New-year-resolution time is fast approaching, and while I do not really make resolutions...no sense in making resolutions you won't keep...I do try to make some improvements. I ran across this Zen Habits post somehow today, and though it doesn't deliver anything earth shattering or even new, it does present an interesting short list of 10 quick and easy changes to make along with suggested ways to accomplish them. Why read it? Well, I hope I'm not the only one who could do with a little simplification these days!
To give you an idea what's there so you can decide if you want to go read it (in case you already do all these things!), here are the 10 "things"...
Make a short list.
Drop 1 commitment.
Purge a drawer.
Set limits.
Simplify your to-do list.
Free up time.
Clear your desk.
Clear out your email inbox.
Move slower.
Single task.
I also enjoyed reading another post, Haiku Productivity: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential referenced in #4, which describes putting limits on everything. I like this one, as this is something that causes me difficulty. I like to do too many things and I'm not always good at prioritizing. Perhaps thinking about the content of this post might encourage me to make some moves in the right direction. But I'm NOT making any resolutions to do this!
I keep learning more about some of Google's features and wonder why I never found them before. Some of them would have made my searches more efficient.
Perhaps you, like me, already knew about define:. In case this one is new to you, entering define:abstruse will list definitions of "abstruse" from a number of web sources.
Here are some more (notice that there is no space between the colon and the web page URL or term) :
link: will give you a listing of the web pages with links to the website you specified, for example, link:www.lumosity.com. This was also an advanced operator we used years ago in AltaVista and is one way to check the validity of the information provided on a website.
allintitle: will give you a list of all the websites with all of the specified query words in their title. For example, allintitle:brain games will give you a list of all websites with both "brain" and "game" in their titles.
intitle: will list documents that contain the first word in their title. Including a second word will limit the listing to those sites which also contain that word anywhere in the document. For example, intitle:prezi teach will result in a listing of all sites with "prezi" in the title and the word "teach" or "teacher" or "teaching" in the page text or title.
allinurl: and inurl: work exactly like allintitle: and intitle:, except that they look in the URL (Internet address) for the search term. For example, try inurl:washington rainforest to find websites that have "washington" in the URL and "rainforest" or "rain forest" either in the title or on the page.
related: will show a list of websites similar to the specified site. Entering related:mindomo.com will give you a listing of other websites which also create mind maps. I think this one in particular will really be useful!
There's much more power in Google than I've been taking advantage of. I'll have to see what else I've been missing.
If you ever need or want to edit, comment on, or fill in a PDF document...or for that matter, Word document, PowerPoint document, PNG or JPG image, or web page...then you might want to check out crocodoc. You simply upload the file, or enter the URL of a website to create a snapshot. Then you can insert comments or text, strike through or highlight text, or draw on the image. Your document will be stored by crocodoc and can be downloaded as a PDF. Additionally, you can choose to share the document for collaboration. You can view and try out crocodoc's features on the website.
crocodoc could be used by a student to highlight and annotate any text or pdf document or annotate an image or website and then email it to the teacher. Evaluating the design or content of any of the supported formats could be done by an individual or multiple individuals. I'm sure there are many other specific educational applications that others will see.
This post is a twofer. You get a new tool for organizing links and an impressive resource for finding web 2.0 tools for specific purposes.
First the FREE tool. LiveBinders lets you organize your links and web-based media in a digital three-ring-binder. It has a compact interface that's easy to use and understand. You can place web pages, videos, PDFs, or images on a tab; or your tab can identify a category and include links to related information. There are several examples on the site's homepage, but I want to share another one with you.
If you're looking for a site to let you do animations or or comics or any of a number of tasks, see if you can't find something using the Digital Media Club LiveBinder, shown above.
LiveBinder would be a great way to provide links for students or for students to organize their research data since an individual user can have multiple binders.
Did you know that you can actually "generate" multiple email addresses using one Gmail address? While some sites won't recognize them, Gmail will ignore when delivering messages to you anything following periods or a plus sign. This means that anything addressed to you as youraddress...1@gmail.com, youraddress..ab@gmail.com, or youraddress+mile38@gmail.com will be delivered to your youraddress@gmail.com inbox.
I had seen this recommended as a possibility for creating multiple student accounts on application sites and this morning looked it up for someone who requested my assistance. Rather than plagiarize the information from blog posts I read this morning, here are the links to them: Use Gmail Generate Unlimited Email Addresses includes several other uses for this feature. 2 hidden ways to get more from your gmail address
Can you read the image at right? If you could scan it, it would bring you here, as it contains the URL for the Omnivorous Surfer blog.
This is a QR (for Quick Response) code, a two-dimensional barcode that can store a larger quantity of data than a traditional barcode and can be decoded at high speed. This image was created using the QR-code generator at KAWYA, which also has a QR reader you can download.
While the initial application of QR codes was tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, the technology now may be seen in such places as magazines, signs, and business cards with contents including addresses, URLs--any information that can be conveyed textually.
I had read about QR codes previously, but was led to look again this morning after reading about snapmyinfo, a site that lets you "share your contact information in a snap." To use it, you simply use your iPhone to take a photo of the QR code containing your information, email it to the address they give you, and you will receive a return email with an attachment containing the contact information in a Vcard format, ready to be added to your contact manager. Perhaps you already have an app on your phone that reads QR codes.
