el/ed/tech

[Attention] el/ed/tech has moved...

2010-12-05T07:51:00.004-05:00

Wow! It has gotten dusty around these parts!

I forgot to post on here about the change to el/ed/tech. I realized this when I saw the Blogspot version of this site posted over at Wes Fryer's Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

You can now access el/ed/tech at this new address...

http://blog.eledtech.com

I also have been working on edu.Mac.nation...

http://www.edumacnation.com

Both sites go through periods of dormancy due to other projects that I am working on so make sure to subscribe for the latest posts!

You can subscribe to el/ed/tech here...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/el/ed/tech

and edu.Mac.nation here...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Edumacnation

The SMART Table: Classroom Desktop Computing

2008-10-22T23:06:00.001-04:00

Hmm. Interesting. Reminds me of the Microsoft Surface.

It is hard to form an opinion yet based on an advertisement. I would like to see how this is used within the context of an actual classroom. Also I wonder if the table runs with its own open source operating system, or comes with a proprietary SMART O.S. Most likely I assume the table will function like the SMART Board and can be plugged into a local computer.

What do you think about this?

"Acquia Debuts Drupal for Free": My Thoughts...

2008-09-30T09:28:00.001-04:00

This is pretty exciting news especially since I use Drupal for my classroom website! It could mean improvements in the future such as a one click update module (I have hoped for this for a LONG TIME) just like the Wordpress InstantUpgrade plugin that I love. I looked around a little to find some business information on Acquia and I found out who is running the show over there.

Acquia Readies Commercial Drupal CMS

"Acquia is headed up by Dries Buytaert, the founder and still a lead developer of Drupal."

(Via GigaOM.)

I believe that this is a good thing because it hopefully means that there will be significant initiative to push out updates/improvements to the community instead of keeping them proprietary and closed source.

At least this is what I hope!

I just installed Acquia's flavor of Drupal on my hosted server (the same that hosts this blog) and already I really like the administration panel across the top of the page.

Later on I will have to copy over some of the modules I use over at my classroom website to see how they are compatible.

Still looking forward to the DrupalEd update that should be coming soon. I will wait until then to make my decision on which version to start pulling my content over to.

Acquia Debuts Drupal for Free

"Acquia has announced the availability of Acquia Drupal, a free and commercially supported distribution of the popular Drupal open source social publishing system. They also unveiled the Acquia Network, which offers subscription-based access to technical support and remote network services that simplify the development and operation of Drupal Web sites. Entry level subscriptions to the Acquia Network will be free of charge through the end of the year.

For those that aren’t overly familiar with Drupal, it’s an open source web development and content management platform that publishes, manages and organizes a wide variety of content on websites. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal.

With the release of Acquia Drupal with its streamlined packaging of Drupal and a support system via the Acquia Network, there will definitely be a tremendous increase in Drupal developers and websites powered by this Drupal.

All subscribers to the Acquia Network will gain access to the Acquia Network’s subscriber forums, remote network services such as software update notifications, uptime monitoring, Mollom spam blocking, and Acquia Drupal documentation.

What all this means is that many more companies, especially enterprise class entities, will be much more willing to dip their toes in the Drupal pool now that there’s a commercial grade package available that includes tech support. If all this sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking about Linux and how similar its path has been to the corporate world. At one point, only extreme geeks used Linux, until some big names like IBM and Novell started proving technical support plans with their Linux offerings. That allowed larger companies to try Linux much the same way they will try Drupal thanks to the Acquia partnership and support offering.

It seems like the natural evolutionary progression for all open source projects to go from a handful of geek’s using it in their basement to the corporate enterprise once a commercial package with tech support is distributed. It will be interesting to see what kind of websites and social networks are born from this marriage between Acquia and Drupal."

(Via Mashable!.)

Found this ironic...

2008-07-27T13:09:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I was at the store and instead of seeing a traditional paper shredder I saw this instead...

Would this have caught your eye as well?

Shiny Eyes

2008-07-02T09:16:00.001-04:00

The other day my wife, son, and I traveled upstate to spend some time with our family. Along the way we listened to a couple TED talks. These talks are free to download via the TED website or you can subscribe to a feed through iTunes. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design and their annual conference brings together some of the most interesting speakers from around the world. These individuals range from famous politicians to scientists doing some amazing work. They are given 18 minutes to give the "talk of their lives." Often I look for talks related to education or technology but somehow a talk on classical music slipped in.

We had finished listening to four other talks when I decided we should give the last one a listen.

We listened and we loved it.

The talk was given by Benjamin Zander and the most memorable part of the talk is when he speaks about "shiny eyes". He relates his experiences as a conductor and his personal realization that he wanted to consistently "awaken possibilities in other people." In order to assess how he was "awakening" these possibilities all he had to do was look at their eyes to see if they were "shining".

"Who am I being if my players eyes are not shining?"

For parents, relatives, and teachers...

"Who am I being that my children's eyes are not shining?"

As a parent and a teacher this caused me to pause and think about what I do daily to awaken possibilities in my son's life and the lives of my students. Often we can get caught up in the daily grind leading to the simple things and glorious opportunities passing us by.

