86. iMovie

I was talking with a Year 12 class. They had to present something less than 30 secs that depicted a social issue. In discussion with one sweetheart we talked about an animation. For this student creating a poster wasn't an option as he couldn't draw. But he could build and thought out side the square. Simple but effective. A 21 C problem solver I thought the ending was powerful. Definitely tells a story.

87. RSS Aggregators

What's an aggregator, I hear you ask? An aggregator goes out and checks all the websites and other web feeds that you as the reader subscribe to for updates and then informs you of the new content. This is of course instead of you visiting each and every site that you subscribe to on the web, checking for new content. In other words the new content is bought to you rather than you going out to find the content. The RSS = real simple syndication. Ever noticed the little orange fan at the end of the url bar. That indicates that feed is able to be syndciated and fed to you.

There are a number of aggregators out there. I use Bloglines. Some of my colleagues use Netvibes, Google reader, and Technocrati. Each and every one essentially provides the same service. When I open up my aggregator I can see at a glance which of the feeds I subscribe too, have updated. oops there are a few I haven't read, as you can see by the numbers in brackets.
Why do I use them? They save me a lot of time and I can keep uptodate with new content and posts when the items are published. Real simple!

88. QuickTime

Most computers have QuickTime Player which allows you to view movies. or clips from the Internet. Of course having QuickTime allows me to save lots of my creations as movies by adding the extension .mov to the end of the title. In movie format I can add the creations into movie creating software, upload and embed into blogs and wikis, and send off via email to friends and colleagues.
I have upgraded my QuickTime to the Pro version, a cost of about $50 AU. QuickTime is available for both platforms.

With pro I can really extend the uses. QuickTime allows you to make animations and seamlessly stitches the photos together at whatever frame rate you choose. I like editing movie footage to capture those small learning moments to support teaching. You know, the 2 minute sequence on asking informative questions, or the science experiment etc. Pro also allows you to add additional tracks, eg voice overs, and embed movies within movies. QuickTime Pro a flexible easy to use piece of software, that allows you to create higher end resources.
I've included a wee segment Chris did with a class of 21 boys and 7 girls after a study of the solar system. They loved sharing their learning this way, especially the boys.
Chris showed them how to make an animation and then each group had 1.5 hrs to plan, create, make, shoot and put together.... and they did. Many thanks Room 6 and Chris for sharing

89. Bubbleshare

I'll come back later today / tonight and write more about Bubbleshare. Yesterday I was working at a school and I wanted to grab some pics of chn. This was a literacy session and I couldn't find one child that wasn't engaged. The wee sweeetheart with the hat on was listening to her teacher read and she was hanging on very word, although my photo may not guite relect that.
I have quickly put some photos into a bubbleshare and hung them. Capture the wee sweethearts in your class engaged in their learning and share them with your community, parent and global.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Craft Ideas

90. Paste Special in WORD

Paste special must be one of the most over looked under utilised tools.

If I am writing a document in my favourite font,eg Comic Sans and I paste a piece into that document from somewhere else, eg from an email, or off the net  that is written in a different font eg Times New Roman. The piece I paste in keeps its formatting, Times New Roman, and makes my document written in Comic Sans look silly.

A bit like this really. I am forced to highlight the offending text and change the font and size to blend in with my original document. 
 However when you copy your piece to insert, the Times New Roman text from an email, click the curser into your original document where you want the text to be inserted, go up to Edit and scroll down to Paste Special and then click on Unformatted text.  The piece you are pasting in appears in your document and takes on the formatting of your own document eg Comic Sans.
Try it. I use this such a lot for quoting passages from web sites, or quotes from readings etc. Invaluable really.

91. AppleWorks for Apple only of course

Over the last week I have used a number of applications that will appear in my favourite tool list, however today I'm going to talk about a special feature in AppleWorks, and that's Draw.
The picture below of the bears, was actually 3 bears, on 3 pages created in Comic Life. I took each bear, copied and pasted onto one Drawing page in AppleWorks. By going to Save As and then looking down the window to File Format, I am able to go in there, scroll down to JPEG and convert my pages into jpg format. Remember not to Save as you exit the programme.

Of course if I did a partial screen capture holding down Shift, Apple and 4, and dragging over the piece I want to capture, the computer will save the capture as a jpg (png) file and place that on my desk top.
Either way I have options for taking files and turning them into jpg's.
I use the screen captures for making "how to's" and hanouts, so your students could too. I use the Drawing jpg convert often to make one jpg of lots of jpgs. Enjoy.

92. Comic Life.

src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mV9wl-Qyq7A/UHEyCdF5PRI/AAAAAAAAAbc/B01wDG4aJco/s200/Picture%2B16.png" height="200" width="156" /> letter sound recognition

Add Digital story telling

IPC Adventurers and explorers

93. Printing to PDF for Apple only

lately I have mentioned my favourite applications, however today it's a tool that I use regularly. I use this when I have created wonderful documents, that I want to send to others or hang on websites, blogs or wikis that they can be downloaded as a whole document, unchanged. I print and save to PDF.