Think you won't see these? Above left is a photo of a QR code displayed in a GAP store with promotional information. You can read about and view a photo of a QR-code Calvin Klein billboard at mashable.com. Below is a whitepaper discussing a community's use of QR codes as an economical way to communicate information to residents and tourists. For more examples, you can do your own search or see the additional links included at the end of this post.
It would be interesting to have students brainstorm uses of the QR codes even before having them research or giving them current uses. I wonder how visionary they are. I would suspec1t they would be much better at it than many of us adults. Of course, it's possible they are already aware of and using them!
I know I've posted before...twice...about sites that let you download videos from YouTube and other sites, but this is my new favorite. And I found it just in time for my next workshop!
Download Tube lets you "download online videos direct to PC, iPod, PSP, Mobile." You can convert to .mpg, .mov, .3gp (Mobile), .flv (Flash), .mp3 (audio only), .mp4 (iPod/PSP/iPhone). What more could you ask?
All you have to do is to get the URL of the video, paste it in the box, and the video will be converted and downloaded, ready for you to view offline or add to a presentation.
Have your students...or you...ever had difficulty narrowing down searches to get the right results? Sometimes they simply can't get the right combination of words, perhaps because their vocabularies are limited and they don't know them or because they aren't using the "right" synonym for one or more of the terms. Google has a search tool that lets you begin with a general term and then narrow it down step-by-step. It's the Wonder Wheel. You'll find it in the left pane of a Google search window under "More Search Tools."
Rather than try to describe it, I'll use images to demonstrate. Below are the results of a Google search for "elephant." You can see the wheel at the left with the search results at the right. (The image is small, but it will open full size if you click on it.)
If I click on the "elephant habitat" spoke, Google changes the search to "elephant habitat" and creates a new wheel with more options for narrowing the search, as shown below.
You can also narrow down results by looking at the bottom of standard Google search results for related searches; alternatively, you can choose "Related Searches" from "More Search Tools," which will place them at the top of the page. I especially like this graphic method for students, though. It makes it easy to see relationships and gets them used to mapping (or is familiar to them if they are already used to mapping).
For a comparison of the two tools, check these out:
We've visited and revisited Tagul and Wordle, and now here's Tagzedo, the "tag cloud with styles." Tagzedo works much like the other two, analyzing text you enter or copy and paste or text from a website to create a word cloud. You can choose color schemes, fonts, and a shape for your cloud.
I have inserted below a static image of the Tagzedo image created using the text from this blog, tree shape selected in honor of the season. When viewing it on the Tagzedo site or embeded on a webpage and viewed using Microsoft's Silverlight, the words will rotate to horizontal and expand when the mouse is placed over them. Try creating your own to see what that looks like.
I haven't posted on Prezi yet, apparently, but I will be at some point in the fairly near future. In the meantime, here's a good presentation about using Web 2.0 applications in the classroom which also provides a good example of the effective use of Prezi's features. So many tools are available for students to create and demonstrate which have the potential, with good teachers, to increase student engagement and learning. It's such a shame that there are so many barriers in so many places.
Click the arrowheads to move through the Prezi frame by frame.
I have always been on the lookout for places to find royalty-free, preferably Creative Commons licensed, video/audio/photo resources for my own and students' use, so I was excited to run across this sitepoint blog post with descriptions of and links to over 30 sites to explore. Some additional ones are mentioned in the comments, so you might want to check those out, too.
If I were still in the classroom, this one would get lots of use!
Google SketchUp is FREE downloadable 3D modeling software that is easy to learn and fun to use. Google information says it has been used by architectural and engineering professionals for years, which indicates that it is powerful enough for high school engineering classes working on a low budget. I can testify from personal experience that middle school students, working through the provided tutorial, can gain quite enough proficiency to create their own designs.
Its use is not limited to architectural design. English/language arts students can create drawings of structures or locales which are a part of books or stories they are studying. History students could sketch the layout of a town or portion of a town which is part of a critical event, or of historic structures like the Great Pyramids. Geometry students could create polygons or polyhedra.
If you want more (and better) ideas, 3DVinci has a free teachers guide with design projects organized by grade (1-5, 6-9, 10-12) and subject (art, gography, history, math, and science). 3DVinci also sells project books: ModelMetrics books teach 3D design and modeling skills for grades 3-9, GeomeTricks books teach 2D and 3D math and geometry concepts for grades 6-12, and the Google SketchUp Student Workbook uses design projects to teach all of SketchUp's tools and features to students in grade 9 through higher education.
Did you know that Google will let you build a custom search engine? Instead of searching the entire web, you can create a search engine that will search only the sites you want it to and exclude any sites you choose. How useful would THAT be in a classroom sometimes? For example, if you want students to access only primary resources, you could create a custom search engine that would limit their results to sites you have identified that have primary resources. You could create an engine that would search only credible science sites for your science class. There are lots of ideas for using this.
I quickly put together a custom engine to search for videos. I did not include youtube, since so many schools have it blocked, but you'll see from the number of results that there are still plenty of resources without it.
You can embed your custom engine on a webpage, as the one below, but it will also have its own URL; here's mine: Carolyn's Video Search Engine
Loading
To create your own custom search engine, begin by putting together your list of sites, and then go to http://www.google.com/cse/ to start. You can also use the more link at the top of the Google search page, choosing even more at the bottom of the drop-down list, to get to the page to create your custom engine.
