Sony Dash Review

The Sony Dash is a slick little piece of technology that looks a bit like an alarm clock. It does display a clock, calendar and has an alarm. But it also provides Twitter, Facebook, etc. updates, you can watch YouTube videos, television programs, listen to music online, etc., etc. You get the idea but the video below will further explain the device that sells for about $200. On the downside, the unit does not have a battery. This seems like a huge oversight in today's on the go society.

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Post a Billboard to Get your Message Noticed

I may be a few hours premature in the ANGEL 7.4 announcement, but I thought you might like the opportunity to view a sample billboard. These are super easy to create and add to your courses in a page, announcement, email, etc.
Just go to Make Sweet to get started.

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Jing - the Missing Manual

We have posted information about Jing in this blog before but there have recently been some interesting upgrades and new features in Jing. For instance, did you know that you can configure a button to automatically add your graphic or video to Facebook or Twitter, etc.?

To stay abreast of new developments be sure to check out the Jing Blog. You will find lots of tips and helpful information.

If you do not yet use Jing, I encourage you to download the free version. Betsy Weber, of the Tech Smith Visual Lounge, has developed a Missing Manual for Jing that will help get you started.

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Paper Rater - a Benefit for your Students

Paper Rater is a currently free service that spell checks, grammar checks, (yawn) but it also does a readability index for vocabulary and style...and it does a simplistic TurnItIn-style originality report.

At the moment, all said service are free. Between this tool and using GoogleDocs, students could have life pretty easy!

Services include:

* Grammar & Spelling Check
* Free Online Proofreading
* Plagiarism Detection
* Writing Suggestions
* No Downloads

Thanks to Mark Jarvis for this post. We appreciate the input!

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Embed Code

To embed any site in an ANGEL page, enter the html code below into the "source" of any ANGEL page in the html editor. Change the text that says URLHERE to the site you want to embed, e.g: http://www.butlercc.ed.

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Dipity - an Impressive Timeline Creator

Dipity is a slick timeline creator that allows you to automatically embed You Tube videos, Twitter, RSS feeds, Blogger, flickr, Picasa, and more into timelines. And the timelines are constantly updated as new articles, videos, pictures, etc. are added to these sites.

I created the Dipity below in just a few minutes. You can view it in timeline, flipbook, list, or map view. The site provides a simple link to the timeline or the embed code - and you can format the embed link. Oh, and the gauge on the left side of the timeline allows you to adjust the length of time the timeline covers.

British Petroleum Oil Spill on Dipity.

This is another sample Dipity:

USA Soccer on Dipity.

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Audacity Manual

For all you Audacity fans, here is just about everything you might want to know about using this free audio editing program. There is a well-developed section for beginners, and extensive reference and short cut sections for the more experienced.
Make yourselves heard! :-)

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Show Me What's Wrong

Do you get student questions that would be easier to answer if you could just "see" what the problem is? Set up an account at Show Me What's Wrong and provide students the link in ANGEL. With a couple of clicks they can record anything on their computer and give you a view of their problem. The demo below explains the procedure much better than me!

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Virtual Choir of 185 Voices

Eric Whitacre had an idea - a virtual choir - and his idea is now reality. 185 participants from 12 countries sang and recorded "Lux Aurumque" while being directed, virtually, by Mr. Whitacre. The resulting hundreds of tracks of individually recorded music and video were merged and the result is available via YouTube. It is truly amazing. Talk about collaboration!
Read how they did it here.

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Google Search Stories

I have been reading about Google Search Stories for the past few weeks but I did not post this new Google service because I am not really sure what the implications are for education. Google Search Stories allows you to quickly create a visual of your Google search - complete with music. In one of the blogs I read, Mike Fisher states:
There are a LOAD of educational implications for this:

• Here is a new way to add an enhanced component to digital storytelling.


• This would be a great discussion starter about a topic or even the specific words needed to get the specific visuals you intend to tell the specific story you intended to tell.


• Is another example of VISUAL searching, adding a layer of interactivity and ending up with an educational product of value. Think Robert Marzano's "Nonlinguistic Representations" or Jason Ohler's reasons for using Digital Storytelling in the Classroom as outlined in his book. The visual is VERY important to learning and engagement!


• This could be used to create "ADS" or "DIGITAL COMMERCIALS" for content.


• This gives students many options for interacting with content in several ways.


• It's FUN! It's MOTIVATING! It's ENGAGING! (I talk a lot in workshops about creating "Learning Events" rather than "Lesson Plans." This is an opportunity for just that!)


• It's simple to use and requires only the knowledge of being able to type and click a couple of choices. No Learning Curve!

Below is a Search Story I created about Butler. You might also find this Butterfly Search Story interesting. Please add ideas for using Search Stories in education as a comment to this post.

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Try a little MERLOT

Have you ever checked out the MERLOT site? It stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching. It is filled with great ideas for online instructors.

MERLOT also publishes a virtual newsletter called JOLT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching). The archives are available...and there are a lot of great articles to be read.

If you have some time, I encourage you to check it out. There are some good activities for the following disciplines:

Agriculture, Biology, Business, Chemistry, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Criminal Justice, Engineering, English, Faculty Development, Fire Safety, Health Sciences, History, Information Technology, Library and Information Services, Mathematics, Music, Physics, Psychology, Statistics, Teacher Education, Technical Allied Health and World Languages

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