Take a listen to the talk and enjoy. We loved it and I hope you do too!

iTunes U for K-12

2008-07-01T07:03:00.001-04:00

Pretty exciting news came my way via Kelly Dumont.

iTunes U, a wonderful free service full of rich content from universities and community colleges across the nation, is now spreading to K-12!

Kelly has a great post on his blog where he talks a little bit about the program.

"I believe this project will be somewhat of a game changer. Here K12 ed will have a central gathering place for resources, be they audio, video, text-based, etc." - Kelly Dumont

In order to check out some of the schools and state programs who were part of the the launch you can find the K-12 link within iTunes. After launching iTunes and the iTunes Store all you need to do is click on "iTunes U"

Then click on "K-12"...

After you have navigated your way through you can select one of the schools or organizations from the list. For right now the list is short but I am sure the list and interface will grow with time.

Here is a look at Michigan's MILearning page...

While you are checking out the K-12 content you should definitely take some time to explore the university content. Neat stuff!

Google Applications and Google Sketchup

2008-06-30T18:08:00.001-04:00

Tonight is my last night of class for a ten session graduate class at SUNY New Paltz which is part of the Classroom Technology Institute (CTI) summer classes. The title of the course is Google Applications for Teachers. I had a lot of fun taking this course! Here is a list of some of the different Google tools that we have explored.

GMail

Google Calendar

Google Documents

Google SketchUp

Picasa

Google Reader

Google Earth

Blogger

and iGoogle

Quite a bit of these web-based applications I am familiar with and use. Regardless of what I use I find there is always new things to learn about these types of tools. It is interesting hearing from other teachers how they look to use these tools in their classrooms.

One tool I had a lot of fun playing and working with was Google SketchUp. This application brings me back to my technical drawing classes back in high school!

Here is a quick snapshot I took from the project I worked on for the course. I decided to try my best at drafting up a model of the school I teach in.

On the left monitor is an aerial view of my school via Google Earth. On the right screen I tried my best to draw the different portions. It is amazing how powerful a free application such as this is. Kevin Jarrett informed me via Twitter that Google SketchUp Pro is free for educators. I look forward to going through the process of obtaining one of these free teacher licenses in order to see the type of features that are present in the Pro version.

Enough about me...

My question for teachers out there is...what Google tool do you use the most personally? Also, which is your favorite to use with your students?

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!

New Free Apps for the Mac

2008-06-16T22:11:00.001-04:00

Found these free apps the other day when looking for presentation support software.

One is called Desktop Curtain which displays a blank desktop right in front of your cluttered desktop.

The other application is called Plainview. Plainview is a full screen web browser.

Both are free and both work great. I am the type of user who does not like anything on my desktop but I still leave folders and files there that I am working on. Sometimes I just turn on the Desktop Curtain in order to "forget" about what it is I probably should be working on!

Internet Video and Copyright Infringement: Be careful!

2008-06-15T00:40:00.001-04:00

I am evil...at least in the eyes of the music industry. For my evilness they have slapped my wrist.

1 year and 8 months ago I made a video containing short clips of my son's first four months. I also added in 5 minutes of Lynryd Skynrd's song "Simple Man" as a background track. I shared the video with family members and on a whim decided to add it to Youtube along with clips of my son's first Halloween and first words. This is where I messed up. It is a mistake many make, and probably do not realize they are making.

I foolishly thought my little video would be seen only by my own family and the friends they shared the video with. I knew the risks. I knew online videos are open to everyone unless the user makes their videos private. But I decided to fight the law and see what would happen. (In reality, I was just naive, and did not feel there was a threat to my video).

Even after I started learning more about content online and copyright issues, I did not take the video down because I was curious to see if it would be noticed.

Almost two years later my video has performed as I predicted...

With 300+ views I can tell you that 90% were from my own mother showing the video to her friends. Regardless, this does not excuse my usage of protected works.

Today I received notification from Youtube that this video had been found to contain music belonging to Universal Music Group. Or at least, I assume "UMG" stands for Universal.

Here is a screenshot of the email that was sent to me...

As you can see my punishment is weak. Their claim allows them to include advertisements on my video page. At first I was relieved my little video could still stay up. This seemed very fair, until I visited my page and saw this...

I have since removed the video and hope to hear from others. Has this happened to you?

How can we as educators share an experience such as this with our students as they venture out and create digital projects?

Been gone too long...

2008-05-30T23:39:00.001-04:00

It seems like it was forever ago when I last updated this blog! The end of the school year has been hectic but I plan on getting back into the swing of things soon.

For now I hope that everyone is having a wonderful end of the school year and keep checking back for new content!

Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope: "Google Earth" reversed!

2008-02-28T07:11:00.001-05:00

I have used tools such as Celestia and Stellarium before but this one truly looks like I can slide these two to the side. Excitement aside, we will just have to wait and see how it works once it is released and how it can be integrated into a learning environment.

When you visit the TEDTalks website there is a little button on the bottom for downloading the video as a Mp4. I have already popped it into iTunes so I can show some teachers at school today!

