Author Archives: grizzlymedia

There’s Nothing Normal About Xtranormal!

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I’m always anxious to find great new Web 2.0 tools that enable my students to display their learning in new and different ways that engage them in the learning process more than traditional research papers. My latest fun tool is Xtranormal.

Xtranormal is nothing like normal. It’s a supercool way to create quick and easy animations. Sure the voices are computer-generated, but you can make your characters say anything you want superfast, supereasy! Just set up a free account at Xtranormal, select a cast, decide how many characters your movie will need–one or two–and get started writing your movie.

There are nine basic scenes, and you can change camera angles within each character’s script. All you do to start a new character’s conversation is click on the plus sign.

You can drag all sorts of cool stuff into each character’s script. Try animations, looks, expressions, points, pauses, and sound effects. There are even different camera angles to keep your animation from being so boring. No one wants to keep looking at the same scene throughout the entire movie! Whenever you drag something into the script, you can try it out on your character inside the script bubble to see what it looks like.

Once you’re finished, you just click on the action button and your animation starts rendering and all that cool movie talk. Give it a few seconds, and then your movie will be ready to preview. Not satisfied? No problem! Editing is a breeze. Then you just save again.

When you’re finally thrilled with your results, you can share your video with the world! But, please, WordPress, get into the twenty-first century so we can embed Flash videos in our blogs!

Ruth Fleet, Ed. S., NBCT

Library Media Specialist

Dean Rusk Middle School

The Latest Word on Wordle

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Biomes Wordle2

I’ve been using Wordle for a long time, but you CAN teach an old dog new tricks! I always disliked the boring standard Wordle colors, and I had changed them occasionally, but I had never tried the custom palette. Now that’s where the pretty stuff has been hiding! The next time you want some variety (or just some PRETTY colors), try selecting the color option on the Wordle toolbar, and then choose “custom palette.” You can then determine the number of colors, and then click on the ugly gray boxes that will appear. Once you click on the ugly gray boxes, you can select from the preset swatches of color or even click on the other tabs to get more specific.

While you’re at it, you can select your own pretty font, and under the language option, remove common English words. This wouldn’t make sense if you pasted in words from a list you had typed, but if you had pasted words from, say, a web page, well, then you could get rid of all your unimportant words. You can also make all your words upper or lower case, and on the layout option, give your arrangement a little more appealing variety as well. I like to have some vertical and some horizontal words, but that’s just me.

The second problem I had with Wordle was that when you embed your Wordle, the picture is so teensy weensy. Problem solved! Once I perfect my Wordle, I just slide it to the center of the screen so it is completely visible, then do a screen shot and paste it into a photo editing program. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy–Paint is fine. Then I crop the photo, save it as a .jpg, and Voila! I have a larger size Wordle to use as an image file.

Ruth Fleet, Library Media Specialist

Dean Rusk Middle School

Animoto: Get an Education Code, Add Video Clips, Text, and More!

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[clearspring_widget title="Animoto.com" wid="46928cc51133af17" pid="4ab140a0386012b6" width="432" height="240" domain="widgets.clearspring.com"]

Sure, there have been posts here about Animoto, but have you tried Animoto for Education yet? Animoto is a great Web 2.0 utility that you can use as a “hook” to introduce a unit of study to your students, or which your students can use as a product of their research. You and your students can create videos in just a few minutes, and Animoto now includes the ability to add text and video clips to the videos.

With an education account, you and your students can create longer videos at no charge. I have created a (blurry and perhaps boring) video tutorial; it shows you (almost) everything you need to know about Animoto, along with an example of a quick Animoto short video with text included. Just click on the link below to view either the instructional video, the Animoto video, or both.

All you need to do is go to http://animoto.com/education to sign up for a free educator account. It will take a week or two to receive an email from The Animoto Guys (seriously, that’s who will send it!) giving you a code. Then set up your account using the code; your students will use your code as well.

You’ll receive instructions on what to do for students without email addresses and students under 13 to include them in your account. Your students can set up their own accounts according to the instructions, using your code.  You need to sign up for the educator account today because it takes a couple of weeks to receive the email with the code.

