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Showing posts from December, 2009

Web 2.0 Tools: Create

Classtools http://classtools.net/samples/full_list.php Description: This site allows you to create flash based games but it also has templates for thinking diagrams such as Fishbone or Venn. The finished games can then be hosted on your own website. The interfaces for each activity are basic & easy to use. There’s a way for you to enter your text based information, click save and embed into blog or web page. Uses: · Lesson reinforcement · Content delivery Examples: · Staff Meeting Activity, · http://classtools.net/widgets/quiz_4/9EKkN.htm · more samples are provided at the web site Notes: The web site is a little “glitchy”. For example, the first two times I clicked on the link to take me to the jigsaw activity, I got a blank page or page not found message. On the third try, the interface came up. After creating my first interactivity, I tried to use the save as html feature & the file that it gave me, would not open. I used the embed into blog or web page feature to get a URL

Web 2.0 Tools : Collaborate

Meetsee http://meetsee.com/ Description: This team meeting tool is a little bit different as it uses a 3D virtual office for the meetings to take place. You can create your own 3D space and share files, webcams, presentations with colleagues in the space. I can see students enjoying the use of this tool…Adobe Connect meets Second Life. Uses: · Collaboration · Tutoring · Socializing Examples · http://meetsee.com/meetsee/tour?page=accounts NotesThere’s a free plan & 3 pay/months plans. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to register for the free plan. It just wouldn’t work. I emailed their customer support department & got no response. I decided to add this tool to the list anyway because I think it has a lot of appeal for student learners & may help to provide more of a feeling of the instructor actually “being there” for online discussions or tutoring.

Web 2.0 Tools: Communicate

Since my time to share about the web 2.0 tools I researched during our Staff Mtg Owau session was cancelled, I thought I'd post my research here anyway. I will make 3 separate posts, one for each of the sections we were asked to align with. The first one, Communicate, can be found here with two tools that I selected. Selfcast http://www.selfcast.com/ This site allows anyone to create a live broadcast at the click of a button with a web cam. You can create your own channel which includes a blog, chat room and information panel. Broadcast live, around the world in minutes. This might be a good application for schools that do their own “newscast” type daily announcements. Yaplet http://www.yaplet.com/ Description: Yaplet is a simple tool that allows you to collaborate over a web page using a chat window. Go to Yaplet.com, enter the URL for the web site you want to visit, and Yaplet will open the page with an extra chat window to the side. Your friends, students, coworkers, etc. would

Adobe Acrobat Portfolio

A few months ago in our meeting we discussed the option of using Adobe Acrobat Portfolio for the courses we currently teach. We recently used in for one of the CBOCE courses to submit portfolios for review electronically. This expedites the process, but also allows you to customize and add your logo for identification or authorship. Below you will find a video created to explain how to assemble your portfolio in Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.

Google Wave Owau for 12/22

In preparation for our 12/22 Google Wave owau session, I've compiled the YouTube videos I've blogged about with basic background information. In addition, I've created a new wave and have invited those of you who are already on my contact list. Looking forward to our owau session tomorrow. BTW, I finally got my own 25 invitations to send out. :) See you on Google Wave! (http://www.google.com/wave). Dorothy What is Google Wave? 2 minute YouTube video: Google Wave in 10 minutes video: Google Wave developer's preview video:

Online Professional Development

Marilyn Bowen, Mississippi Schools Career and Technical Education Leanne Long, Mississippi Schools This webinar was focused on teachers learning online. What does an online adult educator look like? Teachers plans, designs and incoporates strategies to encourage active learning, interaction, participation, and collaboration in an online learning environment - modeling best practices using learning styles. The teacher provides online leadership in a manner that promotes student success through regular feedback, prompt response, and clear expecations. A teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement learning goals. She highlighed and gave tips on discussions. To ensure quality discussion, these tips should be taken into consideration. You will find during the session that discussion board participation will be evaluated and will fulfill a requirement of completio

Transforming Professional Development Through Professional Learning Communities

Best of Bb World 2009 Presentation Jill Montoya (jstanley@jeffco.k12.co.us), Online PD Coordinator, Jeffco Public Schools Colorado School District - 85,000 students, 6,000 teachers Need: Content specialists are few with lots of teachers to service. Balancing frustration with current PD offerings. Look towards innovation (ongoing, time sensitive, and accessible) Put everything on Blackboard so that teachers begin to use it to access resources - "Lead the horse to water" Reduction of printing costs - documents are now digitized Advantages of putting PD online - heard from all participants in the course My Content tab - UShare, grass roots lesson plan sharing tool Teachers have access to curriculum alignment resources, employee information through the Bb 9 content system. PeopleSoft Integration - 24-48 hour turnaround once someone gets hired to automatically enroll them in Bb with appropriate role (e.g. 3rd grade teacher) 46 Graduate level courses - once they complete they a