TED | Talks | Roy Gould: WorldWide Telescope

"Science educator Roy Gould gives an astonishing sneak preview of Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope -- a technology that combines feds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and builds a comprehensive view of our universe. (Yes, it's the technology that made Robert Scoble cry.)"

(Via TED Talks.)

So what do you think?

Attention: Moving El/Ed/Tech!

2008-02-25T16:49:00.001-05:00

I shall be moving http://eledtech.blogspot.com to http://blog.eledtech.com

Not much of a change in URL but it is a change in RSS. I have been quite partial to Wordpress for a while now and decided over the weekend to do my own Wordpress install on my hosted server. It went great and I would love to start posting exclusively over there.

So for my RSS subscribers please subscribe to the new feed. For the meanwhile I will be cross posting in both locations.

Thank You!

Very Neat Plugin from Flickr for your Wordpress Blog!

2008-02-25T16:34:00.001-05:00

I saw this new plugin mentioned by Tim, so I decided to test it out from within my Wordpress account. The installation of the plugin went smooth and once I migrate everything over from Blogger to there I am looking forward to utilizing it! I really love the way it automatically places in the citation. At first I did not like how it only showed 5 pictures at a time, so within the options pane I found that you can increase the number of photos shown as well as change the selection to display the "most interesting" photos first.

All the instructions for using the plugin can be found here.

Wordpress + Flickr + Creative Commons = Awesome New Plugin for Bloggers

"Adding photos to your blog is one of the best ways to enhance your content and attract attention to your writings. The only problem is that finding quality photos to use can be difficult. Bloggers end up going with one of three options: stealing, buying, or using Creative Commons licensed photos. Now, that third option just got easier with the introduction of the Photo Dropper Wordpress plugin. This new plugin searches flickr for Creative Commons licensed photos for you to add to your Wordpress blog.

There are millions of Creative Commons photos in flickr's database, but finding the right one can take time. The new Photo Dropper plugin simplifies the process by adding a panel to the 'Write Post' screen that allows you to search flickr's database for Creative Commons photos.

After entering in your keyword and clicking 'search,' the plugin will return photos from flickr matching your search terms. Underneath each photo are four links. Three links, 'S', 'M', and 'L', allow you to post that size photo into your blog. The fourth link will open the flickr page in a new window, so you can double-check the licensing requirements if necessary.

The photo which is placed into your blog automatically has text appended underneath it that says 'photo credit' and links to the user who is licensing the photo. The small Creative Commons logo precedes the text as well.

Photo Dropper also offers an option for commercial users. In the Options section, they can check the 'commercial' check box to exclude photos whose license contains a non-commercial limitation.

You can download Photo Dropper for free from here."

(Via ReadWriteWeb.)

Lunar Eclipse This Wednesday!

2008-02-17T07:22:00.001-05:00

Image via NASA

I know I will be outside for this. Hopefully it is a clear night!

Full Lunar Eclipse for the Americas on Wednesday

"'It will be the last lunar eclipse until December 2010, and it should be spectacular. Shades of turquoise and red will pour over the moon's surface as it moves into the Earth's shadow around 8:43pm EST. As NASA reports: 'Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike. While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality ... The source of the turquoise is ozone.' So, all of you amateur astronomers need to get out there and take pictures. It might be worthwhile sharing them on sites like SpaceWeather or Flickr so that our Asian, European, African, and Australian brethren can witness the sight as well."

(Via Slashdot.)

Textbook of the future?

2008-02-12T21:33:00.001-05:00

Came across this story today in my RSS feeds. What does this mean for the traditional publishing companies? For right now I do not think they need to worry.

CK-12: Remix and Share Your Own Text Books as FlexBooks

"CK-12 wants to bring open data to school textbooks under the name of FlexBooks. Through the tools on their site they'll let schools, teachers, parents and students can pull articles from different sources . The books will be available to others via the site. The demo that they showed this morning at TOC really wowed the publisher-heavy audience. The non-profit, currently in limited beta, will be launching in August."

"The UI for book creation is simple and attractive (the Engineering Book above was made during the demo). You can search content from CK12, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and WikiUniversity. The results are articles that can be previewed. Once an article is selected for inclusion in the book it can simply be dragged over to the Table of Contents. At any point in the process the book can be downloaded, viewed as a PDF or saved to CK-12. The internal storage format is DocBook, a format used by book publishers (like us; in fact the tool is very similar in concept to our own Safari U -- just different source materials and pricing)."

(Via O'Reilly Radar.)

Great PDF Document Viewer for the Mac: Skim

2008-02-01T15:02:00.001-05:00

A trend that I am beginning to see more and more of in the graduate classes that I am taking is the lack of textbook purchases that I am having to make. I think that this is wonderful. There were plenty of textbooks from my undergraduate years that cost a ton, yet were rarely used. In the place of textbooks the professors select journal articles or specific chapters from books that the library scans in using an electronic reserve system. The journal articles are typically accessible through the university library subscription service database (ProQuest, EBSCO, JSTOR, etc.) In the past I would go straight to the campus computer lab and print 20-25 page articles out, one at a time.

