Typing and all things online

Thanks to Arnold for his query about how to improve typing skills. I've done some detective work on Google this morning and found some fun tools to explore around improving your typing.

I also would like to profile some of the resources at UniSA to demonstrate what support is available to hone your online skills. (You might be surprised at what is on offer!)

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Dance mat typing was developed by the BBC for children. It's lots of fun, but obviously orientated towards the kids.

This typing tutor requires quite a bit of clicking around but once you get the hang of it, it's quite good.

Typeonline.co.uk is the most intuitive tool I found in my searches this morning. I rather like this one.

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Within UniSA there are some other resources to hone your online skills. Learningfast is very popular. What I really like about this one is that you can learn functions as you need them like using graphs in Excel or heading styles in Word. There are some self-paced tutorials around most Office applications, including PowerPoint.

Software Help has a top ten tips approach and Online Learning has some general information aboout using online applications (such as discussion) at the University of South Australia.

Do post your suggestions, if you find any useful sites either within UniSA or from other organisations. Also feel free to appraise these resources - let us know how you find them.

Have fun.

Andrea

Tell us what you would like

Helen, Susanna and I very much enjoyed working with you during the Writing in the Sciences series this study period. We do regard our work in this area as continually unfolding and we will post new academic writing goodies as we encounter them.

Although the formal workshops are finished for 2007, please vote on our poll for any other areas you would like covered either in a blog post or in a workshop next year. Alternatively, you can post a comment below.

Andrea

Tony Buzan and Mind mapping

Thanks, Susanna, for pointing us to this one.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlabrWv25qQ

This is highly recommended - if not compulsory - YouTube viewing for science writers.

The credibility scale

Hi (again)

Some weeks ago, I posted the 'credibility quandry' in which you were asked to give a relative credability weighting to these sources:

Here are the answers (although, obviously it depends upon the context in which you are using them). Mostly people in our workshop agreed with these, but please feel free to debate by posting a comment. A bottom line: the stronger the source, the more credible and convincing your argument.

Andrea

A new mind mapping resource

Hi science writers

I just thought I'd post this resource from our colleagues in Research Education. There are some excellent references here to mind mapping and I know this is the big buzz at the moment.

Hope you're all well at this busy end of the year!

Andrea