Finding Free Resources for the MAC

by Steve Hemphill (Summer MACE 2008)

http://opensource.usd348.com

NeoOffice

• OSX native application similar to MS Office
• Opens Word documents saved with docx extensions
• Different from Open Offic

Open Office

• Version 3.0 will be OSX native
• Older versions require X11 to be installed (available as extra tool on installation CD)

Google Docs / Calendar

• Allows collaboration
• Allows jointly managed calendar
• Technology plan development
• Issue – not on local computer; actual possession may belong to Google

Text Wrangler

• Open documents not visible in other programs
• Good for writing code — indents / color-coded text

Tofu

• Opens documents to show text when other programs won’t open it

Gimpshop

• Can do most tasks that Photoshop can
• specialized version of Gimp but Gimp requires X11 running

Nvu

• Windows and MAC
• Can replace Dreamweaver and/or Frontpage

Blender

• 3D drawing program
• Similar to Sketchup (Google Tool)

Adium

• Allows use of multiple accounts
• Opens all messenger accounts in one window

XMeeting

• uses H323
• May allow conferencing in conjunction with IDL equipment

senuti

• allows download of files from iPod into desktop iTunes

Formulate Pro

• allows adding text to PDF documents
• May replace Adobe Acrobat Pro

ClamXav

• anti-virus
• Finds macro virus

smcfancontrol

• alllows control of fan
• Helps MacBook Pro — which seems to get warm

KisMac

• Wireless network locator

iRed Lite

• allows use of Apple remote with computer / for projector control

Handbrake

• Rips/converts movies
• Great for getting older home videos into iMovie

Switch

• Converts between audio formats

Celestia

• Views universe from different perspectives
• YouTube Video – A Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
• Zooms out from earth seeing planets go by

Stellarium

• Planetarium software
• Can “turn off” the sun to see what the stars would look like at that time of day

Exploring Web 2.0

Web 2.0 – What is it? Why should I care? How can I use it?

by Jerry Fort (Summer Mace 2008) http://www.cchs.ccsd.k12.co.us/teacher-resources/index.html

Videos of interest

• thewebisus.mov or thewebisusingus
• airplane.mpg (video)
• injuredbad.mov
• National Geographic podcasts (excellent video quality) — example: Polar Bears, Tornadoes, Insect Candy, Lizard Wrestling
• video – stuck on escalator (and not taking initiative to get off)

Web 2.0

• read/write web
• tag cloud – web 2.0

Web 2.0 sites

• Digg
• Wikipedia
• YouTube
• Citizendium
• Wikispaces, pbwiki
  • http://www.budtheteacher.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_page (individual wiki)
  • http://trailfirstpeopletechers.wikispaces.com (collaborative wiki)
• Maps
  • Google maps / Google earth
  • http:/labs.reuters.com/newsmaps — interactive live map of current news stories
  • Flickr Maps — get photos based on location
  • http://www.epodunk.com/top10/diaspora — where people went after Katrina
• Blogs
  • Journal format
  • Chronologically arranged
  • Usually one person’s writings
  • Technorati – search engine for blogs
  • Business — http://businessweek.com/technology/byteoftheaple/blog/
  • New York Post Blog
  • Gateway Pundit — politically oriented blog (gatewaypundit.blogspot.com)
  • Big Lead – sports blog
  • Teacher Magazine Blogboard — http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/blogboard
  • Gawker — culture
  • Daily Kos
  • Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.coom
• Social Networks (go to Wikipedia to see list of ones available)
  • classroom 2.0 — for teachers
  • linkedin – business social network
  • facebook
  • my.9rules
  • ning – lets you create a social network
  • xanga
  • classmates.com
  • humblevoice
  • friendster
  • myyearbook
• Video
  • Google Video
  • YouTube
  • University videos
  • Admission videos
  • Brightcove
  • Zippy Video
  • Flixya
  • Jumpcut
  • Eyespot
  • Crackle
  • Flixya
  • Vimeo
  • Photobucket
  • TeacherTube
  • zamzar.com — submit video url / get downloadable video
  • Real Player – latest version will let you download YouTube videos also
• Beyond Video
  • hulu — full length tv shows and movies
  • Joost
  • veoh — network tv / documentaries
  • free internet tv — more international flavor
  • Photos
• Photos
  • Picassa
  • Photobucket
  • Webshots
  • Bubbleshare
  • KodakGallery
  • Flickr
  • Shutterfly
  • SnapFish
  • KoffeePhoto
• Online Apps
  • Zoho — Projects, Meeting, Invoice, Creator, DB & Reports, People, Business, Wiki, Planner, Chat, Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook
  • Google Apps
  • Gliffy — Flowcharting, diagrams
  • Mindomo — free tool like Inspiration
  • Office Live Workspace (must own MS Office – possibly 2003 or greater)
• Podcasting
  • Podcast.net
  • Podcasting news
  • Podcasting tools
  • Podscope (search engine for podcasting)
• Communication
  • Yahoo! Messenger
  • Skype — chat / transfer files / video
  • Jabber.org
  • Aim.com
  • ICQ
  • iChat – 4 way video allowed
  • Google Talk
• Social Bookmarking
  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • reddit
  • blinklist
  • StumbleUpon
  • furl
  • spurl.net
• Rss
  • Bloglines
  • iGoogle
  • Google Reader
  • Netvibes
  • Pageflakes
  • Top 100 Most-subscribed to RSS Feeds (http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/rssHotlist)
• Tags (tagCloud – visual of what site is about)
  • http://www.tagcloud.com
  • http://tagcrowd.com
  • http://www.petefreitag.com/item/396.cfm
  • http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/07/tag-clouds-gallery-examples-and-good-practices
  • http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags
  • presidential speeches site — http://chir.ag/phernalia/preztags — creates tag cloud from presidential speeches — current thru historical
• Second Life