Create your wonderful document.
Go to File and scroll down to Print.
At the bottom of the Print menu is a tab with PDF on it.
Click on this
Save to PDF
I always put .pdf extension on the end eg Jocelyn.pdf so that other computers can read the document with Adobe Acrobat reader.



This works for WORD, PowerPoint, AppleWorks, Excel, Comic Life etc
Check out your application to see if it has that PDF tab.

In the meantime I'll continue to look for a PC option. Watch this space.
What difference will it make to student learning?
Lots really if they can hang, or send any of their creations in PDf format that can be downloaded or not changed by others.

94. Wikispaces

Wikispaces have recently announced another 250,000 free sites for educators which is excellent news.The first time they offered 100,000 free spaces, and the uptake was relatively slow, and then the uptake grew very rapidly leaving some teachers without this option. However wikispaces have again offered educators 250,000 advertisment spaces free of charge if you are an educator. Create a couple of spaces, even if you don't use them immediately.

Although the advertisements are not pervasive, they are there and some of them perhaps a bit over the top for our younger sweethearts, hence the educators spaces with out the advertisements. Remember to tick the Private space and also Educational Use.

I have also been learning about all the extras you can add to your wiki page to create more appeal on the pages. As I work through the addtional features I continually ask... Will this make a diference to children's learning? I'm still learning so watch this space later.

The librarian at Outrum School in Dunedin has created a wiki, showcasing learning. Check it out.



Why use a wki?
They are collaborative spaces, and allow you to have mulitple pages all within easy navigation off the side menu bar. Your students can share their learning with their community from home, strengthening those home school partnerships. Possibly one of the best features is the fact that it is easy to embed podcasts, movies, images and files, all from within the wiki itself, rather than going off to find a third party application that will gtive you the code to embed. Wikispaces are free and are open source social software, so your wiki is held out there in the ether, and able to be edited from anywhere, any time. The kids love them too, isn't that an incentive to join up.

95. PhotoStory 3 PC only

To date all my posts have been cross platform applications or web 2.0 tools. PhotoStory 3 is for PC only. The Apple equivalent would be iMovie and I'll talk more about iMovie as one of my favourite later.

PhotoStory 3 is a free download
This programme allows you to create digital stories using digital still photos, text , speech,( if you have a dedicated headset) and add music. PhotoStory is very easy to use, very intuitive, (just keep clicking the next button) and very powerful for children and their learning,Why? The end product, the digital story can be created so efficientlyand tell the story. Sometimes the digital photos and the captions say it all. The addage is a picture says a 1,000 words is so true.

One of my teachers has made a great Van Gough Starry Night PhotoStory which I will embed here as soon as I can get a copy. Watch this space.

96. Kidspiration

You can't mention Inspiration with thinking about Kidpiration. Yes this one is on the list too. Again for the same reasons that I enjoy Inspiration, Kidspiration just allows the sorting of ideas for small people so easy. I enjoy its simplicity but the complexity within the programme that supports thinking and learning. I find Kidspiration supports boys and their learning. Their ideas can be one or two worders and again they can colour to group ideas. Super for those visual learners. Yes it's definitely on the list.
Thanks to Catherine and Karen and the children from your classes who offered me their work. Catherine's wee sweetheart gave me a blow by blow description of why, and their reasoning behind each of the pics they had placed in the inside, outside or both activities. Speaking of curriculum, this just reinforced the e-learning pedagogy, pg 36 NZC.

97. Inspiration

As a thinking tool, Inspiration in my book, is the ultimate.This application is a stand alone, you need it loaded onto your computer / laptops.I enjoy using Inspiration because it allows me to  brainstorm, manipulate ideas/data, organise information/ data
etc, use images, sequence, group, hyperlink to other documents or websites, create graphic displays,
colour ideas,, create notes, add sounds, use flowcharts and thinking templates etc etc. You can even use your Inspiration diagram as a presentation tool, opening and closing features and points as you present  and use them.  Languages and symbols are systems for
representing and communicating information, experiences and ideas so this application appeals to many types of learners and learning styles

I
love the freedom, flexibility and opportunity Inspiration gives the
user. I enjoy using my own photos, colour coding the information
especially when placing 6 hat thinking over the ideas. Inspiration allows you to move your idea bubbles around which also help clarify and classify ideas. The options and
opportunities are endless.
I've included an in-depth Inspiration example
from a secondary school student I worked with. They put down all their
ideas. manipulated them into sections and related topics and then sat
down and wrote the IB extended essay. The organising and articulation of the
ideas took some time, but at the end they had a very clear vision of
the way the essay would unfold. Talk about big picture thinking, this
was it.
I use Inspiration to plan and write my papers.
On completion of an Inspiration mid map, you can export these as jpg's, gifs, html etc and use them in other applications eg your blog. I'm attaching a few examples from Year 6 last year.

