Resources that I truly rely upon

To me, there is always a way for each of us to impress ourselves or inclusive while dealing with resources or knowledge pathways. When dealing with an experience or a person, we are learning how to comprehend their ways of learning or how we are taking their shared experiences on board. My ways of learning will be entirely different from that of another person in an array. While talking about new knowledge, I’ve counted each and every exposure of words, images, videos or a language as new knowledge.

I’m really interested in reading articles, that are current and taking my minds deep into the new realities or trends in the form of new knowledge. Most of my spare time will be spend on the following websites which helped me a lot to develop my skills. When thinking of locating resources, I thought of creating a platform for me to go back and explore at my own pace and time. No wonder why I created this post for a non stop shop for links that can be useful.

AI tools:

40 AI tools for the classroom – Ditch That Textbook

AIVA, the AI Music Generation Assistant

AI Music Generator – SOUNDRAW

Free Text to song and AI music generator by Voicemod

MuseNet (openai.com)

10 “Best” AI Video Generators (April 2024) – Unite.AI

Future Tools – Find The Exact AI Tool For Your Needs

Marketing- Crayon, Browse AI, Looti IO, Userevaluation

Content writing- copy ai, Jasper ai(multiple languages to choose), Textcortex, ChatGPT, Quillbot,

Image editing- Runwayml -edit visual, Stable diffusion, Dream studio, Fotor (AI version of Canva), Lexica.Art,

Video editing- Pictory. AI, Runway ML, Descript, Synthesia AI,

Designs.AI, UIZARO.IO, AstriaAI, Luma AI (3D photos), Khroma,

SEO tools- Keywrds.ai, metageni.ai, magikstem AI, Zeitpub AI, Embolden.co

AI virtual assistance schedules, boking, data entry – My mind, mem, Make, Motion,

AI powered chatbots- Quickchat.ai, Zendesk AI, Deep Converse, Certainly

AI powered Ad tools- Smartly.io, Adcreative.ai, Adext AI, Unbounce,

Splore human centric AI

Search engines: AI powered

https://you.com/

https://search.brave.com/

https://neeva.com/

goblin.tools

Lexica Aperture – https://lexica.art/aperture

#OA Book: 101 Creative Ideas to Use AI in Education – #creativeHE (wordpress.com)

An image search / generator that produces realistic images from simple text input. Based on the ‘Stable Diffusion model’.

Dall-E – https://labs.openai.com/

Dall-E uses a neural network that has been trained on a dataset of images and their corresponding textual descriptions. Unlike other image-generating AI models that can only modify existing images, DALL-E is capable of creating completely new images from scratch, based on textual input.

Creating Charts and Infographics : There are several AI-powered infographic makers available online that can help you create professional-looking infographics quickly and easily. These tools offer a wide range of templates, design elements, and customization options to help you create a visually appealing and informative infographic.

Venngage – https://venngage.com/

An AI-powered infographic maker that offers a range of templates, icons, and design elements to help users create infographics quickly and easily.

Infogram – https://infogram.com/

An AI-powered app that offers a range of chart types, maps, and other design elements to help users create interactive and data-driven infographics. It includes integrations with popular data sources such as Google Sheets and Excel, making it easy to create dynamic visualizations.

Synthesia – https://www.synthesia.io/

Synthesia is an AI video generation platform that enables you to quickly create videos with AI avatars, in over 120 languages. It includes templates, a screen recorder, a media library, etc.

