High Techpectations

Friday 5: Cool Sites

For the past month, I've been babbling about interesting web sites for kids and teachers at Vocalo.org (http://vocalo.org/), Chicago's first user-generated content radio station. It's an initiative of our local NPR affiliate and it broadcasts on the internet and at 89.5 if you're in the Chicago/Northern Indiana area. The station is a really interesting concept and I think a sign of the ways things will go with radio. Anyway, I thought I'd share 5 of my favorites from this series with you today. Enjoy! 1) Eduweb's Portfolio http://www.eduweb.com/portfolio/portfolio.php Interactive games for kids 2) Sumo Paint http://www.sumopaint.com/home/ A free online image editing tool 3) WildEarth.tv http://www.wildearth.tv/home Great webcam tours of a wildlife reserve in South Africa 4) The National Day of Writing http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting Starting in October, you can contribute to your own gallery of writing! This is a great initiative to focus on all kinds of writing. 5) Interactive Exhibits from the Library of Congress http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/Pages/default.aspx Explore primary source materials and much more at this very cool and creative site.

Obnoxious Online Marketing Tactics?

I'm preparing to write a blog post in which I'd like to incorporate the input from my personal learning network friends, so I've been posting the link to this survey in multiple places including Twitter, the Future of Ed ning, and Classroom 2.0. I'm wondering where to draw the line with this... when it does become obnoxious to see the same material in several spots online?

As I logged into EdWeek's Digital Directions ning this morning after following a tweet from EdWeek forum panelist Barbara Treacy, it occurred to me that by posting in lots of places, I may be joining a practice that I have long abhorred. I saw on the front page of this ning posting of a man pushing a product. He left comments on several members' pages, essentially cutting and pasting his message. 

This man, who shall remain nameless, has done this for consistently for the past few years. In fact, when he did this on the Global Education Collaborative, which I run, I asked him about his intentions and then banned him from the group when he did not reply. There is now another woman posting events that use this same product fairly often. I did a search for her name and she's an SEO expert and has been posting the same information about this same product in multiple Ning communities. I did write to her expressing my concerns and she said she'd curtail her postings.

When I've inquired on Twitter about the practices of the aforementioned man and the product he is pushing, I've heard from extremely reputable educational technologists who think the product is legitimate and that this guy is really a teacher. The more I see his name and his canned message pop up, though, affirms my doubts that he is a spammer. And frankly, I will not even look at a company's product if they resort to these kinds of marketng tactics. It takes away from the authenticity of relationships in these online communities and the lack of transparency creates makes me think this company is not trustworthy.

So, am I going in this same direction by posting in many places in line in order to reach as many people as possible? It's a fine line, but the bottom fine line is that I am not profiting from anything and I genuinely want to gather input from as many of my online colleagues as possible. 

UPDATE: I dug around a bit and it turns out that this aforementioned man who pastes canned messages on Nings is the US business development executive for this India-based company. Supposedly he works in a high school, but I couldn't find a faculty directory on his school's web page. My problem is that he is NOT transparent in his postings that he WORKS for this company and he is pasting generic messages on people's pages. He is not even engaging in conversations and mentioning his product in context. I would not have a problem if he was transparent with his consultancy, but I clearly recall asking him if he worked for this company and I received no response.

Midwest Tech Forum 2009 Handout

Check out the handout for my portion of the Web 2.0 panel at Tech Forum Midwest tomorrow! This is intended to be a short overview of Web 2.0 and its implications for education. I've also included some web sites and readings for further exploration. Lucy Gray • Tech Forum - Midwest 2009

Publish at Scribd or explore others: How-to-Guides & Manu web2.0 tech

Lucy's List: March Update to Interesting Twitterers to Follow

I published a list awhile ago of recommended people to follow if you are just getting started with Twitter. I'm appending that list in this post and my suggestions reflect a wide variety of Twitterers, not just people involved in the field of education. I find it fascinating the many ways people have chosen to use this tool.

Have fun exploring and feel free to list any other recommendations in the comments section of this blog! I've posted these suggestions in no particular order.

http://twitter.com/pbslearningnow

http://twitter.com/garystager

http://twitter.com/cogdog

http://twitter.com/cnansen

http://twitter.com/AngelaMaiers

http://twitter.com/paulawhite

http://twitter.com/presentationzen

http://twitter.com/KathySierra

http://twitter.com/johndavitt

http://twitter.com/OERCommons

http://twitter.com/cshirky

http://twitter.com/digidirections

http://twitter.com/mwesch

http://twitter.com/ISTEGlobal

http://twitter.com/tackychristmas

http://twitter.com/CelebSightings

http://twitter.com/WildEarth

http://twitter.com/Twitter_Tips

http://twitter.com/nytimestravel

http://twitter.com/mmuir

http://twitter.com/iPhone_alerts

http://twitter.com/newmediac

http://twitter.com/tedtalks

http://twitter.com/NOW_on_PBS

http://twitter.com/pbsengage

http://twitter.com/librarycongress

http://twitter.com/google

http://twitter.com/googlereader

http://twitter.com/cchausis

http://twitter.com/SJQOTD 

http://twitter.com/TheOnion

http://twitter.com/teach42

http://twitter.com/newmediajim

http://twitter.com/acarvin

http://twitter.com/zephoria

http://twitter.com/kanter

http://twitter.com/ewanmcintosh

http://twitter.com/shareski

http://twitter.com/SantaClaus

http://twitter.com/Techmeme

http://twitter.com/Riptide_Furse

http://twitter.com/mashable

http://twitter.com/jonnygoldstein

http://twitter.com/willrich45

http://twitter.com/edtechtalk

http://twitter.com/fastcompany

http://twitter.com/coolcatteacher

http://twitter.com/Pistachio

http://twitter.com/mscofino

http://twitter.com/UstreamTV

http://twitter.com/mediasnackers

http://twitter.com/TwitterLit

http://twitter.com/MacLife

http://twitter.com/TwitterMeThis

http://twitter.com/kathyschrock

http://twitter.com/langwitches

http://twitter.com/edubloggercon

http://twitter.com/smartinez

http://twitter.com/BeckettsDad

http://twitter.com/Lifehacker

http://twitter.com/ekornblut

http://twitter.com/QueenofSpain

http://twitter.com/digitalteacher

http://twitter.com/Westleyf

http://twitter.com/guykawasaki

http://twitter.com/KidderLit

http://twitter.com/torres21

http://twitter.com/joebjr

http://twitter.com/senatorgrant

http://twitter.com/vbek

http://twitter.com/alexanderrusso

Group Linkrolls in Diigo

Just noticed a new feature in Diigo .... linkrolls for bookmarks saved by people in a group! Here are the links saved by people using Diigo at iSummit, which for the moment is just me! :)