If you want a good, thorough tutorial for using a web app, a good place to start is Russel Stannard's TeacherTrainingVideos.com. I have learned how to use so many sites from viewing his narrated screen videos. If you're a Twitter user, you'll want to follow him (russell1955) to be alerted to any new additions.
Above is still of one of his videos, the one for Voki. The list to the left of the screen image is of individual training topics included in the video, so you can skip right to the information you want.
Perhaps not many will need this web 2.0 app that that takes a screenshot of a web page which then can be embedded on a webpage, but there will be times when it will be useful for me. Additionally, the embedded image will be a hyperlink to the webpage itself; try clicking on the one above.
The site will also create formatted quotes, like the one below. The quote will include a link to the source as well.
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
I found this site on Larry Ferlazzo's post, The Best Web 2.0 Applications for Education--2010. He has some interesting apps listed there, along with links to his lists from previous years. Between yesterday's post and today's, I have a lot of work to do...and now another new blog to follow!
Just found this great directory of "Social Learning Tools for the Classroom (ages 5-18)" compiled by Jane Hart and published on her Centre for Learning Technologies website. Appropriate age groups are indicated for each tool. While I'm familiar with some that are listed, others are new, so I have some exploring to do!
iLearn Technology is my new blog to watch. Yesterday's timely post was Thanksgiving: Plimouth Plantation Virtual Field Trip, complete with suggestions for integrating the "field trip" into your curriculum. Unfortunately, the "event" is today...wish I'd seen the post yesterday. The blogger does also include some of his favorite Thanksgiving sites.
You might check out Scholastic's The First Thanksgiving, where there are lots of additional Thanksgiving resources for the classroom.
Mbedr is a cool online tool that lets you embed a flickr image on your website. The title and any annotations of the original will be included with the embeded image. See an example below
Remember when using others' photos from flickr (or any site) to choose those with a Creative Commons license. You can read a previous post on a utility for doing a Creative Commons search of flickr images here.
I learned about Mbedr and other cool sites that use or manipulate flickr images on Karen Montgomery's site, Think Photo Sharing with Flickr. There is lots of excellent information here for anyone wanting to use flickr in the classroom.
There are several reasons someone might wish to have a YouTube video on a hard drive rather than viewing it from the YouTube website. Perhaps YouTube is blocked, as it is in many schools, or perhaps the video needs to be shared where there will be no Internet access; maybe it would simply be better to have it stored locally for use in a PowerPoint or other presentation.
I shared in an earlier post a site that would let you download YouTube videos. This post from Free Technology for Teachers provides descriptions of and links to some additional sites, as well as a link to alternatives to YouTube. This will give you some other options.
Free Technology for Teachers is another of my favorite blogs to watch.
I had occasion to extract video clips from an unprotected, copyright-free DVD a couple of weeks ago, and I found a simple, FREE program which fit my needs. Knowing teachers in particular might find it useful sometimes to pull clips for classroom use, I thought I'd share it here.
I looked at several options, but the one I ended up using because of its simplicity was bitRipper. As you can see from the screen shot at left, it has a minimalist interface. Most of us would never need to make any changes to the settings, but I did expand the Settings window for the image; otherwise, you work only with the smaller window. Those of you who, unlike me, know what you're doing, or who like to experiment, have the option of making some more advanced options about your output. I used bitRipper without making any changes to the default settings and had excellent results.
You choose your video clip by chapter from a drop-down list. Without titles, that can be a little tricky; however, I could choose mine from this DVD by its length. The video is converted to an AVI format and saved to your hard drive...and it's ready to play on your Windows computer. It really couldn't be any simpler!
I also found WinX Free DVD Ripper, which has additional functions. I didn't need any of these at the time, but I will keep it in mind for use if and when I do. This one will rip and convert to not only AVI, but also MP4, H.264, FLV, WMV, MPEG, MOV, or other popular video formats. It also gives the option of separating the audio from the DVD video, saving it as an MP3 file. It also supports capturing pictures from the video through screenshots.
If you want to insert the video in a PowerPoint presentation, the 2007 version will accept the following formats: ASF, AVI, MGP, MPET, or WMV.
JayCut is an online video editor that is easy to use and fairly full-featured. The software allows you to remix and trim videos and images; add music, transitions, and effects; and add captions and subtitles.
With a FREE account, for non-commercial use only, you have 20 movie exports per month, 2 GB of storage, and 10 GB of streaming per month. Your video can be viewed from the site, or you can export to YouTube and Facebook with a single click and can export videos for iPhone, Windows, and Mac.
If you want more help than is on the site, just Google "JayCut tutorial."
If you don't have access to Windows MovieMaker or Mac iMovie, Jaycut is a comparable editor. This would be an option for joint or individual student projects so the students could work from both home and school.
I almost never post application tips, but I was so happy to find this one and it's so easy I had to share. I felt kind of foolish that I hadn't already noticed it. I must admit that I had included a drop cap in a document recently by using a text box with a single enlarged capital letter; the result was less than satisfactory, but I used it anyway.
In Word 2003, simply type the letter, select it, and choose Drop Cap from the Format menu. In Word 2007, use the Insert ribbon and choose Drop Cap from the Text group. In either one, you select from Dropped (see the example above) or In Margin, which keeps the entire paragraph indented.
TenMarks' Teacher Zone makes available FREE math video lessons for grades 3-10 based on state standards. All you have to do is to register for a free account.