D-ID.com – Creative Reality Studio – https://www.d-id.com/creative-reality-studio/

D-ID uses generative AI to create customized videos featuring talking avatars. It includes tools to generate a script, add sound and even use your own audio recordings and mages.

https://libraryskills.io/

https://usq.kanopy.com/video/hello-australia-episode-

https://sites.google.com/a/coloradovirtuallibrary.org/tech-tool-ready-reference/digital-storytelling

http://www.lulu.com/create

Revised link for Inanimate Alice: http://www.inanimatealice.edu.au/index.html

http://internetbuttons.org/

Here’s a list to IFTTT recipes: https://ifttt.com/recipes/hot

http://arsl.info/

https://sites.google.com/a/coloradovirtuallibrary.org/tech-tool-ready-reference/

https://intranet.usq.edu.au/dais/library/PD/SitePages/April%2024%20PD%

http://calibre-ebook.com/

https://wakelet.com/
Wakelet is a content curation platform where individuals can save links, social media posts, videos, and images as items to later be organized into private or public collections.

https://www.acadly.com/

Acadly is a classroom interactivity tool with features for in-class student response, math-TeX support and no limits on the number of responses.

https://en.actionbound.com/

With Actionbound you can create mobile adventures and interactive guides for smartphones and tablets.

https://biteable.com/ Bitable is a video maker.

https://learn.webjunction.org/login

http://www.yarny.com

http://www.fastpencil.com

Inanimate Alice is a story,

Snappy is the free tool to make the story.

  • Practice conversation Tools/ Apps
  • “Speech to text” tools
  • Dragon dictation
  • Otter.ai
  • Content tools: Grammarly, Wordtune,
  • BoldVoice
  • Novak

https://www.linkinglearning.com.au/

Short Courses: I have spend my time on :Building Resilience” through BRITE( Building Resilience in Teacher Education) and I found this was really great. https://www.brite.edu.au/BRiTE/Module2/SelfQuiz (to be continued)

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/workplace-english/11/steps/78210

https://learn.webjunction.org/login

My usual reading sites/ links

RefQuest

Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians, and Open Culture

Course completed: Open Access 101

AI Meets OER – two practical approaches from ENCORE+ Project Partners on Vimeo

Library Journal infoDOCKET – Information Industry News from Gary Price

Introducing Claude 3.5 Sonnet \ Anthropic

40 AI Tools for Teachers, Educators and Classroom (Free and Paid)

Times Higher Education home | Times Higher Education (THE)

The Conversation: In-depth analysis, research, news and ideas from leading academics and researchers.

COKI Open Access Dashboard – COKI

Enabling a Modern Curriculum

In the Library with the Lead Pipe – An open access, peer reviewed journal

23 Things – Curtin Library

Brothers and Books – Australia’s leading Bibliotherapy Charity

Dexterity Educators Group Resources | OER Commons

Library 2.0 – YouTube

https://spencerauthor.com/ai-infoliteracy
Useful Websites and Blogs for Librarians

COVID-19- views as a perceptual author.

Welcome 2020!!! A terrible year due to the unprecedented corona virus outbreak and the leading school shut down. It happens all in a sudden move, as my thoughts were on how I manage my kids, work, my learning and my social life wisely.

Parents & Teacher approach

As a teacher and a parent, my first thought goes to organise a schedule for the kids. You will need to find out ways to make them engaged and and active to overcome the sickness of boredom and keep them up-to-date with school activities.

Reading: Reading is vital for all children and adults. It helps us to broaden our knowledge, upskill our vocabulary, and comprehension. You will find reading is pleasure and you are getting familiarise with certain things that you don’t know. You let them choose a book for reading. When they read they can find at least 5 words from the book, find out the meaning and make sentences using these words. They can do some kind of reading comprehension and activity sheets, as part of their reading hour.

Writing: To develop their writing skills, they can write a journal of their own choice, in the form of self reflection. Sometimes giving them a topic/ idea would be good. You can also give them some topics of currency to research and formulate their ideas.

Projects: Simple projects can be great, to develop their research skills. For example, the topics such as reviewing a book give them the opportunity to critically analyse a book, create their own content like book teaser videos, or presentations.

Daily Maths program: Doing some daily mathematics worksheets will trigger kids intellectual levels updated and its a practice for them.

