This is one amazing performance. I can’t imagine how much practice was necessary to pull it off.
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Social Bookmarks:
Sprixi
December 23, 2009 — dougpeteI just found about Sprixi. It looks like a new search engine devoted just for finding images that are licensed for friendly use under Creative Commons or in the Public Domain. It’s so new that random searches create new topics but that’s OK.
I really like the concept for use in the classroom.
The interface looks like so many simple search engines. You’ve got a box to enter your search terms so you type a term and let Sprixi do its thing. Unlike simple search engines, though, the results of the search are what are so impressive to me.
The results appear in a dual-paneled screen. In the left panel, you’ll see thumbnails of the images that Sprixi is offering up as a result of your search. Preview them and choose the one that appeals to you. It appears full-sized in the right panel. Then, the magic begins.
Roll your cursor over the image and you’ll get a chance to rate the usefullness of the image – Sprixi is learning – and an opportunity to click on a button to resize the image for your purpose. At the bottom, details about the image, its source, and its licensing appear. On the right side of the screen is a “use” tab which provides you with the opportunity to download the image with credits or to just link the image and display the rights.
In a day and age when we’re trying to teach about copyright and respect for the works of others, this website really helps out. They’re looking for a little love to share their presence so I would encourage you to give it a try and follow their “love” link to get some ideas about how to share the information on your favourite social platform.
Social Bookmarks:
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links for 2009-12-22
December 23, 2009 — dougpete-
Teacher resources for all aspects of teaching, including teaching strategies, management, resources, and more
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100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups
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Enter your twitter ID and determine the value of your account – for fun.
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The ultimate Wikipedia articles search engine
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Embedding the Twitter tools in Prezi also helps provide support for live twitter in presentations for the Macintosh (neither PowerPoint for Mac nor Keynote support the embedding of Flash files, bizarrely).
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Ideas for using pictures from a digital camera
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While Twitter is a fun place to hang out, it has associated risks just like any other social network.
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At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses
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Netbook Mode (show only message pane). Hides the ads, so the message pane is full width, but ALSO shows the gadgets (maps, events) as a popup. Overall, more space for your messages
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While you're on holiday break, you may want to watch one or all of these TED Talks. If you're interested in learning more about using TED Talks in your classroom, check out Teaching With TED.
Making Money
December 22, 2009 — dougpeteFor a long time now, there have been all kinds of questions about how Twitter would end up making money by providing the micro-blogging service that it does. To date, it has survived by venture capital and it’s interesting to read the dollar figures reported. It gives you the scope of how big something like this is. I always thought that sustainability would come from being consumed by a service like Facebook or with the injection of advertising on pages. At this point, I appear to be wrong.
But, according to this report from Wired, money is being received by selling access to content to Google and Bing. This seems to be a natural since both services do scour news feeds to get the latest stories and, as has been noted on many occasions, Twitter can be a source for information event before it makes its way through the big news services. The classic case was the airplane landing in the river in New York. But, it certainly isn’t the only event where Twitter shines. I blogged about it back in January. As I noted at the close of the post, with all of the immediacy that Twitter provides, it doesn’t stand alone.
With the connection to Google and Bing, it doesn’t and the news from Twitter will integrate nicely into bigger related stories. What it does do, as Jeff Pulver notes frequently, supports the “State of Now”. It’s a natural marriage of information resources. At this point, the implementation is different for the two services and both seem to be very functional.
At Bing, a tag cloud advertises the hottest topics currently being discussed on Twitter. The movie Avatar, as well as the residue from Copenhagen or the upcoming holiday lead the pack. Scrolling down reveals some of the content for the popular topic, with options to get more information or to even re-tweet the message after logging into your Twitter account.
Google tries to integrate the results into the regular stream of search results. Options like “See more from Twitter” or “See all results from Twitter” expands the search and the content from the source. As an example, I asked Google to search for the hashtag from the recently concluded RCAC Symposium 2009 where we asked attendees to use the #RCAC09 hashtag. Google kicks over to a site:twitter.com search to retrieve the results. Of course, toggling the Advanced Search feature gives you additional functionality.
In a level of transparency, you can also search by a particular Twitter username. The results return the latest from that userid. Except for the quotation bubble, there’s nothing that really stands out from the regular results from a search.