How can I use this in my classroom? IPC topics, knowledge harvest, as a presentation tool, brainstorming, sequencing ideas and experiences, planning for an writing. Creating and sequencing instructions eg systems and circuits. Creating food pyramid, as Inspiration includes a small bank of clip art images, however you can make your own banks with photos. Flow charts, thinking maps.

98. Kid Pix

An oldie but a goodie, still standing the test of time. There are just so many possibilities here for all ages of students, and so many options for the different aspects of Kid Pix. Drawing, using graphic images, text, audio, compilations to movies or as movies, slideshows, just one off drawings that become jpegs, animations etc. I'm excited everytime I get to use this software with children, by what they create and how they use their creations to support their learning.... There's gimmicky bits in the programme, however I talked to my students about the value to learning......

I spent time with Rachel and her new entrants. These wee sweethearts weren't phased and were in boots and all. Great day Rachel, thank you.

99. Wordle

Wordle works on high word frequency.

Wordle is an online word cloud generator that is very easy to use. Wordle allows you to make word clouds, with the high frequency words growing as their frequency is developed. These can be "saved"/ turned into a jpg and inserted into all other types of work. Open the programme, click create and start typing. After completing your writing, click OK and up on the screen comes all your words randomly displayed, with the more frequent words larger than the less frequent words. Click on the randomise button to get various views of your word cloud. Sadly there is no going back, to a view you have passed over, you just have to keep moving forward. There is no save button. However by using Gadwin Screen Capture, you can take a screen capture which is a jpg and use this image. Ideas for use? Wordle emphasises the adjectives and nouns, not the prepositions, the little words, eg we, and, went etc A useful brainstorming tool Good for definitions. Examining high frequency words, can we make our writing sharper / more purposeful Pre unit /post unit language Reinforcing basic words Knowledge harvest immersion into a topic What do we already know Developing a vocabulary

100. Portaportal

Portaportal is another social booking tool.
I began using Portaportal last year as an alternative for teachers to use with their students. After quite a discussion around the networking side of Delicious I felt that Portaportal takes that risk away.

Portportal works in a very similar way to Delicious when saving your book marks. The one point of difference is sharing your book marks with others. When using Portaportal they access your list as guests. As guests they cannot make changes to your book marks or network off in tangents to other sites. Its wusiwug. This I felt was a bonus for schools and the safety of their students clicking into "this was saved by 317 others" and networking through someone else's bookmarks. The downside of course is that the students are restricted to the bookmarks you have found and they can not save their own. This is not entirely true. Thinking creatively......If you have a Room 3 Portaportal site and an agreed log in then the Room 3 students can save sites from where ever, when ever. I'd be interested to hear how you find Portaportal if you are using it, and how this works for your class/ students.

101. Delicious. Social Bookmarking

Delicious: Social bookmarking.  www.delicious.com

Have you ever book marked something only to find later when you want that site that it is on another computer/ laptop/ at school / at home?

Social bookmarking allows you to keep all your www bookmarks on line, so that you don’t have to be at the same computer to save interesting sites. Your book marks are held “out there in the ether” and you have the flexibility to access them any where, any time.

Delicious was the first official site, and over the years has undergone a transformation including a name change, and the ability to make sites public or private.

There are other social bookmarking sites available. Another site I have used with students is Portaportal as this social book marking site does not allow the linking from your sites to others. I’ll explain that further on in this post

Social bookmarking also gives you collaborative capabilities, eg Good sites for explorers that your class have found as a group while searching, can be saved directly to 5G class site. Good maths sites, sites for EYFS resources etc etc. Your bookmarks can be tagged and these become tag bundles, so all the bookmarks tagged co-operative learning appear in that tag or folder.

Delicious has 5 other interesting features apart from tagging

1. You can down load an app and have your bookmarks on your phone. Really useful for those conversations when you are away from your computer and someone talks about a useful site.
2. You can make your bookmarks either public or private, which leads to point 3. there is an edit pencil which allows you to change if later on you change your mind
3. If your book marks are public then other people can piggy back into your bookmarks. That’s the nature of social media. A useful upside of this is that if you bookmark an interesting article for example on collaborative learning, you can see who else has bookmarked that item, and click through into their bookmarks. They may have other collaborative sites they have bookmarked which you can explore, or haven’t found. NB If you don’t want anyone coming through to your bookmarks then click the  private option.
4. There is a followers and a follow tab which works the same way as Twitter. You may find somebody who saves interesting items on collaborative learning. By following that person you are piggy backing into their research, searches and general interest.
5. Under the Add link tab are  2 useful tools allowing you to
   place 2 icons on your tool bar. One is a click icon add to my delicious site. Therefore any new website you want to save is a mere click of the button away. I also have the icon that takes me directly to my delicious account on all the computers I use.