Apr 17, 2009

TIA day two-ah

I started off the day playing around on Twitter. The problem is that Twitter made some kind of changes to their site and now if you try to leave a comment for someone, you get a prompt to save a file. They say they are working on it, but have other issues that need to be worked out first. Really? There are people with lost tweets and a few other issues. Not a good way to have new users experience your site...


Each person was given a flash drive, and each flash drive was labeled by co-op and 'number.' For example, SW1, SW2, etc. and each person is supposed to keep everything in their own folder on their flash drive. Each co-op was also given one external hard drive that ALL of their flash drive files will be saved on.

As a techie, I have to say that the curriculum resource/alignment part of this is very confusing. I'm sure it has to do with the fact I've been running around the room helping people install the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack, but I feel a bit like a duck out of the water fowl species (forget about being just out of the water, at this point, I'm not sure I'm even a duck!).


The folks in this workshop are supposed to go find web pages, and then FILE, SAVE AS, and save the whole web page to the appropriate folder on the flash drive. I have a feeling there will be serious job security for the techs in the room.


Save YouTube videos: from the Youtube URL, remove the 'youtube' portion, and replace it with get2pc. Ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC4FAyg64OI change it to http://www.get2pc.com/watch?v=oC4FAyg64OI and go to THAT site. It will download the video to your machine in an FLV format. To play FLV, you need a player. Probably the most common one is the free RealPlayer. I like VLC Media Player (here).


I will be making a handout/guide for creating comic strips in education using Power Point (or whatever your favorite presentation software is). If I think about it, I'll post it here or over on the techblog.k12.ar.us site...


It's about 9:30am now, and we are breaking up to find resources. In my case, I'm helping serve as tech support as needed. I'll update this if/as needed.


At lunch, I had ordered some chips and salsa. After waiting for a while, I told another server that I had done so. Without even a pause, she said, "They're not ready yet." Not ready yet? What's involved with chips and salsa that requires them 'to be ready?' Well, after theey arrived, the chips were certainly some kind of bagged variety. The salsa definitely tasted store-bought, though it was the sweetest salsa I think I've ever had. Maybe the 'not ready' part was adding sugar to it??


We listened to a presentation of how to use digital photo frames in classroom settings. Use power point presentations saved as JPGs. Media folks are using sound-enabled frames are doing things like 'book talks' to encourage students to read new books or certain topics, etc.

Kodak has wireless frames with FrameChannel that allows people to send photos to picture frames through their web service. Students have been sending photos, etc to students at home to help them study when they have to miss. Students could send photos from state-to-state as long as they are given access to those frames. Trivia questions, stock quotes, weather, etc - all delivered to the frame along with photos.

Very cool stuff!


Yesterday, I talked about using SurveyMonkey in order to allow people rate various resources included in the Excel Spreadsheet. The approach I came up with, which is rudimentary granted, will work for what we need right now.

Next to each resource in the document, we will have a "RATE THIS" connected to a one-question SurveyMonkey question for thhat item. Next to that, we have a "SEE RATINGS" which allows anyone to come in and see what others have rated that resource.

Ex:
Sample math Assessments ----- Rate This ----- See Ratings ----
(within the spreadsheet, the "Sample Math Assessments" link to actual assessments)


We were shown books created with DesktopAuthor software (desktopauthor.com) which provides a free reader to open interactive books.


Next, Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. It's located at the University of South Florida's web site. You can also use iTunes to view a highly organized view of the offerings on their site.

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