A Few People to Follow in Twitter

I sent a list to a colleague new to Twitter today, and I thought I'd share it here. I selected people I'm following that might interest Sydney. She's an extremely talented performing arts teacher, very artsy and cool. This list will give her a range of what you can do with Twitter. So, this is sort of my recommended list of people to start following plus a few others that I thought might specifically interest her. Any others you'd add?

http://twitter.com/Tim_Gibbons
http://twitter.com/teach42
http://twitter.com/BarackObama
http://twitter.com/newmediajim
http://twitter.com/acarvin
http://twitter.com/zephoria
http://twitter.com/kanter
http://twitter.com/ewanmcintosh
http://twitter.com/shareski
http://twitter.com/SantaClaus
http://twitter.com/Techmeme
http://twitter.com/Riptide_Furse
http://twitter.com/mashable
http://twitter.com/jonnygoldstein
http://twitter.com/willrich45
http://twitter.com/edtechtalk
http://twitter.com/fastcompany
http://twitter.com/coolcatteacher
http://twitter.com/Pistachio
http://twitter.com/mscofino
http://twitter.com/UstreamTV
http://twitter.com/mediasnackers
http://twitter.com/TwitterLit
http://twitter.com/MacLife
http://twitter.com/TwitterMeThis
http://twitter.com/kathyschrock
http://twitter.com/langwitches
http://twitter.com/edubloggercon
http://twitter.com/smartinez
http://twitter.com/BeckettsDad
http://twitter.com/Lifehacker
http://twitter.com/ekornblut
http://twitter.com/QueenofSpain
http://twitter.com/digitalteacher
http://twitter.com/Westleyf
http://twitter.com/guykawasaki
http://twitter.com/KidderLit
http://twitter.com/torres21
http://twitter.com/tavissmiley
http://twitter.com/joebjr
http://twitter.com/senatorgrant
http://twitter.com/cheyne4cy
http://twitter.com/vbek
http://twitter.com/alexanderrusso

UPDATE:

This isn't supposed to be a Best Of list... just some suggestions custom tailored for Sydney. It includes people in her industry, a few of our current colleagues, funky people I think she'd be interested in follow. It's also just a basic list to get start with, and my advice would be to listen to these people's twitter conversations and figure out who other people that are worth listening to!

My Twitterverse had a couple of other suggestions:

http://twitter.com/cburell
http://twitter.com/wfryer
http://twitter.com/featheredflower
http://twitter.com/Luke1946

Two Cool Things Via Twitter Today

1) Via Guy Kawasaki

Graffit Creator

2) Via Christian Long via Alan Levine:

Wordle

Here's a Wordle of my del.icio.us links:

Weblogg-ed » Amazing Add-on for Blogs: Apture

Link: Weblogg-ed » Amazing Add-on for Blogs: Apture.

Just added Apture, not to be confused with Apple's Aperture, to my blog after reading Will Richardson's post today. If you look at my blog directly, and not through an RSS reader, you'll see little icons next to some hyperlinked text. These icons indicated that I've linked to additional media using this cool little doodad.

Apture is a widget that allows a blogger to add assorted links and media to anything on their blog. I just added the widget with a click in Typepad, but some people may have to posted a snippet of HTML code if they use another blogging service. Once I added Apture, I visited my blog, and a couple of windows popped up. One is a control window for editing my blog pages in Apture, and the other was a quick video tutorial on Apture. Without going in and editing the body of my blog posts, I add links and additional content to my blog. All I have to do is highlight some text and a window appears allowing me to select this stuff. It's really a different interface for editing my blog.

Some people responded in Will's blog comments that this should be used judiciously as these pop up windows can be annoying when reading a blog. I don't think these windows to be as irritating as Snapshots as they are easily expanded or collapsed. Many people have also commented that this add-on would be useful with content-driven webpages used with students. It's an effective way of annotating text and providing support for students with digesting material.

Robomance: An iStopmotion Production

Fellow ADE Dan Schmit and I attended a stop motion workshop at Macworld sponsored by Boinx software, the creators of iStopMotion. The workshop was held at the Zeum, a very cool digital technology space for kids. For pictures of how the Zeum sets up its space for visiting school groups to do stop motion animation, check out my Flickr photos.

Here's our first attempt at this type of animation. We used previously created figures from the Zeum.

Friday 5: Pageflakes

I've been wrestling with a quick and easy way to direct students to relevant web sites. Our new web site management system is great, but a little clunky for quickly adding links. We have a wiki that will serve as a repository for curricular resources, but again, it takes time to add links to this. I also have envisioned one page of links for kids to reference, so that little ones in particular do not have to do a lot of web browser navigating.

So, the other day after speaking with technoguru principal, Tim Lauer, about how he keeps web sites up to date on his school's machines, I decided to try Pageflakes (http://www.pageflakes.com/).

Here is a tutorial wiki on Pageflakes that explains everything you
need to know:

Techwithme: PageFlakes for Education
http://techwithme.pbwiki.com/PageFlakes+For+Education

And, here are the ones I created for teachers at NKO focused on
currently taught math topics:

NKO Pageflakes Home
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19739953

PreK-1 Cluster
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19741294

2-3 Cluster
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19739840

4-5 Cluster
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19739844

Research and Resources
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19739845

Fun For Kids
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19739851

Teacher Sites
http://www.pageflakes.com/NKO/19739930

These pages are works in progress, so stay tuned!

Wishing you all a happy and healthy New Year,

Lucy Gray

P.S. - Remember you can subscribe to the Friday 5 via email at http://groups.google.com/group/friday5!

Kwout

Someone mentioned Kwout yesterday on Twitter, and I ran across this Web 2.0 app again in del.icio.us today. It lets you cut out portions of web sites and gives you embeddable code for your blog etc. There's a convenient bookmarklet to help the process, too. Also, note that this is an image map. Click on any of the links in this image, and you'll go to the corresponding web site.

Here's a picture of the Friday 5 link on Mashable today:

Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog via kwout

Friday 5: Year in Review

Hi Readers -

My New Year's resolution is to try and get back in the habit of publishing Friday 5 lists on a consistent basis! Here are a few sites I've collected to ring in the New Year.

See you next year,

Lucy Gray

-----

1) The Condition of Education 2007
http://nces.ed.gov/Pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007064

2) Year in Review 2007 - Special Reports from CNN
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/year.in.review/

3) AFI's Top 10 Movies of 2007
http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/12/16/afis-top-10-movies-of-2007/

4) 100 Notable Books of the Year - 2007 - New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/notable-books-2007.html

5) Internet TV: 2007 Year in Review | last100
http://www.last100.com/2007/12/17/internet-tv-2007-year-in-review/

6) The 100 Best Songs of 2007: Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17601363/the_100_best_songs_of_2007

7) 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 - TIME
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/0,30576,1686204,00.html

8) Google Zeitgeist 2007
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist.html
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2007/

Google publishes lists of the most popular search queries, which give you an indication about the public mind set during 2007. It's scarily fascinating! At the end of each section in this year's zeitgeist is a practical tip on how to refine your searches.

