 high school teacher of Japanese language Director of the MERIT Program at the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College (California) Founder, Executive Director and Lead Janitor of NextVista.org the newsletter I mentioned (ask for free stuff!) Why We're Here A Scout Is... Getting Started - what these tools should do for us Metamark - making the nasty URLs more reasonable Tiny URL, Snip URL, Long URL, Huge URL Urban Dictionary - interpreting the language of the locals Merriam-Webster - more traditional definitions Google Search - language tools, advanced search, and more options Shortcut Guide - all sorts of quick ways to use the front page Wonder Wheel and Timeline, News and Fast Flip File Search - not reinventing the wheel -and- developing a critical eye Google Squared - wildly cool associations of data Search Curriculum - helping kids search (much) more efficiently Books and Scholar - thinking about what's worth reading Librivox - free audio books Wordle - popular system for making word clouds WordSift - great tool for academic language by folks at Stanford Poll Everywhere - gathering data using cell phones or internet-connected computers another form of survey Activity possibilities: find presentations on topics that interest you, create a poll Geographical Tools Across the Curriculum Google Maps various views - maps, satellite, traffic, terrain, Earth; photos and writing assignments finding resources - Advanced Search and kml files literature stuff - Google Lit Trips history - tinyurl.com/calmissionsmap creating your own maps support, Maps handout for educators tutorials on YouTube for Google Maps Activity possibilities: find and link/upload a kml file on a topic of interest to you create a map with colleagues about special places in your community use photos or Wikipedia entries in Maps as writing prompts Collaboration Kicked Up a Notch - why paper can hold us back Google Docs - word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations Docs - sharing, revision history, and saving the file Presentations - use for prompts, planning, and (of course) presenting Spreadsheets - do surveys and online tests using Forms (Know your lyrics?) cool tricks with fill and lookup tutorials on YouTube for Docs, Spreadsheets, Forms, Presentations Sites - building web pages, the Google way Wikispaces - an especially education-friendly wiki company Activity possibilities: experiment with spreadsheet tools and gadgets create a form for gathering student info make an information and resource site for your course What You See and Hear - approaches to using audio, images, and video Creative Commons - copyright, public domain, and 'copyright-friendly'; royalty-free vs. free proper citation is always a component - use filenames to keep the info Citing Sources, the easy way Flickr and Morguefile - images in quantity and quality PodSafeAudio and Jamendo - music you can use PartnersInRhyme - both royalty-free and free sound effects (note the difference) Activity possibilities: gather copyright-friendly images for a presentation, start an audio resource folder Multimedia Tools-a-Plenty - fantastic freeware CoolIris - photo walls from search results (plug-in for browsers) TagGalaxy - a world of photos from search results Irfan View - free graphics editor and converter (a program you download) Picnik - online photo editing Sumo Paint - online Photoshop-like-thing Mixbook - create online photo books, buy the real ones if you wish Photo Story 3 - a free program from Microsoft - really. (program to download) Zamzar - great site for converting files or grabbing YouTube videos Prezi - "Power Point on steroids" Jing - freeware for screencasting Audacity - powerful audio editor Voice Thread - audio blogs with images Animoto - 30-second videos are free Glogster - multimedia posters BigHugeLabs - a variety of multimedia this-and-that Activity possibilities: using a Flickr Gallery, plan discussions using CoolIris for the prompts create a how-to using Prezi (grab screen shots and edit using Picnik!) poke around BigHugeLabs to find cool techno-knickknack-possibilities trade audio impressions of images using voice thread use Zamzar to grab a YouTube video as a discussion prompt Other Software and Sites You Might Want - more fantastic resources File Hippo - great site for downloading freeware Contxts - send your contact info by text message try texting the message Rushton to number 50500 as an example Fresh Brain - a place for teens to be wildly creative Classroom 2.0 and Learn Central - perhaps the best sites for collaborating with colleagues Activity possibilities: create a slideshow video using Photo Story, make a podcast using Audacity, find a group in Classroom 2.0 to get to know, explore visual possibilities with Cool Iris Projects preparing students for any multimedia project have students figure out strengths, weaknesses, and alternatives to a variety of videos record impressions using a Google form like this one (ask me for a copy) share this resource on common mistakes (it won't replace their exploring, though) Community Intros (Stavanger, Norway) here's instructions for this project from a couple of years ago (ignore the dates) Sonnets and Multimedia (Sonnet 23) just for you, a step-by-step on the sonnets project Jim Sill interview about this project (Elluminate session) Career Exploration (Oceanographic Scientist) info on how to do career exploration videos with your students Saving the World From Ignorance - my favorite place for fascinating projects NextVista.org - videos to learn, to travel, and to inspire Activity possibilities: choose a video to show students to get their thoughts on strengths, weaknesses, changes, etc.  Sign up for the Next Vista newsletter here! Or here. Ask nicely, and I'll send free resources your way. Trying to contact Rushton Hurley? Use Next Vista's contact page at: http://www.nextvista.org/contact/. Looking for the regular Free Tools Out The Wazoo page? Click here: http://xrl.us/freetools Here's that Fresh Brain Scouting video I probably showed: http://nextvista.org/rhvideos/bsa-recruitment.mov Here's Mark Dohn's Lab Rules video: http://nextvista.org/rhvideos/Dohn_Lab_Rules.mov |
Day-Long Workshop |