Other activities to use kids creativity: Setting up colouring sheets or arts, Dance/music practices if they are interested(I bet, they are!!), free indoor play time(card games etc) and outside sports such as Badminton, Ball games are other activities. Then you take them to do some cooking experiments. My kids love the cupcakes, washing dishes, helping out hanging clothes. You will feel proud of yourself when you see them doing these by themselves in confidence. Yes, this is what all mothers do to their kids, but I think we all can make a difference by knowing our kids interests and providing various opportunities for them to adapt and proceed with their skill development.

It may be worthwhile for our reluctant readers to introduce bookclub, concepts of online reviews, or social forum as motivational strategies. I’ve even introduced $2 per job to make them happy and being motivated.

Please remember to let them initiate works and do by themselves. This is really required for them to raise their skills and for being independent. Your job is to watch them and direct them as needed, not doing everything for them. You can be co-worker or co-creator, to make them feel better in what they are doing and improving their confidence levels. A step by step instruction or demonstration of each work is recommended. They will learn from us by watching us doing things, but if we are not letting them do the chores by themselves, they are not going to be involving in experiential learning. They should be able to develop a sense of learning by doing and knowing the best practices of doing a job by finding their own ways of doing a task and make themelves comfortable by knowing the prons and cons of a particular job they are involved in.

Professionalism in its turn.

Working from home(WFH) was implemented by the Organization so professionally and as a quick strategy where I was amazed by the organisers and our Leadership team. The University was already in a better position to adapt changes and moving to online isn’t a hurdle for them. All we have done is to follow their procedures and policies. Everything is done in one shot!!.

We installed the apps and digital backups that are needed for the smooth running of our day to day jobs. We have been busy talking to our students, team mates and leadership team with chats, phone calls and zoom meetings. Jabbar and Teams got flooded up with messages and we were fiddling around our information overload. I should say our Team were amazing!! we got to know our team members from 2 other campuses and we shared pics of our Social life and personal affinities (we were lucky to have our animal friends made their presence all through our workplaces!!!).

Perils turn into Opportunities

The Corona Virus brought us a lot of opportunities for us to learn new things.

We have learnt new technologies and new practices. We were able to spend more spare time with our family and friends. We have used our creativity in a better place. We shared our cooking recipes and even made our social gatherings online. It was amazing to attend our colleague’s wedding online. The distance between campuses were cut off during our working hours. We have chatted with our colleagues more than ever, and even got closer to our work mates. This was an excellent space for us to communicate with people whom we didn’t know or talked to before.

We have excelled in our professional and personal learning during WFH. The search for new free courses and professional development activities ended up in a high positive results and made our life productive. We have learnt new things, created new content and shared our skills and knowledge at the workplace and society. By supporting our school kids, we have mastered the skills of patience and time management. We have used our brains and hands together. In other words, we were mastering the art of multitasking and technological advancement in one spot!!

Information privacy- a true nightmare???

What is there? Is it real?

Privacy Prism of vulnerable citizens currently face many unresolved challenges in the contemporary society. Crucial concerns of living in the misinformation sphere and countering potential consequences have gained alarming reviews while exploring the topics. This article, depicts my views on the ways of dissemination of fake news, and the reasons for us to analyze the sources and credible content.

The deluge of information sources created via social media and other platforms take us in dilemma on how to treat them wisely and unbiased. On our daily intakes, we have seen many people use variety of sources to consume knowledge they are interested in. Some people may be interested in creating social media content or reading news while others may enjoy spending time on viral videos and trolls. In reality, most of us are not in a position to realize the hidden agendas behind these information sources. They may intend to attract vulnerable individuals including children, who are the prior victims of such mal practices, or may have created intentionally to sneak peak on celebrities, earn money or advertise businesses.

When we have the option of getting all the information that we need in handy, who is going to evaluate if its worth enough to use?

becoming targets of trolling.

The possibility of good reading and analysing the topic are hectic and time consuming…. but that is crucial to overcome the crisis of information overflow and evaluation requirements.

