Didja See This??

I love my PLN! (Personal Learning Network)

2009-02-25T21:31:00.005-07:00

Every day I learn new things from my personal learning network. Today I learned about this wonderful tool called Twitter Mosaic that creates a visual image of your friends and colleagues on Twitter that you can embed on a blog or wiki. It allows you to choose whether you want to include friends who follow you or all of your friends. You can also remove any images from the mosaic before you obtain your embed code (but I kept all of mine). I love having this visual reminder of all of the people who are helping me by sharing resources, answering questions and providing support/encouragement in my professional learning adventure. Check it out! Thanks to Patricia Hawkenson, a new Twitter friend, for sharing this on her website.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

PhotoPeach SlideShow Tool

2009-02-10T11:26:00.004-07:00

This photo video/slideshow was created with a free, online tool called PhotoPeach. It is a very flexible, creative, intuitive tool that makes it very easy to add photos and captions, select music, and they provide a way for viewers to add comments to the show. It is a Beta service right now, and they have been very responsive to requests from users for features. I'm excited to report that they responded to my request and have now included a way to delete comments (important for school use). If you make a typo or change your mind about a comment/caption you have added you can easily go back and delete it and re-enter it. You can add your comment about a specific photo. Even friends and family without a PhotoPeach account can add comments to your video. This suggests some very creative possibilities for student collaboration in creating a video and collaborating on photos, music and captions!

Express Import lets you import all new albums from your existing albums on other services and automatically convert them to PhotoPeach slideshows. I imported my photos from Picasa on Google and was amazed at how quickly they uploaded! Once they are imported you can remove individual photos from the album before you publish it. You are allowed up to 100 photos per video in the free account. For now with Express Import, your background music is chosen by the system, but you can change it afterwards from their extensive collection of music. If you use Express Import in the future, the system will auto-detect new albums, and import only albums that you did not import to avoid duplicates. They have lots of variety in the choices you can make for music but you can't yet upload your own music.

You can embed your video in a blog, wiki or website as well as export it to Facebook or via email. You can choose to make it public, unlisted or by invitation only. I especially like that the default is "unlisted" so YOU can make the choice whether you want it public or not. I was really happy to see that if you select to view the video in full screen view that it doesn't lose photo quality and it is a wonderful viewing experience!

I encourage you to take it for a spin! I think you're going to love it! I'm very excited about this tool and plan to explore the possibilities for different uses for the classroom. This is my first attempt to create a PhotoPeach slideshow. Feel free to add your comment to my slideshow if there's a photo you especially enjoy.

Dale Chihuly Exhibit-Desert Botanical Gardens on PhotoPeach

Flip video test message

2009-02-06T15:10:00.004-07:00

This is a test to see if I can upload a movie from my Flip Video camera to my blog.

Liz Kolb and Cell Phones in Learning

2008-11-22T13:59:00.002-07:00

I am a big fan of Liz Kolb and her incredible work and research concerning the use of cell phones in learning. I am a regular follower of her blog which is loaded with resources, and was very excited to purchase her new book called "Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education" published by ISTE. I especially value the fact that Liz includes lots of suggestions for using cell phones for learning outside of the classroom because there are still many schools that ban the use of cell phones in schools. Her creative, practical examples for all age groups/all subject areas are great, and can be carried out by students at home! Another excellent resource from Liz is a radio show she has recently started. Her shows air bi-weekly on Wednesday afternoons and always have lots of valuable, practical information. The shows also provide an opportunity for listeners to contribute and ask questions in a chat. You can tune in and participate in the live event, or listen to the archived shows later. Her latest show focused on text messaging. Text Messaging Projects for Student Cell Phones I guarantee you will leave motivated and eager to try her suggestions after every show! http://www.blogtalkradio.com/elikeren

You also might want to consider signing up for your own show. BlogTalk Radio is a free online service for broadcasting. Information from their site: BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. The shows are archived and people can join to receive email alerts for upcoming shows (notification in your own time zone), subscribe via RSS readers or just go to the site to listen to the shows. Your shows don't have to be weekly--you can schedule them any way you like and for any length of time you choose. If you have something you love sharing with people (ideas, tips, tutorials, entertainment, etc.) this would be something great to try out.

Thanksgiving-A Time To Be Thankful!

