Padlet...Formally Wallwisher

Wallwisher has been making some changes recently and I have written about them here and here.  Now, the most recent change is its name.  Padlet, it is the portmanteau of paper + wood + tablet...the rock kind, as a tribute to our ancestral beginnings of writing.  If you have been an avid user of Wallwisher, then you will have nothing to worry about with the name change.  It will not affect previous walls that you have created and there will be a period where you will be redirected to the new URL in the future.  To read more about this change, check out the Wallwisher Blog.

To see suggestions for using Wallwisher in the classroom, see my previous post about this tool.  

Slide Talk

Voice recognition software and typing text to voice over is becoming a very popular service.  There are also several apps and web based services that provide this for free.  Slide Talk is one of those options.  To use the service, you first must create an account.  Users will then upload their slides and arrange them to build a story.  These slides will need to be images.  For each slide users need to type some text to explain what is in the slide.  From there, in 20+ different languages and 70+ different voices, the service will convert the text into a voice over speech.  The images and audio are turned into a video and automatically published to YouTube, or can downloaded for personal use.  See video below that showcases several of the different voice options.

The Largest Archive of Biodiversity Sound and Video Library

The use of sounds in our lives is taking a dramatic turn with the use of Apps and mobile technology.  How many of you know someone that has an animal sound as a ringtone or message tone on their phone?  That is what I mean.  The Macaulay Library archive is the largest collection of biodiversity audio and video recordings that was just recently completely digitized for anyone to access.  The collection contains over 150,000 digital recordings with about 9,000 different species represented.  There is an emphasis on birds, but the library also includes the sounds of several other types of animals.

The Macaulay Library is working to improve search features and make it possible for people to collect their own recordings and upload them directly to the archive.  Many of the recordings are being used in movies, museums, and as mentioned above, in smartphone apps.  On the site you can browse by bird, mammal, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, and fishes.

For each sound, other information is also provided that might be of use.  Behavior is discussed as well as a location for where the recording to place as well.  Users can also learn the equipment that was used to capture the sounds.

Share the Wealth

Many of the educators that write a blog or that are on Twitter often have several bloggers that they read and follow on a daily basis.  Whether they have them on a list in Twitter or have them in their Google Reader, they are often our favorites.  They generally share something that we see as a vital resource for others or a thought/experience that we often relate to or learn something from.  When we see something on these blogs that we really like we often tweet them to our followers or share on another social network.

One way to share our favorites automatically is to use a service called Twitterfeed.  To use this service, all you need to do is link your Twitter account and then if you have your own blog, provide the RSS feed.  The service will automatically post to Twitter the most recent blog post.  You can also add a "header" or "footer" to the tweets as well.  I use the service and often attach a hashtag like #edchat and #edtech or a mention of who the author is by using their Twitter username.

I also recommend that you use the service to share the wealth.  Take a blog or two that you really like and collect their RSS feeds.  Attach them to the Twitterfeed service so that they are automatically tweeted for/from you.  This way your twitter followers will get the opportunity to read your favorite blogs in case you forget to tweet them, you read them from your Google Reader, or you are away for some time.

If you have a class blog, this is a great way to tweet those as well.  You can also link it to a classroom Facebook page to have the link automatically posted to the wall.  If you have your students blogging, you might want to share this service with them as well as a way to share their blog posts to Twitter

Top Posts of January

Hard to believe that a month has already gone by.  Before we know it, spring break and summer will be here.  Lots on the agenda before those breaks get here.  In the mean time, lets look back at what was most popular last month.

Turn Your Phone into a Presentation Remote - Using Google Chrome and some other services, users can make a phone a presentation remote and also a remote for YouTube.

Wallwisher Got a Makeover - I am a big fan of Wallwisher.  It was the very first web 2.0 tool that I wrote about on this blog.  Over the past few months they have made some positive changes to their software and I think it is even better than before.

10 QR Code Ideas - These were ideas that I saw teachers using, read about, or just thought that would be a pertinent way to share information with students, parents, and the community.  QR Codes could be a game changer in education in the future.

Mind Mapping Tools for Teachers and Students - A good list of some mind mapping software that are available for teachers and students for free or for minimal cost.

10 Apps for Students to Take Notes - iPads, netbooks, and other tablet devices are invading the classroom and there are several web-based and mobile apps for students to use to take and organize notes.  Here is a good list of some to share with your students.

Turn Google into an App Search - I discovered recently that you can use a Google search for finding an app that meets your needs in that search.  I explain that discovery in this post.

And still popular from December is 10 Cell Phone Apps for Teachers.