How cool is that?
Saturday 3 May 2008
Cool tips on Google NoteBook
Here is a great video about note book. I am going to start using it to retrieve quotes and references from the web in a very easy way, and from whichever computer I happen to be working on. It even gets easier with the firefox plug in.
How cool is that?
How cool is that?
Thursday 1 May 2008
(Almost) Everything Google
I am an avid Blogger.com user. I have been using Blogger for the past couple of years. I have tried other providers but always come back to Blogger. I have a personal blog, a professional blog, and a number of scholastic blogs. The benefit for me is that I can access all of my blogs from the Blogger "Dashboard". I am a technology teacher and my students are required to maintain a Process Journal. These journals used to be small notebooks that the students carried around with them and lost at stategic moments (hahaha). Now, each of the students is required to create an "online" journal/blog. Blogger blogs are easy to create and maintain. In 3 easy steps I can have a roomful of teens enter cyberspace to further their education.
My Year 8's are learning to use Microsoft PhotoStory 3 to create digital stories. In Term 2 we worked with the English Department. The students were working on a poetry unit. The kids brought one of their poems to life. We housed the final products in Google Video and embedded them into student blogs. It was a big success.
Google came to the rescue a few months ago at my school. A few years ago our school a CAD (Computer Assisted Design) program was part of the curriculum. Students learned the CAD program in IT classes and used the knowledge in DT (Design Technology) classes. We we tried to reintroduce this during Term 2 members of my department were surprised that we no longer had a CAD program to offer (the license had expired). Google sketchup was introduced and have been successfully using it for 2 terms now;-D
I spend a lot of time trying to keep my teen-agers OFF YouTube. But I understand that YouTube has a lot to teach us. Recently, as a warm-up exercise I showed the students a video that I learned something from and wanted to share with them. Then, each of my students was instructed to share their favorite YouTube video in which they learned/experienced/felt something or were inspired. They uploaded their favorite video to their blog and now the students are visiting each other's blogs.
I LOVE Google Doodles. You know what they are, they are the Google logo that has been adapted for a special day. Check out some of the cool Google Doodles here. Although we've missed the deadline, Google had a contest going for American K-12 students for kids to create a Google Doodle. They are focusing on the question, "What if. . ." There is a similar contest in the UK.
The Google Pack download has an array of Google apps to make cyber-life easier!
They even have an official Google blog to keep you updated.
Thank you Google!
My Year 8's are learning to use Microsoft PhotoStory 3 to create digital stories. In Term 2 we worked with the English Department. The students were working on a poetry unit. The kids brought one of their poems to life. We housed the final products in Google Video and embedded them into student blogs. It was a big success.
Google came to the rescue a few months ago at my school. A few years ago our school a CAD (Computer Assisted Design) program was part of the curriculum. Students learned the CAD program in IT classes and used the knowledge in DT (Design Technology) classes. We we tried to reintroduce this during Term 2 members of my department were surprised that we no longer had a CAD program to offer (the license had expired). Google sketchup was introduced and have been successfully using it for 2 terms now;-D
I spend a lot of time trying to keep my teen-agers OFF YouTube. But I understand that YouTube has a lot to teach us. Recently, as a warm-up exercise I showed the students a video that I learned something from and wanted to share with them. Then, each of my students was instructed to share their favorite YouTube video in which they learned/experienced/felt something or were inspired. They uploaded their favorite video to their blog and now the students are visiting each other's blogs.
I LOVE Google Doodles. You know what they are, they are the Google logo that has been adapted for a special day. Check out some of the cool Google Doodles here. Although we've missed the deadline, Google had a contest going for American K-12 students for kids to create a Google Doodle. They are focusing on the question, "What if. . ." There is a similar contest in the UK.
The Google Pack download has an array of Google apps to make cyber-life easier!
They even have an official Google blog to keep you updated.
Thank you Google!
Everything Google
This title was chosen because google has become an integral part of our daily online and educative activity.
I can hardly remember my days without google. Whenever I want to know something - almost every other minute - I google.
