bookr!

I just made this tiny book using bookr! It took less than 5 minutes. I accessed some photos from my flickr account using a link right from this site. Great flickr toy!
bookr!


Also view it like this:
walk with me by sue

And here's another one about Christo's Gates:
Christo's Gates by Su
And this one about Nantucket:
frame finding by Su
And this one about our swap to Paris
Paris Swap 7_07 by Su
Couldn't forget Wellfleet
wellfleet by su

Check out all the flickr toys @ http://www.pimpampum.net/toys/

A SMARTBoard in every room!?

I've just read Will's post about using a Wii remote with infrared pens to make any surface that has a projected image interactive the way a SMARTBoard or ActiveBoard is interactive. The video that describes it by Johnny Chung Lee, makes it look very simple. You don't even need the Wii system, just the remote and the infrared pens and the software from his website. I wonder how long it will take for someone to package the whole deal and make it possible for every classroom to get SMART?

This is how twitter works

It is extremely hard to describe twitter to anyone who has not actually tried it. I was reading over the tweets this evening and there was a shout out to Steve Sokoloski's post. He has written a beautiful description of his experience with twitter and lurking. It is very close to my experience, too. Thank you Steve for getting the words to come together.

Going from reading blogs to actively participating in Twitter is like going from the garden hose to the firehose. In reading blogs I could pick up an idea here, and idea there. With Twitter, it is a constant flow, in real time. Really smart people, talking in real time to other really smart people and posting links about what they are checking out. The pace of new ideas has grown exponentially.
Twitter has provided a view into other professional’s lives. They all do not do exactly the same job as me but as others have tweeted I have found that lots of other tech educators are like me. They have their computers on beyond work hours. They work hard at their jobs in the hours beyond work. They try to balance family and technology. I am not nuts to do what I do. There are people like me out there. Lots of folks are puzzled, confused and trying to make sense of all of this stuff, and working hard outside of school to try new things and work it all out. They are thoughtful, wise, kind, and funny.

Steve Sokoloski

Giant Global Graph

Tim's blog has a very lengthly, yet fascinating explanation of the Internet - the Web and his new term, the Graph of links. Tim has been promoting the Semantic Web and the ability the semantic web would provide to connect bits of data across the web, so that web pages are no long the important bookmark, data is. Using rdf tagging, and other software types, information may be linked and reused separate from the page on which it appears. It is very exciting, and something I've been following for the past several years, as Tim continues to explain it and promote it. Here's his description of the graph:
In the long term vision, thinking in terms of the graph rather than the web is critical to us making best use of the mobile web, the zoo of wildy differing devices which will give us access to the system. Then, when I book a flight it is the flight that interests me. Not the flight page on the travel site, or the flight page on the airline site, but the URI (issued by the airlines) of the flight itself. That’s what I will bookmark. And whichever device I use to look up the bookmark, phone or office wall, it will access a situation-appropriate view of an integration of everything I know about that flight from different sources. The task of booking and taking the flight will involve many interactions. And all throughout them, that task and the flight will be primary things in my awareness, the websites involved will be secondary things, and the network and the devices tertiary. tim berners-lee

There's a word for it

It's a multilingual dictionary that will translate any word from a website that you open from within it. It defines words and also will translate into several different languages. You may even keep a list of words for yourself.

I just found this site

I just found this

top 100 tools - for learning

Jane Hart, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, has published a list of Web2.0 tools that enhance learning. It is available as a .pdf document and is sorted and annotated in several useful ways. Includes direct links to each of the tools. You may even request next year's update of the list. Good collection... mostly free tools. Did I see Google in there many, many times????

Screencast-O-Matic

Screencast-O-Matic is the free and easy way to create a video recording of your screen (aka screencast) and upload it for free hosting all from your browser with no install! You may export the video clip in QuickTime as a .mov file. It is also available as a URL that you may link to, and also send in an email.
Test your mic, pick a screen size and even leave notes if you pause the capture. You can back up and redo a capture that hasn't been encoded yet. Viewable in many browsers.

Map of Future Forces Afffecting Education

Look around the map. Explore it. While we'd never suggest that this map contains all of the answers and perfectly predicts the future, it does offer a clear point of view based on countless hours of research, analysis and expert opinion. Think of the map as a provocative tool, as the beginning of a movement, or, at the very least, part of a good conversation. Join in. And help us shape the future. kwfdn

VoiceThread

Create a photo album and add voice comments to the images. Easily capture voices that narrate a field trip that is documented with images. Add the finished scrapbook to a blog or web site. Easy and free. Great for young children still learning to write.

