Monday, November 26, 2012

Introducing the "1 Minute Morceau" -- #1 -- "Spelling Goodness"

As I mentioned last week, I thought I'd explore the idea of creating a few 1 minute long "morceau" that teach you something about search.  Here's the first one in what I hope will be a long series.  I'm interested in your comments, positive or negative, about this idea.  

I put this on YouTube with the Creative Commons attribution license.  That means you're free to use it anywhere (just give an attributed-to shout-out when you use it).  

Let me know what you think!  (And... would you be interested in getting one or two of these each week in your email?  Let me know that as well.)  

Pro tip:  This video looks better if you watch in it HD.  (Click on the gear icon in the video, then select HD.) 



14 comments:

  1. Dr. Rusell I like the idea. It is a great way to learn new stuff and remember other that maybe forgot about. I like that it is short. That we can watch what you are writing and watch the result at the same time.

    I will like to receive these 1 minute long "morceau" videos in my email.

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  2. Yes I agree, good idea. I suspect a tiny thing can be remembered more easily than a massive one. The video above didn't really tell me anything new, but was a good reminder - a bit like revision or reinforcement.

    I'm not fussed about receiving them in email, I have your blog RSS in my reader (Netvibes) so I know as soon as you've posted one, assuming you'll continue to show them in your blog. That would be my preferred notification. Email is a bit crowded these days.

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  3. I agree with Richard Law on both counts. A great, useful idea. And seeing them pop up in my RSS feed is the way I would like to access them. Thanks.

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  4. Thank you so much for coming up with this idea. I very much look forward to having a daily morceau of information...please send mine as a to look forward to email
    Merci
    Janine Hakim

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  5. I want to continue to receive these one minute "morceau" videos. Will they be accumulated in one location so I can refer students to them?

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  6. I like this. Even when I don't have time to watch long lessons on searching, I usually have time to watch a minute-long clip. This is especially good for reminders of Google search tools, techniques, and secrets I've 'learned' before but don't use regularly.

    I prefer getting these in an RSS feed rather than as yet-one-more email message.

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  7. I love this as it is a best practice in education design called "chunking." Up front I know what the time commitment is, which makes it more compelling to check it out. The overall tone is appropriate as it follows the journalistic code: Always overestimate audience intelligence but underestimate what they know about the topic. Is there a way to sign up for these short video search tips in a format of choosing: RSS feed, email, twitter, etc.?

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  8. Yes, I'd like to see more of these quick and digestible search tip videos weekly!

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  9. Great!
    I enjoy to receive this kind of learning memos everywhere in the google's enviroment: Youtube, Gmails, Reader, G+. Redundancy can be easy handle.

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  10. This is good. Email / else is fine. As a general comment, google is making us lazy. Typing vague phrases and expecting something of value. What are the long term consequences - without much research one can safely conclude a fair amount of dead brain activity. Any fixes? or is it just me?

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  11. I liked it. However, the databases we pay for are not so forgiving, so I am not sure how I will share this with students. Perhaps google can be a tool to help them find the right spelling if they are not getting hits for a term that they think is legitimate.

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    1. It's true that most databases (including, oddly enough, the ones you PAY for) don't provide nearly the spell-correction capability of Google. That's an issue. But I like your idea: Emphasize that *because* traditional databases don't do spell-correction, it's really important to ensure that your search terms are spelled properly (or conventionally). Try putting them into Google first, then copy/paste the result into your for-pay databases.

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  12. FWIW, I'll be sure to accumulate all of these in one place so everyone can use them in your classes (or just as a quick teaching aid for people you have to teach).

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