Adobe Photoshop Express

Adobe launched a new service on their website today (Thursday, 3/27) that brings Photoshop to anyone just by being online. Photoshop Express (in beta right now) is completely web-based so anybody can use it with any type of computer, operating system or web browser.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopexpress/?promoid=CBTVM

Of course Google and Microsoft already offer many web-based applications and it looks like Adobe is joining this trend of taking everything up into the clouds of the internets.

Spring Break

Happy Spring Break!

Scholastic Audiobooks

Here’s a link to Scholastic audiobooks that were just added to the iTunes store.  The books vary in price (some look expensive to me, but just thought I’d share this).

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?fcId=185342075&genreIdString=50000024&mediaTypeString=Audiobooks

Useful functions of Google

Calculator and conversions
To use Google’s built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box and hit the Enter key or click on the Google Search button. The calculator can solve math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math, units of measure and conversions, and physical constants.
These sample queries demonstrate the utility and power of this feature:
5+8/6-67*234 (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication)
25^2 exponentiation (raise to a power of)
% modulo (finds the remainder after division) ex. 77%6
choose (X choose Y determines the number of ways of choosing a set of Y elements from a set of X elements)
9587ft in m (conversions)
14505ft in miles
half a cup in teaspoons (conversions)
40% of 150 (percentage)
72F to c (Fahrenheit in Celsius)
1 dollar in euros
currency of Brazil in Malaysian money
years in seconds
2008 in Roman numerals
! factorial ex. 5!

More about Google Calculator on it’s official site.

Definitions
You can get a list of definitions by including the special operator “define:”. For example, the search [define:World Wide Web] will show you a list of definitions for “World Wide Web” gathered from various online sources.

More Google Search Features (movies, books, phone book, music, questions, track your parcel (FedEx, UPS and other)

Happy New Year

Stay healthy and be happy!

Happy New Year

May all your new year wishes come true. 

Pull vs Push

The way we learn, discover new things, get information, … is changing and has already changed for the children growing up in this informational generation.  As educators, in the form of teachers, parents, or relatives, there is a need to take on a new perspective with the way children are learning nowadays.  There’s a paradigm shift with the way children learn – from a push method to a pull method.

Consider the way individuals of older generations get information.  It may look a little like this.  You get off of work, head home, and sit down to the local news broadcast on TV.  This is the “push” method.  The information is being pushed out to you.  Some questions that can be asked now are, “Who or what determines what news you see?”  ”Who or what determines how much information you get?”  ”When does the information come?”  In this push method, the individual is passive because the news stations make all those decisions.  The individual has no control over what information is presented.  The only real control is to turn off the TV or not.  This push method is true of the newsletter being delivered to your homes too.

The children in the current generation do not use this “push” method, but rather, the “pull method.”  The current generation does not wait for the broadcast of the news or the newspaper to be delivered.  Children in the current generation go out and pull the information for themselves, at their own discretion, at their own time, at their own pace, by their own means, in multiple forms.  Children are increasingly able to do more technical tasks, multi-task, and are becoming more resourceful.  They are the ones who can surf the internet to find the latest news, not just locally, but in remote parts of the world.  They can be listening to their iPods, instant messaging a friend (often more than one), surfing for the latest YouTube video, and doing the research for a school assignment on Wikipedia all at the same time.  They know what they’re looking for and where to look for it.  And even if they don’t know what to look for and where to look for it, a simple Google or Yahoo search will give them so many results that they can pull from.  The children of this generation “pull” the information for them to learn, discover new things, get information, …

Are we, as educators, able to teach them in ways that support, fortify, affirm, and/or align with this pull method?

Notes from TechCoaches meeting

Galery of SmartBoard lectures ready to go.

Web 2.0
Picnik – an on line application for editing photos – rotate, crop, resize, fix red eyes or colors or add effects, add captions, clipart, frames.

SnapGenie – on-line application to create a narrated slideshow – use your photos or any other pictures, upload them and using your phone record a naration.

Jenn Aza from Palo Verde is using Google documents with 5th grade. You can download an Acceptable Policy and E-mail Contract from the district Tech Forum blog.

District is thinking about buying an Apple “one to one” training option – once a week a teacher (maybe a grade level group) can set up a meeting with an Apple trainer for an hour lesson. We need some feedback from teachers to figure out if they would be interested.

Speaking Text in Mac OS X

Mac OS X, Apple’s operating system, has many built in services that can be used with many applications (native operating system applications and some third party applications).

One service feature is speaking text.  I will use Safari, Apple’s built in web browser, for example.  While surfing online, if you come across a page with a lot of text, click and drag to highlight the selected area of text.  Click on the name of the application, in this case – Safari, select Services, select Speech, and then select Start Speaking Text.  Mac OS X will read the highlighted text.

This could be useful to allow students to hear how sentences sound, listen to pronunciation of new vocabulary words, and/or listen to news stories while doing something else. 

** One thing to note: the computer voice(s) in Mac OS X, 10.4 (Tiger) sounds very computer-like.  In Mac OS X, 10.5 (Leopard), there is a new voice called, “Alex” that incorporates a lot of new technology that makes Alex sound closer to life-like with pauses, intonations, and breaths.   

Apple’s Trackpad

Apple’s MacBooks and MacBook Pros are built with a solid-state scrolling trackpad.  Moving one finger on the trackpad will move the cursor on the screen.  The trackpad supports two-finger scrolling when two fingers are applied to the trackpad in a window where scrolling is an option.

One additional feature of Mac OS X with the use of the trackpad is the ability to zoom into one part of the item(s) on your screen, for example, zooming into read some fine print.  While holding the control key on the keyboard, move up with two fingers on the trackpad and the display will zoom onto the cursor.  To zoom out, hold control and move down with two fingers on the trackpad. 

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300777

http://www.apple.com/education/solutions/macbook/