Ruth Fleet, Ed.S.,
National Board Certified Library Media Teacher
Dean Rusk Middle School 
http://askdrlibrary.wordpress.com/
http://askdrlibrary.wikispaces.com/

Just the Thing to Scratch Your Web2.0 Itch

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Scratch Logo from Wikimedia Commons

Scratch Logo from Wikimedia Commons

Over the past two Wednesdays I took a fabulous class with technology diva Freda Williams in which I learned the basics of Scratch, a fun and fabulous new Web 2.0 tool. Scratch was created to teach the basics of programming to kids. 

Scratch was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, in collaboration with the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, with financial support from the National Science Foundation, Intel Foundation, and MIT Media Lab research consortia.

You can download it (for free, of course) from the Scratch website and start teaching it to yourself, or go to a great website called Learn Scratch that helps you learn how to use it.  The Scratch website also contains a gallery of ideas that you and your students can download and remix into new programs. Scratch programming language enables you to create your own games, music, art, interactive stories, and animations. Once you finish your creations, you can share them on the web, where you can receive an embed code that will enable you to post your product anywhere else you wish to share it.

Just imagine using this new tool to teach critical thinking skills to your students! Scratch can help you develop twenty-first century learning skills in your students. As they learn essential mathematical and computational skills, they will gain a deeper understanding of the process of design and become more highly engaged in the learning process.

Ruth Fleet, Library Media Specialist

Dean Rusk Middle School

Make Your Search Engine Work Smarter With ChunkIt!

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chunkit

So what’s the buzz about ChunkIt? ChunkIt is a browser add-on that lets you search the web along with your favorite search engine while simultaneously breaking down the search results into “chunks” of information divided into various types such as news sources, Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, and blog posts. Your screen is divided in half with two scroll bars: one for your search engine, and one for the ChunkIt chunks. Your search term is even highlighted on the ChunkIt side of the screen. If you find a chunk you want to send to yourself or a friend, there’s a button just sitting there waiting for you to email the chunk to whomever you please–no cutting and pasting required. ChunkIt also includes a social bookmarking feature like del.icio.us or Diigo so you can easily bookmark sites via ChunkIt. ChunkIt really doesn’t need much explanation, but in case you need further explication, there’s a Lee Lefever/Common Craft-type video that is moderatelyentertaining. There are also some other videos you can watch if you are not at school where they may be blocked. If you like Brain Age for the Nintendo DS, you might want to check out AddLetters, which is where I generated my quick and easy image of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima. I’m a fan myself–even if he is a little pushy.
Ruth Fleet
Creekview High School

Living in the Clouds

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cloud-computing

I recently read a post in Doug Johnson’s eloquent Blue Skunk Blog about cloud computing that started me thinking more about this topic. Are you cloud computing? You’re probably doing some form of cloud computing without even realizing it. There are many different definitions of cloud computing, so whether you are cloud computing depends on who you ask. I like Doug’s definition, which is using the Internet for applications and file storage while using nothing on one’s own computer hard drive except a web browser. Ahhh…the freedom…like floating on a cloud. But I’m a little bit of a coward. Are my files really secure when I save them on the web? Really, really secure?  For example, when I send messages via Gmail, I have noticed that Gmail’s sponsored links reflect topics I’m discussing in my email. Are they also scanning my Google docs or files I’m emailing to myself as part of my cloud computing start-up agenda? Suppose my docs contain details of an invention I’m trying to patent, and someone at Google steals my ideas? Call me paranoid, but cloud computing does involve an element of trust. But if you are a trusting soul, here are some baby step apps you may want to try:

 

http://www.box.net/

Box.net | Simple Online Collaboration: Online File Storage, FTP Replacement, Team Workspaces ~ Free Version via kwout

First, for file sharing, and online saving, in addition to Google Docs, consider box.net and drop.io. These are great to recommend to your students who do not use flash drives to store their information, or who lose them fifteen minutes after purchasing them. Box will allow you to save files up to 25 MB, and will give you up to 1 GB of storage for free. You also get five collaboration folders that you can share with your colleagues–for your students, this could be a shared project. Box is like an online file box for all your important files to help you feel safe, secure, and organized. You can upload and download your files with no special software needed, and you can share files instantly with anyone. All you do is email your file to Box and they save it for you until it is needed. You can even host photos with no bandwidth limit. If you need more storage, there are paid versions available. If you aren’t sure the paid versions are worth it, you can try them out for free for two weeks.