Such a waste of paper!

Instead of this I have been doing the best I can to utilize Adobe Reader as a way to read the PDF's and take notes on paper or with a word processor. The new Adobe Reader 8 has some nice highlighting and note taking features. However, with any free software released by a major corporation, it is expected that the consumer pay for more functionality (Adobe Acrobat).

I found a really nice, open source, PDF/Note taker application called Skim.

For a free application there is plenty of functionality. Below is an image I snapped along with some text pointing out the key components of the user interface.

Even when switching to full screen mode the user still has the ability to use all of the markup tools for commenting and taking notes on the content of the document. There are a few easy to remember keyboard shortcuts which helps the user accomplish the task much smoother. Using it today in full screen mode I had a new discovery when I moved my cursor toward the edge of the screen. The notes window pane and the thumbnail window pane would appear, alternating based upon the side of the screen that I moved the cursor towards. I was pleasantly surprised and I feel that this is great for jumping from page to page, or note to note without ever leaving the fullscreen mode.

Overall I am quite pleased with the application, and it serves my educational reading needs! For the Mac user I would suggest it over using Preview or Adobe.

Oh dear: Logo Mash-ups galore!

2008-02-01T12:14:00.001-05:00

Microsoft and Yahoo? Part Deux. Mash-up Imagery.

(Via Mashable)

(Via The Boy Genius Report)

(Via Engadget)

and this...

(Via All Things Digital)

Microsoft and Yahoo? An Educator's Perspective.

2008-02-01T11:04:00.001-05:00

Creative Commons Photo Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/niallkennedy/43468891/

I must say that I was quite surprised this morning to read the news regarding Microsoft's announcement of their 44 Billion dollar bid for Yahoo!. In today's search engine race it is obvious that Google is continuing to climb in the market and clearly is the dominant player. It seems reasonable for Microsoft, who has the cash on hand, to put forth an effort to salvage their own live.com.

In many ways the easiest and most habitual action is to reach out to Google for the tools and services that they provide. Google Earth, Google Docs, and GMail are all extremely popular services utilized by educators around the country and the world. I use all of these tools but there are some aspects of live.com, specifically maps.live.com that I really like. The bird's eye view is by far my favorite.

I have utilized the bird's eye view in my classroom during lessons involving locations around our community. Something about the aerial view/hybrid view just does not cut it. In my opinion seeing a side angle of a building or a local landmark is preferable to pixelated views of roofs and tree tops. That opinion can certainly be debated, but based on the response of my third graders they tend to recognize the location much more once I switch over to maps.live.com.

I believe this news is a good thing for both Yahoo! and Microsoft as they seek to hold ground, and users, in the web search industry. If anything, I believe that it will create more competition (I hope) which in the end leads to better products for the end users (you and I). Better applications, that are intuitive and stable, can lead to more confidence for the reluctant teacher. Variety can be healthy. Even if in 3-5 years it is Google vs. Microsoft Yahoo! Ask Search.

Now I wonder, if this all goes through...will Yahoo! become Yahoo! Live?
Will Yahoo! drop the "!"?
Simply puzzling...

Challenger: 22 years later...

2008-01-28T21:06:00.001-05:00

On January 28th, 1986, the seven member crew aboard space shuttle Challenger lost their lives 73 seconds after launch. I was too young then to realize the impact of that mission and the disaster. Today though, as an educator, I asked my students to pause for a moment and reflect upon their own goals. To think of where they see themselves in 22 years and how America still can learn from triumphs as well as tragedies in our past. Our students are the future. I only wish that they continue to work hard and dream as big as the seven aboard that ship 22 years ago.

Photo Courtesy of NASA

Del.icio.us and Yahoo Search?

2008-01-19T16:14:00.001-05:00

It will be interesting to start seeing del.icio.us results along with Yahoo searches. It is an intriguing blend of search bot and human powered input!

Delicious Integrated Into Yahoo Search Results: "I just got word that Yahoo is testing the integration of Delicious user generated bookmarks into Yahoo search results pages (Yahoo acquired Delicious in late 2005). Some users will see the Delicious icon as part of their normal search results, which tells them how many people have bookmarked those pages, as well as the tags people have supplied for those pages."
(Via Techcrunch.)

Give it a try here.

Cool products coming out of MacWorld 08

2008-01-18T23:32:00.001-05:00

I am a huge fan of Plasq. The makers of Comic Life and Skitch. Skitch has been in private beta since last year but is now open as a public beta.

Their newest application for children, Doozla, is quite fresh and very affordable. The clip below only shows Doozla for the first half, and Comic Life Magiq for the second half. Regardless, it is exciting to see simple programs like these coming out at the same time all the hub bub is broiling over products such as the Mac Air.

Library of Congress- Flickr Images

2008-01-18T23:07:00.001-05:00

The Library of Congress has recently launched a photo pilot program on Flickr where they are posting over 3000 high quality images from their most popular collections. Not only are these images available on Flickr, they are also available there with no copyright restrictions. According to the Library of Congress article they hope to address some challenges that they face...