2008-11-22T13:41:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving in the US is just around the corner and I am so excited to be able to travel this Thanksgiving to visit my daughter and her family in North Carolina! I have so many things to be thankful for in my life and especially love the ways that technology has enabled me to share some of these things with others (my blog, website, online videos, ScrapBlog, online photo sites such as One True Media, Picasa, Flickr, etc.--the list is endless!) To begin my blog post today I wanted to share a beautiful online movie created by Mary Robinson Reynolds called "The Thanksgiving Movie." Her movies are always so inspirational and this one is no exception. The beautiful photos, music and especially personal memories help viewers to remember their own special Thanksgiving memories and to give thanks for them. If you enjoy this movie as much as I do, you might want to check out her website to view other movies. (http://www.makeadifference.com/)

One more tool I have really enjoyed using to send personalized, online greetings for various holidays is ScrapBlog. The tool is so easy to use and you can upload photos, videos and be as creative as you like in compiling your greeting. Templates are offered to get you started but you can also start from scratch and create your own. This is an example of a Thanksgiving greeting I created last year with photos, YouTube video and background music. Maybe this will give you some ideas about how you can use this wonderful tool. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving ScrapBlog

Jing Project

2008-10-13T13:41:00.002-07:00

Through my EdTechTalk community I have discovered this treasure. Jing is a system that will allow you to take a screen capture or create a screen video with narration and instantly upload it to share with others. This involves a small program that will download onto your Mac or Windows computer. It is quite easy to do and you can watch a Jing video about this below. It is perfect for tutorials or for getting help from friends with troubleshooting a technology problem. It is extremely easy to use and can be saved as a URL that you can immediately share with others via Skype or email (or post on your blog or wiki). It is created by the makers of Camtasia so if you’re familiar with that this will be very familiar…but this is free. :-)

OneTrueMedia-video creation and sharing tool

2008-10-08T01:26:00.005-07:00

OneTrueMedia is an amazing online application that allows you to create videos from digital video, photos, and screenshots. You can edit, add titles, transitions, music, audio voiceover and much more. The videos can be shared via URL, embedded on a blog or wikispace, and the most exciting option for me...you can share it with Tivo and view the video full-screen on your own TV (with a wirelss adapter that connects to the internet). You can make your albums public or private and share with others who also have Tivo. If they don't have Tivo, ou can share the URL and they can view the video on their computer. This is one of my favorite video applications. The videos you create are called montages. I actually created this video by uploading video footage from my digital video camera into iMovie on my MacBookPro, editing to provide photos and transitions and saving the movie as a QuickTime movie. Then the QT movie was uploaded to OneTrueMedia and now I can enjoy it on from my Tivo playlist or my blog. :-)

This is information provided on the OneTrueMedia site about features and costs.

Creating a video montage and sharing it online is free. You just set up a free account and get started. You can also purchase copies of your creations as DVDs or Photo Books. Please see our Products page for more details. You can also upgrade your free membership to a Premium Account and receive access to all of our editing options, increased storage space and shared views, unlimited monthly uploads and creations, player skins for embedded sharing, premium music, and expanded downloading options. Premium memberships are just USD $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Constructivist Celebration-NECC 2008-Flickr Slideshow

2008-10-08T01:05:00.007-07:00

This is an example of a very easy way to create a slideshow and embed it on your blog. This slideshow was created on Flickr by selecting a set of photos, clicking on share, and copying/pasting the URL and embed code provided to post on my blog. I love this Flickr application!

Veeple-Online Interactive Video Tool

2008-08-19T11:54:00.018-07:00

Last week I helped one of my former ASU-CTEL faculty colleagues facilitate a social networking workshop for faculty. I was mainly a "guide on the side" and mentor/support person. It was very exciting to see and hear all of the interesting things they were planning and creating to integrate Web 2.0 tools into their teacher education courses. One of the participants, Dr. Nancy Perry, shared a tool she was thinking of using for short tutorials and student communication that was new to me. It is called Veeple and is an online, interactive video tool. Registration is free.

Basically, you upload your video (10 min./100mb limit) to the site, then add objects to create "veespots" to the video. These spots can be text, URL links, links to your MySpace or Facebook site, thought bubbles or speech bubbles. You can make any object inside a video interactive and place any interactive image into a video, all through a standard web browser.