The art of Evaluation needs to be addressed while we analyse the amount of data available and the forceful, attractive, and tempting presentation of information in different formats. How we get to critically analyse the data and the evaluation methods depends on the validity of information sources. Evidence based practices such as surveys, critical pedagogical instructions and proper information literacy skills are crucial while we consider the validity of readily available Internet sources, books & articles, newspapers or media.

When I consider the validity of an information, I always think of some factors underpinned within my focus of topic. To me, the elements addressing proper evaluation include: 

Knowledge creation-individual or shared: Knowledge is something that we perceive through various agents. When we read a book, or newspaper article, we consider as individual effort to perceive an information. If we involve in conversations with other people, we create knowledge or it becomes our shared knowledge. When information is shared between us, we should find out the clarity and specificity of that knowledge by analyzing the content and seeking evidence to prove it.

Polish and use of Critical thinking skills

For identifying the validity of information shared to us, Critical thinking plays a vital role. As Critical thinking involves both cognitive and meta-cognitive skills (Yu-chuYeh, 2012), the information shared will be carefully analyzed in terms of existing knowledge, assumptions and self-evaluations by the multiple people involved. It also consider reasons of currency and validity in terms of evidence based practice. So multiple skills and multiple knowledge are key factors.

Information literacy skills

Misinformation can be assessed for its trustworthiness in different ways. The steps to master such skills can be obtained via the information literacy or induction or sessions organised by professionals or academics. I found the self checks from Bond university library useful. We can

“consider the source”,

Read beyond the headlines,

check the author for their credibility

clink on the link to locate supporting sources

check on the relevancy, bias and currency

decision making skills

evidence based practice

Searching skills

Motivation

Quick information delivery

References: https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0360131512001388

Launch Content (blackboard.com)

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2669112074/D73C538815434F73PQ/2?accountid=14647&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003037385-5/incorporating-intersectionality-ai-ethics-liza-ireni-saban-maya-sherman?context=ubx&refId=7ddc193c-903a-4cca-86e9-1bc9902c1db1

Infoclubarium

Planning and presenting the right things, in the right place, at the right time should be our first preferences when something new to be practiced in a preferable way of knowledge.

Futuring the challenges and risks associated with student learning has always been the first preferences of every educational system. I draw my thoughts on challenges of learning when you have a first year student starts the student journey in an overseas University/ Institution.

International perspectives

Educational system varies from places to place, countries to countries. In most of our international education systems, there are fluctuations within the system itself. I recently had a chance to reflect upon what my educational system is like when I was in the elementary, high school and higher education institutions. In most of my our elementary studies, based on a state syllabus, which we had less chance to explore ideas or thoughts apart from the boundaries of set textbooks that are allocated to each subject. The use of library resources are less recommended, which I think was a personal preference to go and find a book to read, but it was obvious that the existence of a school library in connection with learning and teaching was a always a question. I remember a school library where you can find some old books and reference materials, where we had limited access to, and I preferred to find if there any nicely covered story books that I can consume.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

I’ve managed my time to work on enriching my personal experiences and setting up self determination goals during the Covid-19 WFH period. It is bit stressful to start on something that is pending for a while, but its always interesting to reflect on and make up our mind, overlook the progress and get ready for a start. The first couple of weeks were useless, I couldn’t think of something that I needed to improve, or I didn’t know what was missing from me or where to start. Thoughts are striking hits on my blind spots in many ways, it touches my feelings, my distress, my inability to overcome my nerves especially, the language barriers. I’m confident enough to write any thing, without any structure, without any sense of connections between thoughts and words, but I remember that expressing my ideas in voice is always a concern. Lot of incidents where I fail to communicate effectively, where my words didn’t match my thoughts.. a real concern on how I ‘m going to work on these instabilities and my weakness.. a real flash like  waves explosion!!

Then I see a flashing light at the very end of the sea.. a light that can end for the day and make myself ready for the next day with a fresh mind fresh thought and a clear voice of my own. I’m now on my way, searching for my information enrichment process.. through my reflections, my learning and my connections between you and me.. Let me sort out my thoughts and start those flow as an ever-ending source, an info flow..

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