If all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity. In many senses, we are looking to enhance our metadata (one of those Web 2.0 buzzwords that 90 percent of our readers could probably explain better than me).

http://www.loc.gov/blog/?p=233

Below I have included a couple of my favorite images from the collection. Enjoy and explore for yourself!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179130295/in/set-72157603671370361

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179130295/in/set-72157603671370361

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2179195370/

Needless to say this one caught my eye in the "News in the 1910s set"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2162723195/in/set-72157603624867509/

Blogs in Plain English- Common Craft's New Video

2007-11-30T07:23:00.000-05:00

Common Craft just put up a new short 3 minute video on blogging. I love their simplistic and friendly approach. Something like this video, as well as other productions from the crew, are fantastic for sharing with fellow staff members who are curious what a "wiki" is, what "RSS" is, or what "social bookmarking" is. Great stuff!

Instructify- a new fave of mine.

2007-11-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

I found a great blog a few weeks back called Instructify. A nice stop for an elementary teacher like myself looking for internet resources.

I enjoy the new suggested resources and their take on sharing them. Here is a snippet from their "About" page.

The Instructify philosophy–Teach smarter, not harder.

Instructify is where teachers can stock their toolboxes with practical, time-saving classroom ideas and cutting edge methods of instruction. It’s where to find useful, free technology to utilize in the classroom. And it’s a fun place to spend your planning period.
Instructify is also a verb. To Instructify means to find new ways to present the same old content. Or MacGyvering anything from software to Post-it notes into something you can teach with. It also works great as a command. As in, “Don’t just teach, Instructify!

Through Instructify I have found many great resources. Just the other day I was able to use some of the ideas from EEK: Environmental Education for Kids with my third graders.

Leopard Update + Little Necessities for Mac Switchers

2007-11-10T21:41:00.000-05:00

Leopard finally arrived after I sent my "Up-to-Date" form in 3 weeks ago. The Up To Date program is Apple's way of letting the people who purchased their Macs, a few weeks before the Leopard release, receive a copy for only the cost of shipping.

I really should not complain about the time for shipping considering it only cost me 9 bucks.

Regardless I made my purchase specifically before the release because I wanted to make sure that if anything went fishy with Leopard that I would at least still have a copy of Tiger. 2 weeks later...and many positive reports (the negatives seeming to come from people running Leopard on older machines or complaining about silly appearance issues) I decided to take the plunge and install last night.

I was scared.

There were plenty of clunking noises, periods of time when nothing happened, but magically after an hour and a half the machine was restarting and I was officially in the land of Leopard. I immediately started clicking around on all of my applications anticipating problems only to find that everything worked. I switched over to cover flow in the finder and zipped through picture files and pdf's and with the click of the space bar I was able to see larger versions. This is much better than having to start the application in order to see the file. The videos and audio files played nicely as well. All in all I know that I am not sharing anything earth shattering, but it worked for me and that is something I can not say about Vista on our other laptop.

Overall Impression= Quite pleased.

As far as the "switcher" tip. From what I understand the term switcher refers to those who make a switch from one OS to another OS. One feature I was extremely use to using on a PC is ye olde right click. Now I know that a regular mouse with right click works on the Mac, and I know that when you hold down Cmd and hit the trackpad bar that works too. With a little digging I discovered the need to go into the the System Preferences windows and play with the settings. Posted below is an image of my little discovery (something I am sure all Mac users will giggle at me for, but I was pretty darn happy when I found it).

Now with a little double touch (two finger tip tap) of the track pad I have myself the the right click functionality I was so use to on the PC. Let me just say that I am officially full of glee. Little discoveries like these make my day and little frustrations like these can certainly turn someone off to something that they are not familiar with. I hope my tip helps mac "newbs" like myself.

One little thing I like about Leopard that not many people are talking about....

The Apple at the top. It is a new sleek black.

I have been bit...by a Mac

2007-11-07T21:12:00.000-05:00

Well after a two month hiatus from blogging I would like to get back into the swing of things. Sometimes it is hard to not just sit back and absorb the ideas and ponderings of other bloggers and writers. Certainly over the summer I was much better able to keep up with all my RSS reading, but so far this school year I have been slacking. The new house, a rambunctious son, plus doing all I can to support my wife while she chisels away on her thesis has really kept me away from posting more.

Excuses aside. No room for those!

So as I put in the title, we bought our first Mac 2 weeks ago.

The past few months have been brutal with Vista and the more I read about Macs, and all the cool programs, the more we were influenced to take the plunge.

So here are my top 5 favorite Mac apps so far....

1) Quicksilver- it is a free download but is an essential for me for navigating and finding things quickly with only a few keystrokes.

2) Garageband- it just rocks. I plan on producing some podcasts with my students. Already we made an intro. song for some sort of soon to be planned production.

3) NeoOffice- I do not like the Word program for Mac and I am not willing to spend 150 bucks for it. NeoOffice is basically Open Office for Mac. It works beautifully and does everything I need it to do.

4) iWork 08- Keynote has some spiffy features and is a fresh alternative to the drab features of Power Point. Now I just need to find the time to actually create a useful presentation!

