Mar 23
Blake's Voki
Links
Control Panel
Sep 16
Nothing is worse than sitting through a horrible PowerPoint presentation. In the course of my 27+ years of being in education (as both a student and a teacher) I have seen some pretty bad presentations and I am pretty sure that some of them have have almost killed me. The internet is full of sites with guidelines and suggestions for avoiding causing “Death by PowerPoint” but here are a few suggestions that may help you avoid any more senseless deaths:
- Check the spelling and grammar.
- Do not read the presentation. The text should be a cue for the presenter rather than a message for the viewer.
- Keep the design clean and uncluttered. Leave empty space around the text and graphics.
- Use quality images and use them sparingly. The graphic should relate to and enhance the topic of the slide.
- Avoid flashy graphics and noisy animation effects unless they relate directly to the slide.
- Adjust your font size to match your method of presentation - what is viewable on using a large projection device and screen my not work well on a plasma or LCD TV.
How NOT to use PowerPoint
Apr 18
Voki speaking avatars are cool and lots of fun to create. Their website enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking character. You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of lots of other types of characters… animals, monsters, anime etc. Your Voki can speak with your own voice which is added via microphone, upload, or phone.
Educators can use them to add a human element to their sites or to engage students.
Adding a Voki Avatar to Your Blog Sidebar
1. Register for an account at Voki and create your own Voki.
2. Grab the code of your Voki for embedding into Wordpress.
3. On your blog dashboard, go to Presentation > Widgets
4. Drag Text box from available widget area to your sidebar and paste the code for your voki into the text box.
5. Click on Save Changes.
6. Your voki will now appear on your blog in the sidebar (check out mine in the left sidebar).
Apr 15
Tips and Tricks for Using
Everyone knows how to use Google but does everyone use it efficiently? By efficiently I mean using some tricks or the cheat sheet provided by Google itself to quickly find what you actually require. Having been a Google user for a long time now, I have come across some amazing search tools and tricks which can change the way you look at Google.
1. Google Scholar Search - Searches for materials only from educational institutes or universities.
2. Calculate with your browser - Every OS has a built-in calculator but when the browser is the thing which is constantly open, why bother to open up a calculator? Open Google and type in your mathematical expression. You can go all the way from basic arithmetic to trigonometry expressions.
3. Meanings of any word in an instant - With the wealth of information in Google’s hands, its a piece of cake to find out the meaning of the word. Just use the following search (define:keyword). The meaning would of course be displayed but also a set of other links which might have an alternative definition are also given out with the link to read more about it.
4. Search for specific file types - You can search for only specific filetypes on Google by adding the following string to the end of your search (filetype:file extension - ie. filetype:doc or filetype:pdf) If I want to find information on Andrew Jackson I could use a Google search. If, however, I wanted to see a PowerPoint or a PDF document about Andrew Jackson I could use the following searches:
5. Convert currency, metrics and more - Google’s powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out whether you’re cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup, how many seconds there are in a year or how many euros there are to ten dollars. Those are just a few of the things that Google’s converter can handle.
Mar 27
Mar 27
Digital Storytelling is the art of turning a personal narrative into a multimedia experience. It can combine music, video and/or still images with your creative voice. The results are an original production that engages the viewing audience in ways that are often surprising and powerful.
Click Here for some great digital stories about Lawrenceburg created through Mountain Workshops.
You can use a variety of software applications to create digital stories form high end video production software to free programs like iMovie (mac) or Movie Maker(pc). Microsoft also offers Photo Story 3, a free software package specifically designed for quick and simple digital story creation. Below is an example of a digital story created by a student using Photo Story 3:
Grandma from Blake Drury on Vimeo.
Contact me for more information on Digital Story telling in the classroom or to set up a training.
Nov 28
The Technology Department of the Anderson County School System is proud to present uLearn - our own secure blogging platform powered by WordPress. This simple to use, web based program will allow Teachers to create a web page quickly that they can maintain from anywhere - you only need an internet connection.
This program is easy to use; if you can use e-mail and/or MS Word, you can use Wordpress.
Nov 28
When I come to your school for training, each of you will be creating your own web page on the spot. What do you want your page to look like? It is totally up to you! To make things go more quickly and to make our session more productive, you may want to bring some things on your flash drive (or make sure that they are on your P drive) to post on your site. Here are some examples:
- Syllabus
- Home Work
- Word Lists
- Handouts
- Letters for Parents
- Pictures
- Calendar of Events
- List of Helpful Websites
- etc…
Your website design and layout is totally up to you. If you need help coming up with ideas or collecting these or other things for your site, contact me and I can help you before before the date scheduled for training.