9) Lifehacker Zeitgeist 2007
http://lifehacker.com/software/feature/lifehacker-zeitgeist-2007-335359.php

Mashable and Lifehacker are two of the most practical web sites out there. I highly recommend skimming these sites on a regular basis.

10) Ask Lifehacker: How Can I Create a 2007 Timeline?
http://lifehacker.com/336387/how-can-i-create-a-2007-timeline

11) Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 New and Improved Apps of 2007
http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php

12) Mashable's Best Technology Quotes of 2007
http://mashable.com/2007/12/15/best-technology-quotes-of-2007/

13) Top Web Apps & Sites of 2007 - ReadWriteWeb
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_web_apps_of_2007.php

Another Hit: Google Docs in Plain English

Friday 5: Special Mystery Guest: ELL

Hi All -

Larry Ferlazzo has put together tremendous resources for teachers and students. He teaches Social Studies and English to English Language Learners and native-English speakers at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, CA.  He was named the Grand Prize Winner of the 2007 International Reading Association Presidential Award For Reading and Technology.  He has a website with over 7,000 categorized links accessible to English Language Learners and younger native English speakers at http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/english.html and a blog (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/) where he daily shares new content added to the website. A few months ago, I shared his student examples page (http://www.bayworld.net/ferlazzo/Student%20Work.htm l) with Friday 5 readers; it's helpful because I'm always seeking concrete examples of student technology use. Thanks, Larry, for sharing your expertise with us!

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com
-----

   

1) Oxford University Press -- Student   Sites

http://www.oup.com/elt/students/?cc=global

 

Hundreds, and probably thousands, of online   English language development activities for all levels.

 

 

2) Peace Corps English Teaching Manuals

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=library.language

 

I think the teaching manuals the Peace Corps   has developed for teaching English as a second language are extraordinarily   helpful to teachers.

 

 

3) Starfall

http://www.starfall.com/

 

The best online site to teach reading to   beginning English Language Learners or young native speakers to read..

 

 

4) Dvolver Moviemaker

http://www.dfilm.com/live/moviemaker.html

 

A great site for students to develop their   writing skills in a fun and creative way by creating simple movies.

 

 

5) Hello World English

http://www.hello-world.com/English/EN_English.php

 

A site for beginning English Language Learners   to learn basic "survival" English.

 

 

6) English 180

http://www.english180.com/lessons.do

 

A very good site for both Beginning and   Intermediate English Language Learners with graduated lessons.

 

 

7) English Interactive

http://acacia.cnice.mecd.es/~agip0002/auro/inicio.html

 

Another excellent site for both Beginning and   Intermediate English Language Learners with exercises at various levels.
 
  -----
 
  You can subscribe to the Friday 5 at   http://groups.google.com/group/friday5 or read it in my blog:   http://elemenous.typepad.com.
 
 

Friday 5: Best of the 2007 Webby Awards

Hi All -

The Webby Awards were recently announced, and here are a few of my favorite sites culled from the long list of nominees and winners. Check out the entire list here if you would like more!

Thanks,

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com

-----

1) Poetryfoundation.org
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

This site has a great search tool: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poetrytool.html. One feature includes searching for poetry-related images within the foundation's Flickr groups.

2) Best Stuff in the World
http://www.thebeststuffintheworld.com/

#2 and #3 on this week's list fall under the category of social networks, sites that revolve around user generated content. Best Stuff in the World has people rate and compare anything and everything.

3) Last.fm - The Social Music Revolution
http://www.last.fm/

Listen to and buy music here at this site.

4) The Gapminder World 2006
http://tools.google.com/gapminder/

I think I've mentioned this site in a previous Friday 5, but it's worth another mention. This site uses graphics to represent data in interesting ways.

5) Smithsonian Photography Initiative
http://photography.si.edu/

This site has search capabilities which allow one to easily browse photos, create a personalized collection, and share it with others.

The Global Education Collaborative

Link: The Global Education Collaborative.

Excuse the multiple cross-postings on various listservs etc....

Please consider joining a Ning community on global education: http://globaleducation.ning.com/

At the National Educational Computing Conference to be held in Atlanta, Georgia this June, fellow Apple Distinguished Educator Julene Reed and I will be hosting a workshop on global collaboration. I plan on utilizing a variety of tools and resources throughout this hands-on class, including Ning, a service that allows one to establish a custom social networking site. I am hoping to seed this site with people and content in preparation for this workshop, and I would like to invite anyone to jump in and participate.

I've made a few prior attempts at creating an online meeting space for those interested in global collaboration which included the establishment of a .Mac group and a blog. While I still plan on posting to these resources, I think this environment might be more inviting because it allows for the posting of photos, videos, and RSS feeds. Users can make their own custom personal pages, contribute to discussion forums, network with other like-minded individuals, and comment on these features. I've been inspired by the success of Steve Hargadon's Classroom 2.0 and School 2.0 Ning communities, particularly by the forum conversations in the Classroom 2.0 one.

I also hope that this will also serve as a hub for anyone who will be presenting at conferences on various global education topics. Please consider uploading any relevant files including presentation slides. You can upload slides to sites such as SlideShare and Scribd, which I think, will give you the html code to embed videos in a Ning community. If you need help with any of this, just let me know.. it's pretty easy. Of course, you can probably also save slideshows as Quicktime files and upload them directly, too.

Please let me know if you have any questions...

The Friday 5 Search Engine

I've made a customized Google search engine using sites I commonly use when compiling Friday 5 lists. It's now listed on the left-hand side of my blog along with a box that allows people to subscribe to the Friday 5 in Google Groups. If you ask to contribute to this search engine, you can add relevant sites. It is also possible to add the search engine to your blog, homepage, or Google start page.

I can see teachers using Google Co-Op to make customized engines for various units of study. I think it's a pretty handy way to direct students research instead of just letting them loose on the Internet.

Friday 5: Creating Comics

Hi All -

I've been working with a science class this week in which kids are creating newspapers on genetically modified foods. Some kids are drawing political cartoons and I showed them how to scan their work, import these files into Comic Life and add fun touches including captions, speech bubbles, and various graphical enhancements. This project got me thinking about other useful tools for creating comics and thus, this week's theme was born!

Have fun exploring these tools!

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com

1) Comic Life

This is one of my favorite pieces of software, and I believe it comes installed on new Macs. iPhoto is integrated into Comic Life, and you can publish directly to a .Mac account as well.