As good as Inspiration....well almost

Collaborative online mind mapping - MindMeister supports all the standard features of a classic mind mapping tool - only online, and with as many simultaneous users as you like! All for free. I gave it a quick try and was excited to find out you are able to export a .gif image of your final map and then post/share it in a discussion forum, or a blog, or wiki, or whatever.

OM for Sir Tim

The Queen of England just awarded Tim the Order of Merit.

The Order of Merit is one of the most prestigious honours - it's given as a personal gift from the monarch and recognises exceptional contributions in arts, sciences and other areas. The Order is restricted to just 24 living members who are entitled to use the initials OM following their name.

Audacity

Use Audacity @ www.sourceforge.org to record and edit.

Did You Know?

Last fall Karl Fisch showed his faculty a PowerPoint that told the new story. It is a story that needs to come into every school and every school room. The video version is posted on You Tube and currently has had 225,000 viewings. Watch it carefully, it will move you.

I put together a PowerPoint presentation with some (hopefully) thought-provoking ideas. I was hoping by telling some of these "stories" to our faculty, I could get them thinking about - and discussing with each other - the world our students are entering. To get them to really think about what our students are going to need to be successful in the 21st century, and then how that might impact what they do in their classrooms.
Karl Fisch - August 15, 2006

Introducing the Book

Imagine dealing with a Book as new technology for the first time. There were some issues with opening and saving and how to consult the manual, too. Technology issues have not changed much, even though the technology has changed.
a good laugh

Web2.0...The Machine is Us

Watch the YouTube video that shows you the power of Web2.0 while zipping you through some of the great apps available out there now. See flickr, blogger, del.icio.us and google all integrating into the power of the web.

No more Keyboards or Mice!

Watch the latest interface designed by Jeff Han that has no keyboard or mouse. Shown at the TED conference. Jeff Han is a research scientist for New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Here, he demonstrates—for the first time publicly—his intuitive, "interface-free," touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 09:32)

ZOHO

Zoho Writer
Online word processor with collaboration features.
No download, No install, just sign up to create documents
Zoho Sheet
Online alternative to traditional spreadsheet applications
with powerful features like charting, collaboration & more.
Zoho Show
Online presentation tool to create, edit, publish, and show presentations.
Zoho Wiki
Wiki that is as easy to use as a word processor
with group concept, versions, sub-pages and more ...

You can make a difference

Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty. Search a country, find a small business in need of a small loan ($25. - $600.) and help someone continue in their business.

A Library Good Thing

This is a delicious way to keep a flickr of an idea about who reads what I read, and what other things do they read that I might like to read, or might have read. I think I'll try and keep track of our book club's selections as a way to come up with new ideas for the group. Looks like you may also join groups and discuss your latest reads.

Nobel Tim

Web inventor receives 'engineering's Nobel Prize'

Tim Berners-Lee

Copyright: EICC

The US engineering profession's highest honours for 2007, presented by the National Academies' National Academy of Engineering (NAE), include the award to Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who holds a Chair of Computer Science in ECS, of the prestigious Charles Stark Draper Prize -- a $500,000 annual award that honours engineers whose accomplishments have significantly benefited society -- "for developing the World Wide Web."

The prize will be presented at a gala dinner in Washington, DC, on February 20, 2007

Tim on the Trail

Those of you who know me, know I have a Google Alert on him, have read his book, gone to his lectures, and let's just say, idolize him. So today I decide to turn left at the end of Thoreau on my Sunday walk, instead of turning right as I usually do and decided to walk down the bike path. I sometimes think it's safer to walk the streets, in case I run into a "stranger", but today I said, forget it, it's prettier down the bike path and into the woods along the stream and by the blackberry bushes. So I did. And was happily listening to my iPod when a man walking a large black lab came walking towards me. And I knew him. I totally recognized him and just said as he got close, "Oh My God...TIM!" Well I almost forgot to take the ear buds out, but did, and said something silly probably, and he said, "Well some projects just work out!" Some projects!... like the whole WWW-thing????? oh well, guess he still lives here and probably along Saddle Club road, where some really nice tear-downs have become lovely brook side mansions. Good for him. Apart from just winning the Draper award, he was also voted the 3rd Most influential Unitarian for 2006. I like the Unitarian award.
regards all, from
Sue, still a little shaken