 http://drop.io/

simple private real-time sharing and collaboration by drop.io via kwout

With drop.io, you always get 100 MB “drops” for free. For $10 a year you get one drop (upload) and one GB of storage. For more money, you get more storage and more drops.  You don’t even have to create an account or remember a user name and password as with most Web 2.0 sites. You do have to remember the location (URL) which you assign to your “drop” as the exchange points are called. The drops are private, and you determine how available you want them to be to others, such as students allowing access to teachers. All you do is name your drop; upload your file; decide whether or not to password protect the file; choose a date when you want the file to be deleted (tell your students, for example, to select a couple of weeks after their papers are due–don’t make it too early in case you give them an extension or they have to do a rewrite, or in case they get a reprieve from the governor!); then select an option of whether others can view; view and add; or view, add and delete. Now just hit the big red “Drop it!” button and your file is saved in lovely cyberspace. All you do is go back to your previously-named address (what–you didn’t forget that URL already, did you?) and open that file. What could be easier?

flickr-picasa-photobucket

For photo sharing, may I suggest Flickr, Picasa, and Photobucket. Photobucket allows you to store up to 10,000 photos and hours of video for free. Picasa  is a Google product that gives you one GB of free storage–about enough space for 4,000 wallpaper-size photos. Flickr is probably the most popular online photo storage site. It allows you to upload, edit, organize, and share your photos. It is also home to Flickr Creative Commons that provides copyright-friendly photos for our students to use in their school assignments, making it transparent to them how to give appropriate credit to the photo’s creator.

If you try these great Web 2.0 tools, you still won’t be completely in the clouds, but you’ll be on your way! In the meantime, check out Doug’s great blog and another great article from InfoWorld.

Ruth Fleet
Creekview High School

 

Fall in Love with TweetDeck

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tweetdeck

OK, I admit it. I’m in love.  The new love of my life is my favorite Twitter app, TweetDeck. When I first got started with Twitter many months ago, I was not even in love with Twitter. I thought it was just a playground for stalkers. :-) But after a while I returned and discovered that people were actually using Twitter for more than just to ask people what they had for lunch. They were using it to share information and to expand their personal learning networks. So Twitter and I became pals again. And then I started discovering all the fab Twitter applications that make Twitter even more fun to use and make sharing information even easier. My favorite? TweetDeck! All you have to do is go to the TweetDeck website, download TweetDeck (and simultaneously download Adobe Air) to your desktop, and then you can use it to tweet away. TweetDeck installs an icon on your desktop and your taskbar and notifies you with a pleasant little chirp and a visual notification when you have an incoming tweet. OK, maybe it’s an annoying little chirp, but you know how to turn the sound down, right? TweetDeck splits your tweets into group-specific columns so that you can see, for example, all of your tweets, your replies, and your direct messages separately. Want to respond to a tweet? All you have to do is click on the tweeter’s tiny little head and a “menu” pops up. You can reply to the tweeter, send her a direct message, retweet her tweet (it was brilliant!), or favorite her tweet (it was super-brilliant!). When you’re posting your own tweets, TweetDeck makes it easy to post a link to your own website or blog, or to someone else’s. You just click on the little button at the top that looks like a conversation bubble to post a tweet, and two boxes open. You insert your tweet in one box, and your link in the other. Then hit the button to shorten the URL, and TweetDeck shortens it using snipurl or some other URL shortening service. You can use other buttons to create groups, search for words or phrases within your tweets, or perform other tasks. Even though TweetDeck says it’s for Windows, Mac, and Linux, it works just fine with Firefox.

Ruth Fleet

Creekview High School

Twitter Users: Use TweetNews for Accurate News As It Breaks

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tweetnews

As events were occurring during the recent Mumbai, India attacks, it was difficult for news-hungry readers to keep up with events as quickly as they needed to through regular news outlets. As a result, the inspiration for TweetNews was born. Now thanks to TweetNews, as news is breaking, Twitter users can search for tweets on a specific topic and simultaneously be directed to news articles as well. In the future, all news could be delivered this way, but for now it’s available thanks to a collaboration between Yahoo and Twitter. Yahoo engineer Vik Singh developed TweetNews to combine Yahoo news results with the hot topics that are hitting Twitter. This is different from the way search engines like Google News and other major news websites work; they use complicated algorithms to rank stories, and breaking news item might not make it to the top of the heap. Yahoo News topics are organized around popular Twitter topics, resulting in a search engine that tracks breaking news using Twitter search results. Twitter users will then have access to more valid sources of information in addition to first-hand reports from Twitter users on the scene. You can click here for a link to TweetNews or click here for a link to an article in TGDaily with more information. You can just go to the TweetNews site and type in you own search term, for example today you might try “inauguration.”