2) ReadWriteThink: Student Materials: Comic Creator

This web site generally has great tools and lessons for students and teachers.

3) Make Beliefs Comix

This site seems kid friendly!

4) Comeeko

This site lets you create comics with photos. It is a social web site, too, meaning that you can rate and comment on users' comics if you choose. I would recommend using this site for teachers to possibly create materials, but NOT for student projects, as the content does not seem to be screened for the k-12 arena.

5) ToonDoo - The Cartoon Strip Creator

Again, this is a social site and you may want to take a look around this site before using it with students.

6) The Comic Book Project at Teachers College, Columbia University

I found this link while looking for comic resources, and it looks like an interesting project for hand-drawn comics. Take a look at the online gallery of student work.

Let’s make it a Good Friday for the blogging world : Thoughts From A Technospud

Link:  Let’s make it a Good Friday for the blogging world : Thoughts From A Technospud.

In response to a recent cyberbullying incident that's garnered a huge amount of attention, Jennifer Wagner of the Thoughts from  a Technospud blog has made a request of the those who blog. She is encouraging fellow bloggers to take a moment today to recognize other bloggers who have been supportive in the blogosphere. I'm not sure if I am supposed to comment in the blogs of these people, or comment in a post on my own blog, so I am going with the latter option and tagging it "cybercompliment". Here are the people I'd like to thank:

1) A marketing person for this landscaping company. I can't remember the marketing person's name, but she wrote me after reading a post I had written about Margate Park. Here is the link I actually referenced in this post that's now in a password protected blog. Anyway, this was the first time I realized that people really do indeed read and respond to blogs. Blogs as a way to connect with others was completely foreign to me.

2) Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen fame. He noticed a post I had written about a student presenting at the Apple Store and he incorporated the story into his own post. I had read Garr's stuff previously, so when I received an email from him regarding Sam, I was blown away. What was this business professor with a popular blog in Japan doing contacting me?!?!?!? Again, the reach of the blogosphere was evident and it made me ponder how the Internet has forever changed our ability to connect, network, and derive meaning from others around the world.

3) Tim Lauer and others who held a blogging workshop at NECC 2004 in New Orleans. This was really the first time I explored the concept of blogs.  Here's a post from Anne Davis's blog about that event.

Thanks again, everyone!

Letterpop

Link: Letterpop. This site was mentioned in my favorite, one-stop-everything listserv, EDTECH, yesterday. It looks like a really easy and FREE way to do a newsletter with templates that remind me of the ones used in Apple's Pages software. Thought I'd pass it on!

MacDevCenter.com -- Making Movies with the Apple iSight

Link: MacDevCenter.com -- Making Movies with the Apple iSight.

I saw this referenced on the eZedia web site and thought it was worth passing on. I used my built-in iSight camera to film the little movie in this blog of my son and his class teddy bear.

Flickr Tools on Flickrbits » The definitive collection of Flickr tools, plugins and API applications

Link: Flickr Tools on Flickrbits » The definitive collection of Flickr tools, plugins and API applications.

The other night I was looking for a particular Flickr plugin that I had installed on my home computer that allows for easy browsing of my Flickr pictures. I didn't have this doodad installed on my school laptop, so I browsed this Flickrbits list and found what I was looking for.. something called PicLens. There was a name listed to the link to the company page, and I immediately associated with a former student of my father's who was a year behind me in high school. I found his email address on the company web site, emailed him and lo and behold, it was indeed the same Alec Jeong! He does marketing for PicLens and Cooiris, both neat additions for the Safari web browser.

Resources Worth Mentioning

I've been audio and video chatting a great deal with fellow ADES recently, and I thought I'd pass on a couple of resources I've learned of via these conversations. First, check out Rae Niles' web site, and particularly this page. She's created simple video tutorials for basic thinks like CD burning. And, Judy Beaver recommmended a blog maintained by a colleage at the Punahou School as well as a book by Dr. Sally Shaywitz. Judy heard Dr. Shaywitz speak at this Learning and Brain conference. And, Judy and Kris Hill both discussed a reading intervention product called Fast ForWord that might be of interested to blog readers.

Friday 5: Best of IL-TCE

Friday 5: Best of IL-TCE

Hi Everyone –

Last week’s list is compiled from various presentations that I attended at the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators.

Stay tuned for this Friday’s list which should feature another special mystery guest…

Take care,

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com

1)    OhmyNews International

This citizen journalism site was highlighted in ADE Tim Wilson’s Web 2.0 presentation.

2)    My Friend Flickr

ADE Charlene Chausis presented on all the things one can do with the photo sharing site known as Flickr.

3)    Photofiddle

Cited by NYT columnist David Pogue during his digital photography workshop, Photofiddle lets you create interesting items from your own photos.

4)    Breaking the Myth of Megapixels – New York Times

According to Pogue, four or five megapixel cameras are sufficient for most users.

5)    The River City Project

My ADE friend, Steve Wagenseller, instant messaged me during my workshop with David Pogue and during our virtual conversation, he mentioned this site. It’s an online simulation described as “a multi-user virtual environment for learning scientific inquiry and 21st Century Skills”.

Friday 5: Online Teacher Networks

Friday 5: Online Teacher Networks

Dear Readers –

Last week, I spent a glorious day at Google’s New York office assisting with their new education initiative, the Google Teacher Academy. Participants in this day-long professional development event are now part of the Google Certified Teacher learning community, along with teachers from the first GTA held in Mountain View, California, late last year.

Google Certified Teachers are actively sharing ideas in a Google Group created just for them, and this has reminded me of the potential power of online communities. Virtual places can serve as support for teachers at any level, and it’s a huge convenience to participate in a professional development activity at anytime from any internet-connected computer. Judging from the enthusiasm of these Google Certified Teachers, educators are truly yearning for opportunities to connect and collaborate.

While the Google Certified Teacher program is open only to those who’ve participated in academies, there are many other places where teachers can find similar opportunities. For instance, my professional life has indelibly improved by my participation in the Apple Distinguished Educator program, which is currently taking applications for a new class of ADEs. The deadline is February 28, so consider applying as soon as possible! Please note that some of the communities cited in this week list do not require application for membership, however. There is something for everyone out there!

I suspect that Second Life probably also has some learning communities for teachers, too, but I have yet to dive into this virtual world. Maybe this summer I will take the plunge!