What Makes a Web 2.0 Site

interactive feature

http://www.go2web20.net

http://web2.ajaxprojects.com

http://www.webware.com/heml/ww/2007.html

http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0

http://web2magazine.blogspot.com/2007/01/thanks-for-web-2.html

Web 2.0 Ideas for the Classroom

Learning New Skills

Do-It-Yourself Professional Development

by Cheryl McCoy – Erie (Summer Mace 2008)

https://mymindtoyourmind.wikispace.com

n2teaching

Can retain teaching license (whether teaching or not) if you create your own Professional Learning Plan where individual can create own learning opportunity. (KSDE Resource — Kansas Professional Development Program Guidelines)

Can get credit for blogging.

Recommended Books:

• The Quality School: Managing Students without Coercion
• Professional Learning Communities at Work
• The Quality School Teacher

Participates as n2teaching on

• Plurk
• Flickr
• Twitter

Joins any learning community recommended by others in her network

Resources used (See her wiki page, Tools of the Trade)

• Weather girl widgets
• Voki
• Flickr Features
  • Sign Maker
  • Widgets
• Google Survey / results in spreadsheet format
• Animoto – create videos from still pictures for posting on YouTube

Online collaborative projects

• Journey north
• Idiatrod
• Sun/Earth Day
• Jason Project

Be willing to experiment!

Taking High School Education into the Future

by Steve Wycoff (MACE Summer 2008)

Feb 13, 2008 — Kansas State Board of Education – Comprehensive Redesign (of Tech Ed)

Nine initiatives that all Kansas schools are required to meet.

1. Create/approve gold standard assessments (industry recognized credentials/certifications) for ech of the Career Clusters that support high expectations.
2. Integrate core content standards with technical program standards utilizing the 16 career clusters as the organzing principle
3. Support implementation of Individual Career Plans of study for all students in grade 8 and above
4. Improve access to Career and Technical Education by removing barriers and promoting partnerships.
5. Recommend KBOR to Update Qualified Admissions
6. Create 21st century school standards to help guide reform and/or redesign of public schools
7. Support Professional Development for teachers (e.g. mentor-mentee model) to help gide studnets in planning for future careers.
8. Revise Teacher Preparation Program Standards to reflect the integration of content standards.
9. Support the creation of dynamic funding systems that resond to the changing workforce and economic development needs.

Kansas aerospace industry is short by about 1000 engineers immediately and has a need for up to 500 yearly.

We can no longer have kids who would be good engineers being pushed out because they can’t do three semesters of calculus. In our society today, 12% of the jobs are for the unskilled, yet we have about 32% of our students dropping out. Thus we have too many unskilled workers. Traditional high school curriculums focus on preparing students to go to a 4 year college while almost 80% of those students won’t finish college in 4 years.

