My daughter brought home a “foldable” filled with notes on mathematical thinkers, perfect content for a Photostory slideshow. I put her to work, assisting me in preparing for my first Digital Storytelling workshop.

Download Mathematical Thinkers

We found Photostory, free software from Microsoft, very easy to use. The program leads you through the steps of creating a digital story. Recording a separate audio file for each slide worked great. Customizing the motion and adding text was easy. The provided music options are a great time saver for those not wanting to find and import music. If you can’t find any tunes to your liking, you can import you own music. The trickest part was creating title and credits slides, since the program doesn’t provide options for creating such a slide. We used PowerPoint to create a credit slide, saving it as a jpg. We then imported this jpg into Photostory, just like we did all the other images.

We uploaded the production to Archive.org, because it is free and not blocked by the school’s filter. Then I used the Embed Media button in Edublogs to embed the production in this blog post. If you intend to embed the production in a blog post, be sure to click the Settings button during the Save Your Story step of Photostory, and choose “Profile for computer -1 (320×240).” The default setting is too large.

tag: edtech, k12, Photostory, PowerPoint, Digital Storytelling, Archive.org, math

During Spring Break, my family traveled to Dallas, Texas to visit my husband’s sister and her family. We enjoyed touring the city’s World Aquarium. My daughter’s “assignment” was to select one animal from the aquarium to bring home to Missouri. She had to choose an animal based on its ability to survive in our habitat, as opposed to one she liked. No, the animals aren’t available for checkout. I was just once again using her as a guinea pig while preparing for my first digital storytelling workshop. Another part of her inquiry lesson was to collect video footage and provide narration. Below is our first digital story. Click the big triangle play button to stream the  video, or right-click on the Download link and choose “Save target as” or “Save link as” to download the video.

Download World Aquarium

The technicalities: Using Windows Movie Maker, we captured and cut the video. Then imported some images from our digital camera, and a few downloaded public domain images. After recording the narration, I added in some creative commons licensed music. The title and transition features polished off the project. Then I saved the project as “video for broadband (340 kbps)” in a Windows Media Video (wmv) format. I uploaded the wmv file to archive.org, where it was automatically converted into other formats and various file sizes (flash, mpeg4). I chose archive.org because it is free, and not blocked by our District’s filter. The flash version was the fastest to load, but too blocky for my daughter’s standards. The wmv file is the best quality, but a large file (better to download and not stream). It is the one I used for this blog post. But I’m guessing since this is a wmv file, it won’t play on all computers. Next we will publish a Voicethread version, and a then Photostory version. Please leave your recommendations, comments, or suggestions.

tag: edtech k12 Dallas World Aquarium digital storytelling Windows Movie Maker Creative Commons

• Free-reading.net: a wiki with early reading lessons, activities, a word generator, audio and video resources, and more; read about this link in Scholastic Administrator.
• Thanks to Cindy Brown, one of our 4TEC teachers, for pointing out the new Teacher Book Wizard on the Scholastic web site. “…which will let you level ANY book according to grade level equivalent, lexile framework, guided reading, or DRA! It will find titles for each of those criteria as well to better match students to appropriate text. I have used the e-catalog for a couple of years, but I believe this will be more helpful with our MRI focus.“
• AdLit.org is a site for parents and educators of kids in grades 4-12, about adolescent literacy.

Image Credit: cindiann

tag: edtech K12 Free-reading.net Teacher Book Wizard Scholastic AdLit.org Communication Arts Reading

Quintura is a the search tool that displays results in a text list, and with a tag cloud of related words. Tabs divide the results by web, images, video, and Amazon. To refine your search, hover your mouse over words in the tag cloud to see a new set of related words displayed. You can exclude a word with a click of the red X. I can see how this visual tag cloud of related terms could assist you in further defining a search of an unfamiliar topic.

Quintura includes an option to embed flash or java code in a webpage to display your interactive search results tag cloud. Try out the coffee example below:

• Hover your mouse over a word to tweak the search and watch the cloud change.
• Click on a link in the list below to visit the site.
• Enter a new search term in the field at the top and click the magnifying glass.

Quintura also has a share button to email a search cloud. You could also use the provided link from this email message to create a hyperlink to the search cloud on a webpage, blog, or wiki. You can save your search results as a bookmark/favorite, or an html file on your computer.

Quintura for Kids is a filtered search engine that includes a tag cloud and icons for browsing. I like this version. I’ve added it to my daughter’s Pageflake. It offers only java code for embedding in a webpage or a wiki, (Java code won’t work in Edublogs).

Some other search tools:

• oSkope visual search of Amazon, Ebay, Flickr, Fotolia, Yahoo!Image Search and YouTube.
• Sputtr.: build your own personalized search page
• searchCrystal: visualization tool to compare, remix, and share search from the web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines, or RSS feeds.
• Touch Graph: explore the connections between related websites

tag: search k12 edtech Quintura kid safe search oSkope Sputtr. searchCrystal Touch Graph

Willard Staff: If you are not able to participate in one of the Google Docs workshops this month, or would rather learn on your own timetable, you are in luck. The Fusion: Google Docs webpage offers a handout and short video tutorials (screencasts) to lead you through using Goggle Docs in your classroom.

And, there’s more! If you want to earn 3 Salary Advancement Workshop hours while you work, you can enroll in the free, online professional development, Moodle course: Google Docs. This course uses the handout and screencasts on the Fusion webpage to lead you through the steps. Work at your own pace, when it fits in your schedule, from any computer with Internet access. Just in time learning, at your convenience!
tag: collaboration communication arts Google docs Moodle presentations productivity professional development publish screencasts spreadsheets tutorials web publishing word processor