Have a great weekend,

Lucy Gray

1.    Tapped In
Create a virtual office in Tapped In and participate in various activities in this space.

2.    National Geographic Education Network

3.    EdWeek
EdWeek has several community tools within its extensive web site. Check out:

• Teachers with Cameras
• Ask the Mentor
• Teacher Blogs
• Teacher TalkBack

4.    Discovery Educator Network

5.    Golden Apple Foundation’s Teaching Excellence Network

Friday 5: Special Mystery Guest: Online Photo and Digital Scrapbooking Resources

Our second Friday 5 Special Mystery Guest is the incomparable Dr. Rae Niles, Director of Curriculum and Technology in the Sedgwick, Kansas and fellow Apple Distinguished Educator.  Her list on online photo resources refers to many sites of which I was previously unaware, and I am grateful for that she has chosen to share her wealth of knowledge with Friday 5 readers!

Sorry for the delay with this week's list; I was off in NY last week at the second Google Teacher Academy, and I'll have more to share about this event in a future Friday 5.

Take care,

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail.com

-----

Online Photo and Digital Scrapbooking Resources

1.  For creating my own books using my own photos, I am the first to admit that I love iPhoto. However; as of late, I am sold on using Photoworks   or producing high quality hard cover bound books!  Many times, coupons can be found for free shipping or a 5-15% off an order.  Normally, I search Deal Mac for links to Photoworks coupons.  Photoworks not only lets you upload your photos for printing, but also allows for the creation of some really cool present ideas for those "hard to buy for" relatives!

2.  Digital Freebies offers a very colorful website chockful of digital scrapbooking resources. In particular, I like the "Friday Freebie"  and the online weekly newsletter.  Not only does this site offer great ideas and examples of cool layouts for photos, it also has a forum for folks with questions about digital scrapbooking.

3.  Linda Sattgast not only offers a great website for those interested in digital scrapbooking, but also a great weekly ezine that includes a link to a "how-to" video on using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. I am not a digital scrapbooker, but I LOVE the weekly tutorials. To receive the tutorials, you need to sign up for the ezine.

4.  Snapfish  is another site similar to Photoworks that offers users an opportunity to upload photos and create items using the photos. One of our teachers at school has a latte mug/cup she made with photos of her children on it. It looks nice every morning on her desk with coffee in it.

5.  Winkflash is similar to Photoworks and Snapfish, too. I like some of the items available through the site that can be created from your own photos. 

ABOUT RAE

Dr. Rae Niles  is currently the Director of Curriculum and Technology for Sedgwick Public Schools in Sedgwick, Kansas.  Students at Sedgwick High School are in the fifth year of a one-to-one laptop computer initiative where every 10th, 11th, and 12th grade student has their own wireless Apple iBook.  She is an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) and serves on the national ADE advisory board. Rae was recognized as a published author on the Apple Learning Interchange in 2003 and named one of six National Technology Leaders in 2005 by the Technology and Learning Magazine.

Rae has worked with the Kansas State Department of Education on a five-year leadership project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help private, public, and parochial principals and superintendents across the state begin the educational change process in an effort to move Kansas education into the Digital Age. Most recently Rae has worked with McNeil Lehrer Productions in Washington, D.C. to help create digital content for students and also with Follett Education in Chicago.  She has also been invited as a panelist for the Learning First Alliance Summit this spring in Washington, DC this spring. Rae has been a keynote speaker and presenter for several state, national, and international conferences, including the CUE strand of MacWorld 2006.

Lucy's NICE Mini-Conference Resources

NICE Homepage

PDFs of My Two Presos:

Apple Global Awareness:

Download global_awareness.pdf

Google:

Download google.pdf

Essential Links:

Google For Educators
Rethink.Global Awareness

Document containing most links mentioned in both presentations: 

Download NICElinks.doc

Please email me if you have any questions!

Slideshow Using ImageShack

Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow
Just saw an example of a slideshow created with ImageShack on a student blog linked from ADE Mike Searson's iStory tour blog. Very cool! I grabbed these photos directly from my Flickr account to create this slideshow.  My after school class is starting a wiki, and I'm wondering if we could embed a slideshow like this in Wikispaces. I'm guessing the answer is yes...

Snipshot: Edit pictures online

Link: Snipshot: Edit pictures online.

I'm researching bookmarklets for this week's edition of the Friday 5 and I stumbled upon this very cool, very basic, and free web based photo editor. If you just need something quick to edit a photo, this might do in a pinch. Installing the bookmarklet is key. This doodad that you install in your browser's toolbar allows you additional functionality in that you can import a picture directly from Flickr, edit it, and then add the edited version to your Flickr account. It's a very painless process.

A Couple of Fun Things for Kids

Before I lose my mind and forget about these things, I thought I'd post a couple of fun things to do with kids.

My students this week showed me Line Rider, an interactive Flash game in which a user draws a path and when a play button is clicked,  a little person on a sled slides down this path, sometimes with disastrous results. These scenes can even be downloaded and sent to a mobile phone.  It turns out people really are into creating elaborate scenes and pathways as evidenced in this related collection at Squidoo. (Squidoo, by the way, is interesting, too. I discovered it via Typepad, I think, and you can essentially build a web page called a lens. You can add various web resources such as video and links to provide support for your topic. RSS feeds to Squidoo pages are available so that you can track comments and such about a page.) At any rate, I am contemplating how Line Rider and similar games could be incorporated into educational settings. I know from a computer science stand point that it would be great to have kids program such a game, but from a simulation perspective, how can such games be used in the classroom?

After discovering the joys of Line Rider, another student directed me to Ski Battle at Addictinggames.com. One of his classmates said that he thought Addictinggames.com had inappropriate stuff, but I haven't seen anything yet beyond the usual annoying banner ad. Ski Battle is very similar to Line Rider and you can add holiday music, snowflakes and animated characters. Ski Battle also gives you the code for your creations so you can embed a scence in your web site. Also, at Addictinggames.com, I noticed a Christmas e-card maker that may interest some kids.

Finally, as I was researching online video stuff for tomorrow's Friday 5, I browsed the Google Earth Blog and noticed this post about tracking Santa and a related game in Google Earth. The GE Santa tracker piece is not new, but apparently Sketch Up has been incorporated this. Sounds like fun and I am planning to try this with my kids. Too bad Santa won't let me open my Christmas present until the big day... a brand new iMac! Tracking Santa would look so much better on a big screen!

PictureSync - Photo Sharing for Mac OS X

Link: PictureSync: Photo Sharing for Mac OS X.

I stumbled upon PictureSync yesterday while I was looking for info on iPhoto's file sharing capabilities. PictureSync lets you batch upload photos and video clips to a number of well known services. I tried it out first with Flickr and Shutterfly, and decided to buy a copy after I successfully and rather painlessly uploaded hundreds of pictures. It's particularly timely for me as I am working on my annual holiday cards and calendars in Shutterfly, and unfortunately, their Mac batch upload plugin does not work on Intel based Macs.

