I crack up just thinking about it!

This site is hilarious! I was cracking up before I even left the home page. That video is hilarious! Even if you aren't going to use the site, you need to watch that video. Ok, let's get serious. Blabberize allows users to upload photos of people (or animals, apparently) and make their mouths "move" to whatever audio you submit. You can record dialogue or upload it from a file. It's really fun. I couldn't get Brian to give me back my laptop last night, once I showed it to him, because he kept recording funny messages over and over. Thanks, Lori, for sharing this site!

Indexed: "Making Fun of Some Things and Sense of Others"

Indexed is a project by Jessica Hagy through which she explains some of life's issues on index cards in graphical form, using Venn diagrams, bar graphs, and such.  Her representations are very insightful and can be entertaining.  Thanks, Gail, for sharing.  Check out some of her work on the site.  Here are a few examples:

Calling in sick?

Better than a poke in the eye.

Even if she's got a screw loose.

Stop the Printing: Publish with issuu!

Have you seen issuu?   This site allows users to upload documents and convert them into digital publications that look like magazines with pages you can flip through.  They even have virtual shelves, so it looks like real magazines or newspapers sitting on a shelf. 

Learners could upload any files they create and turn them into professional looking publications.  They could thenshare them with you, so you can view them, too.  There are tons of other features, such as adding “friends” or creating groups.  You could create a group for your class, or you could have your learners befriend you on the site, so you could easily browse through your publications.  Take a look around at some of the publications others have created.  Many of them look amazing – I know our learners could create some awesome publications.  This could be an alternative to having the learners turn in a hard copy. 

Let me know if you want me to come teach your kids a workshop on using this tool.  It would be a cool way for kids to maintain a digital library of some of their projects.

Cool and Weird at the Same Time: Futuristk

Check out the site Futuris.tk.  This cool website allows users to send messages to themselves or others in the future.  Users can create multimedia messages that incorporate text, audio, video, or images, and then choose a date for the message to be delivered.  They can be sent to yourself or to others.  I smell project...

http://www.futuristk.com/

(The weird part is that you can have the message sent to people only after you have passed away...)

Another Way to Be Green...

If you ever need to print information from websites, printfriendly is a cool site that will format it to minimize the amount of paper used.  Even better, it will also allow you to save the information as a pdf file.  Check it out at the URL below:

http://www.printfriendly.com/

Lingt: Not Just for Foreign Language Classes

Even though Lingt is a tool intended for Foreign Language classes, any class could benefit from it's awesome features.  With Lingt, users can build assignments that incorporate all kinds of media: video, spoken dialogue, images, or text.  Students can record themselves speaking, allowing them to respond to prompts orally.  This makes it easy for teachers to review, provide feedback and even administer oral exams.  The best part about this awesome, web-based tool is the cost: it's free!  

Check it out at the following URL:

http://lingtlanguage.com/lingteditor/

    

inSuggest: Cool Search Tool

Have you seen inSuggest? It's an awesome search tool that returns website, image, or bookmarks results personalized just for your interests.



Web inSuggest
With Web inSuggest, the user enters in a couple of websites they like, and the site returns suggestions on other websites they may like.

Images inSuggest
Using Images inSuggest, you can easily browse images from Flickr by selecting some images you like. inSuggest then displays similar images for you.

Bookmarks inSuggest
With Bookmarks inSuggest, just enter your delicious username, and the site will analyze your bookmarks, suggesting other bookmarks that are similar to your taste.

Free Classroom Response Tool

Check out this awesome way to poll your class. The learners can submit answers via text, twitter post, website or blog, and you collect all of the responses. The results are updated live within a browser or PowerPoint slide. You can also download the responses from multiple polls into one spreadsheet. This would be a great way for informal assessments or soliciting any kind of input from the learners. As long as you are polling 30 people or less, it is free!

http://www.polleverywhere.com

Copyright-Friendly Image Resouces

Check out this link for a list of resources that our kids can use when looking for images for projects. We need to encourage our kids to follow copyright and fair use guidelines for projects. instead of suggesting Google Image search, toss out some of these sites instead, to protect our learners and our school from committing copyright infringement.

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/12-essential-sites-for-great-free-photos-624818

New Tech All Schools Conference Resources

The all schools conference was great! Please check out some of the amazing resources that we heard about at the sessions. If you want me to sit down with you and help you plan or come up with ideas, send me an email and we'll set it up.



