Wowzio - Blog Widgets

Wowzio is a Widget creator.  It is free.  If you want to receive the widgets you have to email them that you would like an invite.  They hand out 25 invites every 24 hours.  You can get a Panaoramic Slideshow, Photo Gallery, Simple Slideshow, Live Activity, Tag Cloud, and Feed Content are the widgets that you can get from the site.  You can see a sample of each widget here.  You can customize the widgets to match what you would like for your blog or website.  I have just sent my invite in, so I will let you know how it goes.  If you are just starting your blog, then these would be a great source of widgets for you.

They also have a Geo-Popularity Platform to help you determine what are the most popular post on your blog, or the most popular pages of your webpage.  This will help provide you information about Real-Time Whats Hot and give you a better understanding of your most popular post.  If you are wondering why Wowzio, you can visit their FAQ page or visit their blog.

If you are using Wowzio, please share your experiences for my readers.  Thanks!

Weekend Extra #4 - Twitter Tweecap Top 20

Another wonderful dose of articles, websites, blogs, and opinions from my PLN and Twitter.  And yes, it will include some information and opinions about the iPad, because despite all that I think it is missing, it is going to revolutionize the future of textbooks and education.

1.) Fed Up With School Lunch - A blog that I think as teachers we will all be interested in reading as well as following.  Very entertaining, and makes you wonder about the comparison of your school lunch, considering school lunch is a federal and state program.  Makes me wonder how lunches could be so different.

2.) The iPad was the big announcement for this week, and Twitter was buzzing about it.  With the announcement also came the announcement of competitors.  Here are the future options of Tablets.

• JooJoo Tablet
• Google Chrome Tablet
• What the next generation iPad should be.

3.) Bookr - A tool that can help you create a photo-book using your photos from Flickr.  Think of it as creating a virtual photo album

4.) Interesting lesson idea to catch students attention about private information that is available on the Internet.  A way of showing studies their digital dossier.  When I return to the classroom, I think I will attempt to do such an assignment.

5.) A wonderful LiveBinders set of information for Google.  Information for Google Docs, Apps, Earth, Scholar, Sketchup, and Wave.

6.) One to One Program...is your school or district ready?  Take this survey to find out.

7.) A great selection of reusable Prezi's. 

8.) Educational Uses of Digital Story Telling from the University of Houston.

9. Mosaic Maker from Big Huge Labs - A great way to take your photos and create a mosaic.

10.) The Plagiarism Checker - Just copy and paste or upload a Word Document to check it foe plagiarism.  You can get more options by subscribing and getting a Pro account.  I have not tried it, so I cannot validate its  accuracy.

11.) Quizstar - A website for creating quizzes online.  Allow students to access and take the quizzes online as well...takes a lot of the grading out of our hands!

12.) Voicethread Wiki - probably the most thorough explanation of Voicethread and its features.  Definitely worth checking out if planning Voicethread activities in your classroom.

13.) HTML5 - A great explanation of the future of HTML.  I had no idea about it till reading this blog.  Useful and informative links within the blog as well.

14.) Springpad - A free personal organizer to save and store just about anything.  Think of it as an online Notebook.  Could be really useful for students to save and store lecture notes.

15.) Show Me Whats Wrong -  a great website for creating a URL with screen shots of your computer so that someone with computer knowledge can visit the URL and help you with an issue.  Rather interesting.  Be really useful to help mom and dad, or even grandma and grandpa when they are having problems with their computer.

16.) and 17.) From Free Technology 4 Teachers, Audio Owl - Hundreds of Free online Audio Books and Seven Places to Find Free eBooks.

18.) 26 Online Photo Editors and Image Tools to Entertain Ourselves.

19.) From Scholastic - Should we extend the school day?  What about the school year?  An article worth reading.

20.) A Periodic Table with Real World Applications of the Elements.

Friday Focus #6 - The New Prezi

Power Point has always been one of those staple technology applications in education.  A way to present material to students that also offered the opportunity for audio, video, and picture integration to make lecture more...interesting.  However, in 2010, Power Point has started to become mundane. Prezi is a new presentation tool that offers a new approach to presenting information.  It can be easily described as creating a presentation on a 3D canvas.  

I created an original post on Prezi at the early stages of this blog.  Of course at the time of the original Blog Post I had not come to fully understand the expansiveness as well as the limitations of Prezi.  There were originally no plans for Educational Licensing and its ease of use for the average person was rather frustrating.  Within my blog I have linked to two presentations.  One I create about Hands On Learning.  The other was a Math Presentation created by a teacher at my school.

Recently though, Prezi has changed their thinking.  First they offered Educational Licensing.  You can still get the standard Free account, but there is an "Edu Enjoy" account that allows privacy settings, removal of the Prezi Watermark, and 500 MB of online storage space.  A great addition to an already interesting presentation tool.  You can pay $59 for a year subscription and it gives 2000 MB of online storage space, plus the ability to create Prezi offline using desktop software.  Not a bad price. 