Friday 5: Widgets in Education

Widgets are mini-applications that can be employed to make your working life more efficient. The Mac operating system, known as OS X, includes Dashboard, a piece of software that runs and manages widgets. Yahoo also has a widget engine which runs on PC and Mac desktops. This week’s list is primarily focuses on Dashboard widgets for OS X. I've also included a screenshot of my Dashboard.

The impetus behind this week’s list is that I decided that a list of educationally usefully widgets would be helpful to educators, particularly those who are implementing 1 to 1 laptop programs. There are also sorts of widgets out there that can potentially enhance learning including ones containing dictionaries, words and facts of the day, calendars, converters, translators, and photos. Also, students absolutely are intrigued by widgets and you should be aware of these doodads from a classroom/laptop management point of view. Best of all, many widgets are free, although I’ve noticed a few shareware and commercially sold ones out there.

For more background information, I suggest you check out  a couple of Wikipedia articles on Yahoo’s Widget Engine (formally known as Konfabulator) and on Apple’s Dashboard software which also uses widgets. And, for a more in-depth history of Konfabulator widgets and Apple widgets, read this blog post from Daring Fireball.

Have fun exploring,

Lucy Gray
elemenous@gmail

Basics

1)    Yahoo! Widgets
http://widgets.yahoo.com/

Get the Yahoo engine widget here. You need this before running any Yahoo widget. There is a version for both PC and Mac users.

2)    Apple’s Dashboard Widgets
http://www.apple.com/macosx/theater/dashboard.html
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/

If you have a Mac running OS 10.4 (Tiger), you have Dashboard on your computer. View a demo of Dashboard and find widgets that run on Dashboard using the above links.

There are differences between Yahoo! Widgets and Dashboard widgets. They are created using different technologies and Yahoo’s widgets run on your desktop while Apple’s run in Dashboard.  Read the aforementioned Wikipedia article on widgets for more info.

Next Steps

3)    Listing of Education Widgets
http://widged.com/widgets/

Here’s a comprehensive list of widgets that could be used in school settings.

4)    Dashboard Widgets from ZDNet
http://tinyurl.com/ybgpbo

Google Macintosh Dashboard Widgets
http://www.google.com/macwidgets/index.html

5)    Voicenotes Dashboard Widget
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/voicenotes.html

This one is a demo and it costs $5.95. Check out the company web site for additional widgets: .

6)    Graphing Widgets for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/graphingwidgets.html

7)    Notepad Widget for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/notepadwidget.html

8)    Stop-It! Widget for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/stopit.html

This widget is a count down timer.

9)    This Day in History Widget for Dashboard
http://www.5star-shareware.com/Mac/Dashboard/this_day_in_history.html

10)    The Periodic Table Widget for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/reference/theperiodictable.html

For Fun

11)     Pirate Translator for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/calculate_convert/piratetranslator.html

12)     Christmas Lights for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/games/christmaslights.html

13)     Basketball for Dashboard
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/games/basketball.html

Deep Dive

Apparently, it’s fairly easy to create your own widgets. Here are some sources for getting started.

14)     Developing Dashboard Widgets
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/dashboard.html

15)     Yahoo! Widgets – Workshop
http://widgets.yahoo.com/workshop/

Subscribe to the Friday 5 Google Group here.

The Apple Blog: Access any Mac menu with Quicksilver � LifeClever ;-)

Link:  The Apple Blog: Access any Mac menu with Quicksilver from  LifeClever ;-)
.

This blog post inspired me to try out Quicksilver tonight. Looks like now I'll have to waste time learning this in order to ultimately save time. :) Seriously, this is a nice app for navigating OS X and it's worth a look, particularly for power users.

Geek Out: 4 Cool Things Worth Checking Out

Before I completely lose my mind, I better note here in my blog a few techie things that I have tried out recently.

1) Feedburner - Feedburner is not a new thing at all, but for the longest time, I didn't quite get why I would want to run my blog's RSS feed through this Chicago-based service. I decided to explore Feedburner again after someone mentioned it during a conference call for the ITM. I discovered that I can use something called FeedFlares to add links to bookmark, email and share content at the bottom of each blog post. I haven't done this with the blog site itself as I'd have to break away from my Typepad template, but if you look at my blog in a newsreader, you'll see new links at the bottom of each post. I've always wondered how people did this! Also, Feedburner keeps stats on blog traffic, not extensively as StatCounter, but it gives me an idea of how many people are viewing my blog.

2) Adium - This application combines instant messaging services for Mac OS X users. Wes Fryer suggested this to me as I was having trouble getting Google Talk/Jabber to work for me in Chat.

3) Inquisitor 3 for Safari - Another Mac only app, this adds cool functionality to your Google search box in Safari. Thanks to Bruce Ahlborn for this and the next item!

4) Podomatic -  Bruce and I taught a podcasting workshop at National Louis University recently, and Bruce found this fabulous resource. Podomatic is a great place to host and publish podcasts. Best of all, a basic membership is FREE.  

I Am A Geek

Okay, I was going to post something about this in the Infinite Thinking Machine, but some people might find this overwhelming.

I love RSS. I love my newsreader NetNewsWire. I subscribe to feeds from a gazillion sites. I do not read them every day, but the headlines from these feeds are in NetNewWire just waiting for me if I have time. It is simply the BEST way to keep current in my field.

So, I just spent time cleaning up my newsreader, put new feeds into folders and deleting ones that are dead or don't seem to interest me much anymore. Being the generous person I am, I have put them into an .opml file so that others can see what an RSS nut I have become. So if you're looking for a little light reading, check out my feeds.

Download lucysfeeds1026.opml

You need to download this file and import it into the newsreader of your choice. I recommend Bloglines or Google Reader. It's interesting to use Bloglines for reading feeds because you can see how many others have subscribed to a particular feed. I like seeing what others are reading as I think it's a picture of a person's mindset. Send me your OPML file if you feel like sharing!

Apple of My Eye #4

It's been a few months since I've posted a referral list to posts that have caught my eye, so here are some headlines I've recently flagged in my newsreader.

1) My curiosity is piqued about how Web 2.0 technologies can be leveraged for students as many tools require registrants to be of a certain age. Two sites have appeared on the blogosphere horizon that might be worth checking out. One is Imbee, which I read about it this press release. The second is Studicious which I read about here. Via Net-Gold Yahoo! Group, there's something for librarians on the Web 2.0 front, too... an online course called Five Weeks to a Social Library.

2) Edtech guru Kathy Schrock gave a very nice closing session keynote at NECC this year, and I particularly liked the PSA projects that she highlighted. I plan on showing these videos to student in the next month or so when we start working on various iMovie projects.

3) I'm glad George Bush has gotten the hang of THE Google. Check out this    from Think Progress via Techmeme. The leader of the free world can't even remember the name of something extraordinary like Google Earth. Any middle schooler can tell you all about Google Earth! I must go look at Bush's ranch on Google Earth now and see if all the brush is cleared.

