Are you going to be in Denver this week? Hey, we are too! Stop by and see us at the Visions Technology booth. We will be in booth 1220 and/or 1123 most of Monday and Tuesday. We are presenting a few sessions in the booth theater as well as a few regular ISTE sessions. I don’t know the schedule yet, but I’ll revise this post as soon as I do.
Come see us!
-Susan & Jim
As we’ve mentioned before, Flickr is our friend! Not just because you can find almost any picture you need there- but because it also plays well with other websites. This cool website allows you to make a banner spelled out with Flickr pictures. Take a look at this example:
The cool thing about this is that you don’t even need to save the resulting image- you can just embed the provided code to display it on your site (I chose to screen capture it here)! The letters are randomly drawn from a pool, but if you don’t like one of the letters, simply click on it and it will be replaced by a different image. In this way, you can come up with thousands of combinations for the same word. See, here it is again:
Pretty cool, huh? Now, I just want to know who these people are that feel compelled to go around taking pictures of letters everywhere and posting them to Flickr. Seems to me like that would be a strange group of people- but I’m thankful they do it! Enjoy!
I know I’ve written about a Photoshop substitute in the past, but I recently came across a Web 2.0 tool that I like even better than what I found before- Pixlr.com. For big photo editing jobs, Pixlr does a really good job filling in for Photoshop. It looks and acts similar to Photoshop Elements, and is really easy to use. The best part of Pixlr is that is is 3 tools in one…
Susan and I are both avid readers- and our interests vary greatly. Finding a new good book to read is like finding a treasure- and a double bonus if it’s in stock at Half Price Books! Shelfari is a place where you can showcase the books you have read, are reading, or planning to read! You can start your own book group and see what your friends are reading, make recommendations, write reviews, and all kinds of things. Take a look at my bookshelf…
Does that interface look familiar? Seems like the Apple bookstore isn’t so original in its design after all.
So as an educator, think of these implications:
Oh, did I mention it’s free?
This has some real possibilities! It’s a simple concept- I use the online drawing tablet to draw something (can also include text). When I click Share, the drawing is saved to the site’s server and a unique URL is generated. I can then pass that URL on to another to add to my drawing or improve upon it (which in turn can be saved and another unique URL generated). Here’s an example I’ve drawn (remember, I am an educator- not an artist! There is a reason why God made Photoshop).
Start with my drawing, add to it and label the parts of the Water Cycle then post your link in the comments area! See my drawing (the same one as above) here: http://draw.to/DnkN1v. Add to it and re-post your new link!
http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/play.php?suit=5card
I know, it sounds like one of those websites that should be blocked at your campus, but take a closer look. We all know and love Flickr (see our previous post). This site monopolizes some “random” images to get students writing! Here’s how it works:
The user (no registration required) is shown five images from which they must choose one. This is repeated four times so that the user ends up with five images. Then the user writes a story based on the sequence of five images. The story and images are saved to the site where others can read it (or use the same images to write their own stories).
Here’s a story I completed: http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/show.php?id=5101
Some ideas:
Some of the Web 2.0 tools we have discussed in this blog require you to register with a real email address. Some of you may have assigned email addresses for students, but many of us do not, particularly at the elementary level. Although there are some products out there that provide free email addresses for students (epals.com and gaggle.net as well as others), we have found a quick and easy method to manage this problem… piggy-backing on a gmail account!
Create a gmail account with a name you can share with students such as mrsjones@gmail.com. This probably isn’t the place to share your cutekitty@gmail.com account!
Students can then piggy-back off your account by adding anything after a + sign. For example:
mrsjones+student1@gmail.com
mrsjones+kate@gmail.com
mrsjones+booradley@gmail.com
Each of these will create a unique email address that the student can use to register for a Web 2.0 tool. The email will still go to your gmail account, but students will not be able to log into your gmail account, or ever actually receive any emails.
If the login requires you to click on a link to activate the account, you’ll still have to click on each of the emails sent. This may be a little time consuming if you have a lot of students, but you know you are keeping your students safe and allowing them to create cool projects that you might otherwise have to pass on!
Recently I presented a workshop, and I needed my participants to be able to view some documents that we would be discussing and working with. I made paper copies (I know, how old fashioned of me!), but I wasn’t sure how many people would be attending. I didn’t want to bring a lot of extra copies just in case, so I decided that I’d hand out what I had and anyone who came in late and didn’t get one could retrieve the materials online.
Then came the dilemma of “where do I post them?”. I already had the documents in .pdf form, but I didn’t have a quick easy place to store them. I looked around and found www.issuu.com.
http://www.tagxedo.com
Most of you, by now, have heard of Wordle (see our Jan. 20th post). And don’t get me wrong- Wordle is fabulous. But even Wordle’s creator is singing the praises of Tagxedo. This awesome web app does the same thing Wordle does, but adds so many more options!In short, it makes a word cloud based on words you enter. The more times a word appears, the larger it is displayed.
This example was created not by typing in words, but just putting in the URL of our blog:
Some things to consider…
Why is it better than Wordle? Let’s see…
Tell us what you think!
And, oh yes, we have already obtained permission to use this site in our next book!
Although this tool probably doesn’t have a classroom use, it’s outstanding for helping to keep your life in order. TripIt allows you to organize all your travel information in one place. You can add flight information, hotel reservations, rental car, activities, meetings, notes, maps, and whatever else you have. You can type all this information in directly, or best of all- forward your confirmation emails from hotels, airlines, etc. and TripIt will fill in all the information. Continue reading