5) Skitch- Thanks to John Pederson for the invite. I use this program every single day, regardless if I am publishing to the web. Very easy, quick, and free!

I am still waiting for my copy of Leopard to arrive and I am unsure if I will go ahead with an install right away. I had heard that some programs were not ready for it yet. I am impressed with what I see though!

Two links that certainly helped me find some tools for the Mac, as well as guidance into what freeware was out there....

http://wesley.jot.com/WikiHome/macapps

and

http://web.mac.com/simon_elliott/simon_elliott%40mac.com/Software.html

Also I am slowly building eledtech.com using iWeb, FTP'ing the site folder with Cyberduck to my own web host. I have a Moodle installed on it but I need the time to play around... I wish the day was 36 hours.

How about a picture from the new place, using Skitch.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Planbook for Windows

2007-09-20T22:22:00.001-04:00

Planbook for Windows!

Well not quite yet...

It is in the Beta testing phase right now, and Jeff has been working hard to respond to the suggestions that we have been sending him. This software package will allow teachers to create their lesson plans digitally, without having to hassle with a spreadsheet program. The publishing options, calendar functions, and the ease of input has impressed me. I keep reminding myself that the software is still in testing phases, all created and maintained by one person! I still will be using Excel for writing my lesson plans until more functionality is added in the upcoming beta releases. Just this weekend, Jeff updated to Beta 2 and fixed one of the bugs I was having with my weird schedule. He also added a "To Do" list and search functions. He has been absolutely wonderful with all of the testers. I am excited for when the product is finished. I plan on purchasing a copy to help support it.

Where's Waldo

2007-09-20T21:46:00.000-04:00

I committed the cardinal sin of blogging, lack of posting! Many apologies. The school year started on the 5th for me and I have been going full steam since! Also I bought a house on the 7th. My free time has been limited. When I am not working on the house, planning for my class, or working on my graduate school work, I am with my wife and son... at Lowe's. They should include in the disclosure information how many trips you will need to take to a home improvement store before you can move in. The first weekend I think we had 7 total visits. Obviously you can tell we are first time home buyers!

Two quick pics of the house project...

Floor Before, tearing out the carpet (It smelled like a 20 year old Cat)

Floor After (Refinished! No more animal mess stains.)

What woke me up, out of my blogging slumber, was a mention on one of my favorite podcasts, The Ohio Treasure Chest Podcast. There I was, sitting in the teacher lounge today grading papers and waiting for Open House night to start, listening to my fancy new mp3 player. I was listening to the latest OTCP show when Eric began to share his favorite blogs. He mentioned el/ed/tech! I could not believe it. Thank you Eric, it is an honor!

The Ohio Treasure Chest is an excellent resource for educators of every level. I have shared it with many of my fellow staff members and frequently use the site to find resources to support my instruction. The podcast is professional, informational, and I always leave with a new resource following Eric's review.

Bookmarks Meme

2007-09-03T23:11:00.000-04:00

Alice Mercer just tagged me for the bookmarks meme. I shall share with you the last 6 entries on my bookmarking list (you can see these on my sidebar, unless you follow via an RSS reader). All of these come directly from my del.icio.us account.

Here they are!

ForgeFX- Eclipses and Moon Phases - A 3D simulation that allows the student to control and interact with solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, and the different phases of the moon. This pairs nicely with my other favorite space simulation.

The Atrocious Apostrophe's Flickr Collection - A hearty collection of images portraying poor grammar.

The "Quotation Mark" Abuse Flickr Collection - Related to the group mentioned above.

Grammar Bytes! - Comma splices and fused sentences!

Math Cats: Naming Large Numbers - How do you say/write 1,243,640,975,123,890,211? Just input any number and see how to write it. This site will go together perfectly with the Mega Penny Project.

Google Maps Transparencies- A nifty little mash-up of Map View and Satellite View. A site that I feel is much better than this one, which I demonstrate a lot to fellow teachers, would be Flash Earth.

Now I shall pass it on to these lucky contestants...

(To be determined very soon, I am a meme newbie so please forgive me.)

*Images Courtesy of Flickr and Spell with Flickr.

Google Earth Flight Simulator

2007-09-01T11:12:00.000-04:00

A pretty cool feature has been found in the new version of Google Earth. With the recent announcement of the addition of Google Sky, a new flight simulator has been discovered when you press Ctrl+Alt+ A. I had the older version of Google Earth, minus Google Sky, and all I needed to do was download the updated Google Sky version from the Google Earth website.

I am glad that I did not become a pilot because I certainly can not control the simulator. I do however enjoy the ability to fly over local terrain as well as choosing which runway to start off at.

