Get All The News from U.S. Mission in Nigeria in One Place

The U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria has a great Dashboard for all her public-oriented information. The Dashboard gives a quick access to current information coming out the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Nigeria including Press Releases, Ambassador's Speeches, Programmes and Events.


There are different tabs loaded on the Dashboard:

• There is a tab on the Information Resource Centers (IRCs) tagged IRC Books: Search for Books available in the two IRCs; Check the procedure in becoming a a member...
• Free Virtual Libraries: Access eLibraryUSA from here. eLibraryUSA contains 30 commercial databases accessible to registered members of the IRCs. There is also a list of some other sources of authoritative materials on this tab.
• U.S. Government News: There is a tab tagged US Govts. That is a page you could get up-to-the minute news from Whitehouse.gov and State Department's websites and Blog.
• Educational Programs and others: There are tabs relating to U.S. Mission's Education Exchange programmes such as Fulbright, Humphrey Fellowship; There are links to EducationUSA: How to study in the United States. 
• Check also the American Corner tab to see locations and links to how to search for their resources online. "In American Corners you will find the collected literature of America’s best writers; American society, culture, policies, politics, history and business; how to study in the U.S., visa information, videos, facts and statistics, and the Internet.  You will also receive help in using the resources. American Corners are open to everyone in the community."
• New Jobs: Are you looking for jobs? There are tonnes of jobs listed on this tab ranging from jobs at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission (Abuja and Lagos) , United Nations and Nigeria. Ask those who are looking for jobs to visit this Dashboard.
• There are links to General News, Subject Portals, General Search Engines and Photos
• In case you will like to give them some feedback about the Dashboard, there is a link right on the dashboard.

Would you love to create your own Dashboard, for you or your institution? Then, join the membership of their IRCs at http://www.tinyurl.com/ircregistration. As a member, you may be invited to participate in their flagship training on "How to Keep on top of the News"

However, you best source for all the news from the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Nigeria is http://ingeria.usembassy.gov/ If you have any issue to discuss with the organization, please visit this page.

Now, This is One Haven of Social Tools

Today, I stumbled on this lovely site and I thought I should share it with all my folks. SocialBrite: Social Tools for social change is the website. According to the site: "The Socialbrite team is here to help nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, social enterprises, universities, and cause organizations use social media to advance your organization’s mission."  There are tabs on Tutotials, Videos, Free Reports, Conferences.. However, there a link to tons of Web 2.0 productivity tools which have been reviewed. They suggested that you should "begin with this directory of Web 2.0 productivity tools or the Social Actions toolset." Then read the posts written on various topics of interest below. They requested you to "visit their Sharing Center for additional resources."

• 27 ways to increase engagement on your Facebook page
• 6 creative ways to use photos to increase engagement on your Facebook page
• 8 tips on how to write awesome blog posts
• 10 secrets to video storytelling success
• 7 tips & cheat sheets to help you implement the new Timeline
• 5 steps to set up your measurement program
• 5 advocacy lessons from the Kony 2012 video
• 11 ways Facebook Timeline changes your content strategy
• 7 ways to drive Facebook visitors to your site
• 6 ways to tell your stories with data
• 17 ways to revive your organization's Facebook Page
• 45 hashtags for social change
• 14 surefire ways to engage Facebook users
• 5 tips on writing knockout social media content
• 5 essential Facebook applications for nonprofits
• 6 reasons to use Flickr for your next media campaign
• 10 great get-down-to-business Twitter apps for nonprofits
• 12 ways Facebook users can 'like' your nonprofit Facebook Page
• 14 ways to improve your email open rate
• 12 ways to develop a loyal community for your blog
• 24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter
• 12-step guide on how to live-tweet an event

Read This Article on "Monitoring Tools on The 'Net"

You know me, I work round the clock to fish out great resources for you. Today, I got this beautiful article titled: 20 free, awesome social media monitoring tools by JD Lasica on SocialBrite. You could download the one for 10 tools pdf file for here. The list include:

• Wildfire
• Social Mention
• Google Reader
• BlogPulse
• Alltop
• Hootsuite
• Google Alerts
• Addict-o-matic
• MonitorThis
• Comment Sniper
• coComment
• BoardReader
• Google Trends

Dig for Resources with Digg

According to the website, "Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our community." It is more like other social bookmarks. This is ideal starting point for your research especially if you do not have a clue of where to go. 


To test this out, I did a search for resources on Research and Ph.D and got 3,970 in the result. Yet another one of tutorials and education (2177).


Digg is also a good channel for news. I did a search on Nigeria and see what I got.

Found a Beautiful Lounge for Tutorials

Are you looking for tutorials on critical tools needed for 'ruling' the web? Yes I have found one for you. It is Tutorial Lounge. From the site, it says, "Tutorial Lounge [Learn Step by Step] is a Tutorial Blog site made to house and showcase some of the best tutorials around most famous designing and development tools are Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash, Dreamweaver, InDesign, After Effect, 3D Max, Maya, Illustrator, Vector, Video Tutorials, Corel Draw, Audio Tutorials, Flex, jQuery, ajax, PHP, JavaScript, ASP, HTML, xHTML, CSS, Typography, Print Media and wallpapers. We publish and make roundup tutorials that not only produce great graphics and effects, but explain the techniques behind them in a friendly, approachable manner." In addition, the site also teaches how to use Social Media tools like Twitter. Other resources available include tutorials on Blogging, Open Source i.e. Joomla, WordPress..., Videos  e.t.c. Ofcourse with lots of freebies!

Google Nigeria Web Fair 2012: You are Welcome!

GOOGLE has promised to bring together thousands of business owners for the second leg of the Get Nigerian Businesses Online (GNB0) 2012 Web Fair, taking place at the City Hall, Catholic Mission Street, in Onikan, Lagos on April 26 and 27, 2012. Intending participants should register at http://www.gnbo.com.ng/event2012

Create Nice Quizzes Using "Learn Click"

“Learn Click is a nice tool for quickly creating simple online quizzes. The format for the quizzes is fill-in-the-blank with a couple of extras that you can't add to offline quizzes. When you format your quizzes in Learn Click you have the option to add a drop-down menu from which students can select words to use in the quiz. Another nice option is the ability to add a "hint" pop-up for students to access. As the designer of the quiz you can specify what the hint is.” This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers.