Learn By Doing

A Lifelong Learner Shares Thoughts About Education

  • always learning » 20 Project Ideas Inspired by Learning 2.0
    We all know that you only get out of a conference what you put in. So, I did my best to make the Learning 2.0 unconference sessions work for me by moderating 2 of the 3 sessions (during the third session I was totally wrapped up in Alan November’s amazing presentation on Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning).

  • CSS TOOLBOX: 20+ Tools For Working With CSS
    Have you always been reliant on others’ templates for your blog or website? You’d like to customize them, but you’re just not sure how? Perhaps it’s time to finally wrestle with the secrets of CSS. This collection of CSS-related links should be a good start – from basic tutorials to advanced tools, it’s all here.

    456 berea st

    456 Berea Street – Numerous guides and tutorials on advanced CSS tricks.

    Cleancss.com

    CleanCSS.com – Tool to help you clean up your CSS and optimize it.

    CodeBeautifier.com

    CodeBeautifier.com – A CSS code formatter and optimizer, but stresses it is not a validator.

    CSS Tweak

    CSS Tweak – Just as the name implies, upload your CSS and you can tweak it on the go.

    css-ref

    CSS-Ref.com – A tool for practicing your CSS skills or writing an actual layout.

    CSSCreator.com

    CSSCreator.com – Will create a page with up to three columns and header & footer.

    CSSDrive Compressor

    CSSDrive Compressor – A utility to compress your CSS saving you drive space, bandwidth and loading times.

    CSSFly

    CSSFly.net – An in-browser CSS editor that can also do HTML.

    CSSOptimiser.com

    CSSOptimiser.com – A tool for compressing your CSS code and allowing the file to load faster.

    CSS Pagemaker

    CSS Pagemaker – A simple CSS pagemaker wizard with easy fill-in-the-blank questions.

    CSS Redundancy Checker

    CSS Redundancy Checker – Enter URLs to let the site check for redundant calls and repetitive code.

    CSS Rollover Generator

    CSS Rollover Generator – Create rollover images using nothing but CSS.

    CSS Superdouche

    CSS Superdouche – Enter the URL of your CSS file, the site checks it, cleans it up, and gives you new CSS you can paste back in to your site.

    css tidy

    CSSTidy – A Sourceforge project of a CSS optimizer and parser.

    em calculator

    Em Calculator – A Javascript based tool for making scalable CSS design based on Em units to work easier with text size.

    layout-o-matic

    Layout-o-matic – A tool for helping you generate simple page layouts with several column variations.

    List-u-Like CSS Generator

    List-u-Like CSS Generator – Lets you create cross-browser, list based navigation bars with ease by defining all the parameters and the site generates it for you.

    roundedcornr.com

    RoundedCornr.com – Generate HTML and CSS images and code with rounded corners and gradients.

    Sky CSS Tool

    Sky CSS Tool – All you need is a JavaScript enabled browser and you can create your new CSS page in-browser.

    Spify Corners 2

    Spiffy Corners – An easy to use site that generates a colored box in CSS code with rounded corners with the specs you request.

    TheBoxOffice.de

    TheBoxOffice.be – A CSS and XHTML generator to help you wrap text around an image.

    YAML Builder

    YAML Builder – An in-browser HTML/CSS coder with a real-time preview of how the page will look.

  • 25+ Ways to Manage Your Online Identity
    25 Ways to Manage Your Online Identity
    September 10, 2007 — 05:30 AM PDT — by Sean P. Aune — Share This

    onlineidentity.PNG

    There is nothing more important online than your identity, and nothing more annoying than when someone finds a way to steal it. This list comprises 25 tools to manage your reputation, officially sign documents, aggregate your social network IDs and more.

    And yes, there’s some irony that there are so many sites to manage your identity: hopefully all these will adopt a set of standards to make life easier for us all.

  • From Penelope Trunk’s blog for saving.

    The best questions are not necessarily those that get answers, but those that lead to sharper questions.

    My friend Marci Alboher, who writes for the New York Times, often calls me to ask questions about blogging and personal branding. I usually give her strongly opinionated answers and add a little emphasis about how I know that I’m right.

    Then she usually does not take my advice. But these are great conversations because she asks really interesting questions – like how do the brand of a journalist and the brand of the publication interact? And my best answers to Marci are when I ask more questions.

    Mark Halpern reported in Vocabula (subscription) about a study on expert advice. He says that people who call themselves experts are no better at making predictions about the future than anyone else, but experts talk more confidently about their opinions, and generally don’t get penalized for being wrong.

    This makes me think we look to experts more to frame conversation. Experts ask questions similar to those that are burning in our own heads, but the experts ask sharper questions; the answers we can take or leave, but the questions change us.

    For example, I ask myself all the time, Am I fat? Do I look good? What number am I on a scale of one to ten? They are insane questions, I know. And there is no good answer. But so what? I ask myself anyway. And sometimes, if I’m feeling comfortable about showing my most pathetic, desperate side of myself, I’ll ask a friend. But to be honest, no answer ever surprises me.

    Then I saw Dove’s fun and fascinating video of what it takes to get a woman ready for a billboard photo. I watched three times. I love the video because instead of telling me “don’t worry – you look fine” it implicitly suggests some sharper questions I could be asking. (Hat tip: Indie Bloggers)

    And did you know that women’s eyes are digitally enlarged on billboards? This is interesting to me because a man can tell instinctively when a woman is interested in him by the way her eyes dilate, according to Barbara and Allen Pease, authors of The Definitive Book of Body Language. Asking someone if they want to have sex is not usually straightforward and clear, but looking at whether or not her eyes are dilated is a primal way that men sharpen the question.

    Here’s another video I love: Did You Know? Shift Happens, by Karl Fisch. This video is fun because I learned so much about how the world is changing. Fisch asks questions and answers them.

  • Off topic: It’s easy to participate in the annual
    Talk Like A Pirate Day    ,
    coming up Wednesday. Throw in the occasional “Arrr” or “Me hearties,”
    and you should pass muster. But you’ll want to start thinking now about
    what you want to do on Dec. 8, which is Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day.
    Among the suggestions if you’re pretending to be from, say, a dystopian
    future: “Walk up to random people and say ‘WHAT YEAR IS THIS?’ and when
    they tell you, get quiet and then say ‘Then there’s still time!’ and
    run off.”

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