Sharing the Addiction

There are a few tools around for embedding books and documents into websites. I have historically always been a fan of Scribd where I can upload my docs and pdfs for embedding into my wikis. Recently I have found another couple of options and am now trying to figure out which I would use. I have looked at three below and embedded a version of the same document from each one to show their differences.

I like the large Scribd community and the fact that when I embed docs into Scribd, they are easy to read at full size with the ability to scroll down them. I also like the stats I get about how many views and downloads the document has had. The embedded objects also autofit themselves to the space available whereever I embed them which is handy. It can be a pain that people have to sign up for a Scribd account to be able to download the documents I share.

VoiceThread

Youblisher is a new one I’ve just started playing with (thanks Allanah for the post that alerted me to this one). I like the page turning effects and the overall look but am not sure that I like the way it takes you out of your site to view it or the fact that you have to zoom in to be able to easily read standard sized text. I do like the fact that it looks neat and tidy on the page when embedded and that it is super easy for people to download by clicking the down arrow beneath the embed. It is interesting that I can’t seem to find where to get the embed code when looking at other people’s books – I only seem to be able to access it when I create my own books.

Today I also signed up for Issuu which is another self-publishing platform. This one is very customisable with different ways to embed the document and three different views: one called magazine style with the two pages, presentation style with one page at a time, and paper style with pages that you can scroll down through (like Scribd). I like the fact that you can view an embedded book in full screen mode and then change between the viewing styles using the options that appear when you run your mouse over the top centre of the book space. You also get very good statistics for the document. You do still need an account to download the document though like Scribd.

Magazine Style

Paper style

So what do you think? Which one do you like the best and why?

This is a post for Mac users about the useful colour tips and tools that you can install for free on a Mac. I got these from a post by Robin Wood and have already found them incredibly useful.

The post goes into great detail about how to use the Mac built in colour picker which you will be familiar with when using Mac applications. I learned a LOT about how to use this after reading the post. It is always amazing how some things you use all the time can do so much more than you realised. I had no idea about building custom colour palettes or creating palettes from images on my computer before reading his post.

It also gives links to a couple of great free tools that add extra power to the colour picker. One of these is a free plugin for the colour picker called ‘Hex Color Picker’ which will give you the colour code for any colour and not just restrict you to web safe colours. I find this very useful for when picking colours for my wikis etc.

There is also another plugin related to the Adobe Kuler colour palette generating tool. It will go out to the website and show you the latest and highest rated palettes created by Adobe Kuler users for you to use.

Probably, one of the most useful things about Robin’s post is that he has included a script he has written that turns the colour picker into a stand alone application rather than just something that opens in other Mac applications. This is very useful for me as I can use it now to pick colours out of websites rather than have to take a screen grab and then open it in a Mac application to sample the way I used to!

I’ve just checked out the list of Edublog nominations and was happily surprised to see this blog in the list of those nominated for ‘Best resource sharing blog’. Given that I haven’t been updating as much recently, I was pretty chuffed to still be included. Thanks to those that nominated me That will help keep me making the effort to blog.

I have had a free VRoom with Elluminate for awhile now which I have to admit that I haven’t used as it only allowed for three participants to use it at a time. Still, I kept in tucked away as possibly being useful at some future point so was interested to get an email from Elluminate asking me to register with a new service called ‘Learn Central’ which is being sponsored by Elluminate or else I would loose my VRoom.

Learncentral logo

I dutifully followed the link and signed up on this network (and you can too at www.learncentral.org). What I instantly found very exciting is that they are offering the use of Elluminate meeting tools for free through the Learn Central platform to hold meetings for up to 300 participants! I copied the information below from the website written by Steve Hargadon who is a well known ICT educator:

LearnCentral allows educators to use a free public Elluminate room to hold large webinars or group meetings.  To qualify, the events must be 1) education-oriented, 2) free (you’re not charging those who attend), 3)  recordable, and 4) open to anyone to attend.  We’re really excited to see what you do with this capability, and are hoping that it allows you to regularly gather other educators around curricular interests in “historic” ways.

The current instructions are below.  This is a new service, so your feedback and help are greatly appreciated!

Before Scheduling a Meeting

We ask that you go through the live or recorded free Elluminate training (http://www.elluminate.com/support/training/index.jsp) before hosting a session, and suggest strongly that you attend another session as a participant to see how an Elluminate session works.  Please don’t go in without any actual experience–it won’t be good for you or your attendees!  :) This is an honor system, but we do ask that you are prepared as we don’t want these free sessions to reflect poorly on Elluminate!

To Schedule a Meeting

To schedule a meeting in the LearnCentral public-use Elluminate room, please create the event using the calendar for this group by going to the events tab here and clicking on “Create Event.”  Please check the calendar first and take care not to schedule over another event.  Please also leave at least 30 minutes before and after each event (so that you and the organizer who follows you both have time to come into the room to prepare before your events).