I suspect that this level of transparency may cause some concern among some folks. But, a realization that this is a very public forum needs to be understood. Your messages are available to those who wish to check your Twitter account or to use Twitter search in the first place. Just like Twitter search, Google won’t report results from your account if you protect your updates. However, if someone has made reference to you and they don’t protect their updates, the content will still flow through in the results. Admit it now – you do want to Twitter-Google yourself right now.
But searching isn’t limited to just Google and Bing.
Yahoo! has yet another way of returning results. In this case, a search for my Twitter name reveals a new tab devoted to results specifically from Twitter as opposed to “Show All” so that you can break out the Twitter comments.
It’s an exciting time to see the integration of Twitter into results from these major search engines. We’re at the beginning; look for much greater integration as time goes by and better ideas for implementation come along.
Social Bookmarks:
links for 2009-12-21
December 22, 2009 — dougpete-
Liberate your newbie friends with a Web2.0 suicide! This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego
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In the last few years, publishers have finally started to embrace digital publishing and now lots of books on lots of different topics are available for various eBook platforms. If you’re into social media (and who isn’t?) check out these ten can’t-miss eBooks!
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Doctors are said to be people that help those who are sick or in need of medical treatment. Most doctors are seen as benevolent towards society as a whole, but maybe not by those people who need to get their routine vaccinations.
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Guess what? One single device wins this award in my book. It wins for both best and worst simultaneously. What is it? It’s the OLPC XO.
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Microblogging service Twitter reached profitability ahead of expectations in 2009 in characteristic style, with just two strokes of the pen, Business Week reported Monday.
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In the tradition of year-end lists, we're introducing Facebook Memology. "Memology" refers to the study of how "memes," or new ideas and trends, are spreading on Facebook. For this year's list, the Facebook Data Team mapped the top trending words and phrases in U.S. status updates for 2009
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Ever seen a hashtag on Twitter, and wondered what it is all about? Now you can look it up, and cast your vote on the definitions. And if you don't like the definitions, or none exists, you can create your own in seconds.
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For those that are interested to see who is surfing the web and where they are at are the top 10 countries that are using the Internet continuously:
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Works with all desktops and devices. ZCS Features (PDF) Download a Free Trial See whats new in 6.0
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"The primary goal of “Having Fun with Computer Programming and Games” is to promote and instill an interest in programming and computer science to transition year students (age 15-16). This unit uses a freely available software tool that was developed by the MIT Media Lab called Scratch."
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could become as important a journalistic tool
as the Freedom of Information Act
Muppet Christmas Carol
December 21, 2009 — dougpeteThanks, Tim Stahmer, for this trip down memory lane…
Day 3 with Windows 7
December 21, 2009 — dougpeteYesterday was a great day with Windows 7. No hard reboots at all. I’m taking that that is a good sign that I’m removing things that are no longer of any use. One thing I did want to get though was the update to the Active Protective System from Thinkvantage. I’m rough with my computers and so this laptop does get moved quite a bit and the current software is announced as incompatible with Windows 7. Like what happens whenever I do anything with Thinkvantage, I have to update the updater first and the APS was available. I decided to remove the modem driver since I never use it. It’s a little nervous because sometimes the modem driver is hooked into other integral parts of the system. But, I was able to remove it.
APS wanted a reboot which made sense and, upon reboot, Windows notices the modem and insists on downloading updates from Microsoft Update. Who am I to argue with Microsoft? At the very least, I’ll have the latest driver. I may be fickle, but at least I’m an easy going fickle. System boots and life is good. But, something is wrong.
Despite my Windows experience of 5, something is amiss. Actually, a couple of things are amiss. While the menu is nice, it still does require that you load the menu, go to a program group, and then launch your application. I’ve learned about pinning applications to the taskbar but if I pin everything I need, it will be full upon loading. Then, it dawned on me – I really used the Quick Launch toolbar.
