MeasureIt
MeasureIt is a browser add-on that lets you measure sizes on your screen. This can be incredibly useful when laying out a new blog or deciding how big an image needs to be in order to fit correctly onto your site. You can download a copy of the add-on here.
Design around the island
I was up in Valldemossa for lunch today and took a few snapshots that reminded me of our discussion on design the other day.
Comic Sans is alive and well in Spain
Always make sure to use high quality images if you're planning on printing or projecting them!
Synchronous Communication Tools
- Meebo is a synchrnous chat tool that lets you type across all the major IM platforms. Where Meebo really shines is in its ability to embed a chatroom directly onto your blog. Check out the demo chat room I set up below:
Here’s how you can set up your own Meebo widget:
- Visit Meebo at http://www.meebo.com and sign up for a free account
- Sign in and associate at least one IM client with your Meebo account (AIM, Google Talk, etc)
- Click on the Preferences button at the top of the screen and then on the Meebo Me Widget link
- Create a new widget and embed it into your blog
- Everyone on your blog will now be able to chat with each other when they are on the same page. In addition, you can chat with them if you have your Meebo page up and running or if you’re on the blog at the same time.
- Adobe Connect is a web-based collaboration tool that lets you create synchrnous meetings in which you can share a number of different types of media, including audio, video, files, a whiteboard and even your desktop! The free version allows you to conference live with up to 2 participants, and you can purchase a paid version if you’d like to try and run larger online events.
- Skype allows you to make free computer to computer voice and video calls anywhere in the world. In addition, Skype allows you to share your desktop so that you can share images, presentations, etc with your participants.
- Open Sim is an open source version of the Second Life grid that lets you create a private “3D virtual world” for your community or school. It requires local installation, so you’ll need to get your tech team on board with giving it a try.
A virtual class being held in Second Life
Using Audacity
Audacity is an audio editing program that allows you to record, mix, and add special effects to your sound files. It is completely open-source, and is available at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Here’s how you can get started with a new audacity project:
- Open up Audacity. A screen simliar to the following will appear:
Audacity startup screen
- Make sure that you have a microphone installed. You can use the built-in microphone on your laptop if need be, but a USB powered external microphone will really help to make your audio come out crisp and clear.
- Click on the record button (#1) and begin speaking. A waveform will begin to appear (#2) as your voice is detected by the microphone.
- Click on the stop button (#3) in order to stop the recording.
- Click the rewind button (#4) and play button (#5) to listen to your recording.
- To trim your recording make sure that the selection tool is clicked (#6) – then highlight the portion of the audio that you would like to cut. Click on Edit->Cut to extract the selected area.
- To record a second clip, click the record button (#2) – a second waveform will appear beneath the first.
- To reposition a clip, click on the slider tool (#7) and slide the desired clip back and forth.
- Using the volume adjustment tool (#8) you can increase or decrease the volume of a specific clip.
- Your can import other audio files (WAV, MP3) by clicking on Project -> Import Audio. The audio file will appear as a new waveform. Here is a small collection of sound effect files to get you started.
- You can also apply special effects to your audio clips – this can be accomplished by selecting a portion of a clip using the selection tool (#6) and then using the Effect menu.
- When you are finished working on your clip you should save your project by clicking on File -> Save.
- You can export your project as an MP3 file by clicking on File -> Export as MP3. Note that Audacity does not come pre-loaded with MP3 export capabilities – you can add this feature into the system by installing the free LAME MP3 Conversion Library (available here).
With your newly created MP3 file you can create a soundtrack to a video, remix a song or even create your own podcast.
Yahoo Media Player Widget
The Yahoo Media Player Widget allows you to let visitors to your blog play any audio files that you choose to upload to your site. Here’s an example MP3 file – just click the play button next to the link to start it up. You can also click the link to download the file to your computer if you’d like.
Here’s how you can add the Yahoo Media Player Widget to your blog. Note that you only need to do this once and it will affect all audio links on your entire site!
- Open up the Dashboard for your blog
- Click on Appearance -> Widgets
- Add a new text widget to your sidebar
- Paste in the following code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/js"></script>
Twitter Resources
Twitter in Plain English
Using Twitter in the Classroom
Google Analytics
Here’s how you can incorporate the “Google Analytics” feature into your blog. This feature will allow you to easily track who is visiting your blog, where they are coming from, what browsers they are using, etc. Here’s how to get started!
- Visit: http://www.google.com/analytics/
- Log in using your Google Identity.
- Click “Add Website Profile”
- Paste your blog address into the box labeled “Please provide the URL of the site you would like to track.”
- Click Continue
- A new page will appear with a bunch of HTML code in a white text box. Select this code and copy it using EDIT->Copy.
- Click Finish
- Open a new window and sign into your blog
- Click Appearance -> Widgets
- We need to add in a place to hold this code on your blog. You can do this by adding a text widget to your sidebar. Paste the tracking code information into the widget body – feel free to leave the title of this element blank.
- Switch back to the browser window that has Google Analytics running and click “Check Status” to verify that you’ve set up your blog correctly. Click Finish when you’re done.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully set up tracking on your blog! Google Analytics tracks information on a daily basis, so you won’t begin to see tracking information until tomorrow.
Learning and Leading with Technology
For those of you interested in keeping track of what’s going on in the world of Ed Tech – check out the most recent edition of ‘Learning and Leading with Technology’ magazine. Shameless self promotion: turn to page 35 
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| May 2011 | |
Open Educational Content
- Creative Commons is an organization dedicated to creating a simple way for content creators to share their work with the rest of the world. Check out this quick video about the Creative Commons project for more info:
- Flat World Knowledge: An open-source book publisher that lets educators access and adopt free textbooks in a variety of subjects.
- Folksemantic is an organization that provides a searchable portal of over 100,000 open educational resources.
- Teachers without Borders maintains a great listing of “open education” libraries