The URL to put in the calendar event, or to give out to others to attend, is https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=lcevents&password=Webinar_Guest. You can also use this shortened version: http://tinyurl.com/lcparticipant.  Participants do not need to be members of LearnCentral to attend the event, but please encourage them to join!

Once your event is scheduled in the group calendar, you are welcome to also add it to the calendars of other groups you are a part of.  If you believe your event might be of interest to the LearnCentral community as a whole, please email me at stevehargadon@elluminate.com so that I can place it on the community calendar.  You also need to email me for the moderator log-in information of this is your first time holding a LearnCentral Elluminate meeting.

Please keep meetings to under two hours in order for others to be able to use the room.  If you need a session that is longer than two hours, please contact me directly.  Also, the LearnCentral Elluminate room has limit of 300 participants.  If you believe that you will need to accommodate more than this number, please contact me directly as well.
I think this is a great service as normally it is fairly expensive to book an Elluminate session. I would have found this useful when running online meetings for ICT PD this year and I’m sure others could find great uses for it too.

With John Key (NZ’s prime minister for those overseas) at last agreeing to go to the Copenhagen summit on climate change, my mind turned to the resource I had small part in creating for TakingITGloblal’s education section.

The ‘Tread Lightly Toolkit’ looks at historical cases of the impact of man on the environment, the current issues for the planet in relation to climate change, and a challenge for students to reduce their own ecological footprint. The purpose of the resource as stated in the kit is to help young people worldwide to:

Understand the basic science of climate change and how human activity is contributing to the problem.

Realise the dangers of living beyond the earth’s carrying capacity.

Understand how climate change and other environmental issues are interconnected.

Foster a sense of personal and collective responsibility towards the earth.

Identify and adopt eco-friendly skills, behaviours and attitudes.

Become more interested in climate change policy at local, national and international levels.

It is well produced with useful resources. I helped to create the handouts on the historical examples but this is just one small part of a very comprehensive resource. Check it out at:

http://store.takingitglobal.org/files/treadlightly/TL-Teacher-Toolkit.pdf

Tags: ecological, environment

Christmas wiki

I am a self-confessed Christmas freak. There is nothing I like more than putting up a tree and getting out the tinsel. That love of the festive season has spilled over into my online life through a Christmas links wiki I set up a few years back that has links to all things Christmas. Every year, I pull it up and dust it off and see what needs updating etc. It always gets a huge number of hits around this time of year so I thought I’d bring it to your attention.

Christmas wiki

PBWorks

It is also the time that I catch up with PBWorks given that pretty much all of my other wikis are with Wikispaces. While I generally prefer Wikispaces, I have to say that PBWorks is still a pretty good tool with some features that Wikispaces lacks.

One of these features is the ability to create folders and nest pages within them. While my Christmas wiki isn’t big enough to need this function, I could see that this would be very useful for one of my bigger wikis such as educational software where I have created index pages for different sections – the folders would then help to keep my pages organised and easy to navigate with people able to use the navigation panel on the wiki to move around the folders and access the pages within them.

I also like the formatting options for tables in PBWorks. The ability to set the width of tables being the biggest advantage over Wikispaces.

There are other very useful features such as  page level access and easily backing up the wiki but these are subscriber only options and at $99US per classroom wiki, that is not a cheap option. Still, overall this is still an excellent wiki alternative for teachers.

Mrs Pancake

I’m also reminded of the Mrs Pancake website as I have linked to her Christmas resources. She has really created a wonderful site with very high quality printable downloads for all kinds of topics. Go check it out.

Baby is calling so back to being a Mum!

Tags: Christmas, printables

Teacher TV

The UK have a number of fabulous online resources for teachers and one of my favourites has to be Teachers TV. There are a huge number of videos on almost any teacher topic you can think of with matching downloadable resources.

As a registered member, I get email updates and went and watched this video linked to from their email about teaching poetry. There are a number of great ideas in this lesson and all the materials used in the lesson are available for download from this page as well. You can even download the resources from the video player itself at the point in which they are mentioned in the video so you can decide if you would like that resource.

http://www.teachers.tv/video/38046

Check out their huge bank of videos designed to help teachers upskill.

Tags: professional development, video

Yes – I have maintained a bit of a blog silence for awhile now as I was in the final weeks of pregnancy and focused on getting things organised for our new arrival. I can now announce to the world that we have a new baby girl called Zoe. She arrived last Saturday and here are a couple of pictures of her. Obviously blogging is not a priority at the moment so you can expect things to be a little sluggish for a while but I do plan to get back to posting when the dust has settled!

