Bookmarking the Newest Sites Online
January 14th, 2010
Archive
Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Worthwhile News, Links and other stuff:
September 30th, 2009
Target is still giving away $800 grants for field trips. Link
If you have heard of Garage Band, try out Myna, an audio editor on the web. Link
“Did You Know? Shift Happens” Videos released a 4.0 version. Check out all versions here
Would you like to have a way to have all your website bookmarks sync among multiple computers? Check out Delicious or Diigo.
Google Docs have added more additional features for academic purposes. Link
Good basic websites for blogging are Tumblr and Posterous and older students are WordPress and Blogger.
Web-based script writing. Test out Story by Adobe. Link
Create 3D models and designs with Sketchup. Worth checking out.
Create interactive house designs with Small Blue Printer.
I use Orbit Downloader for downloading YouTube videos. Download at home, play at school. Check it out. Link
Dirby converts YouTube videos to Audio for listening later. Link
Google Earth, Collecta and Embeddable Docs
September 11th, 2009
Be sure to download and check out the new version of Google Earth. Supposed to be faster.
Also, take a look at Collecta.com. It’s a real time search of what people are talking about on the Internet. You can search for keywords, and it streams from blogs and Twitter and other sites. It’s a nice way to follow along during an event.
You can now embed Google Documents into your webpages. A Scribd-like feature, but with Google Docs. A great new addition.
Check out this cool Wordle of Obama’s student address! Most common words used: school, education, responsibility and know.
Get rid of those flash drives once and for all!
September 10th, 2009
I’ve found the flash drive useful for the immediate need, but I find that they are the worst spreaders of viruses whether you have Anti-virus protection or not. The best idea for students is to store your information in the cloud.
Check out Box.net (1 GB free) or Google Documents (unlimited) or Microsoft’s SkyDrive (25 GB) for data storage. Of course, it does require an Internet connection to access. There are also ways to access documents on Box.net and Google Documents through IPhone and IPod touch apps (Box.net and Mighty Docs).
Technology Update for 2/22/2009
February 22nd, 2009
Astronomy.net helps you identify all celestial bodies in your pictures of the night sky. Their promise: “Input an image and we’ll give you back astrometric calibration meta-data, plus lists of known objects falling inside the field of view.” Also, a nice selection of photographs of space on the Flicker group.
Lexipedia.com is a free visual thesaurus, providing definitions, synonyms and antonyms in a visual way. This one’s free, so check it out!
100 Ways to Use Your IPod to Learn and Study Better. Did you know IPods are for more than just music?
Tinychat.com allows you to create a chat room on the fly. Just log in and it creates a web address for you. Then send it to everyone you want to join and then you can chat.
Gmail finally allows you to customize the colors anyway you wish. This is a real nice addition to the web interface. Click on Settings–>Themes–>Choose My Colors
Here’s a good blog post for students (and some teachers) prior to going online. “Behaving Well Online”
I’ve been messing around with embedding different objects into our school website. One useful tool is the ability to embed a RSS feed easily using WidgetBox. Any teacher can embed this by simple copying the embed code into Plain Text (or HTML code) of a page.
Also, Embedr allows you to embed video playlists (haven’t tried this one yet.)
Tech Enthusiasts:
Interested in building a computer from scratch, check out this overview of the process.
Need to create a favorite icon for your website? Here’s a website worth trying out: FavIcon Generator. The Fav Icon is the small graphic that appears to the left of a web address in your browser.
A two-part article and interview defining the term “cloud computing.” I tend to refer to cloud computing as simply: doing what you do on your computer without an Internet connection only on the Internet.
In the News:
Pennsylvania has a bill to ban all electronic devices in schools. Good luck on this.
If you are a Netflix user, Queued allows you to manage your Netflix cue from your desktop.
For Fun:
50 of the Most Insane Things Never Seen on Google Maps
Google Proves Humanity is Sick and Sad, and Absolutely Hilarious
Until next time,
Skramstad