Presentations

It is important to note the delivery of a good presentation will have a major impact on the level at which it is received. Most of us know the basics, but just to refresh everyones memories here's a funny link enjoy......Blinklife Presentation

33 Ways to use blogs in your classroom and in the educational setting

Drawing a blank on how you might use a blog in your own classroom? Here's a list to jump start your creativity. By no means is this list exhaustive; there are as many ways to use blogs in education as there are to use paper. :) Remember, blogs are a medium, not a genre. Some of these ideas are for the classroom in general, some are for younger students, some are for older students. Some could become group or classroom blogs, others are suited for individual student blogs. Next, determine to what degree do you want to have "conversations" with others. If you want global participation, ask "in what ways can I have students from another part of the world participate in this with us?". Ask also,"in what ways can we get experts involved with our blogs?" The sky's the limit! :)

Create a blog to communicate class/school information with parents. Post field trip information, field trip forms, parent helper calendars, general classroom guidelines and more.

Click here for 33 ways to integrate blogging into your teaching today!!!

Firefox Users

My students love Picnik.com to make images for their blogs - more so than Fotoflexer.com, more so than Flauntr.com, and more so than Pixlr.com. To my surprise, yesterday I stumbled upon the slickest Firefox add-on which integrates seamlessly with Picnik! Simply put, it makes taking screenshots a breeze, and greatly speeds up importing images into the Picnik online photo editor.

For starters, you must be using Mozilla Firefox (I am quickly becoming an ardent fan of this browser). At the top of the browser menu click on Tools, and then Add-ons.











Next, select "Browse all Add-ons".














In the search box type in "picnik" (note the funny spelling) and enter.






Click "Add to Firefox".





When prompted, click "Install Now".













Restart your browser (don't worry - Firefox will restore your tabs - another reasons to love this browser).















Okay! You're ready to rock 'n roll with this add-on. I'll demo by traveling to Lovelycharts.com, a website that's caught my eye these last few days.














Let's say I'd like to take a screenshot of this new piece of webware to put in an upcoming blog post. I'll right click and choose the option "Send Page to Picnik". I can send just the visible portion of the page, or the entire page (even portions of the image below the fold).


















Next, Picnik.com opens itself in a new Firefox tab and the screenshot appears. You are now ready to edit it and then save it as a .jpg! And look, no extraneous parts to crop off -- yes, very nice!











Now let's look at the other option. Say you want to edit (manipulate, add to, delete from - create a derivative) of an existing Creative Commons image. Navigate to the image and right click on it. Choose "Edit Image in Picnik".


















The add-on starts up a new Firefox tab and throws the image into Picnik so you can go to town editing it and then saving it! You've just eliminated the need to download the image, navigate to the image, then upload the image. A great timesaver!










Downsides? A few. I'd love it if attribution information could be captured somehow when this is used on a single image. Of course, I can always bookmark where I found the picture using Diigo or a similar service. Additionally, I've noticed that if you use the Picnik add-on on a .jpg that has IPTC metadata embedded in it , upon saving it in Picnik.com, this file info is stripped out. Retaining this info is sometimes required for attribution purposes. Would love to see Picnik.com find a work around that preserves this metadata.

Check out this excellent introduction to Prezi