Zoe catnaps on Dad

Zoe and Mum

Zoe and Dad bond

Introduction

I was approached recently by Karen Schweitzer as she wanted to be a guest blogger on this blog. She picked a topic that she thought teachers would find useful – information on social networking sites that we can use as educators. Thanks to Karen for approaching me about posting and sharing her knowledge below.

20 Social Networking Sites for Teachers – by Karen Schweitzer

It has never been easier for teachers to network online. The web hosts thousands of online communities and forums for teachers, administrators, librarians, and other educators. Here are 20 social networking sites that are particularly popular among teachers.

TeachAde – TeachAde is the first social networking site created specifically for teachers. The site combines social networking with teacher resources to create a useful online tool for educators.

The Apple – This site is a free social networking community for current and future teachers. Special features include message boards, lesson plans, videos, and up-to-date news.

Classroom 2.0 - This online community for educators has become a place for teachers to come together and share information about web 2.0 tools and other education technology. Classroom 2.0 also offers live webinars and online events.

NextGen Teachers – Teachers can network with one another and discuss new ways of educating and learning on this social networking site.

The English Companion – The English Companion is an online community for English teachers who want to meet new people, network, and share ideas.

We the Teachers – This education search engine and online community can be used to find other teachers and network. We the Teachers is also a good place to share lesson plans and resources.

TeacherLingo – TeacherLingo is an online blogging platform for educators. Teachers can start their own blogs or network with other teachers through forums and comment sections.

Google Teacher Community – This Google Discussion Group keeps teachers in the loop on Google’s K-12 education initiatives. It also serves as a forum for teachers to ask questions, share ideas, and discuss hot topics in education.

Applebatch – Abblebatch is a K-12 teacher community. Teachers can find jobs, build their network, and share education resources.

TeachersRecess – TeachersRecess is a free social network with many useful resources. Teachers can communicate online, share lesson plans, get news, publish a personal blog, and buy or sell teaching tools.

PBS Teachers Connect – PBS Teachers Connect is a place for site members to meet up and share ideas. The site also provides a wide range of teaching resources for the classroom.

ProTeacher Community - This online community was created for K-8 teachers who want to communicate and network with each other. ProTeacher offers blogs, forums, and chat capability.

ClassScene – Designed specifically for schools, ClassScene is an online repository/community for photos, videos, and more. The site can also be used to generate revenue and collaborate with the school community.

Education World – Education World is an enormous site with thousands of resources for educators. Teachers can use it to ask questions and network.

Tapped In – Since 1997, Tapped In has served as an online meeting place for K-12 teachers, administrators, and librarians. Thousands of educators gather on this site to share stories, ideas, lesson plans, and resources.

Teacher Focus – Teacher Focus is an online community/forum for teachers. The site also offers lesson plans, news, and other education-related resources.

Edublogs – Edublogs is more of a blogging platform than a social networking site. Nevertheless, it is a great way to connect and interact with other teachers.

Diigo – This section of Diigo hosts nearly 5,000 bookmarks for educators. Teachers can go here to discover and share education-related articles.

Twitter – Twitter wasn’t designed specifically for educators, but it is a good place to network with teachers, students, and parents.

Delicious - The largest and most popular social bookmarking site on the web, Delicious is an excellent place to find and share online bookmarks with other teachers.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. Karen also writes about accredited online colleges for OnlineColleges.net.

The second blog post in the series of ideas from clusters is half written but it is taking a back seat while I just share a few fun and educational games I’ve been playing.

I followed a link on Twitter which took me to a directory of free flash games and there was an educational category. I had a go at playing quite a few of them and here are some of my favourites. Clicking on the link will take you to the site to play the game.

Numeracy

Tower blaster – probably my favourite game I played. Very strategic – have to get the blocks in correct order before computer team.

Click here to play this game

Maths Power – have to choose numbers to make given answers. I’m not very good at this one! Can’t scan the numbers fast enough and get panicky with the countdown. I’m not going to share my score

Click here to play this game

Literacy

Could see the kids loving this one but I am hopeless at games involving mixed up letters. Still others will do better than me I expect.

Spiderman 2 – Web of Words

Click here to play this game

A very simple game to teach young children to match uppercase and lower case letters with Pooh Bear.

Pooh’s Match ‘n’ Munch

Click here to play this game

Other subjects

This one looks to have been designed for med students and involves cutting open a knee for surgery but I could see older kids being fasinated as they learn how to perform the knee surgery. High level comprehension exercise with a real life context.

Click here to play this game

Brain Safari – a variety of problem solving games

Click here to play this game

Music game – learn the notes and their position on the keyboard.

Click here to play this game

Treasure Dive typing game – type the words on the sharks before they reach you.

Click here to play this game

There are more on the site and I didn’t play them all so you could go and try some more out.

http://www.y8.com/tags/Educational/1