Rambling Reflections

Thanks to Educational Technology and Life I found this link to Larry Ferlazzo’s blog where I found a wealth of lists detailing Larry’s best websites. He has several of these lists covering a range of topics. Below is a small selection from his Websites of the Year post, and these are not the latest! You can also access some of these lists at his website, Larry Ferlazzo, Teacher. These sites are definitely worth a visit.

The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007

The Best Web 2.0 Applications for ESL/EFL Learners — 2007

The Best Online Learning Games — 2007

The Best Internet Sites For English Language Learners — 2007

The Best Social Studies Websites — 2007

The Best Search Engines For ESL/EFL Learners — 2007

The Best Science Websites For Students & Teachers — 2007

The Best Math Websites For English Language Learners — 2007

The Best Blogs For Sharing Resources/Links — 2007

The Best News/Current Events Websites For English Language Learners — 2007

The “Best” Articles About Education — 2007

Another site, Learning Activities, to help keep you up to date with what is happening on the web. Although there are some sites listed here which I have known about for quite a while, it looks to be an easy to navigate site for those teachers who are beginning to venture into using new tools in their classroom.

You can browse by last added, web widgets (publishing, learning activities, interactive maps, polls or surveys)) or by Web Services (create graphics, presentations, mindmaps, games, artythings; share media, content; find software, websites, content ..)

On further investugation I found many interesting links through investigating the links at the top of the page.

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BTW The author of the site, Marielle, has recently emigrated from Scotland to take up a position as a programmer/developer at CWA New Media here in Wellington, NZ.

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Another Web 2.0 tool which I’ve just discovered is Iterasi which may be useful, especially to those who need the visuals of a web page they’ve saved.

The Web is a very dynamic place. Web pages respond to you. Change for you. And become your pages. Which is great. But, as you’ve likely discovered, all of that dynamic personalization makes it extremely difficult to save those pages for future use—which isn’t so great.

Iterasi wants you to save those pages. And to help, we’ve created a simple browser-based tool for saving any Web page—dynamically generated or otherwise—with the click of a button.

With Iterasi, any Web page can be saved, searched, and retrieved anytime, from anywhere, forever.

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They are currently in private BETA testing on the first version of the tool but you can register your interest by submitting your email address here. You can also see what they’re doing at their blog, blog.iterasi.com.

From sujokat via Twitter I have discovered a great resource for video tutorials on a range of Web2.0 software and tools. This looks to be another welcome addition to any ‘newbies’ toolbox.

Wikivid creates video-courses made up of links to free video tutorials from around the web. During our “alpha” stage, content is limited to software tutorials only, but the vision is to add video uploads and more. Add your own video links, edit existing pages, learn, & enjoy!

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From MakeUseOf.com

Getting text out of your PDF documents is often a major hassle. Enter PDFTextOnline, web-based text extractor that allows users to upload and extract text from PDF documents in less then a minute. Once extracted users are able to easily change the font and layout of the text, and download it back as a text file. No registration required, simply click “Start Now” button and select the PDF document that you want to convert.

* Converts PDF text quickly and accurately

* Handles all fonts and languages (including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and more)

* Provides easy access to form data, document properties, and bookmarks
* Doesn’t require a software download — it works in your browser!

Well I have used to and once it had verified that my system was compatible for the conversion, I selected a pdf file and very quickly it was converted to text. Once that was done I had the option of what font I preferred and then all I had to do was save it, which actually downloaded the file back to my computer as a zip fie.
Looks to be a handy tool, especially if you just want to use a selection of a larger pdf file.

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From Anne at Think, Wonder and Learn with the Web (another Australian blogger),

I checked out this great site Creative Commons.org which basically explains it all and more. It has a wizard that takes you through what rights you want to have and then gives you the exact license you need to post on your work. You can also choose particular rights according to the country you live in. I think that all of us educators out there need to make ourselves very familiar with these issues especially now that so many of our students are both accessing, using and posting on the web.

This is a site that I will be sharing with my students when our school year starts in another week. We did look at using creative commons Flickr photos last year but with more insight I’m setting my students up with all most of the skills they will need earlier this year.

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Thanks to Chrissy, teachingsagittarian for this link. Exploratree looks to be a useful site to introduce my staff to, especially those who like using graphic organisers.

Exploratree is a free web resource where you can download, use and make your own interactive thinking guides. Thinking guides can support independent and group research projects with frameworks for thinking, planning and enquiry. We’ve provided a set of ready-made guides which you can print out or use online. All of the guides are completely customizable or you can start from scratch and make your own! You can share them and work on them in groups too.