Here is a link for the controls needed to fly.

http://earth.google.com/intl/en/userguide/v4/flightsim/index.html

As far as the implementation, exploration, and integration of Google Earth as a curricular resource and learning tool, Dean Shareski has created a wonderful collection of links and resources over at his wiki. He also presents a session called "Exploring Google Earth...moving beyond the Wow Factor." Bob Sprankle, with permission from Dean, recorded this presentation at the Building Learning Communities conference and in late July released the session via his Bit by Bit podcast. Here is the link to the MP3 file...

http://www.bobsprankle.com/bitbybit/podcast/bitbybit072907.mp3

Thank you to Dean for compiling the Google Earth resources, and thank you to Bob for your podcast!

iScrybe, Google/Yahoo Tools, and Web Filters

2007-08-31T22:09:00.000-04:00

A few days back I received an email invite to join the beta testing for the website iScrybe. I signed up late this spring for the announcement of release. Since I had not heard back from them I moved on and started playing with Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar. A great feature for any of the new web calendars is the ability to export the calendar file, which I quickly imported to Scrybe. The Scrybe interface is slick, the thoughtpad is a neat feature that reminds me a lot of clipmarks/del.icio.us/yahoo gobbler, and the ability to work offline is much easier, and faster, than using Google Gears.

Here is the promo video from Oct. 2006

I really enjoy viewing, editing, and scrolling through the calendar in flash. I had it running on my laptop, offline, as I was adding events for the first week back. When I got home I logged in via wireless and it automatically sync'd all my work from the day. Simply awesome! I look forward to when we start seeing this functionality in more web services.

Note of frustration. Today I went to download my "beginning of the year" files from Google Docs and the web blocker popped up. I knew I had the files backed up at Yahoo Briefcase, only to find that blocked as well. Last but not least, I found my thumb drive with my last back up. In between the decorating, labeling, and crayon sorting, I was hoping to use Google Docs to put together a collection of creative commons flickr images that I plan on using for a bulletin board near my classroom library. Luckily Zoho Writer worked for creating a web based document containing the photos. Flickr Storm + Zoho Writer + Color Printer = Success. Now I have some nice scenic, global pictures to hang on my connections board!

Related links...(I think I will keep doing this related link sharing!)

Creative Commons Video- Wanna Work Together
Creative Commons Comic Book- Check out the Flash Animation Version!
Yahoo Creative Commons Search
Flickr Postcard Viewer
Zoho

_____________________________________________________________________

Question for everyone--pass the word, please comment!

Does anyone know of a place where I can host SWF files? I have a screencast I made, using Jing Project, for the Yahoo Gobbler. I have it hosted at Screencast.com on one of their free accounts, which has limited bandwidth. I am afraid that once 20 people watch it I will no longer have access to it for the month. I have already used up a quarter of the bandwidth showing it to my colleagues.

Thank you!

Bloglines Beta vs. Google Reader

2007-08-28T16:02:00.000-04:00

I feel like such a hypocrite.

Why...because this summer I sang the praises of Bloglines to many of my fellow teachers during one of the professional development courses that I attended. With a little pressure I even helped them set up an account (This I was hesitant about because learning about RSS and Feeds could be a whole day workshop, as compare to a 20 minute set-up). The difficult thing with RSS, Bloglines, or any news aggregator, is that many people have never heard of the nouns contained within this sentence. This is perfectly fine, I too was in their shoes, and now I seek daily to find resources to educate myself on these "web tools" as well as seek ways to better utilize them for gaining knowledge and sharing information.

Back to the hypocrite portion. The day after I shared with everyone how much I loved Bloglines for organizing and collecting incoming blog and news posts, I jumped ship to experiment with Google Reader. I fell in love with Google Reader. What I liked was having the ability to "tag" posts, "share" posts, and "star" posts. When I say posts, I mean new blog and news entries. Overtime I have developed a pretty expansive list of feeds that I follow. Some have posts that I star, in order to find later, some I share (via a neat Google Reader page, and even on the side of this blog) or some I just skim right over. Needless to say, Google Reader became my feed reader of choice.

(Bloglines Mobile dominates Google Reader's Mobile version however. This I shared with Derek Baird at the Yahoo Teachers Workshop, and with John Pederson on his blog.)

A new component to my RSS adventure has arisen. News broke a few days ago spreading the message about Bloglines Beta.

Photo from ReadWrite Web

Then I read this...

There are more features to come, as Beta Bloglines has iterated on - including new options for saving, sending and sharing posts, as well as building link blogs, managing blog rolls, etc. Also coming soon is upgraded developer APIs. One of the more exciting future features from my point of view will be Personalization Preferences, allowing users to edit a feed or settings.

So it seems as if Bloglines is innovating in order to catch up to the competition. Will it gain back my favor? Read/Write Web provides a nice piece on the history of Bloglines...

Then Bloglines got acquired by Ask.com in February 2005 and the innovation ground to a halt. Bloglines did add some search elements in March 2005 and the service showed no signs of slowing its user growth - in May 2005 Bloglines dominated the RSS Reader market. But despite that, the rot had begun to set in. In October 2005 I lamented that Bloglines was no longer innovating. Fletcher left Ask.com in June 2006 and for many more months Bloglines languished, with seemingly little interest within Ask.com to improve the service - despite the regular protests by loyal users such as myself. So many of its early adopter users moved onto something else - in my case Google Reader, which was innovating in a big way during 2006.

