Conference attendees were interested in the ways in which this relatively new type of mind-mapping software could inspire creative thinking for teaching and learning, and I have included a few of Popplet's key features below.

Popplet provides:

• An easy-to-use interface that makes sorting and collaborating straightforward and fun.
• The ability to integrate text, photos and videos.
• A timestamp for content added (users can view which other users contributed to the project, what exactly was added, and when the content was submitted).

For more information about Popplet, see www.popplet.com.

So why the buzz about learning analytics? Organizers of the First International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge in February 2011 led by George Siemens of Athabasca University, David Wiley of Brigham Young University and Erik Duval of Katholieke Universiteit discussed learning analytics in terms of "big data" generated by user interactions. They presented learning analytics as data that can be used to inform instructors, students, and program administrators for actionable changes.

Much in the way that Amazon.com provides useful information to customers by recommending books based on purchasing trends, learning analytics can cull "big data" held in the university Learning Management System (LMS) like the Blackboard LMS at USC. Blackboard data services that reveal student interactions with peers, instructors and content has the potential for analysis by instructors and students alike to help inform about teaching and learning in powerful new ways that improve the experience for both stakeholders.

USC plans to do just that. With primary responsibility for leading the Center for Scholarly Technology's (CST) evaluation and assessment efforts, I am serving on the national learning analytics initiative Core Data Services hosted by EDUCAUSE. In my new role, I'll help the CST join our efforts with instructors, students, and administrators to help unlock the potential of analytics and data to answer key questions that help improve technology-enhanced learning.

Creative Commons is an organization that makes it easy for content owners to share their content with others. Creative Commons lets content owners choose from a variety of copyright licenses that specify exactly how their multimedia can be used. Users agree to the terms of that license. Creative Commons emphasizes the conscious choices made by authors and owners of digital content to share rather than limit access to their work.

From the Creative Commons website:

"The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional "all rights reserved" setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law."

Students may not realize that as content creators they can choose to share their work. When uploading an image to Flickr, the default copyright license is "all rights reserved." To share that image, choose a Creative Commons license that permits sharing. You can also use the Creative Commons license chooser to help determine which license is most appropriate for a given work.

Due to the dynamic nature of online content, no web portal, search engine, or other online resource can identify Creative Commons-licensed content with 100 percent accuracy. Therefore, you will need to verify that the content you have found is licensed for sharing. If you have any doubt about permissions, you should contact the copyright holder directly.

If you or your students have additional questions regarding Creative Commons, see the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions page or send an email to info@creativecommons.org.

You can purchase applications that allow you to capture and annotate a portion of your screen. However, if you are looking for a free app that is simple to use and can be accessed with a single click, you're in luck; the boom in apps and browser plug-ins offers several free options.

Below are two screen-capture apps to help you get started.

1. Skitch

• If you are using a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Android device, you can download Skitch from the Skitch website and use it to take screenshots and then annotate, draw on, resize, and rotate those screenshots.


• Once you finish editing your screenshot, you can simply drag the resulting picture into any application.


• If you are using Windows, no problem. Just create an account on the Skitch website.


• To see Skitch in action, watch one of the videos on their website.

2. The Screen Capture Plug-in for Google Chrome

A browser plug-in is a piece of software that you add to your browser. It lets your browser perform specialized operations that might normally require separate software.

• If you use Google Chrome, you may want to take a look at Screen Capture by Google.


• With the Screen Capture plug-in, you can capture a page region, visible content, or a whole page.


• My favorite option is the redact button. This provides an easy way to mask portions of a screen, just in case you need to blur sensitive information displayed on the screen.

Invited to give a keynote address remotely to a conference in Singapore on learning technology, I chose Twitter as my topic: 26 Ways of Looking at Twitter. Then I chose to write my presentation in the form of 52 tweets.

My line of thinking began with Wallace Stevens's poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." I thought I would double-down on Stevens's poem. If he could poeticize 13 ways of looking at a mere bird, I could certainly come up with 26 ways of looking at software that allows humans to tweet. And from 26 to 52--the number of playing cards in a deck, minus the jokers--seemed to give ample padding.

What's the significance? On the one hand, it's a proof-of-concept: yes, you really can connect pithy, 140-character messages to create something longer. On the other hand, in the context of the liberal arts, the stunt showed something else. Namely, that Twitter lets a text become something others can rewrite. One technologist responded to my tweets by "storifying" them: bundling them together on the Storify.com platform and adding commentary.