I've posted before about Creative Commons copyright. MakeUseOf had a great post this week about How to Search and Credit Properly-Licensed Photos on Flickr. A great source with lots of information about CC and Flickr, it includes something I haven't seen before, which is a Grease Monkey script that will give you the code to display the image along with the proper attribution; see the image at left for an example.
Grease Monkey is a Firefox add-on which will allow you to use small bits of JavaScript to customize how certain web pages are displayed. All you have to do is to add the Grease Monkey add-on if you do not already have it and then click the Install button on the script web page.
I normally use Google Chrome, but I'll be using Firefox now to get the code to add Flickr image to a web page. It makes the attribution so much easier!
DROPitTOme is a FREE site which coordinates with Drop Box to allow you to accept files from other people. If you want assignments turned in electronically (or need to receive files from others), but have no way to do that, here's your solution. All you have to do is give them the upload link and password. For more information, see the Free Technology for Teachers post where I found this. Mr. Byrne has included a good description and video tutorials.
The Free Technology for Teachers blog is one of my favorites, so even if you aren't interested in DROPitTOme, check it out!
Thanks to a former colleague, I was reminded of the FREE online quiz software I used to use. On investigation, I found that it is still available and still FREE. Perhaps some who read this may find it useful.
QuizStar is one of several online tools made available at 4teachers.org. Students can take quizzes or tests you have created and then see their results and review their individual answers immediately. As the instructor, you will have a report that looks much like a gradebook for that assignment and can also view their individual test "papers" as though they had been printed and scored.
One of the things I especially appreciated was the listing at the bottom of the test report page showing the number of students answering each question correctly and incorrectly. This allowed me to quickly identify a "bad" question and/or a concept that needed to be retaught. I could usually address the latter as soon as everyone had completed the test.
To prepare the students to take a quiz using QuizStar, I would create a simple 3-question quiz and make sure that they would miss one question. Then they could look at their test and see how to read the markings for the ones they missed. I would always give students the option of taking a paper test using QuizStar's printout.
I won't go through all the features; you can read those on the QuizStar website if you are interested. I used this program for at least 10 years when I was teaching in a lab and found it to be beneficial for teaching and learning and quite a timesaver, too.
I guess I'm on a copyright kick! I found a great post, Digital Storytelling and Copyright, for teachers and others. Among other things, the authors shares information about Creative Commons Copyright and how to do a Google search for copyright-friendly images, as well as giving some sources of royalty-free music.
I learned from this post how easy it is for copyright owners to track the use of their images! I had no idea; very interesting information.
While students have leeway under fair use, it is important for all of us, including students, to understand and abide by copyright laws.
Teachers have a responsibility to acquaint students with copyright issues, stressing the importance of abiding by copyright restrictions and citing sources of all materials used that were created by others. This wiki initiated by a teacher to provide both information on copyright and sources of copyright-friendly (primarily Creative Commons licensed) resources is a great resource in and of itself for educators and others as well. I have it bookmarked and refer to it frequently.
Spell with Flickr is a very simple website that lets you enter a word or words and then spells out your entry using images from Flickr.
Taking advantage of the fact that today is election day, I created this image:
Oh, and then I found this blog post where the author creatively used the concept, though the image was created by another individual, for an image to illustrate her blog post on numbers. See how it can be used!
This amazing list from 21st Century Lit is a great first stop when looking for technology tools for the classroom. Some on the list are online tools, and some are downloadable software. Categories include blogs, graphic design, comics/animation/storytelling, media presentation, information visualization, collaboration tools, audio, and more. I am familiar with or have used several of these, but this gives me lots of new ones to investigate!
THIS UTILITY AND THE COMPANY WEBSITE ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE (Added August 2013)
This is a little different from my normal posts, which are about simple little things. Many people I know would think this more advanced than they would be interested in, but I suspect many others would find it very useful.
System Nucleus is a FREEWARE utility for viewing, editing and managing system resources and settings.
It makes these types of tasks much easier than remembering the right command, and allows batch processing of tasks such as uninstalling multiple programs or stopping multiple processes. You can get an idea of its functions from the image above (from lifehacker.com), but for more details check the spencerebus website.
To make it even better, you don't have to use an installed version; System Nucleus has a portable version as well.
I will be trying this one out soon on my "old" computer to delete installation data left over from programs previously uninstalled, and I WILL make a system backup before doing so!
I wish I had had this site when I was teaching! I came up with other ways to do some of these activities, but this would have been so nice. FREE is good, too!
At Super Teacher Tools, you can create games such as Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The site has tools that will create groups, randomly "draw" student names from your class list, or serve as a random lottery numbers generator for a fun way to teach probability. Some fun additions are Flash applications which draw information from the U. S. Census Bureau to show either the current U. S. or world population; both update every 10-30 seconds or so.
There's much more on this site, but these examples will give you an idea of what's waiting for you there.
I received and have used my pretty little red ThumbTacks microphone for the iPod Touch. I like it and will definitely use it. It does a good job recording the user's voice; I tested it at 6, 12, and 18 inches from my mouth with no noticeable difference in volume. I'm not sure how it would do in a classroom and have not had the opportunity to try it in a public setting like that .
It's so small that I just hope I don't lose it! I'm thinking of making a soft case for my iPod with two pockets on the outside: one for the earphones and one for the mic.
