Learning2.0 : Journey to about2findout.com

In this video I show you how to solve questions on the about2findout.com quiz site.

Transcript:

Hello world once more.
I'm Bert De Coutere and today I'm going to show you how to do it. Solving questions on the about2findout.com site that is.

There are many ways to get a question. For example, you can use the menu at the top of the screen (the little arrow) and select a random question. Or you can go to the questions displayed at the ticker bar right here. On the ticker bar you see new questions made by people. Or you can go to someones profile (let me just show you my own profile quickly) and see the questions there. You can launch one by clicking on its ID right here. Or you go to the quiz zone and there you can search for questions or see questions with a common tag in the tag cloud. It's all good. For simplicity sake, let's go back to the home page and select 'Take a random question'. That should do the trick, don't you think so?

Next we get a question. So select an answer, and click submit. If you don't like the question, you can go to a random other question by selecting skip question.

Next you'll see your score. You get 1-3 points for a good answer, depending on the difficulty of the question. If you answer wrong, nothing happens unless it is not the first time you answer this question wrong. Everyone makes mistakes, but smart people only make them once. So the first time you answer wrong, just learn what the right answer was. Next time you answer wrong again, it can cost you 1-3 points (again depending on the difficulty of the question). You can only get points of course when you are logged in, and you cannot get scored twice for the same question in a 3 day grace period.

So we have a full screen right here, what's on it? First of all your score and if you were correct or not. You see how other people did and if you are logged on.
Next you see the correct answer and your own.
At the bottom you see dots as an indicator of the difficulty of the question. There are three levels of difficulty. You also see who created the question and when. If you like the question, why not click on the author and see what other great questions he or she has for you?
Next you have a button for more information. A popup will show you any additional message the author wanted to give you, and links to popular sites such as google or wikipedia.
The next button is 'share question'. With that button you can get the direct URL link to this particular question, in case you want to include it in your blog or site. The next button either closes the window or selects another random question.

On the right side bar, there are a lot of actions you can take to participate in the site and give your feedback, or send a message to the author. First of all you can rate the question. It doesn't take long, just click on the number of stars you want to give and 'send rating'. You'll make the author happy. Under the box you see all the tags related to this question and clicking on one of them will take you to a list of questions with similar tags.

Finally, you can leave comments on the question at the bottom of the screen. Click show to see or add comments. For example, explain why you were wrong or right or if you disagree with the answer provided or have more information on it.

That concludes how you can solve questions on the about2findout.com site. Have fun!

Labels: about2findout, Jing, tutorial

Jing is a free beta product that allows you to easily share screenshots or screencasts of your desktop and save them or share them. The makers call it 'visual conversations'. Jing is a project of TechSmith, the makers of the popular commercial snapshot product 'SnagIt', screen video product 'Camtasia' and associated hosting site 'screencast.com'. I don't expect Jing to end up as a free product, but as long as they are in beta you get a pretty good, simplified and easy tool with free hosting on screencast.com. I recommend you give it a shot.

I've tried it out to make a few previews of the about2findout.com project so far.

Jing is available for Windows and Mac and installs pretty easy. You need the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 installed for it to work on Windows, so you better install that and reboot before you install Jing. Once installed Jing lives as a little sun at the top of your screen. First select to capture, then select the area or window to capture, and whether you want to take an annotated screenshot (image) or a video. For more information, troubleshooting and tips, visit the Jing blog.

You can add pointers, text boxes, markers and frames to your screenshot. In the example on the left I added some of each. Of course you can save the screenshot (as .png file), but the real power of this '2.0' application is the ability to automatically upload and share. Click the share button and Jing will upload your masterpiece to a free account on screencast.com and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard. Just paste in the link to your messenger, chat, e-mail or web page and you're done! All images and video's also end up in a local history archive so you can find them back later.

My second try was a video of the form edit page on about2findout.com. You can speak any comments as you record the video, and save it as a flash (.swf) file or share it via screencast.com. Video has a limit of 5 minutes. The aim of the project is not to make professional screencast but rather to quickly show. So I did not prepare and just dived in :-). It shows.
The link on the left will take you to the recorded video of the form edit page.




My final try was a video of the wysiwyg edit page. The video was longer and for some reason I'm unable to upload it to the site. So I saved the .swf file, embedded it in a HTML page and you can open it here.

I see a lot of potential for Jing, not at least in the field of learning. It lowers the centre of gravity for expertise because anyone can easily, just-in-time make a small tutorial on how to us a certain feature of an application or where to click, and share it. Help desk people will find this a useful tool. Coaches and remote trainers will love this. And if the makers add tags to it and a home page you get an instant YouTube for 'how-do-I-do-this' screencasts. Very cool indeed.

Labels: Jing