4) And finally from a blog called Photojojo, there is a reference to Zingfu, a site that offers silly templates for your digital pictures. It's not a completely kid friendly site in my book, though, but maybe I'm just getting old. It's defintely fun for grownups not adept at Photoshop.

EarthLink DSL and Home Phone Service : Don't Do It!

Link: EarthLink DSL and Home Phone Service.

Don't do it! It's too good to be true!

I am a longtime Earthlink customer and invariably something goes wrong with my DSL about once a year. Last year, the service was mysteriously taken off my phone line and it took weeks and many phone calls to get the situation rectified. I should have changed ISPs then, but I didn't want to be inconvenienced.

My service has been steady ever since, and of course, I bit when I saw this ad. It seemed like a great deal. One Earthlink rep told us it was not available to us, and another told us we were eligible to participate. So the order was placed and a few weeks later, our phone service went out and phone calls were diverted to a voicemail account. However, our phone in our house never rang. After about five days of phone calls and promises from Earthlink, they finally told us that this service was NOT available in our area and they are now promising to restore our phone service at no charge. I hope this is true, but I am not holding my breath. This has been a truly frustrating experience and a huge waste of time... this time for my husband who's been dealing with all of this... and I will never recommend this company again unless a minor miracle occurs. I am seriously considering moving to another ISP even though it would be highly incovenient. Argh.

tags technorati : Earthlink

iWriter – Create study tools for iPod in minutes

Link: iWriter – Create study tools for iPod in minutes.

News alert ! Cool new product! Just found out about this from my Apple friends at Closing the Gap... iWriter for iPods. I will try this out later, and I'm mentioning it here as I don't want to forget about it as I am having trouble adding bookmarks to Furl right now.

Friday 5: New Projects

Hi All –

Here are some newly launched initiatives worth checking out. Admittedly, some are shameless plugs for projects with which I am involved, but I think you will appreciate them nonetheless.

Next week, I am off to the Closing the Gap conference in Minnesota and hopefully will have some assistive technology resources to share with you next Friday.

Take care,

Lucy Gray

Two links in this week’s list come from Friday 5 reader James Lerman:

1)    Educational Hotlinks for New Teachers
http://tinyurl.com/zp4ee

2)    Educational Hotlinks for Middle School People
http://tinyurl.com/l5xst

More stuff related to Google:

3)    Google Accessibility
http://labs.google.com/accessible/

This search tool finds access friendly sites for those with visual impairments.

4)    Google for Educators
http://www.google.com/educators/index.html

Another resource from Google that resulted from several Google Educator Councils held around the country last spring. The purpose of these focus groups was to gauge the needs of teachers and several people from my school, including myself, participated in these meetings.

5)    The Infinite Thinking Machine
http://www.infinitethinking.org/

A new blog from WestEd and sponsored by you guessed it… Google… has debuted this week. An internet T.V. show is featured along with blog postings from various educators across the country, including moi.

6)   First Monday
http://www.firstmonday.org/

I attended an educational publishing event this week (AEP Midwest Seminar http://edpress.org/midwest/index.htm) and learned of this peer reviewed journal that sounds fascinating. While it’s not new, in fact it has been around since the early days of the internet, I thought people might like to check it out.

United Streaming Wishlist

Link: .

My students are developing a nice computer ethics and terms wiki in Wikispaces. Some of them are even embedding video from Google Video and You Tube. Wouldn't it be nice if they could do the same thing with United Streaming videos? Hmmmm.

tags technorati : united streaming, discovery learning, Google Video

Back to School Guide on Squidoo

Link: Back to School Guide on Squidoo.

Squidoo is a very cool site where one can build their customized "lens" on a particular topic. Check out this back to school example designed by an author of parenting books. I have the "Lens of the Day" sent to me via email and this was the selection for yesterday. It's probably the best one suited to my needs and interests that I have received yet as it's fully developed with helpful links and tips regarding the back to school season. I also love the interactive, Web 2.0 features on Squidoo including a rating system, RSS feeds, meta tags, and a comments section.

tags technorati : back to school, squidoo, education, web2.0

Educational Web Adventures (Eduweb)

Link: Educational Web Adventures (Eduweb).

This company has designed a number of fabulous interactive games for various institutions. Among my favorites are the The Artist's Toolkit , A. Pintura: Art Detective, and Amazing Reef. Awhile ago, I signed up to be a teacher tester and my students and I tried out a genetics web adventure designed for the Minnesota Zoo.

Right now, EWA is asking for help from adults and kids with their latest adventure and it involves a survey on how people learn and a series of short interactives. Click here if you'd like to particpate.

I haven't browsed their site in awhile, so I'm glad to see that there's a whole slew of sites to check out that I haven't seen before. I'm particularly interested in the U-505 one at the Museum of Science and Industry. This sub was captured by a distant relative during WWII!

tags technorati : interactive edtech eduweb

School's Out

School's out and I am ready for some adventure! I am pinching myself because the summer of a lifetime awaits me. In two weeks, my family and I will be traveling to San Diego so that I can attend NECC 2006 and so that we all can do the Southern California tourist thing... Sea World, San Diego Zoo, Disneyland etc.

And, I had this all planned before I knew about the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute for this summer which promises to be another amazing experience. We're traveling to Europe July 21 -31 to collaborate on a digital global awareness curriculum in conjunction with EF Tours. We will be addressing an essential question via four themes, and this curriculum will hopefully be published on Apple's web site in the fall.

At any rate, I plan to be blogging on a more regular basis now that I have some time. As instructed by David Warlick in a recent post regarding tags for NECC, I'm adding mine here:

tags technorati : NECC NECC2006

Here's to a fabulous summer ! Yay!

Kettle Moraine School District

I will be presenting a remix of my Wisconsin Ed Leadership preso to teachers and administrators in the Kettle Moraine School District on June 13th.

Here are some related resources:

Workshop handout:  Download Handout Here

My Blog: http://lucygray.org

My Web Site: http://homepage.mac.com/lucygray1/

Workshop Blog: http://tales-from-wales.blogspot.com/
To join this blog, workshop participants should send me an email at lgray@ucls.uchicago.edu.

Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
It is recommended that participants create a Bloglines account if they do not have one yet.

Here's  the main preso:  Download kmsd.pdf

And finally, here is the RSS preso:

Download rsspreso.pdf

Friday 5: Essential Sites for Teachers

Friday 10 : Essential Sites for Teachers

Hi All –

I’m working on a project for which I am compiling a list of web sites I consider to be great starting points for teachers. These sites are ideal for both novice and veteran teachers looking for new lesson ideas, teaching resources, and tools to facilitate the integration of technology into their curricula. My list is comprised approximately 60 such sites, and I thought I’d share with you my top 10 choices. Some are repeats from previous Friday 5 lists, but they are well worth revisiting. In the coming weeks, I will be publishing lists of essential sites for students and for various subject areas.

