Cool products coming out of MacWorld 08
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
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/
Instructify- a new fave of mine.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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!