Session: Google Apps in the Classroom

To get familiar with ways to use Google Apps in the classroom or to just learn how to use them yourself, check out the site below for tons of resources, videos, and handouts, many of which came directly from Google Educator Workshops. There is quite a bit of information on what Google Apps are available and how to use them as collaboration tools. Since they are web-based, they can be accessed from any computer and eliminate the scavenger hunt we sometimes need to go on to figure out where a file was saved in the first place.
http://sites.google.com/a/training.nthls.com/google-apps-for-new-tech/




Session: Social Media

During this session, the presenters shared insight on how to utilize social media in education. Rather than fighting social media, why don't we embrace it? The site below provides resources on different social media tools and how they can be used in education for the benefit of the students. If the list seems overwhelming, talk to me about which ideas seemed the most intriguing.
http://ntf.wikispaces.com/Workshop

Session: Entry Docs that Rock: Creating Engaging Entry Events Using Multimedia Tools

Examples:

• Emails voicing a conversation and describing a need
• Classroom trashed leaving a ramson not to intro a forensic science/genetic project
• Movie clip/ Book reading
• Bring in a guest to "interrupt" class with a situation that needs to be figured out.
• Case files for a CSI project
• Singing Biology Teacher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHDp7-IXr8g

Factors to Consider:

• Time: How much time do you have to create this?
• Technology: What are your tech skills? Do you have time to fiddle with something new?
• What kind of information are you trying to get across? Will words suffice, or would pictures help?
• What are you asking the students to create? Entry docs that match the final product are often effective.

Making Movies:

• iMovie, Movie Maker, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere
• Google's Picasa will create a slideshow for you from your pictures.
• Fake it with an automated PowerPoint.

Podcasting:

• Audacity (PC/Mac), Garage Band (Mac), iMovie (Mac), iTalk app (iPhone)

Websites:

• Google Sites: free hosting to anyone, easy templates
• Infinite resources: Wikispaces and many more!

Blogs:

• Infinite resouces: Blogger, WordPress, Livejournal, Typepad
• Once you set up a blog, it is essentially just word processing!

Sites for ripping video/audio from web:

• http://www.keepvid.com/ (fast, converts to flash or quicktime)
• http://www.convertdirect.com/ (slower, greater variety of files)

Software Company Tutorials:

• www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials
• www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx

YouTube

• EXCELLENT resource for technology tutorials!
• Good source for video clips (give credit!)
• http://tooble.tv/: create video files from YouTube videos (again, give credit!)

Other Ideas from Session Attendees:

• makebeliefscomix.com
• Fix something that's broken (have kids attempt an experiment that you know won't work)

Session: Digital Media/CTE Content Forum

Music/Sound/Picture Resources

• http://www.audacity.com/ (music files)
• http://www.sourceforge.net/ (music files)
• www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=prelinger (resource for free pictures, sounds, movies- all archived and copyright free!)
• http://www.icompositions.com/ (podcasts/etc)
• http://www.freesound.org/ (music files)
• http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ (variety of music- well sorted)
• http://www.garageband.com/ (music files)
• http://www.squared5.com/ (mpegstreamclip)

Sound File Editing / File Conversions Resources

• http://www.zamzar.com/ (File conversion/Convert those YouTube videos to mov or wmv files so you can use them in school!)
• http://www.convertdirect.com/ (flv converter)
  

Miscellaneous Video Resources

• www.playtube.com/ (video blog)
• http://celtx.com/ (formats scripts, storyboards, etc)

Misc Programming/Web Design Resources

• http://www.framethief.com/ (free stop motion animation software for Macs)
• http://www.alice.org/ (3D beginning programming)
• http://scratch.mit.edu/ (Snap together block to create stories, games and animations and share your creations on the web)
• http://vrml.cip.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/dune/ (white_dune: free 3d animation software)
• http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd252934.aspx (Get Microsoft Expressions FREE for your school! It is comparable to Dreamweaver) I used Patricia Phillips, she is actually based in Arizona: 928-505-5220

Misc Photoshop Resources

• http://www.theonion.com/ (fake news using Photoshop)
• www.freakingnews.com/ (Fake news - like the onion.com)

Miscellaneous Resources

• http://www.microsoft.com/education/pil/IT_home.aspx (Innovative Teachers)
• Google Sketchup (tours, buildings, people)
• http://www.weebly.com/ (free websites)

Session: Photoshop Across the Curriculum

• Genetics: Kids can use pictures of two adults and create hypothetical offspring following the rules of genetics. Like Conan O'Brien's "If they made it" segment. Ask me if you don't know what I am talking about, and I'll be happy to explain.
• Kids take pictures of themselves dressed up for project and then make photos looks aged in Photoshop
• Anti-drug posters
• What kind of product would you like to invent? (Show photo of swiss army knife/mp3 player or other item)
• Reinforce vocabulary: Create captions at bottom of photo of that represents the word or use speech bubble to make the person look like it's talking. Captions define the word and use it in a sentence. I can explain what this means if you're interested.
• Magazine advertisements
• Self portraits: scan students image in and then paint it in Photoshop
• Collages
• New take on an art movement: surrealism, pop art, etc.
• Short and simple animations: Use different layers and loop them together to form the animation.
• Use it as a technology requirement: file management, computer image modes (RGB/CMYK), types of image files (.gif, .jpg)
• Create tutorials with screen shots