I apologize that I have not been sending out lists on a regular basis, but life has kept me busy!

Have a great end of the school year,

Lucy Gray
lgray@ucls.uchicago.edu

1)    Edutopia    
http://www.edutopia.org/
2)    New York Times Learning Network
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/index.html
3)    Scholastic    
http://www.scholastic.com/
4)    4 Teachers   
http://www.4teachers.org/
5)    Apple Learning Interchange    
http://ali.apple.com/
6)    S.C.O.R.E   
http://www.score.k12.ca.us/
7)    Michigan Teacher Network
http://mtn.merit.edu/
8)    Discovery School
http://school.discovery.com/
9)    Do 2 Learn   
http://www.do2learn.com/
10)    StartSpot Network
http://www.startspot.com/network/

Friday 5: Recent Random Finds

Friday 5: Recent Random Finds

Hi All –

Here’s a quickie Friday 5 list on some generally interesting sites I’ve come across recently. My sources usually include recommendations from colleagues, web blogs and print media. I’m still looking for ideas for future lists, global education links, and names of influential people in the field of educational technology. Submit any suggestions to me at lgray@ucls.uchicago.edu!

Thanks,

Lucy Gray

1) Gcast
http://www.gcast.com/

I read out about this podcasting service on Steve Denbo’s blog. You can even phone in your podcast and there’s copyright friendly music available, too!
Steve’s blog: http://www.teach42.com

2) DemoChoice Polls
http://demochoice.org/

This resource was mentioned in a blog post by Miguel Guhlin called Mousing Around. It looks interesting and useful, but I haven’t tried it out yet.
Miguel’s blog: http://www.mguhlin.net/blog/index.htm

3) Scholastic.com | Explore Your Earth
http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonplans/exploreyourearth/

I am not sure where I heard about this project for middle schoolers, but it sounds fabulous as activities involve Google Earth. And if you haven’t checked out Google Earth yet, you must be living under a rock (http://earth.google.com/) or an asteroid ! ☺

4) Their Circular Life
http://www.theircircularlife.it/

This interactive web site was suggested by fellow ADE Joe Morelock as part of our preparations for the ADE 2006 Institute.

5) Worldmapper
http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/index.html

View maps according to various vital statistics. Credit for mentioning this goes to the Librarian’s Internet Index : http://lii.org/.

*****
Subscription Info:

Subscribe at…

Topica
http://lists.topica.com/lists/friday5/?cid=373

OR

Yahoo! Groups
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/friday5/

OR

The Collaboratory Project
http://collaboratory.nunet.net/cwebdocs/

website: http://homepage.mac.com/lucygray1/Menu1.html
blog: http://elemenous.typepad.com/

Google Finance

Link: Google Finance.

Google Finance is in beta and it looks pretty useful. Type in Apple's symbol AAPL, for instance, and you get a lot of info at a glance, including recent blog entries. Very handy if you're into this sort of thing. The only thing missing as far as I can tell is there isn't an RSS feed available. Google News lets you subscribe to a feed of your specificied search terms... you'd think this would work the same way.

Spring Break Observations

I haven't had the time nor the inclination to write much these days. From the end of January until last week, life has been rather hectic. Starting with a trip to Apple in Austin on January, I raced from event to event just try to catch my breath. In between Saturday sessions of a digital storytelling workshop, my neck went out on me and then I had to contend with the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators. Why on earth I agreed to coordinate volunteers, co-present an all day workshop, conduct a general session and then do a preso in the Apple booth is beyond me.... but I have to admit I really enjoyed every minute. Now that I am on spring break, it's time focus on the home front a bit more.

Over the weekend, my family and I visited my husband's last living uncle in Michigan. Uncle Gerry is pretty ill with cancer, and my husband decided that we needed to pay his family a visit. Gerry is so lucky in the fact that his family is completely rallying around him... various relatives are flying in from all over the country and even Japan to visit. His immediate family is lovingly caring for him and making sure that he is comfortable. And what struck me the most was how happy Gerry was to be sitting and swapping family stories with the group of us that assembled over the weekend. He did not need anything special other than the companionship of those he loved most. I was also impressed with his wife's scrapbooking skills. Carolyn has made many albums apparently, and she showed us one that she made in tribute to Gerry's WWII experiences. She typed up his recollections, and included pictures, letters, certificates etc in this book. It was a great resource for this family. His son in law, Dan, also made a tribute video using Roxio and it was simply amazing. I think everyone in the room was in tears after watching this video commerating Gerry's life and in particular, the friendship between Dan and Gerry. How many men count their fathers in law as their best friend? It was so special, and I amazed by the bonds within this part of my husband's family. Our own small nucleus within this clan is nothing like this, and we learned a great deal from their example.

Anyway, seeing this video also provided me with an ed tech revelation. Rarely do I see people outside of my teaching world documenting things like family history in a digital storytelling fashion. Here was Dan, who is not a teacher or involved in the field of educational technology, coming up with this beautifully scored and organized video for his father in law. I was glad to see the transfer of such skills outside of the field of educational technology.... perhaps the general public is catching on to the power of digital media more than I first thought. I sent Dan some pictures tonight and I also included a link to Helen Barrett's site which has a lot of good info on preserving family history.

So..... My spring and summer look to be quite busy, but hopefully in a less frenetic way than this winter. I have a few exciting things appearing on my horizon of which I will blog about when the time comes!

iPod Resurrection

I thought my iPod's battery had finally gone kaput a few weeks. Fellow ADE Charlene Chaussis sent me the following piece of advice and it worked like a charm! So don't give up if your iPod seems to have a mind of its own! Thank you, Charlene!

"One more thing... you had mentioned your "dead" iPod. We have had a few that seemed to die but I was able to revive them using the "reset" instructions:

1. Connect your iPod to the iPod Power Adapter and plug the power adapter into an electrical outlet
2. Toggle the Hold switch on and off (slide it to Hold and then turn it off again)
3. Press and hold the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears (about 6 to 10 seconds). You may need to repeat this step.

BE SURE to place the iPod on a flat surface and use only one finger from one hand to press the Select button, and one finger from the other hand to press the Menu button. Plugging into the wall outlet and laying the iPod on the flat surface seems to be the keys to success.

Good luck!"

The Critical Eye | Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge

Link: The Critical Eye | Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge.

I'm teaching a digital storytelling class today, and one of my students happened to bring this device to class. He saved another student's project as a result as she has a dv camera that records straight to DVD. Nifty! Thank you, Dave!