Reach for the Sky

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Janine Lim

Angela Conrad, Humble ISD, is presenting about what is in her cloud. Blogging for this session is sponsored by October Smith, who provided the Internet for this blog. Thanks October! See 123vc.pbwiki.com for more information.

Contxts

  • It gives your contact information as a text message. (Thanks Brandi)
  • Can put homework in this.
  • Could put quiz questions.
  • Could send spelling words.
  • It’s only text.
  • Check the box, send me a txt when my card is requested, so you can see what cell phone numbers have requested it.

Google

  • iGoogle
  • Book Search – create your own little library
  • GoogleDocs
  • Shared Calendars

SimplyBox

  • A place to capture share organize anything you find on the web.
  • There’s a how to video on how to make it public and have it automatically update your twitter account – see the videos on the right side of the home page
  • Install a toolbar in FireFox (click Box and Save) – images, text, pages, videos, etc.
  • Some of her containers are private and some are public
  • Could use it in a research project etc.
  • It saves all the source information too so you know where you got it
  • You can view a list view or a box view
  • You can share your boxes and collaborate on what’s in them
  • You can embed the code for the box into another page
  • You can share so they can view or edit or contribute

Twitter

  • Use Favorites – it’s not Favorites but favorite tweets

SlideShare

  • You can share slides
  • You can embed video etc right in the presentation
  • Can bulk upload files
  • It’s not just presentations, other files can be shared too
  • Here’s an example of her slideshare for Texas History Mystery

Prezi

  • The zooming editor for stunning presentations
  • It’s sort of like an animation plus presentations plus zooming
  • It’s more like visual thinking instead of linear thinking – you can draw lines to make connections between pieces of the presentation
  • You have a bubble navigation so that you can easily jump to different parts of your presentation depending on your audience
  • You can draw your path for how you’ll present
  • You can decide who can decide who can view or edit

Ustream.tv

  • Use to livestream teachers with annotated notes when the students are at home sick

Bubbl.us

  • Free brainstorming online
  • Angela takes notes in meetings online with this tool
  • You don’t have to have an account to get started, but if you want to save it you need an account
  • You can export to image files or HTML
  • Just like Inspiration and Kidspiration but you can’t go back to the outline – main difference

And more…..

Angela’s cloud is collected all together for this presentation on Glogster. Thanks Angela!!

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Green = IVC Hybrid

Posted on April 8, 2009 by Janine Lim

Several presenters from South Central Kansas Education Service Center are doing a session on videoconferencing at TxDLA. Kay Highbarger, Executive Director is doing the presentation.

They have 4 teachers on staff, including one from China who teaches full length Chinese classes as well as short Chinese culture programs.

50 daily classes daily high school over their network

Also special topics – Chinces, Spanish and Careers for middle and high school students.

Audra May, the tech support, has a PVX in her office to do test calls and connect classes.

“windshield time” is getting cut, VC is a solution for staff development. Districts don’t come in any more for training, “we will go to them”.

Early Literacy Discovery Time with Mrs. Goose is a very popular program they offer. She told the story about a class in Texas that sang happy birthday to her in the session. “Texans are just great!” It’s not just us in Michigan that love to connect to Texas!

They are working to show their schools that “are too good” to need distance learning services to help them realize their students can benefit from these full length courses as well.

They have a really cool 3D thing, but all their equipment didn’t come. They have pictures of how they put these 3D objects in both sites and it’s 3D right in the middle of you. It’s hard to visualize and know what they mean without actually seeing it. Can’t find any info on it on their website either.

The sender manipulates the object, but the receiver can’t manipulate it. They can also put the object on the server so all the classes can get it. That’s how Bill Baker described it. He’s at Navigator Development. It’s HD plus 3D. I know I’m not describing it well but linked to what I could find by Googling. It can also work with 3D glasses. Bill’s company creates content for schools as they ask for it – and then you own the content. You could then sell it to other places if you want. There are about 100 of these applications (brain, ATV, etc.) made and they are building them all the time. Another person said that you can import other 3D content – and there are thousands of those too. For example the content on Turbo Squid. They are working towards putting in this $100,000 ish room plus setting up one of their staff to create 3D content. It would be only at the education service center but not at the districts – because they are receiving it.

In addition to doing programming for schools, they reach out to the community, community colleges, higher ed, senior centers, etc.

They are the first service center for their state doing HD – they have Polycom HD carts in their schools and really enjoy it.

Filed under: Content Providers, Course Delivery, VC Community | Comments Off

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