Ruth Fleet
Creekview High School

Great Blog Images–Yes! Copyright Prison–No!

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So here’s the problem: A) You dream of having an attractive blog. B) You want to set an example of copyright adherence for your students and blog followers, be they real or imaginary. C) You can’t get excited about going to prison and/or paying enormous fines for copyright violations. So what do you do to have pretty blog images quickly and easily without fear or guilt? Say hello to my little friends from the World of Web 2.o! You can safely use these sources to create your own images or borrow copyright-friendly images for your blog posts (or for any other school purpose such as your website, handouts, or social network pages). Here are my favorites, and I promise I use them all frequently because they are all so quick and easy that even a novice will find them irresistible:

  • Image Chef lets you create an image in under a minute that not only includes a graphic, but also includes any wording you can type in. OK, this image is tacky, but all I did was go to the site, select an attention-grabbing image, type in my slogan, tell the ImageChef folk I was posting to WordPress, type in my WordPress username and password, and they sent it right to my blog. Not every Web 2.0 utility is WordPress-friendly, but ImageChef passes the test. I have an account, but I didn’t even have to log in.
  • imagechefcopyright
  • GlassGiantworks just like ImageChef. I would show you an example, but it is blocked by our school district because there are also games on the site. As with ImageChef, you can select a design and add your own logo to accompany it. It takes just seconds to send the resulting image to WordPress or your website. You’re going to have to trust me on this one!
  • TypoGenerator allows you to type in some text and make an image with the words you typed. Sometimes your first result is ugly or unreadable. No problem. All you do is hit a button to change your text style, text color, or background. You can also change your format from landscape to portrait. TypoGenerator warns you to be patient because sometimes it moves quickly and sometimes it is a bit arthritic. If you are patient enough, you can get a lovely result. Then all you do is right-click to save the file as a .jpeg, and voila, you have a fabulous image of your very own.
  • copyrighttypo1
  • Kwout is a great way to get a sharp, smooth screenshot of a website to use as your image when you want to blog about a website, or a person who has a website, or a topic related to a website, or…you get the idea. To use Kwout, first go to the Kwout site, and scroll down to the bottom of the page to get the bookmarklet. Right click on the bookmarklet link, then click on “create in links.” You then need to click on “View” at the top of your toolbar, then on “Toolbars;” then if “Links” isn’t already checked, you need to click on “Links” so that it is checked. For Pete’s sake, don’t uncheck it! At the right side of your toolbar, you can then click on Links, where you will now see Kwout. Drag it over to your toolbar. This may sound complicated, but you won’t have to do it ever again. When you want to use Kwout, all you have to do is go to the website where you want to snag a screenshot, then click on the Kwout button you just created. If the button doesn’t want to drag, just click on the word “Kwout” in your links. A box will appear asking you to select the area you wish to quote. You drag your mouse to outline the area and click on “Cut Out.” You are given several options. I always select “embed”  and then copy the code. On your blog post, just click where you want the screenshot to go, then click on the HTML tab, then paste the code. The code will go in the right place, just like magic! The gorgeous  screenshot contains a link back to the site and has pretty, smooth rounded edges unlike a regular boring screenshot. You don’t have to create an account or anything. I know this sounds complicated, but, trust me, it only takes a few seconds to grab each shot.
http://kwout.com/

