SlideShare, that wonderful service for sharing slide presentations (and more), has just launched a new online meeting service called Zipcast. And it looks to be a winner. Just select one of your slide sets as the basis for the meeting and click on the Zipcast link right above the slides. Choose if your meeting is public or private.
Your very own meeting room will open (your meeting room has a URL like this: http://www.slideshare.net/USERNAME/meeting). Easily broadcast an invitation to your Facebook & Twitter networks (or not). To invite others, just email them your meeting room URL. Turn on your video camera and microphone to start talking to attendees.
Attendees can use the Chat box to communicate with you. (more…)
Google Earth 6 brings some major improvements to navigating through the streets in Street View. Though Street View has been available in Google Earth for a while, it was somewhat awkward to navigate through the streets with it. I found it easier to use Street View in Google Maps and even then it was a bit choppy to use. Mind you, I’m not complaining! That I can get these kind of views of much of the world at all, is amazing. Still I’m happy with the improvements.
Zoom in on a view in Google Earth and when you get close enough to the earth, your view should tilt right down to street level. (more…)
Many of you know how much I love Google Earth, so I’ve been trying to find an hour to play since the release of Google Earth 6 earlier this week. It might take me more than an hour. I’m having too much fun. So what’s new?
Trees! Lots and lots of trees. Trees have been modeled and added to a selection of public parks in major cities and in some special ecologically interesting areas. Make sure you’ve turned on Layers –> 3D –> Trees, then search for these locations in Google Earth and explore the trees:
Kahigaini, Kenya
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
You’ll start to see the trees as you zoom in to street level. As you zoom, your view should automatically tilt and the trees should start to appear. If they don’t, just grab the little Google Earth PegMan (on the right in with the navigation sliders) and drag him on to the earth. You’ll be zoomed in to the earth and be standing beneath the canopy of trees.
The full length videos referenced in this video can be found at Climate Change in Google Earth. That page also links to tutorials to help you (and your students!) create your own tours in Google Earth. How much more interesting these are than bullet points on a slideshow!
SymbalooEDU - Symbaloo is a handy personalized start page service that helps you organize links to favorite sites and displays headlines from RSS feeds. Similar start page services include iGoogle, NetVibes and Pageflakes. Though Symbaloo has been around for a couple of years, they’ve just launched a new education oriented version of their service.
Symbaloo takes a very graphical approach with every link appearing as a colorful square tile on a grid. Tabs across the top of the page let users set up multiple pages of content based on their own interests. Each page can also include a center box with quick access to a variety of productivity tools including: search engines, encyclopedias, to do lists, calculator and more. Tabs can be shared with others, making it simple for a teacher/librarian to set up basic page of resources for students and then have students customize their own versions of the pages.
School Library – Research 2.0 – October 16, 2010
SymbalooEDU is one of the many tools we’ll take a look at during the School Library Research 2.0 workshop coming up on October 16th in Albany, NY. The workshop will cover web tools that will help you and your students take a fresh approach to research projects, one that involves collaborating and sharing. During this workshop you’ll learn how to take advantage of tools that will help you and your students manage resources, organize data, collaborate with team members and connect with experts. And did I mention we’ll have a lot of fun too? For more information check the Capital Area BOCES SLS Calendar.
SymbalooEDU
