Online tutorials

I really don’t care for blogging. Some people find it fascinating to place messages about themselves or their work in a public forum, like graffiti. I much rather prefer discussions rhar are pointed. IM chats, web conversing, etc. But realize that this is for class/

I tried myspace and facebook. Both of these applications are to mined fro data to be used to sell me something I did not want. Indeed Adbusters.org just did a wonderful piece in how information dorm facebook is disseminated and how one can become free of the attachment.

Anyway-love ones fate! So I intern at the UW Waukesha library. I designed and taught a class geared towards non-traditional students, those people who did not immediately follow college as an option after high school but returned a few years later. I think of Samuel Clemens in these cases- When I left home at the age of sixteen I marveled at the stupidity of my father, when I returned home at 21 I was surprised at how much he had learned. This is the case with most of my library classes. They are actually eager to be there and also understand the power of their tuition dollar. This is double for the students who ae in their forties, unemployed due to trickle down economics, GM closing, or a shop that supplies Rockwell.

So what I needed to go was to supply this session with information on using the OPAC, interlibrary loan and database searches. This is that story.

What I wanted to do was give a lecture tat physically demonstrated the use of the OPAC having the students in the library lab look up items. We do a thing called ‘campus read’, in this case it is the Omnivore’s Dilemma about food, and each class will take an aspect of it and make it something to do with their class. Biology might look at food production genetics, communication might look at how food is advertised. So using the campus read and teaching the OPAC I decided to make a html tutorial on how to use the OPAC. The tutorial would need to be understandable should you not take the class but also much more demonstrative having been in the workshop.

I started with my video camera. Its pretty funny the mHz cycles and how they differ. What happened was solid black lines running across my screen. Ugly! So I thought, well how hard could flash animation be? After looking at some freeware I started with Screenbook Maker available at www.xara.com/products/screenmaker3d/ - .

This software was excellent for certain application but was limited in its ease of use, animation and sound. So I looked again and found Wink on CP net. Now I dunno about you but I fond programs on this site pretty easy to use. At first it wasn’t. I t is not an intuitive type software. So I began to read the destructions. As a tool and die maker I sometimes look at a blueprint and other times only glance at it a I know better. Well, don’t do this!! Read the whole manual before trying this out. Reading made it easier!