You can view demos here: http://veeple.com/Showroom.php
Look at "People and Blogs"

This page explains in more detail about Veeple. http://www.veeple.com/VeepleLabs/WhatsVeeple.aspx

Think of a VeeSpot simply as a point of interaction in a video. Using VeeSpots, a person can instantly link a video to a blogpost, website or a friend’s MySpace or Facebook. An eBay Seller uses an eBay VeeSpot to link buyers directly to their auction. Do a search from the video. Link to Wikipedia. etc. A teacher could insert thought-provoking, guiding questions into a video clip for students to respond to in a class blog post. I think it has tremendous potential for encouraging and developing creative thinking. If I were using it in a K-12 classroom I would definitely keep it private for selected people (students) to view, and there may still be concerns about what they might be able to access from the site (inappropriate content) if they stray from the video. Teachers might be more comfortable using it with a small or large group on a Smartboard, pausing it on the veespots to allow students to post their responses on a blog or to write it in their journals.College students could definitely benefit from this kind of online social networking.

Collaborate With Other Video Creators
You can use interactive links to connect your videos with those of others enabling all content creators to socially share their videos across numerous websites.
http://www.veeple.com/VeepleLabs/WhatsVeeple.aspx

You can upload your videos to YouTube, then add veeple spots to it.You can upload your own thumbnail image to insert a clickable link with URL. A new feature that's coming is one where you can choose to allow others to add veespots to your video, similar to voicethread for interactive possibilities. When you fill in the "Video Details" from for your video there is a pull-down menu called "Allow Spots." To allow others to place VeeSpots on your video, simply choose the "Allow anyone to add spots" option. Or you can choose to have only your friends add VeeSpots by selecting the "Allow friends to add spots." You can also select the "Don’t allow others to add spots" if you prefer that no one add spots to your video. You can set up private network for friends/family or make it public.

I haven't tried uploading my first video to Veeple yet, but I can't wait to try it. I'll share my creation here on my blog soon. If you try it, or have other specific ideas about how you might use this tool in your classroom or professional development, I'd love to hear about it. What do you think? Would you consider using this in a K-12 classroom? Why or why not?

Wordle-a fantastic teaching tool

2008-08-19T10:29:00.004-07:00

Many edubloggers and people in the Twittersphere have been buzzing about Wordle. I have spent some time exploring it and can see what the excitement is about. It has amazing potential for inspiring critical thinking both for classrooms and in adult professional development sessions. Wordle is a very simple tool (online and free) that allows you to create word clouds from text or tagged bookmarks. Of course, I had to play with it a bit, and created several different Wordles with my tagged bookmarks in Diigo and Del.icio.us.

You just copy text in any language, paste it into Wordle and it will analyze it and create clouds from the most commonly occurring words in the text. You can then edit the shape, the colors and the font in the cloud to make it more visually appealing, and even remove words you don’t like by right-clicking on them (command-click for Macs). Try it out on some text and see what you discover. You could copy/paste text from your school newsletter or a memo from your principal and see if there are any words that emerge as larger images in your Wordle. The more frequently you use a word, the more emphasis it is getting. You could paste an article you've written or even a section from your resume to see if you're over-using certain words or if key words are missing. It was very revealing in my bookmark tags to see what I considered important by what I chose to bookmark. It was amazingly accurate! It is a powerful way to visually analyze information and use it for conversation with others by asking them to share and interpret what they see. Ask a few of your colleagues to create a Wordle of their bookmark tags, print them out and then have a conversation comparing the results. :-)

I read a fantastic blog post by José Picardo, a high school teacher at Nottingham HS in the UK entitled: Wordle: Using Word Clouds in a Lesson. He provides an excellent example for a lesson using two online newspaper articles to create and print Wordles. He asked his students to use the Wordles to try to determine what the article was about (just from the key words). He said it provides a great way for students to analyze text, vocabulary, and language in detail. It ws also a great tool for elicit speaking and creative writing. You can read the details on his blog post. (Box of Tricks: ICT and Education)

Try it out and share your results in a comment. I'd love to see more examples. :-)

Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0

2008-08-12T10:13:00.010-07:00

This is a great presentation that is part of a Webquest by Charlie Pitrolo, Marion County Schools, created to introduce teachers to Web 2.0.
Webquest can be found here: http://www.questgarden.com/66/37/6/080530203752/

Note: To view the above presentation full screen (much easier to read!), click on the blue icon in the right hand corner below the presentation.

If you're wanting to find videos and resources to help you introduce the concept of web 2.0 and to begin to lead teachers into conversations about why this is important for their student learning, you might want to explore some of these.