If you already have an account using your school email address, log in and then click on "upgrade."  Click on the Education option and you will be able to upgrade to the Education Account.  You will have to confirm your email address again.

Prezi didn't just add Education licensing either.  It improved the tool used to create Prezi's, as well as new backgrounds, colors, fonts, etc.  The first picture is the old tool for Prezi.  The second picture is the new tool for creating Prezi...a more simple user interface.

When you visit Prezi now, it shows a video so that you can get a better idea of how to get started creating your own presentation.  Adding text is a lot easier as well as adding effects to the text.  Before you always had to go to the tool to change text, now, one click does one thing, and two clicks does another...MUCH easier.

You can easily interchange between the different fonts and colors.  I wish there were more options here instead of changing colors over the entire canvas, there was more individual options.  Creating your path is a lot easier as well with a drag and click feature.  There are also Zoom In and Out buttons so you don't always have to use your scroll.  It still has the same framing and drawing tools as well.  You can also load images, videos, and PDF within the Presentation.

But with all of that...the best feature...UNDO and REDO!!!!  

If you have not tried Prezi, I highly recommend using it once and see your student's reaction to it.  It will be such a wonderful change of pace from Power Point.  

Quizlet

Another one of the Web 2.0 tools that has grown in popularity is Online Flashcards.  There are several sites out there for creating Online Flash Cards.  Some of the sites have more features than others and others are simply for creating Online Flash Cards.  My favorite of the bunch is Quizlet.
















Quizlet was created by a 15 year old boy in 2005 who wanted a more entertaining way to learn his vocabulary.  The name Quizlet comes from Quizlette, the name of the "little" quizzes his French teacher gave his class.  Quizlet works by creating list of words and definitions.  The neat thing is that if you don't have a definition, you can choose from a list of definitions submitted by other users.  From those list there are different ways to learn them.  Students can export them into Flashcards, or complete various games and activities.  Students can even take a test that includes matching, multiple choice, true or false, and fill in the blank.  Teachers can create an account for free and then students can log on and use the terms you created to study.  Students can log on and create the words themselves to study as well.  Students do not have to join the site to study the flash cards already uploaded to the site.


Up Next - Friday Focus - The New Prezi

Think Twice Thursday #4 - Cartoons and Comics Creation

One of the post that I created during the early stages of this blog was a discussion of Cartoons and Comics Creation Websites that students and teachers can use in their classrooms for various activities.  You can visit that original post here, and see my discussion on sites such as GoAnimate, ToonDoo, and Pixton.  I also provided links to other comic strip sites such as BitStrips, Comiqs, StripCreator, and Strip Generator.  Recently I discovered a new site, DoInk.

With so many different types of websites for creating comics and cartoons, it is a resource that many teachers with little technology background could implement in their classroom and allow their students to use them for projects.  A good thing about the Comic Strips and Cartoons is that they are not limited to one or two subjects, you could easily adapt them across the curriculum.

Mathmetics:
- Take a math Word Problem and turn it into a comic strip/cartoon.
- Take a math concept and create a comic strip/cartoon.
- Make a comic strip/cartoon where the theme is using math in real life.
- Create a comic strip/cartoon using Geometric shapes as the characters explaining their angles and sides.
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about how to solve a problem on a calculator
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about how to solve a math problem without a calculator

Science:
- Create a comic strip/cartoon using the elements as the main characters
- Create a comic strip/cartoon explaining the processes from an experiment
- Create a comic strip/cartoon discussing the different planets as the characters.
- Create a comic strip/cartoon showcasing the different scientific methods
-Create a comic strip/cartoon about evolution

Social Studies:
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about a historic event, person, place, speech
- Create a comic strip/cartoon timeline of events
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about a government policy or document (Bill of Rights)
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about current events
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about economic concepts (Opportunity Cost, Law of Supply and Demand, etc.)
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about countries

English:
- Take a poem or short story and create a comic strip/cartoon about them
- Take a novel or non-fiction book and create a comic strip/cartoon about the characters, plot, setting, symbolism, or a combination of all of these
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about authors
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about persuasive, speech, trans-active, etc., writing
- Create a comic strip/cartoon about parables
- Create a comic strip/cartoons relating to the stories and plays of Shakespeare

Foreign Language
- Create comic strips/cartoons in foreign languages...great way to learn vocabulary
- Recreate comic strips/cartoons  from the newspaper in their own way and translate them into foreign language being studied
- Create comic strips/cartoons in a foreign language that relate to events and history of the countries the language you are studying is spoken in.
- Create comic strips/cartoons as part of a "travel guide"

This list is just a beginning.  I am sure that there are many more out there that I have not thought of.  I suggest you think twice about how you could use Comic Strips and Cartoons to enhance your curriculum and generate creativity in your students.

Do you have ideas?  Please share.