The only downside is that with the ThumbTacks plugged in, iTunes and Voice Memos sense that a headset is attached, so there is no audio from the iPod. Interestingly, though, the Talking Tom Cat app allows the use of the mic and still delivers audio via the iPod's speakers. :-)
All in all, I feel this was a good investment to add recording functionality to my iPod!
Make Beliefs Comix is a fun site, even for people like me who are not very creative. I have friends who could do wonderful things there!
This site provides the panels, characters (with a variety of expressions), objects, and word and thought bubbles to create a comic strip in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin. It includes links to help you create special characters for those languages. The finished product can be printed or emailed.
Following is a comic I created illustrating a beginning Spanish conversation. Remember I said I'm not creative...
I'm sure teachers can think of lots of ways to incorporate this into the classroom for either their own or students' use: to create conversation or story starters, to practice with dialogue in English or a foreign language, to demonstrate appropriate/inappropriate or desirable/undesirable behavior, and, I'm sure, many others.
You can click on "How to Play" on the website for help, but if you'd like step-by-step instructions check out Russel Stannard's video tutorial.
Even if you keep them organized, if you've collected bookmarks over a long period of time you will possibly have some duplicates and probably have several that no longer work. AM-DeadLink is FREE software (Windows only), recommended by Kim Komando, which will find duplicates in your browser bookmarks and text files. You can then verify and delete them. It works with IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, HTML, and URLs from tab- or comma-delimited files.
As a bonus, you can also download FavIcons for your IE or Opera Favorites.
So often when cooking I don't have exactly what the recipe calls for and wonder what I could substitute. When I can't find one in one of my cookbooks, I usually just guess what might work. Sometimes I just wait until I can get to the store for the exact ingredient.
Today I found Cook's Thesaurus while simply looking for information about green chilis. It not only listed a huge variety of chilis with their substitutes, but also included a heat indicator for each; I hadn't realized my cayenne peppers were that high on the scale! This site will suggest substitutions for an amazing array of foods and seasonings. Next time I don't have the right ingredient, I'll know where to look.
Talk about one-stop shopping! This site provides a number of references and tools accessible simply by clicking a tab..
Need to find rhyming words? Go to rhymes.net , and you'll get a list of words listed alphabetically and categorized by number of syllables. The should be useful for a variety of purposes, but you'll find more here--much more.
There are ten functions accessible from tabs across the top of the web page, each with its own URL. I've checked them out, and they're good! All functions are available by entering the URL of any one of them.
Abbreviations (www.abbreviations.com). Search acronyms & abreviations, or browse by category.
Conversions (www.convert.net). Convert measurements, time zones, number systems. Type your query freeform or use a handy conversion box with drop-down menus.
Definitions (www.definitions.net). Search or use categories. It functions like a mini encyclopedia, working for such terms as "English Bulldog," "Genghis Khan," and "Russian Revolution," and scientific names of plant and animals. When appropriate the definition will be enhanced by images.
Lyrics (www.lyrics.net). Search by song title or a portion of the lyrics. You can also browse by artist.
Phrases (www.phrases.net). Search for phrases and idioms. (This would really help a person learning English to make sense of phrases like "rain cats and dogs" and "get a grip.")
Quotations (www.quotes.net). Search by author, subject, or word (not phrase).
References (www.references.net). Use the directory of categories to see a lists of reference sources on the web.
Rhymes (www.rhymes.net). Enter a word and you will be given a list of rhyming words categorized by number of syllables, organized alphabetically in each category.
ZIP Codes (www.uszip.com). Search by city or ZIP code. Results will display the city with its current weather information, demographics, a map, images, and other information.
The iPod Touch software allows for audio recording, but the hardware does not include an integrated microphone. I think I just found the perfect solution...the ThumbTacks (TM) mic from SwitchEasy. I can't verify the quality or performance as I have not used it, but I have ordered one to check it out. At the price, I think it's worth investigating.
I've seen some good uses for iPod Touch in the classroom that required recording capability, and this looks to me to be a possible easy solution.
Ran across an old post from Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog about searching for educational videos using Google video search. I checked it out and found some really good resources. Rather than recreate it, here's the link to How to Search Educational Videos.
If you're interesting in using technology effectively in the classroom, Davis' blog would be a great one to follow.
What a cool idea to use the connective power of the Internet to help raise funds for a charity! Learned of this site today through a Tweet by Will Richardson, offering readers the opportunity to help raise money for clean water for Africa in honor of his birthday.
Because mycharity.ie is located in Ireland, most, though not all, of the charities listed on the site have an Irish connection. There is a link on the site for charities to register to be included on the site, and individuals can submit details of a charity they would like to support. Individuals can create a fundraising page like the one Will used.
One person CAN make a difference, and this site provides one way to do that!
I always like science and thought it would be cool to be a chemistry or physics teacher so we could do neat experiments in class. I still like to experiment and am still fascinated by experiments. When I ran across the Scientific Tuesdays ferrofluids and magnets video on YouTube, I figured I'd found a goldmine to fuel my curiosity.
I'll let you look for yourself while I go to the kitchen to try out the "Awesome milk trick!" Oops...it alway pays to look around (at least I can't keep myself from doing so). I found a Steve Spangelr Science "Color Changing Milk" video that has a little different take that I'll have to try while I'm at it.
Hope you can find some fun things to try for yourself or with children (or other adults) or perhaps for a science fair project simply by exploring YouTube!