No problem, I figure, it’s probably just disabled. I right click on the toolbar and ask to see all of my Toolbars and there are the usual ones. Links, Address, etc. but no Quick Launch. That’s strange. I know that I didn’t remove it in the upgrade from Vista. It’s got to be around somewhere. I do a search and the first result is “What happened to the Quick Launch Toolbar?” It’s not included? Hmmm. That’s the way I do things, Microsoft. Well, the early football game wasn’t terribly exciting so I decided to poke around the hard drive and found the Quick Launch toolbar from the old system at: C:\Users\Doug\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer. This really is important to me as many of the shortcuts from my old system had been moved to the Quick Launch. I wonder if I could restore it?
Easy.
Right click on the taskbar to create a new toolbar and I navigate my way through the hard drive (thank goodness I reveal hidden folders) and I select the folder and add it to my taskbar. But, it’s at the wrong end! Instead of being next to the Start button, it’s beside the clock. And, it’s labelled too. Surely that’s fixable and definitely it was. Just unlock the task bar and the objects are movable. Turn off the name and I drag the three apps that I use most Chrome, Seesmic Desktop, and FirstClass to the task bar for my quick and easy way of accessing applications rather than pinning and I’m happy. I drag the others around on the Quick Launch bar to put them in alphabetical order and I’m really happy now.
There’s even the shortcut to Show the Desktop and it still works. So, the trick is to open up the taskbar to show just the first three icons and then lock it again. With the room for organizing icons gone, there’s now room for the four that I need.
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera are still available from the Quick Launch so that I have all of the apps that I need for testing web pages. I’ll use small icons so that I get more real estate.
Somewhere in the midst of all of the above, I noticed the little 3D button next to the clock and learned by accident the “Look at Desktop” and “Peek at Desktop” feature. That’s going to come in handy.
I really feel a sense of accomplishment now. As I’m using my computer, I have the functionality that I’ve grown accustomed to plus a knowledge of even more of Windows 7’s new features.
I love learning.
Social Bookmarks:
links for 2009-12-20
December 21, 2009 — dougpete-
Site tracking and analytics tool StatCounter Global Statistics now shows that Firefox 3.5 is the most used browser in the world.
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Research tutorial from Rutgers university
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When you need a pat on the back
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View the list of the Top 100 Videos for Teachers. This list is provided by SmartTeaching.org, a leading online resource for current teachers, and aspiring education students and student teachers.
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ohCanada is simply your portal to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter games. The application gives you the schedule for each day by date or by event
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Huge collection of language arts and literacy resources
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A "World" of multicultural stories.
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Online Photo booth, en francais
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Welcome to TelevisionTunes.com, a library of TV theme music and songs from yesterday and today.
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Play neverending quiz, memory
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Name tags help in identifying and recognizing people in functions, parties and events. Free Name Tags is a nice site which makes the task of creating and printing name tags quick and easy.
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Great collection of secondary school math quotes, puzzles, etc.
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In spring 2009 I offered for the first time a newly developed 200-level course designed primarily for Dickinson College students majoring in Middle East Studies, International Studies, and Political Science: Media, Mass Communication, and Political Identities in the Middle East and North Africa
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We often think of computers as a very modern phenomenon, but there were actually plenty of computers around 50 years ago.
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The idea was to build a bare-bones, but visually compelling and highly usable to-do app based on Tina’s personal ideal work-flow.
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This Digital Literacy Toolkit began with the premise that multimedia authoring, which is happening with the extensive use of PowerPoint in classrooms, must be taught as a skill, just as traditional text-based writing is taught
Day 2 with Windows 7
December 20, 2009 — dougpeteI did a great deal of learning yesterday. As noted earlier, I did an upgrade in place from Vista to Windows 7 rather than a clean install. My logic was to give it a shot and then, if it didn’t work out, do the clean install.
It was a rocky start but with a lot of persistence and deletion of programs, it seems to have become a pretty stable system. With my slash and burn technique, I may have inadvertently clobbered some programs that didn’t need to be clobbered but they can always be re-installed. My first attempt at optimization came when my Comodo firewall started learning my habits again. That seemed kind of weird and so I started poking around in the Control Panel in a section called “Review Your System Status”. Now, I had installed the third party firewall because of some system projects that I had been involved with before and disabled the Windows Firewall to try and make the old Vista system more secure. With the upgrade, it looks like the settings for the Comodo firewall had been reset and it was learning how I use a computer all over again.
