Doctopus on Google Docs

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/06/three-google-sheets-scripts-that-help.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29#.Uc95Fvk3tqU This will make life so easy.

Audio Slideshows

Copied from Free Tech For Teachers

Somewhere between a PowerPoint presentation and a full-fledged video is the audio slideshow. Creating audio slideshows can be a good way to add meaning to slides that otherwise might not mean much without a presenter. Here are some ways that students can create audio slideshows.

Narrable is a neat service for creating short narrated slideshows. To create an audio slideshow on Narrable start by uploading some pictures that you either want to talk about or have music played behind. After the pictures are uploaded you can record a narration for each picture through your computer's microphone or by calling into your Narrable's access phone number. You can also upload an audio recording that is stored on your computer. Narrable projects can be shared via email, Facebook, or by embedding them into a blog.

UtellStory is a service for creating and sharing audio slideshows. To create and share your story through UtellStory you can upload pictures, add text captions, add audio narration to each slide, and upload a soundtrack to support your entire story. Completed projects can be embedded into your blog, emailed to your friends, or shared through your favorite social networking sites. Watch UTellStory's introduction here. Creating my first UTellStory project, available here, took me about ten minutes after registering on the site. To create my story I uploaded pictures that I had saved on my computer, but I could have also pulled images from Flickr. Then I added the narration to each slide. In the free version of UTellStory you have thirty seconds per slide and up to two minutes of total audio. I rearranged my slides after recording by simply dragging them into the sequence in which I wanted them to appear.

Present.me is a handy service for recording video and or audio to accompany your slides. Present.me allows you to sync your recorded audio and video to your slides then publish everything as one complete package. Here's how it works; upload a set of slides to your Present.me account, then use your webcam to record a video of yourself talking about those slides. Your video and slides will appear side-by-side when you have finished recording. If you don't want to record a video, you can simply record audio only. Present.me accepts a large variety of presentation file types. And if you sign-in with your Google account, you can import presentations to Present.me from your Google Drive account.

Hello Slide is a tool that you can use to add voice narration to slides that you display online.Hello Slide is different from services like Slideshare's Zipcast (which requires a paid subscription) because instead of recording your voice you type what you want the narrator to say. Where you might type "speakers notes" in other slide programs, in Hello Slide you type out the narration. Hello Slide creates the audio and narrates your slides for you. While the voice is slightly robotic, it is much much better than most text to speech services.To get started using Hello Slide, register for a free account, upload a PDF of your slides, then start typing your narration. It's very easy to use Hello Slide.

In my mind one of the original audio slideshow tools is Animoto. It's been around for a long time (in web 2.0 terms) and it is still a good tool for students to use to bridge the gap between slideshows and videos. Animoto makes it possible to quickly create a video using still images, music, and text. In the last year Animoto has added the option to include video clips in your videos too. If you can make a slideshow presentation, you can make a video using Animoto. Animoto's free service limits you to 30 second videos. You can create longer videos if you apply for an education account.

Coding as Expression

Here is a good argument for teaching coding as a part of the English Language curriculum. Are we not attempting to teach students new ways to express themselves? Wouldn't it be great if we could teach them many of the skills they will need to be creative in the 21st century while also teaching them how to express themselves in a new way, a way that is project based and for which many of the skills are instantly recognizable as necessary to accomplish the task? I'll have to check out scratch in more detail and see if I can't figure a way to incorporate this into my multimedia research project in some way.

Video Education Differences

Technology in the classroom:

An interesting video on what makes the difference between countries leading in educational testing scores and the United States. Also relevant to different ways to create video instruction.

We Video

https://www.wevideo.com/ This might work pretty well. I will have to try out the free version to see what it can do. Only 1gb of storage, but that might be enough for a small project.

Dance, Cross-lateral Movement, Multiculturalism, and Technology

Lots of things to think about here. I have been reading about using cross-lateral movement in the classroom to stimulate higher levels of thinking. This makes a strong case for a connection with technology also.

Shelly Wright - Flipping Bloom's

Sometimes when I read something, I am just overwhelmed with the simplicity of the message. It makes me wonder how I lasted this long without ever reading anything like it before. The article from Shelly Wright was one of those moments for me.

In the article, Shelly describes how flipping Bloom's Taxonomy can make the classroom so much more project oriented and engaging for the students. Basically, she starts projects with the synthesis or creation part, and then backtracks through analysis and the other levels of Bloom's to arrive at knowledge. This makes so much sense to me.

Two things I feel deserve another moment to reflect upon are the value this style of teaching places on student's inherent abilities both to create and to reflect. If you run a class like this, you have to walk into it thinking, "Come on, you guys can do this. I know you can." Then, you also have to incorporate the act of reflecting on what the students created and on how they could improve it based upon their analysis of master texts.

This article makes so much sense to me. Thinking in this way will allow me to refine my practice in several of the units I struggled with this year.

See it at Shelly Wright's blog.

Convert youtube to wmv.

Here is an online tool that works as well as desktop versions for converting youtube to various video formats. Just like Zamzar, but downloads from the url for you.

http://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-wmv

Remind101

This is a way to text message students and parents.

Sound Effects

Free sound effects.

File Converter

I usually use zamzar, but just found this site. Have not tried it yet, but it appears to do most formats.

Converter

National Geographic Films

Here are 75 full length National Geographic films totally for free. These might be better for a science class, but there are lots of great documentaries here.

films

Cool Photos

National Geographic posts many beautiful photos. could be used in classrooms for prompts and such.

National Geographic Visions of Earth

Poll Everywhere

Greg, from History 2.o Classroom, talks about using poll everywhere and his techniques for "screens down," scales of agreement, and scales of understanding in this great article.

Notaland.com

A new alternative to Glogster. No teacher accounts, but easy to use and students can create multiple pages for a whole magazine feel.

Zooburst

This is a fun, basic project that any class would enjoy.

Powerpoint Test

5.present

More PowerPoint presentations from Tommy Buteau

Kinetic Text

This could be great for Media Studies. It could really focus students on powerful text.

Here is a sample I made. It does not have audio, another step, but the basic idea is there.

kinnetictest

More PowerPoint presentations from Tommy Buteau

If you want to see a cool example, check out "Cat in the Rain."

ISSUE article on Digital Overload.

Open publication - Free publishing - More digital

Podcast Using a Flash Player

Here is a podcast describing the process of creating a podcast and using a flash player on your blog or webpage.

If this were a student generated podcast, a written version of the podcast could go here.

Here is a music file included to show the possibilites of having multiple players on the same page with no problems since they are flash players. Notice that you can stop one player by starting the other. All files are paused when stopped.

It is possible to create a flash player that plays multiple files from a list, and it might be worth it to do that so each class could have one player with all files included.

Here is a podcast from Mrs. Salz's AP Language class recorded in 2009. It is called Respect the Teacher.