I take lots of photos, and I especially enjoy recording scenery so we can enjoy it later. I sometimes take a series of photos as I pan the camera around my location, trying to see that they overlap so there's an area of commonality between consecutive images for matching. I just found a FREE demo of AutoStitch which does an amazing job of stitching photos together to make a panorama image. In the past, I have kept the camera on a fairly level horizontal plane, but AutoStitch does not require this, as it can take images from a variety of angles, match them up, and smooth them out; this is illustrated on the AutoStitch website.
I tried the free demo out on some images I took on our summer vacation to North and South Dakota, and I was very pleased with the results. All you have to do is to open at once all the images you want combined in the finished panorama, and the software automatically does the rest, including saving the new image in the directory with the original photos. It couldn't be easier! And it's like being there and looking around all over again.
This image could then be opened in image editing software and cropped to remove the black edges, though I don't even mind them in this image.
AutoStitch opens up a whole new way of recording the beautiful views I encounter to view later and share with others.
I have encountered and learned from the Interesting Ways series so many times and yet never thought about sharing it here. Then today I found this page by creator Tom Barrett where he includes links to all of them. This puts all the information he has put together at your fingertips
He has used Google presentations to create slides with uses and tips for using technology in the classroom, inviting others to add to the content. The result has been a rich resource of tested-in-the-classroom ideas for a wide range of topics. Examples of topics include using audio, the Wii, Twitter, Prezi, or Google Docs in the classroom; and supporting spelling or writing in the classroom. This morning I was looking at Twelve Interesting Ways to Use an iPod Touch in the classroom,; I found things I had never considered and a piece of technology I did not know about, a way to share audio from a single iPod Touch with 5 students.
Note that since content may be added as teachers share their ideas, the number in the title may change. For example, the link I found and used to the iPod Touch presentation specified "Eleven," while the current count is up to twelve. By the time you look, it may be at thirteen!
If I weren't already so invested in Blogger, I would switch to Posterous. In fact, I might even think about doing that anyway. Blogging just doesn't get any easier, especially if you want the ability to use or embed almost any kind of media in your posts.
What makes it so easy? First, there's no registration, no login requried. Second there's no post creation interface: you simply send an email to Posterous. Third, there's no uploading: you simply attach any photos, videos, audio, etc. to the post email. Fourth, if you include a link to, say, a YouTube video, the video will automatically be embedded into the post. Begin to see what I mean?
If you want to get fancy, you can use Posterous to distribute audio podcasts via iTunes. If you want to autopost to Twitter or Facebook, or your photos to Flickr, you can set that up pretty easily, too.
Your site can be private if you wish; you can simply password-protect it and send the password to anyone you want to share it with. Or, if you want a group of people to be able to post (and posting is so easy anyone who can email can do it), you just add their addresses to your site; they don't have to register or do anything extra.
A quick read of the FAQs will give you a better overview of Posterous' features. If you're not already blogging, this would be such an easy way to start! What are you waiting for?
TechRepublic is a wonderful source for nearly all things technology for me, and this tip really will be useful. In a nutshell, it will do a quick look up for you in a matrix of data. For example, I have a huge...well, really large...spreadsheet of codes and other information for several hundred individuals. When I need to look up specific data for one individual, I do a find for the name and then look across to find the data, which may be a few columns over. Using the tip in this TechRepublic article, I can prepare the spreadsheet in advance so that I can use drop-down lists for the particular individual and column I want, and the data I need, located at the intersection of that row and column, will "magically" appear at the top of the spreadsheet.
While this is not a beginner operation, it is something even a beginner can do; the directions are very specific and accurate. I had trouble grasping what it would do from reading the text, so I created an identical spreadsheet and followed the steps. It works like a dream. (See results, with my notes of what it does, at left.) If this is something you could use, give it a try. It could be a real timesaver.
I've been looking for a different online bookmark manager, and today I stumbled across one by accident that I think will serve my purposes. I wanted something other than a social bookmarking site that would let me 1) organize the bookmark list in some easy fashion and 2) share it with either selected individuals or everyone. Symbaloo does that, and with a flair!
Symbaloo bookmarks, available using any Internet device, are shown as tiles, so many can be seen at one time (on my screen, I can see 42 at once). Tiles can be configured to display a name and an icon--theirs or your own--and can be given one of eight colors. Tiles for common sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and the Weather Channel are pre-made and ready to be added, but you also can add your own easily.
A Symbaloo bookmark page is called a webmix. Tiles can be organized by color and location on one webmix, and you can further organize by using multiple webmixes, accessible by tabs. For example, I have a Home webmix and will have a Shopping webmix, an Education webmix, and so on.
In addition to bookmark webmixes, you can also have feed webmixes, so Symbaloo could also serve as a basic feed aggregator.
The only disadvantage I can find so far is that you cannot add any descriptive text to the tiles, but I think I can live with that.
You might be interested in how I ran across this. Following a trail of links as I was reading, I came to an Edu-Demics post/article entitled "Watch the Amazing Way a 7th Grader Spends Her School Day Online." You'll be able to get a good view of Symbaloo if you'll take a minute to view the included YouTube video of the young lady explaining the PLN she devised. Wow! As I found when I was teaching, we can learn a lot from savvy young people!
Though screensavers aren't really needed to protect monitors anymore, this article from MakeUseOf suggests 10 creative, functional ways to use screensavers.
