Teaching & Learning with Technology

Google Reader is like a personalized newspaper that you can read on your computer or on your smartphone. It constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won’t miss a thing. Google Reader shows you all of your favorite sites in one convenient place. Millions of sites publish feeds with their latest updates, and the integrated feed search makes it easy to find new content that interests you. With your Google Reader public page, you can share your favorite items with your friends, simply by sending them to relevant links.

How would you and your students use Google Reader in the classroom? Find out more here: http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/Google+Reader

http://www.ustream.tv/

“Ustream.TV is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size. In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster. All you need to stream is a computer, internet connection, a microphone and a webcam or video camera.”

Ideas for using UStream in the classroom:
http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2007/11/09/315/

7 Things you should know about UStream

Tired of PowerPoint presentations? Spice up your next lecture or presentation with Prezi! “Prezi allows anyone who can sketch an idea on a napkin to create and perform stunning non-linear presentations with relations, zooming into details, and adjusting to the time left without the need to skip slides. Create a map of your ideas, images, videos, then show overview, zoom to details, amaze, convince, take the day.”

Learn Prezi in 5 minutes: http://prezi.com/prezi/27/try/

“Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.”

“Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.”

Check out Scratch here:  http://scratch.mit.edu/

For ideas on how to use Scratch in the classroom, the getting-started guide, and demo video clips: http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Educators

“Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.” Zotero allows you to attach PDFs, notes and images to your citations, organize them into collections for different projects, and create bibliographies using Microsoft Word. History and English teachers are LOVING this tool.

To read more and view a demo video clip: http://www.zotero.org/

Zotero quickstart guide: http://www.zotero.org/support/quick_start_guide

(Click on the picture above to see a bigger version)

Poll Everywhere is a simple text message voting application that works well for live audiences. People vote by sending text messages to options displayed on-screen. The poll that is embedded within the PowerPoint presentation or web page will update in real time. Advanced uses include texting comments to a presentation, texting questions to a presenter, web voting, and SMS interactivity in print, radio, and TV. To read more about it and check out a demo video clip, check out:  http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Diigo (DEE-go) is a Social bookmarking website which allows signed-up users to bookmark and tag web-pages. In that case, it is similar to Delicious, however, Diigo additionally allows users to highlight any part of a webpage and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page. These annotatations can be kept private, shared with a group within Diigo or a special link forwarded to someone else. The name “Diigo” is an abbreviation for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff”.

Read more about Diigo and watch a demo video clip here: http://www.diigo.com/

We currently have Adobe Photoshop Elements installed on all desktops in labs, libraries, and classrooms as well as teacher laptops. Here are a few online training resources:

Photoshop Elements:

http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshopelements/

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/Photoshop_Elements_Tutorials_and_User_Resources.htm

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/learningcenter/

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=photoshop+elements&search_type=&aq=f

Premier Elements
http://www.adobe.com/support/premiereelements/

Online Help Guide

http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/learningcenter/index_premiere_4.php

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=premier+elements+4+tutorial&aq=f

Check out the Digital School Collection Resources and the Idea Gallery:

http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/adsc/

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ideagallery/

I have received a few questions about PC and Mac compatibility that I thought I would share.

If teachers or students are using Macs at home, there is no problem with bringing files like presentations and papers back and forth between home and school as long as a few things are understood.

The problem is not with the actual computer type (mac or pc), the problem is with the version and type of software that the student/teacher is using to create the presentation/project on their home Mac or home PC. Keep in mind that Office 2007 (Word 2007, Excel 2007, Powerpoint 2007) is installed on all Cranbrook computers.

1. If the student/teacher uses Office 2008 on their home Mac computer, then there is no issue…the files transfer to and from Office 2007 on the PC’s at Cranbrook seamlessly.

2. If a student/teacher uses an earlier version of Office on their home Mac (like Office 2004) or home PC (like Office 2000, XP, or 2003), then they will need to install the following compatability pack on their home Mac/PC in order to open, edit, and save Office 2007 files.

Compatability pack for home PC’s:

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for 2007 Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats  http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=XT101080361033&CTT=5&Origin=RP100664491033

Compatability pack for home Mac’s:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EDB6CD8F-832C-4123-8982-AC0C601EA0A7&displaylang=en

3. Also, remember that font styles, colors and themes may not be the same in various versions of Office so when you transfer files from one version to another, it may not look exactly the same.

4. If a student/teacher does not have any version of Office installed on their home Mac or PC, then there is no guarantee that files will be compatible or transferable. (For example, Apple iWork files like Keynote, Pages, and Numbers do not play nice with Office files like Powerpoint, Word, and Excel).

A few faculty have requested online and face to face training sources that offer courses in specialty software applications like Access, Photoshop, Flash, and others:

Face to Face:
http://www.collegeforcreativestudies.edu/ce/adultcourses
http://www.newhorizons.com/content/index.aspx

Online:
http://www.kelbytraining.com/
http://www.lynda.com/