With Exploratree you can:

• Use our ready-made thinking guides
• Make a new thinking guide from scratch
• Use it to set class projects
• Print them out (they can go as big as A0)
• Change and customise thinking guides, you can add or change text, shapes, images etc.
• As a teacher, you can set up the sequence that you want the thinking guide to be revealed, so that you can stage the thinking activity
• You can fill in a thinking guide and complete your project on the website
• You can present your project
• You can send your thinking guide to a whole group of people
• You can submit a thinking guide for comments, so it can’t be edited but just reviewed
• Work in groups on the same thinking guide

Here are some of the thinking guides that are available:

I chanced upon ooVoo after reading a twitter message (sorry can’t remember who sent it). At the time I simply noted the name mentioned and later did a quick search. Well, it looks a useful download but apparently only available for PCs!

ooVoo is the next evolution in online communication — a remarkably easy way to have a face-to-face video conversation with friends,
family or colleagues, no matter where they are in the world.

ooVoo is remarkably easy to use: easy to download, easy to install, and best of all: it’s FREE!

ooVoo is the new way to communicate online: More expressive face-to-face conversations come alive with high-quality video and audio,
making mere talk, email or chat a thing of the past.

ooVoo…now you see!

ooVoo has many great features — from video calls with up to six people at once to video messaging to hat and file transfer capabilities. See below for some of our highlighted features and be sure to check back on this page often to see what’s new.

Another useful new tool from Susie Vesper

This service allows for up to 250 people to join into a TalkCast. Each person can use phone or Skype to access this. They provide free unlimited recording, free storage, free bandwidth, and uploading of existing podcast episodes. People can listen to, download or subscribe to the TalkCast afterwards from your stored recording. You can put widgets for your TalkCast on your blog or wiki.

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I have just come across this new tool – an addon  for PowerPoint. I will be downloading it and giving it a try once my internet access is back up to speed!!

FlashSpring Pro – FlashSpring Pro makes you able to produce high quality Flash content fantastically easy in PowerPoint environment.
Using FlashSpring functions embedded into MS PowerPoint toolbar you get fast conversion of your presentations to Macromedia Flash  format. FlashSpring Pro keeps interactivity and animation effects of your original presentations. The ability of adding flash clips and videos, background music and narrations provides you with extra means
to enhance your presentations’ impression. FlashSpring Pro gives you a choice of several ways of your Flash presentation composition. You can either generate your presentation as a solid Flash clip with all slides included or publish each slide in a separate clip. You can also have your Flash presentations wrapped in an attractive player. Portable
Flash clips generated with FlashSpring can be distributed easily on the web
or delivered by e-mail. FlashSpring Pro reduces the size of your presentation dramatically. Macromedia Flash format makes your presentations available for millions of Internet users working on different computer platforms and web browsers. With FlashSpring you have a total control of size, frame rate and scale of your Flash
presentations. Try all the possibilities FlashSpring offers and you will see the magnificent power it gives.

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I read about Animoto about a week ago, before it went public, and registered for notification once their site was unveiled which was early Friday morning (NZ time). I registered immediately and was quite excited by what I saw in their promo video. However I haven’t had time to have a play yet but PaulH and RachelB both have. (Where do they get the time???)

As Rachel says, Animoto.com is a fabulous new site that allows you to make a slideshow like you’ve never seen before! (actually like a slideshow on steroids!)

Using Animoto you can make your own 30 sec ‘photo video’ (or movie trailer for your pictures) for free – just upload up to 15 of your own pics (or tell animoto where to find them on the Internet: ie Facebook etc.) and then either choose their music or upload(There is also the option to pay to create longer videos with more images.)

The great thing is that animoto is automatic and it customises the video to your chosen music. You just choose and upload the photos and then choose some provided music or upload your own (ensuring it doesn’t breach copyright!) Every video made on animoto is different and you can even choose to remix your video to create a slightly different show as well.

Check out these animoto photo videos from RachelB and PaulH and Allanah!

And here is the link to my own creation (unable to embed here at present). The short video is of my Year 7s at their final Food Technology lesson.

I have to share this great find with everyone. I stumbled upon Susie Vesper’s wiki as I was clicking a a variety of links on this freezing cold afternoon. This New Zealand wiki has lots of useful resources and links, a useful resource for anyone strating on the web 2.0 journey.

Susie also has an educational resources web page and a cluster blog.  All sites are well worth investigating.