A lot of people already know to use a password-protected screensaver to lockdown their computers when they're away from their desks. Be aware, though, that that might cause problems for IT people who might need to work on your computer. Just have to mention that since it's happened to me before! :-)
Depending on your operating system, the "desktop art gallery" may be quite easy to accomplish, and that can be quite soothing when you are working in a windowless office.
Using an art gallery of motivational "posters" is a neat idea. A word cloud for "motivational triggering life goals," as mentioned in the article, can be created easily using Wordle (see Tagul and Wordle).
If you're into RSS feeds, Twitter, or Digg, incorporating one of them into a screensaver might be something you'd like.
I find the suggestions in "Screensaver & Learning" to be intriguing.
If you're on a business/school network, you might check with your IT people on any suggestions that could pull data/images continually from the Internet as there may be some bandwidth issues to avoid.
I think it might be time for me to bring screensavers back for a trial after reading this one!
Wow! I have put information in a Word table simply for the purpose of sorting. Or sometimes I have used Excel and then copied and pasted into Word. In Office 2007, at least, you don't even have to use a table to use the Table/Sort option. Check this blog post at TechRepublic for details. Cool!
MakeUseOf.com comes through again. One of the top articles of the week this week was 5 Best Sites to Help Students Prepare for the SATs, and some of these sites would be good for students' general use as well.
I particularly like two of the math sites, both of which are FREE. PurpleMath is an algebra help site which also includes coverage of "preliminary topics" and has good textual explanations.
For video presentations of mathematics lessons, TV Math has directions similar to those which would be given by a teacher in the classroom and includes material from both general math and algebra. Each topic is available from multiple presenters, so students have some choice.
I also like the FREE vocabulary site, Vocab Test. Vocabulary for individual grade levels is included, and students can choose to "learn" before the take the "test" part of a particular word/prefix/suffix section. In addition, the site allows the user to create his/her own quiz.
Check the MakeUseOf article for information about and links to the other two sites it mentions.
This is sofware I will definitely use. We recently needed to convert some MP4 files to WMV, and one of our teachers told us about Format Factory, FREEWARE multipurpose file conversion software for Windows. I tried it out, and it's great. Its functions (copied from the website) are:
All to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF.
All to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV.
All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA.
Rip DVD to video file, Rip Music CD to audio file.
MP4 files support iPod/iPhone/PSP/BlackBerry format.
Supports RMVB,Watermark, AV Mux
Thanks, Marcus, for sharing this one. It's going to prove useful for several projects I have in mind.
One of my new favorite sites is MakeUseOf, because I have learned so many interesting things from their lists and guides. I have subscribed to and actually read their weekly best-articles-of-the-week newsletter. This week's find was a list of semantic search engines, which use context or other means of filtering search results to key in on what you're actually searching for. I'm not going to try to describe or add to...just here's the link to MakeUseOf's Top 7 Semantic Search Engines as an Alternative to Google. I am so looking forward to trying these out!
While you're there, look around the MakeUseOf site. I'll bet you'll find something you can use.
I was creating a form in Excel for a friend this morning and wanted to have her take a look to see if she liked its appearance and suggest any changes. I won't be seeing her for a few days, and she is not very comfortable with computers, so sending her an attachment was not going to be the best option. In looking for a way to let her easily view a PDF version, I tried Zoho Viewer. While Zoho is a complete suite of productivity, collaboration, and business applications, I won't attempt to address those in this post. Instead the focus will be on Zoho Viewer.
It really couldn't be easier. All you have to do is browse to select your document, indicate how long you want it to be available from their server (1 day-"do not expire"), and click the view button. From the viewer you have option of saving the file, sharing it (put in an email address and a message, and off it goes), embedding it (code is generated for embedding the document itself or a link), and printing it. From the email or the link, someone who views the document has the same options.
For presentations, text documents, and spreadsheets, you have the additional option of exporting it to any of the supported formats appropriate for that type of file. For the spreadsheet, even the charts exported as editable charts.
File formats supported include MS Office, OpenDocument, and OpenOffice formats as well as pdf, rtf, html, txt, and csv. The Excel example on the site shows that it will display multiple sheets in a workbook. A PowerPoint presentation can be viewed as a slideshow (no animations or transitions) or exported to any of the above-mentioned presentation formats.
I was not successful in obtaining an acceptable view of a document with several images included, probably because of the layout specified for them within Word. This was my only failure. The solution in this case would have been to upload a pdf version of the document.
This is so quick, easy, and clean. To make it even better, there is no registration required! I think this is a great way to share a static document simply for viewing or for downloading, or to share a document via email without having to use an attachment. Nice!
There have often been times when I needed some music to add to a video, Photo Story 3 creation, or PowerPoint slide. If I didn't have the right style or sound, or if I wanted a clip to fit a short span, I found one website which often fit the bill, but that was about it. The advent of the Creative Commons license, however, has brought about some new alternatives. In finding music for projects, you have to be careful about giving students too may options, especially if they're like me. The less structured the site, the more time I spend listening to find just the right music. The first two sites listed provide a method of narrowing down your options, which helps. If you have some time, though, browsing through these can be kind of fun.
Freeplay Music has been around for a long time, and still does very well what it sets out to do: provide short clips for video productions. It presents a large number of instrumental selections in wide variety of styles and moods. Each composition is available in 10-, 15-, 20-, 30-, and 60-second clips, very useful for video broadcast productions. You can search by style (e.g. ambient, baroque, drum & bass, funk) or feel (e.g. building/tension, cinematic, driving, hopeful), or you can browse through albums.
