lets you import Google Docs documents and use them independently of Google Docs. That means, if you want to use a document collaboratively the better option would be just to link to or embed the file. However, if you want to provide study material this is a really quick way of importing documents.

Using Google Reader as feed aggregator and making your own upgrade for mobile devices

Ingredients:

• Google Reader
• Feedly app
• Instapaper app and browser plug-in

Newspaper apps have become very popular on tablet PCs and while they provide are really cool reading experience they are also a bit of a time waster, like going from website to website and browsing for relevant information in the days before RSS readers.

Google Reader is a great tool for online reading. You can bundle all your news sources in one place, keep track of your favourite articles (star them) and share them with other Reader users as well as on pretty much any social website. It has even got a notes feature where you can save webclips. If you want you can bundle several feeds into one feed and embed that feed e.g. in Moodle.

Picasa web album uses for teachers in Moodle, blogs, and in the classroom

It has become poplar to share photos via Facebook, instead of photo sharing sites like Picasa or Flickr. There are a number of drawbacks to this practise. An obvious one is that you can’t reuse your photos on the web (Moodle, blog, Google docs, etc.) as Facebook is closed web space. For the same reason I don’t even upload photos to Moodle as I might want to reuse them in different courses or even on different Google installations as I use Moodle for three different schools. So, I simply link the photos from Picasa in Moodle tests, pages, etc.

Sharing and embedding (Moodle, blogger, etc.) multiple YouTube videos

YouTube playlists are mostly used by people to, well, play music. Apart from that, they are also great for learning and teaching. Its easy to create and share playlists (using the my videos section on YouTube). But few people know that you can also easily embed them on blogs or on Moodle (see image). 

This is particularly useful if a video has got several parts (due to the duration restriction of 15min, or even 10 min. until recently) or if there is a series of videos on a particular subject. I teach a CLIL project management class and I keep a playlist which is exclusively about project management vocabulary.