My first blog was in blogger - and it is still there waiting for visits. You no longer need to activate your google reader to get the updated posts as I am not blogging there anymore, but this is a tool that is worth looking at.
My home page is my igoogle - I just love the new artistic themes (they even have Fatima Lopes in it and other Portuguese personalities - How cool!!!). I save most of my docs in google docs so I can retrieve them from wherever I am - I no longer am dependent on one machine (where I saved the document) or have to carry around that tiny memory stick, which I so often misplace. I still need to check the offline version. It definitely seems to be powerful.
My google calendar notifies me of my meetings and upcoming events, and I am able to invite other people in, and also create additional calendars for different groups.
Google groups rocks for the fact it allows not only email communication, but the development of personal pages.
Google earth and google maps are just great - bearing in mind my direction skills are not that good - it has been a great help and fun too.
I have re-started to use picasa. I love the embed widget it automatically generates. I have even included it in one of my google pages - just for fun! It took me less than one minute to do so.
Ramona says google sketch-up is dead easy to use. I still haven't ventured myself in it, but I sure want to give it a try sometime soon.
But before I do, I will probably check youtube and google videos for some video tutorials - it is amazing how much information is shared through these channels. And all thanks to the users' and google's generosity for sharing and making the resources available for free.
It is only a shame I still can't go google mobile - It is clear to me that I need to get myself an iPhone one of these days - but I have heard it is quite handy (maybe someone else is able to share their perspectives on this one)
Orkut is also in my list - my Brazilian fellows says wonders about it.
And I can't wait for more applications to be available. They are always a good surprise. I can already picture myself with that expression of amazement in my face.
Meanwhile, I could only wish that a blogger's blog's author could enable the activation of an option for other members to join in as writers - instead of having to invite them manually. ( a link to "join this blog as a writer" would be great. We as authors could then give permission to the ones who requested such thing.
On my blogger wish list is also the option of more templates or better customization options - for images, etc
Have I mentioned I love gmail and its email tagging feature and that gtalk is also becoming part of my communication channels?
I can hardly remember my days without google. Whenever I want to know something - almost every other minute - I google.
My first blog was in blogger - and it is still there waiting for visits. You no longer need to activate your google reader to get the updated posts as I am not blogging there anymore, but this is a tool that is worth looking at.
My home page is my igoogle - I just love the new artistic themes (they even have Fatima Lopes in it and other Portuguese personalities - How cool!!!). I save most of my docs in google docs so I can retrieve them from wherever I am - I no longer am dependent on one machine (where I saved the document) or have to carry around that tiny memory stick, which I so often misplace. I still need to check the offline version. It definitely seems to be powerful.
My google calendar notifies me of my meetings and upcoming events, and I am able to invite other people in, and also create additional calendars for different groups.
Google groups rocks for the fact it allows not only email communication, but the development of personal pages.
Google earth and google maps are just great - bearing in mind my direction skills are not that good - it has been a great help and fun too.
I have re-started to use picasa. I love the embed widget it automatically generates. I have even included it in one of my google pages - just for fun! It took me less than one minute to do so.
Ramona says google sketch-up is dead easy to use. I still haven't ventured myself in it, but I sure want to give it a try sometime soon.
But before I do, I will probably check youtube and google videos for some video tutorials - it is amazing how much information is shared through these channels. And all thanks to the users' and google's generosity for sharing and making the resources available for free.
It is only a shame I still can't go google mobile - It is clear to me that I need to get myself an iPhone one of these days - but I have heard it is quite handy (maybe someone else is able to share their perspectives on this one)
Orkut is also in my list - my Brazilian fellows says wonders about it.
And I can't wait for more applications to be available. They are always a good surprise. I can already picture myself with that expression of amazement in my face.
Meanwhile, I could only wish that a blogger's blog's author could enable the activation of an option for other members to join in as writers - instead of having to invite them manually. ( a link to "join this blog as a writer" would be great. We as authors could then give permission to the ones who requested such thing.
On my blogger wish list is also the option of more templates or better customization options - for images, etc
Have I mentioned I love gmail and its email tagging feature and that gtalk is also becoming part of my communication channels?
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