AzTEA on You Tube
I have created a special group on You Tube to compile and share Web 2.0 videos with other educators. Videos can be newly created videos by participants and uploaded to the group, or videos found and saved from YouTube. The compilation of videos are those that I've found informative, helpful and entertaining related to schools, teachers, technology and Web 2.0. You are invited to submit a request to join the group if you would like to access the videos or upload your own videos. This will provide an easy option for uploading videos to wikispaces, blogs and websites by obtaining the embed code after uploading to YouTube. Please submit your own favorites for inclusion on this site. It will make a great place for you to return and select certain videos you might like to use in professional development events (if You Tube is not blocked in your school/district).

Web 2.0 Technology Videos (video list compiled and managed by Peggy George--feel free to contact me with questions/suggestions)
http://youtube.com/group/aztea

Mixwit - Great way to share some favorite tunes

2008-08-03T20:51:00.002-07:00

http://www.mixwit.com
I learned about this program from Konrad Glukowski's blog. It's an amazing strategy to use music for engaging older students! His example for classroom use is terrific!

http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2008/06/02/avoid-school-talk-part-1/

Information from the Mixwit website:
Mixwit is primarily a media mash-up platform.
Where does the music come from?
Currently we’re using two music search services, Seeqpod and Skreemr, to allow users to discover mp3 files that are publicly available on the internet. Our Mixmaker application allows people to save a list of bookmarks to those tracks. The files stay in their original location.

It’s your mix, so make something unique. Add pictures, photos, artwork, drawings... Anything you want. Make a mix of your favorite songs and artists. Post your mixtape to MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, and others. You can post it on a blog, wiki or website too.

I decided to try it out just to see how easy it was to use and to search for some of my favorite "oldies but goodies" to see if they were available for my mixwit. It was both easy and fun to create and post to my blog and now I can enjoy my mini-playlist whenever I want. Give it a try. :-)

Birthday Thanks created with Scrapblog

2008-07-31T20:33:00.002-07:00

Scrapblog is an amazing, free online tool that allows you to upload photos, videos, music and more to create special albums, greeting cards and other photo creations. Check it out! This is an example of a Scrapblog I created as a birthday thank you for my North Carolina family. (http://www.scrapblog.com)

Daily Educational Quotes

2008-07-09T10:26:00.005-07:00

This is a great, free widget you can add to your blog or web site from SurfNetKids. The quotes change each time the page is viewed. Just click on the link below the quote to go to a site where you can get details about adding it to your own site.

Wrapr.com

2008-04-13T21:17:00.004-07:00

I learned about this site through Twitterverse and thought it was incredible! The panoramic views of some truly beautiful places around the world can be viewed right on your own blog. It's the next best thing to actually being able to travel to these beautiful locations.

According to their website, Wrapr is a mashup between Chumakev's Flash panorama player (FPP) and the Flickr API.

Thanks to Wrapr, some of Flickr panoramic images can be wrapped into an interactive panorama. Wrapr enables you to embed - wherever you want - this new dimension.
At the moment you can enjoy a first selection of Flickr groups, but we're always working on it, so stay tuned.

Example of embedding document from Scribd

2008-04-10T12:59:00.009-07:00

This is a document that was created by Dave Beard for a recent VoiceThread workshop on how to create identities for students on a teacher's VoiceThread account. The document was created in Word with step-by-step directions along with screenshots for each step. Scribd.com is a free web-based tool that allows you to upload documents and get an embed code to post them on a blog or website. This provides a scrolling document that is viewable right on your blog without having to download the document. Scribd will also allow you to upload images created on Skitch such as annotated web pages with arrows, circles, etc. and create a new document of multiple pages that can be embedded on your blog/wikispace/web site. I'll add an example of Skitch on Scribd in another post. Awesome tools!

Bubbleshare Slideshow of Westside AzTEA

2008-03-10T16:54:00.001-07:00

BubbleShare: Share photos

Playing with adding a photo from Photo Booth

2008-03-10T16:36:00.002-07:00

I'm attending a blogging workshop with Tony Vincent, presenter at MEC 2008 in Tempe, AZ. He just showed me how to take a photo on my Mac with the Photo Booth application, export it to iPhoto and then added the image to my blog post. Here it is. :-)
Peggy

Better Than A Test (Ukele)

2008-03-10T15:54:00.004-07:00

Have you seen this YouTube video? I love it and it has a great message from a dad to his daughter. :-)

Better Than A Test on Ukele
A song about standardized testing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sQ30UyNjtg

Peggy