In Kansas, we have a shortage of workers yet students indicate a high interest in those same areas. Why is that?

To meet these initiatives may require revamping of high school curriculums. The utilization of “course codes” assigned to projects may be one way to provide students with experience in the areas of their interest while granting them academic credit toward graduation. This moves more toward an integrated curriculum versus isolated curricular areas.

21st century behaviors

• technology fluency
• Communication – verbal proficiency
• collaboration — leadership/coordination/teamwork/interpersonal skills/relationships/horizontal collaboration
• solve complex problems
• gumption — self-direction and reflection skills
• creativity
• analytical and thinking skills
• initiative and ambition
• adaptable — versatilist
• inquisitiveness
• Communication — ability to write a letter, write an email, know when to use IM shorthad and when not to

Utilizing the Kansas Career Pipeline to help meet these initiatives

1. Use the Kuder Interest Inventory

After taking interest inventory, the user gets a “person match” with similar profiles to the person taking the interest inventory. Anyone in state of Kansas can take this inventory.

• Exposes students to careers they may not have considered
• Causes students to think about educational requirements for the various careers
• Leads into investigating post-secondary education and cost

2. Use Kansas Career Pipeline to build Individual Career Plans

3. Incorporates videos on different career areas and job opportunities in Kansas (Manufacturing video is excellent coverage of variety of jobs involved in producing airplanes.)

“A teacher’s job is not to teach kids. A teacher’s job is to create meaningful, engaging work whereby kids learn the things we want them to learn.” (Phyl Schlecty)

Speaking of History

Notes from keynote address at MACE Summer 2008 conference by Eric Langhorst

Enitre presentation is available on his blog, Speaking of History. Eric also produces a podcast, Speaking of History, that is available on iTunes.

Books he recommends:

• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
• The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (look for edition #3 — it has more on education in this edition)
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organization by Clay Shirky

His professional development occurs while mowing the lawn as he uses MP3 player to listen to podcasts by other educators. His own podcast reaches around the world with over 160,000 downloads so far this year.

Free resources he uses to create his podcasts:

• Audacity
• Photo Story 3 — create video using images and music (such as commercials)
• Blogger — to host his various blogs

Student use of technology in the classroom

• StudyCasts – teacher recorded audio review for upcoming test that students can download at home,
• TestCast – have para record the reading of a test the first time and use recording for next student.
• Using Zunes in classroom to transfer podcasts, studycasts, presentation notes (similar to use of Palms about 3 to 5 years ago)
• Creating a guide by cell (phone) tour of museum with student written and recorded narrations
• Liberty Minutes Video Project (extra credit) — create 3 to 5 minute videos on local historical topics with “Hollywood Night” with parents and guests
• Debates – record classroom debates and have experts review it
• Email an expert – teacher sends 10 questions to expert to be answered
• Teaches Civil War by teaching book Guerilla Season / Guerilla Season Book Blog to discuss border wa
• Classroom web site — using blackboard but has used a blog – updates weekly with dialog about upcoming week
• Online assessment (uses Quia but could use QuizStar) — provides immediate data and feedback to both teacher and students — using pretesting to modify instruction based on results of pretest

Primary purpose — allow students to become producers instead of a consumer

Secondary purpose — allow connection with rest of the worl

Multimedia resources used in classroom

• CNN student news (vodcast)

Everything’s Changin’

This summer has seen MAJOR change in the schools’ computing environment. The desktop, email, and gradebook will all look different. Instead of the Novell application launcher, users will have a normal Windows desktop and Programs list. Instead of looking for the globe icon for Groupwise, faculty will be using Outlook while students will be provided Google accounts. Instead of using eGrade and K12 Planet, everyone will be using PowerSchool.
The change from WinSchool to PowerSchool resulted from the loss of technical support for WinSchool. The changes to the network infrastructure were implanted to hopefully achieve the following:
•    Replace aging servers
•    Reduce total number of servers
•    Improve ability for Macintosh computers to interact with network
•    Reduce annual costs
•    Reduce login times
•    Provide computing experience similar to home
Even though a lot has been accomplished toward this transition, there is still much to do. Since we are all in the same boat – learning new software – I would like to thank you in advance for your patience during the next few weeks as school starts and we begin to test the system.