By default Windows 7 turned on its own firewall and I was counselled about the evils of having two firewalls on a system. It’s good advice; which one to disable? Microsoft had taken such bad press with its Vista firewall that I’m thinking that that this new one has to be engineered differently. I hadn’t read about any concerns with Windows 7 firewall. The topper though, came when it was reported that I had two anti-virus programs active. I had the desired NOD32 product but the system also reported that Comodo had an anti-virus running as well. A little poking around and I noted that the Comodo security package gives you 30 days of its anti-virus when you install the firewall. That made the decision easier – for this moment in time I removed it.
While looking around at NOD32, I determined that version 3 is not supported on Windows 7 – but there is a version 4. I’m good with that so version 3 removed and version 4 put into place. That seemed to go well. We’re still reporting that both NOD32 and Windows defender are keeping guard against malware. This time, I’m not taking the Windows route – defender takes a back seat on this one. This isn’t a state of the art computer but a “Windows Experience” of 5.0 is making things pretty snappy at this point. I was only 4.2 with Vista. Have the rules changed or is Windows 7 that much more optimized?
One of the things that I really do like about the configuration section is the ability to find out details about what all of these things mean. “How does a firewall protect my computer?” While those of us who have been around the block for a few laps understand, it’s great learning for a new person if they care to take the time to look at it. There’s even a helper session that I hope I never need – “Run programs built for previous versions of Windows”. I’m assuming that it’s a nice interface to take you into compatibility mode. The good news is that I haven’t had to run it yet. My computing habits are such that I’m typically using recent titles and they are designed for Windows 7. The real challenge will be digging into some of the older educational titles. That’s where it could get ugly. After all, we manage to get 130ish titles working under Windows XP. It’s going to be a pretty significant project to check them all out as we move forward. The biggest challenge has always been keeping all of the applications happy with older versions of Quicktime. My thoughts about those programs as we move into 2010 will come as a separate entity. Windows 7 could mark the end of “drill and kill”.
I haven’t noticed any comments along this line with the research I’d been doing in preparation for my upgrade but I really struggled to get the 16GB that Windows 7 wanted for the upgrade. After the upgrade, and with my paring, it seemed to have generously offered me some new storage space. I’m currently quite happy to report that I’ve got over 30GB free space. I’m very happy with that. Will I be able to sustain that? Hmmm.
So, Day 2 was way better than Day 1. Things are running snappier and smoother. Only one hard boot was required. A major player in the way that I work, Seesmic Desktop, has never run so well. At this point, I’m a pretty happy camper. However, as my friend Ron is quick to point out, I’m on record as being a fickle computer user and being in maintenance / setup mode is killing me.
On to Day 3…
Social Bookmarks:
links for 2009-12-19
December 20, 2009 — dougpete-
EvaluTech offers expanded access to resources that are aligned with the work of the Educational Technology Cooperative. It is committed to providing high-quality information to K-20 education agencies —states' departments of education and higher education agencies— in the 16 states.
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Twilk takes your Twitter friends' faces and puts them on your Twitter background.
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ipl2 is a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment. To date, thousands of students and volunteer library and information science professionals have been involved in answering reference questions for our Ask an ipl2 Librarian service and in designing, building, creating and maintaining the ipl2's collections
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Trying to find people that will actually engage with
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What is the solution, then? Give your kids the opportunity to play puzzle games and strategy games as well – here’s a small list of entertaining games that will teach them logic, planning, concentration and deep thinking, allowing them to make good decisions in complex, real life situations
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With the growth of the internet, technology and especially with web 2.0 tools it is now easier for each of us to build a unique online Personal Learning Network (PLN).
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@courosa's presentations
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Resources for Classroom 2.0 LIVE show on December 19, 2009. Special Guest: Alec Couros Topic: Open, online university courses
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These templates are to be used for educational purposes only.
All Game Templates were found by searching on other sites. -
We are NOT affiliated with Facebook in any way. We pride ourselves on providing you the best LOL moments in facebook history
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KlickableTV is the easiest way
to make your videos interactive -
What's Special About This Number?
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AlternativeTo is a new approach to finding good software. Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you great alternatives, based on user recommendations. Also a version for mobiles.
doug – off the record
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