kwout | A brilliant way to quote via kwout

  • PollDaddy was once all alone and probably lonely out in Web 2.0 land, but then a few months ago it joined up with WordPress and now you can add it to your WordPress blogs automatically without ever even leaving your blog. You can use your poll as your image. Can’t think of anything on which to poll your real or imaginary audience? Oh, please! Get creative! Like take this blog post, for example. I could poll you about your favorite Web 2.0 image tools, or about whether or not you have ever violated copyright in your blog posts or about why you think people don’t laugh more at my posts, or…well, the list goes on. Anyway, you can go to PollDaddy, or when you’re adding a post, just look up a couple of inches and you’ll see a circle. When you mouse over it, you’ll see that it says “Add Poll.” You just type in a question, then a few options for answers. There’s even a choice of allowing your readers to enter their own response. After that, select from one of nineteen different styles. You can even insert images to go along with your poll (keep them copyright-friendly, please!). If you create your poll from the PollDaddy website, be sure to tell the nice people that you are working with WordPress, if you are in fact doing so, so that you get the right code. You can also create great surveys for your patrons, by the way, so they can let you know how well you are doing.
  • [polldaddy poll="1208356"]
  • Wordle allows you to create a cool image of a word cloud using words related to the topic on which you are blogging, or even all the words from an entire website or blog. For example, I could copy and paste all the words I have used thus far and paste them in. This takes zero time. Like TypoGenerator, Wordle wants to make people happy, so if you hate your results, you simple “randomize” or edit them, which changes font, color, whatever. If you post directly to WordPress, you get a tiny result. I like to do a screen shot, paste it into Paint, cut out the Wordle image, then paste that into a new page which I save as a .jpeg image. This creates a larger image. Again, much faster than it sounds. These are words from the first paragraph of this blog. All this took less than a minute.
  • copyright-wordle
  • Flickr Creative Commons is great for finding photographs taken by people who are willing to share their creativity, usually only asking in return that you give them credit for their work. The site makes it easy to tell what the creators want in return; right this minute there are over ten million pix available for just an attribution. I like to tell our students that the further you scroll down the page, the more people want, so it’s easier to stick to the top of the page. The explanation to the right of the page explains what the photographers (and videographers!) want in exchange for use of their work. Usually if it’s more than just giving them credit, it’s just that you not use their work commercially or that you don’t make derivatives from their work, like adding mustaches to the pictures of their moms. We can comply with that, right? Just click on the “See more” link in the category you decide to search, then type in your search term. And don’t forget to search for parts of speech other than nouns. Sometimes a verb, adjective, or adverb might work. When I find what I want, I save the attribution info in the title, so that if I ever want to use the file again, I will be sure to give the proper credit each time I use it. Here’s a great copyright logo courtesy of MikeBlogs.
  • copyright-symbol-from-mikeblogs1
  • Thanks to Sandi Adams, the Web 2.0 guru of Cherokee County, and Buffy Hamilton, the Sandi Adams MiniMe, for all their great Web 2.0 advice.
  • Ruth Fleet
  • Creekview High School

Cool Mind Mapping Application Mind42; Judy Blundell Wins National Book Award

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http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2008_ypl_blundell.html

The National Book Foundation via kwout

I may have some kind of fixation with mind mapping Web 2.0 tools. I have blogged previously about bubbl.us and Mindmeister, which are great brainstorming applications, and you may be fortunate enough to be able to purchase Inspiration, or to have a system which buys it for your school as ours does. But variety, as they say, is the spice of life. Mind42 is another great tool you can use to keep up with all of your brilliant ideas, either alone or with your colleagues. Your students can use it to collaborate on assignments and group projects. Because Mind42 is browser-based, you no longer need to download and install programs, so its use is hassle-free. Mind42 supports keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop, zooming, and other features with true WYSIWYG capability. There’s a Vimeo screencast to teach you the ropes, but if Vimeo is blocked at your school (as it is at mine), you may have to watch it at home to find out all the state secrets!

OK, I know I am supposed to post about Web 2.0, but I also need to comment on this week’s National Book Award’s Ceremony. The 2008 National Book Awards were presented on Wednesday and author Judy Blundell was the winner in the children’s literature category for her novel What I Saw and How I Lied. Ms. Blundell won out over other teen authors Laurie Halse Anderson for Chains; Kathi Appelt for The Underneath; E. Lockhart for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks; and Tim Tharp for The Spectacular Now. Other YA authors judging the event included former winners Holly Black, Lemony Snicket (also known as Daniel Handler), Angela Johnson, Carolyn Mackler, and Cynthia Voigt. What I Saw and How I Lied is about a teenage girl who falls in love with a handsome young ex-soldier from her stepfather’s company and finds herself in a complicated web of lies. At the awards ceremony Blundell told the audience of around 650 people that she has written over 100 books as a ghost writer and romance novelist, but that this is the first written under her own name. Your collection may have some of her Star Wars books which she wrote under the pen name of Jude Watson. She thanked her editor, fellow author David Levithan, for giving her her voice and for encouraging her to write something of her own. As a recipient of the National Book Award, Ms. Blundell will receive a check for $10,000. Prizes were also awarded in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. You can read an article in School Library Journal for more information.

Ruth Fleet
Creekview High School