Audio Capture Webinar 12/3/09

This webinar by Soundforge actually focused on audio capture for streaming from a lecture setting rather than a controlled desktop recording. Some of the information could be useful for workshops or other big group activities. Tips included: Choose a mic for the setting and number of speakers - omnidirectional for wider range but more background noise, or unidirectional for a single speaker. Mic the speaker when you can. Lavolier or lipstick mics, overhead or pressure zone (e.g. gooseneck) mics can work in the right range. For large rooms parabolic mics work well IF they are precisely aimed. Gated mics that turn on when a person speaks can work but may have a slight delay before they are audible. Automatic mixers can work - they provides gating and can stack people when several want to speak at once. A DSP - digital signal processor , part of an automatic system can be very helpful if it automatically turns off the loudspeaker in the area when a mic is turned on. This increa

Acrobat Tech Talk: Making PDF files comply with Section 508 12/0/09

Today's webinar drove home the point that making a PDF accessible goes beyond clicking Adobe's built-in Accessibility Checker. To effectively use screen readers and other assistive devices, the structure and reading order of a document has to be be logical ordered and explicitly defined. The View tags panel displays each html structure tag - line breaks, column breaks, table headers, row and cells and images in the document. "Walk the tag list", one tag after the other, observing which text or image element highlights. This check to see if the assistive device will bring the right information to the listener in the right order. It's easy to THINK your document is accessible when it's not because: the "Accessiblity checker" will report missing alt (explanatory) tags, but not faulty tagging. the View > "Read out loud" feature is not a screen reader, so it can't read structures such as tables. This feature does not satisfy 508 requ

Tips and Tricks for the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Calendar offers several nice options . Multiple shared calendars can be viewed side by side. By dragging one over the other, they can be temporarily blended into a combined calendar. Groups can be created by clicking the Groups icon on the top toolbar. Check common available times and schedule meetings with email invite. Attachments > Options > Shared attachments . allows group members to edit just one document. File > Infpath> leads to customizable fillable feedback forms that are sent to a group. Organize with mail Filters and customize Tool options . Back-up mail folders with File Import and Export > Export to a Fle > Personal Folder file (.pst) Notes from this webinar are in the Share VSDL folder in Webinars/MSOutlook_091209.doc

Camtasia Owau

Our owau on December 10th with be Camtasia 6. All of you have a lot more experience with this program that Davie and I do, and functionally it's relatively unchanged. But it's reportedly easier to use and you can record in H264 video for good quality at a reasonable size. It exports to various sizes, and movies can be uploaded to Screencast.com for free (2 GB storage, 2 GB bandwidth or 5 GB and 200 MB bandwidth for $9.95 a month). It still converts Powerpoint shows, has a variety of call outs and hotspots and allows multiple audio and video tracks. The best way to say hui and refamiliarize yourself with Camtasia is to watch their overview video tutorial or do a print tutorial. If you choose the video tutorial scroll down and many other short tutorials, just like...Apple! And just like Apple, they're good! Click here to see them. For our owau please watch the overview and one other tutorial that interests you and we'll share. If you prefer text tutorials t

PowerPoint on Steroids

eLearning DevCon 2010 Preview Session Presenter: Garin Hess, CEO of Rapid Intake I attended part of the Webinar this morning along with some of you. I just have some quick points of how the presentation started off and what was the premise. I didn't get to see the tools in action yet so those of you who watch the archive can post more in the comments. Poll: How many people in the audience know how to use PowerPoint to create presentations? 99% This is why PowerPoint has become a tool to create eLearning. The question is do we know how to use it effectively. Session will cover: why a converted PowerPoint can be "poison" People begin to associate eLearning content with a converted PowerPoint. If a PowerPoint does not undergo some reconstruction, people will find this content boring. Use additional tools in a rapid development environment to boost its effectiveness. how a converted PowerPoint on "steroids" can play a part in instructional design M. David Mer

MS Excel has EXCELLED!

It has been a couple years since I have built macros in MS Excel so I went to go look for some resources. Wow, and I found many out there. This was was exceptionally good. http://www.investintech.com/articles/excelcheatsheet/ It breaks it down into various sections that you may be looking for. It even goes into visual basic application (VBA). Check it out.