Screencast-o-matic, one of my favorite screencasting tools, has a handy new feature that lets you record a short screencast and turn it into an animated gif instead of a video file.
More info at Screencast-o-matic.
Google’s Oct 12, 2010 Gumby doodle as an animated gif
Don’t miss this opportunity!Google’s Global Online Science Fair is open to students aged 13-18 and is accepting submissions from Jan 11 to April 4.
Of coures, the project encourages the use of many different free Google tools : Google docs to create surveys, gather data and create presentations; YouTube to present a video of the project; Google Scholar and other search tools for research, and so on.
Google and partners (CERN, National Geographic, Lego, Scientific American) are offering some pretty great prizes like a trip to the Galapagos Islands, scholarships and more.
And students will need a Google account to submit their project via the template available in Google Sites. (Sample submission)
Want to know more? Check out the Resources for Teachers page.
Say what I might about Google owning our lives (and I do!), this looks like a fabulous opportunity for your students. And a great chance for you to explore some tools that you may not have tried yet. I know what great things educators are doing with these tools from all the interesting ideas I’ve heard in the Google Tools workshops I’ve been teaching. Of course, there are are many other tools that students can use in their research projects as well. That’s the basis of another workshop I’ve been offering called Research 2.0 Hope to see some of you at the next session later this month in Saratoga.
No doubt you’ve seen the new Google Instant search feature by now, where Google not only tries to anticipate what you’re going to type, but also changes your search results as you type. (I assume I’m not the only one who’s turned it off because they were getting dizzy?)
Anyways, geek that I am, I love these music videos that use Google Instant for the visuals. Whirled Creative seems to have started it with Instant Elements
I’m having a great time playing with my new Verizon Droid phone and learning how to interact with a phone that is way smarter than me. My old phone was 6 years old, hip for it’s day, but that day is long gone!
My favorite app so far is Google Sky Map. My local astronomer immediately took it outside to test it against the real sky and gave it two thumbs up. The sky moves with you and zooms in to give you more detail of any section of the sky.
There are options to turn stars, constellations, grids and other sky features on and off. Type a planet or star into the search box and it helpfully suggests objects so you don’t have to type the whole name. Select an object to get a big circle and arrows that point you to that object. Look, I found Mars! I wonder if it will show the location of meteor showers?
My astronomer is now fearing redundancy. I promise that will never happen! Really.
p.s. There’s a web based version of Google Sky and a Sky feature in Google Earth too.
Google has just added some more handy search filters to the “show options” side panel that they introduced last May.
Today, we’re announcing nine new Search Options tools: past hour, specific date range, more shopping sites, fewer shopping sites, visited pages, not yet visited, books, blogs and news. These features have been rolling out gradually and will be available globally in English by the end of the day. You can try them yourself by searching Google and clicking “Show options” in the blue bar just under the logo. (source: Google Blog)
I use this side panel all the time now and with each new bunch of search filters, it becomes even more helpful. I love the Timeline Feature to get a very rough idea of how long a particular product, term or concept has been kicking around. The Wonder Wheel is great fun to get an idea of related terms when my mind goes blank. Images from the Page helps me find screenshots and photos that are often more relevant than the regular Images search. And I think I’m going to love the Fewer Shopping Sites feature (ok and maybe the More Shopping Sites one too!)
(via: Phil Bradley’s weblog)
I have lots of school library media specialists in the technology classes I teach. They are often the ones in the forefront of using technology in their school districts and come up with great ideas for how technology can support student learning and help teachers do their jobs better. At the same time, they often tell me that many of the tools we explore are blocked or that students can’t have email, so therefore can’t even get accounts with so many of the tools.
When I was a gov docs librarian, our tagline was “documents to the people”. Well I think my new clarion call will be “technology to the students”!
In that vein, take a look at this great blog post Google Apps for Education overview by Kathy Schrock. She details how they arranged for school email accounts for all their students and teachers. How they use Google services to share documents, calendars and more. And she includes an excellent model for an email permission slip, explaining why students need email and acceptable use guidelines.
If you’re having challenges in your school district, maybe this model can help. Just keep at it! Demonstrating the value and need for access to technology. You’ll get their eventually.
Had successes in your district? Please share!!!!
Looking for a great WordPress reference book? This is one of my favorites. Digging into WordPress by Jeff Starr & Chris Coyier