A newer player is in the royalty-free music game is Jamendo. This site is not designed for video production but could easily serve as a source for background music. Jamendo is a venue for artists to share their compositions and performances for others to use and enjoy. You can browse by artist or album, or you can select a "radio" for your choice of style (e.g. metal, jazz, lounge). If you scroll to the bottom of the home page, you will see an option to search using tags. This may be the easiest way to filter the content to find what you're looking for. Each piece has a brief description to help you see if it might be what you need or want. I've heard some nice music here.
Moby Gratis is a section of moby.com "for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short." You simply browse the text list by title, play, and download. If you want to use any of the selections for commercial purposes, you can apply for a license; otherwise it's free. You do have to create an account for Moby Gratis, and it asks for a lot of information, including address; I suppose this is so they will have the information needed if you want to license a work. You have to guess the style of music by title, but, again, there is some nice music here, though this site has a much more limited selection than the previous 2. It is also entirely textual.
The last site for today is ccMixter , "a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want." To search for music you'll actually go to digg.ccMixter. I have not thoroughly browsed this site, but there seems to be a lot here. I really liked the first instrumental I listened to, and it was something I would use.
I know there are other sites, but this is more than enough for today! Happy listening...or searching.
I have been using Creative Commons (CC) licensed photos for some time now, finding them by using Flickr's advanced search option. Compfight is a website that makes that search easier and much quicker. Basically, all you have to do is to click beside "Creative Commons" to change the parameter to "Only," enter your search tag, and click "Search." Click on your chosen photo to open it in Flickr, where you can check the CC details, and then view sizes to choose to download one or to use the link to the size of your choice. You can then copy and paste the URL or CC code to complete the attribution requirement.
You can also further define the search by using Seek Original, which refers to the size of the image: "Only" will limit results to images saved in their original size, "On" will display images of all sizes, with an informational blue bar giving dimensions of those which are not original size, and "Off" will display images of all sizes without the blue bar. Your search results can also be filtered by using a Safe Search to display only images which are safe for work.
If you aren't familiar with the Creative Commons license, it is a license granting a set of baseline rights to the owner and requiring the work (image, video, audio, text) to be attributed to the original author. I won't go into details here, but basically, for a licensed work, you will see the CC logo along with a description of the guidelines for use. You are then given the opportunity and responsibility to use the work according to those guidelines. A CC license can be obtained for no cost from Creative Commons. When creating a license, the owner can decide if he or she wants others to have the right to use the work commercially and if others will be allowed to modify the work.
Sometimes it's not easy to find an agreeable time for a number of individuals to meet. If you don't already have software that facilitates this, When is Good is an incredibly easy, FREE solution. There's no registration, no sign-up. How often do you see that! All you do is mark the dates/times that work for you and record a results code. Then you send to others an email with a link to the site. They see your times and mark those that would work for them. Finally you go back to the site, enter the results code, and you'll see a calendar with the days/times that are available for all.
I have used Doodle before, but I think this is easier. Next time I need it, I'll be using When is Good!
I have used Zamzar for a long time and just realized that I have never posted it here. This site will do a greater variety of conversions than most others I have seen and so can be quite useful.
This is my preferred site for converting YouTube or "otherTube" movies to a format (.mov, .wmv, .flv, or other) I can save to view/show offline; use the "Download Videos" tab for this. All you need to do is to paste the URL (Internet address) of the video in the first box and choose your preferred file format. If you have a video file on your computer you want to convert to another format, Zamzar will do that, too. The audio from these videos can also be converted to .mp3 or other audio format if you don't want or need the video portion.
For converting PDFs to .jpg, however, I use ConvertPDFtoImaGe.com. The site does other conversions, too, as described in an earlier post. Rather than email the converted file to you, this site allows you to simply download it once the conversion is complete.
For conversions other than video and PDF to .jpg, you may want to compare for yourself to see which you prefer.
Are you looking for an online app to use in the classroom or for personal use? I've always used a Google search to find Web 2.0 tools, but from now on I'll probably try Web 2.0: Cool Tools for Schools first. This is a wiki which provides links to cool Web 2.0 tools. Choose from the listed categories (e.g., presentation , converting, audio video, organizing, mapping) and you will be presented with an easy-to-read table of sites with a brief description of each.
Don't forget that since this is a wiki, you can add any cool tools you like that aren't already there.
The wiki does not include any kind of ranking, review or recommendation. This means you'll be trying everything out for yourself, but it does give you a quick starting point.
UNFORTUNATELY, eTRADE HAS ENDED THEIR "BABY" CAMPAIGN AND NO LONGER MAKES THE BABYMAIL APP AVAILABLE. (added August 2013)
My last several posts have been way too serious, so I think it's time for some fun. Who doesn't like the eTrade babies ads? Well, I'm sure there are some, and if you're one who doesn't, you won't be interested in this post. For the rest of you, eTrade has posted a little app, BabyMail, that will let you create your own short message to be delivered by one of their little cuties (or your own, though I haven't tried that one out). You can create your own BabyMail below!
Leslie Edwards shared this on her The WebFooted Book Lady blog after finding it on the Techno Constructivist blog, where Carl Anderson used it to share six reasons for using social networking in schools. You can learn about all kinds of things by reading blogs!
Posts
