The Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry offers up a comparison of bibliographic management systems (via Academic Productivity).

http://www.biochem.mpg.de/en/sg/ivs/Bibliographic_Management/Comparison/comparison.html

The end of another school year leads to thoughts of re-designing blogs, wikis, and websites. Naturally, there is the standard sprucing up; links to prune and backups to save.  Any school year brings changes and growth.

In anticipation that some sites fall to the wayside, this school year I’ve developed the habit to save content and alternative links to multiple online storage sites.  There’s been a burst of semantic tools and I am now a fan of grid design. Perhaps due to my aging Boomer cohorts, I am increasingly aware of accessibility issues. There are goals to improve my writing, posting and social networking skills, even as microblogging and more management of feeds and life streams comes to attention. There are new practices and techniques on others’ sites to test, implement and tweak.

Less concrete components also enter my end-of-school-year reflection regarding online presence. Trends, policies and discussions impacting the future of library service and knowledge work keep shifting.  Recognition of new roles and specialties for knowledge workers within the emerging collective cognitive network or eventual web4.0 has entered consideration; the need to develop work skills for enhancing global social intelligence and collaboration.

With thanks to input from so many online contacts that I value and appreciate, these and additional ideas will be incorporated into my mission, principles, goals and objectives for a fresh start next school year.

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Recently I reconnected with an acquaintance, from our high school days, who has dedicated his life to coaching people to fully develop their potential and success in business and life.

The teenage Joe I knew has gone on to associate and fine tune his own amazing talents with internationally recognized names like Dale Carnegie and Stephen Covey.

The website at Intentional Achievements showcases the workshops and books that Joseph Price has created.

Roadmap to Success has just been published and is now available for purchase!

With high school and college graduations coming up, this book is a fine gift idea!

Via Judy Serritella, Ed.S., Coordinator of Library Media Services
Standards, Instruction, and Assessment, Georgia Department of Education…

“The PAGE article on 21st century media centers is out and online.

For the story the reporter interviewed Tommie Tatum (Adairsville Middle), Buffy Hamilton and Ruth Fleet (Creekview High in Cherokee), Kris Woods (Teasley Middle in Cherokee), Debbie Hanenkrat (Cass Middle: Bartow), Dale Lyles (Newnan Crossing: Coweta), Anne Wallace (Luella Elementary: Henry), Susan Grigsby (Elkins Point Middle: Fulton), and Paula Galland (Georgia Virtual School)….”

Image via Wikipedia

I have tried out a WordPress Diigo Plugin which automatically inserts my bookmarked sites from a Diigo group, via feed, into WordPress as a daily post.  It is a fine idea and works seamlessly, so why consider removing the service?

For me it is a style preference more than anything; the visual difference between the text blocks of blog posts and a feed’s long list of links. I have noticed that the post and feed combination (from Diigo or Twitter) makes it difficult for me to skim other blogs. I believe the combination creates the same readability problems in this blog.

One solution is to set all feeds into a separate column.

Another solution is to create a separate Diigo group to insert just a few daily top picks.  A feed that is a similiar length to blog posts, matching visibility style, could make it easier for readers to digest the combination of links and posts.

The third solution is a separate blog just for feeds, like the examples at Alltop or MoMB.

For the next week or two I will test out using a daily short list of top picks from my Diigo bookmarks in combination with posts.

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The OWL at Purdue, a site that provides free writing help and resources, gives a sneak-peek at upcoming changes within the 3rd edition of the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing at MLA Update 2009.

Twine touts itself as a way to “organize, share, discover information around your interests. “  I’ve been using the site for several months now, in addition to tools such as Diigo, Del.icio.us and, earlier, Backflip.

I have joined several twines created by others and have originated 7 Twines that you are invited to view or join:

Periodic Table as Graphic Organizer
Online Project Spaces for Teens
Online Reading Activities
Knowledge Work
Credible Search Results
Family Stories
Brain Matters: Research Implications for the Education & Training of Teens

One of the advantages from the social network aspect of Twine is that there are connections between people in diverse fields; my contacts are not limited to other educators or educators of a particular level.  Participation is key to building great resources around a common interest and Twine has a robust, expanding, network.

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In anticipation of a Promethean board being installed in our school media center, I am busy viewing tutorials via…

http://www.prometheanplanet.com

Image via Wikipedia

Take a small step to move from bookmarking to social bookmarking.

Posting and reading public Diigo highlights and sticky notes added to the Education page of the White House Website is a way that educators and citizens can weigh-in on issues that matter.

Diigo

White House: Education

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Image via Wikipedia

From EcontentMag.com, I took Ron Miller’s advice: “Want to get to know the inner workings of the EContent team members’ minds? Then check out their blogs, which are well worth bookmarking.”

I’ve inserted the list under the “Trend Watch” link heading.

With the help of the semantic links provided via Zemanta add-on, my WordPress blog site serves an added purpose of being a personal learning environment start page for select interests.

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