My experimentations are fresh since Bloglines Beta has just come out. My opinion so far is..."WOW". Pretty lame description, for which I apologize. Only a few of the features promised are built into the current release. This comes from the Beta information page.

"Bloglines Beta is opening now with basic functionality and we will add features regularly over time until it reaches full functionality. Upcoming releases will be grouped along the following key activities.

Mobile – Bloglines on the cell phone.
Actions and activities involving a post – Save, Send, Share.
Personalization Preferences – Edit a Feed or Settings.
Creation of Disposable Email Addresses.
Upgraded Developer APIs.
Creation of a Link-Blog."

Once these are integrated I should be able to provide a better review. So far I love how it pulls in a lot of the AJAX (the super cool ability to drag and drop content around a webpage) functionality that I like about Netvibes, Pageflakes, Protopage, and the Yahoo Gobbler. With news of Bloglines releasing a new Beta service, and Yahoo Mail dropping its Beta label, I have had a super tech week.

Here are some links which help describe some of the tech. things mentioned in this blog entry.

Google Reader Introduction Screencast
100 Web 2.0 Ideas for Educators
RSS in Plain English
Bloglines Beta Video
How to get started with Google Reader
Using RSS Feeds Video from Teachertube
New Tools or the 21st Century from Jakesonline.org

Zoho Writer using Google Gears!

2007-08-21T10:40:00.001-04:00

This morning Zoho announced that their writer service will start providing users the ability to access their online writer files offline! I have used Google Gears for viewing my Google Reader feeds offline, and I am very excited about Zoho moving towards using Google Gears with the rest of their applications.

"We are taking our first steps towards offering Zoho Writer offline. With this update, you’ll now be able to access all your documents offline (Mac or PC) in read-only mode. We will offer offline editing capabilities in the coming weeks."- Zoho Blog

The ironic part of this story is how Zoho, a competitor/threat to the Google Documents service, is using Google open source technology to power their newest feature. I am pleased by Zoho's recognition of Google's efforts towards providing offline content. The question is now, how long till Google uses Google Gears with their Documents service?

Since the video is so tiny, you can view the screencast here.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

2007-08-07T10:18:00.000-04:00

I posted a few days back a video produced by the same team that describes RSS. Enjoy this new one on social bookmarking!

Click To Play

Evolution of the Smartboard

2007-08-01T22:13:00.000-04:00

Could something like this come into our classrooms in 20 years? 10 years? What do you think?

Knowledge Sharing with Tags

2007-07-29T09:52:00.000-04:00

A well done screencast on what exactly "tagging" is. This resource is very useful to those who are just starting out with social bookmarking sites, photo sharing sites, and blogging.

Knowledge Sharing with Tags

Creative Commons Video

2007-07-27T00:23:00.000-04:00

Copyright becomes a crucial issue as soon as someone begins to create content on the web. This video is a nice tool for helping others understand creative commons and copyright.

RSS in Plain English Video

2007-07-26T22:02:00.000-04:00

An excellent, super easy to understand, explanation of RSS. For me RSS feeds are a HUGE time saver. As far as RSS readers I am a big fan of Bloglines. I use Google Reader and Netvibes as well but until they both improve their mobile phone versions I will stick with Bloglines for collecting all of my incoming news and blog posts!

Click To Play

The creators of the "Common Craft Show" also have a great little video titled "Wikis in Plain English". Check it out!

Yahoo! for Teachers

2007-07-26T15:10:00.000-04:00

Early in July I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to New York City to take part in a Yahoo! for Teachers workshop where they introduced us to the soon to be released Yahoo! for Teachers website. Collected with me were educators from throughout the tri-state area looking to learn more about the new service Yahoo! is creating. I must say that I was extremely impressed with the Yahoo! teachers site. As mentioned, on the launch announcement website, this service is a "peer network designed by and for teachers." The ability to develop lessons and units using their well thought out tools is simply fantastic. I look forward to sharing what I can with my fellow teachers this fall and hopefully with Yahoo's permission incorporate them into the testing phase. I will add more insight later on about the tools (Project building, "Gobbler", Peer-State/Grade Level sharing), and since everything is still in development and private testing I will leave you to be filled with suspense! Here is an informational video about Yahoo! for Teachers!

Bill Scott wrote a nice blog entry "Yahoo! Teachers and the Yahoo! Gobbler" that includes some photos as well as a video of the site in action.

Document vs. Web Document Image from Zoho.com

2007-07-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

A nice representation highlighting the wonderful aspects of using web documents. Zoho.com is certainly worth a try, as well as Google Documents.

Excellent Resource Wiki

2007-07-26T11:40:00.000-04:00

Only a few minutes ago I posted a Youtube video uploaded by Dean Shareski. He has created a wonderful resource wiki for educators which explains a lot of the tools on the net that can be utilized for collaboration, professional development, and even implementation in the classroom. Here is the link!

http://shareski.wikispaces.com/

Telling the New Story

2007-07-26T11:36:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Dean Shareski for this video.

Using del.icio.us Teacher Tube Video

2007-07-26T11:27:00.000-04:00

Teacher Tube Video for RSS Feeds

2007-07-26T11:17:00.000-04:00