Would you like to create a movie or motivational poster for your class?

You can do this for free at Big Huge Labs! For the movie poster shown here, I used the avatar that I created at FaceYourManga.com. At Big Huge Labs you can also create many other types of images with your own photos or avatars, including pop art and jigsaw posters.

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Citebite and Witness

Citebite is a great tool for directing students to the exact information you wish them to read on a web site. Simply copy the information you wish to direct your students to, go to Citebite, and paste in the text. Now enter the URL for the site and click Make Citebite. Citebite creates a new link to the site with the information highlighted in yellow.

Check out this sample Citebite at the BBC site The link takes you directly to information about the BBC Witness Podcast project which is another site instructors might find very useful. They "take listeners back in time to key events in history - featuring a witness to the event, archive material and hear from historians".

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Google Cloud Connect

Are you a Google Docs user? If so, a new app for use with Microsoft Office was recently introduced and I think you will like it!

I am a Google Docs user, and I have my students use Google Docs for collaborative assignments, so this app is especially exciting for me. Google Cloud Connect allows Google Docs users to work on their docs in Microsoft Office, and sync the changes with Google Docs. This means that I can work on a collaborative PowerPoint presentation offline, sync it with Google Docs, and allow my team members to see my changes and make their own recommendations.

Since this app was just released, I have not had much time to discover its limitations. I can say however, that I briefly tested it and it worked GREAT, and I am going to definitely recommend it to my students.

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50 Education Sites

This is a great collection of useful sites and tools from David Kapuler. It is presented in Slide Share and each slide includes a bit of information about the site with a link to a review and the link to the site. I hope you find something you can use.

50sites ver2

View more presentations from David Kapuler

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Create your own Avatar!

Would you like to create your own avatar for your classes? If so, you can create one at FaceYourManga.com.

FaceYourManga.com is a free application, which has a lot of different combinations for your avatar. From every feature of the face to different backgrounds, FaceYourManga.com makes it easy to represent yourself in a creative way!

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Google Mobile App

After Roberta posted the previous information, I did some searching and found Google Mobile App. It allows you to conduct a Google search by voice on your phone.

Don't use the link provided in the video. Instead, go to http://www.google.com/mobile/voice-search/
and follow the prompts. This site allows you to enter your mobile phone number and send the link to the download site directly to your phone. Follow the instructions and happy searching. Wow, this is much easier than typing a search term!
View the video to see the possibilities.

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Can you hear me Google?

We have seen voice activated navigation for cars and calling on your cell phone, right?
Now Google has added Voice Search to its search engine.

As this site explains, you must have Google Chrome 11 or higher. You must speak English, too. This, we believe, will expand rapidly to other browsers and other languages

But we took it for a spin here and it works amazingly well. OK it wasn't great at recognizing me or Meg or Linda by name, but it had no trouble with hot dogs, tomatoes or Johnny Depp.

Thanks to Eddie Andreo, and Meg McGranaghan for leading me here.

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Creative Announcements!

Have you ever wanted a more creative way to share announcements with your students?

One way to do this is to create an annoucement at Fodey.com. There are 10 different graphics available, and some of them are animated. Just type in your own text, and Fodey.com will generate the whole graphic for you, which can then be downloaded to your computer and used again.

I regularly use Fodey.com graphics in my announcements, especially when I am dealing with a serious topic, and I want to use humor, but I don't want to send out another email. Try using Fodey.com today. I think you will like it!!!

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Making it personal

About six weeks ago or so, Linda shared some info she found regarding a little known function of ANGEL: tasks. From what we have found, it is a reminder tool for people who forget to check or update their calendars - like me. And a bit more.


You can add Personal Tasks for yourself OR anyone in your course

Click the Personal Task link in the Guide Pane (left side of ANGEL screen- it may be collapsed)
Click Add a Task. Now fill in a subject, body, due date and the task recipient (you or your student[s])

You can also transform an ANGEL email into a task. I think this could be a useful quick shortcut as a reminder to follow up on the content of the email. To add an email as a task, open the email and choose Create a Task from the Action Menu, and click Go.

The tasks now show up on your task pane within your course, and as icons on your ANGEL homepage with your course listing (see below). (You must have that function enabled in the settings for the Course nugget) You can ALSO add a nugget to your ANGEL homepage called My Tasks by clicking on Edit Page.

I think there may be more undocumented ways to add tasks, but I haven't found them yet. Check this out and please share any ideas YOU might have to incorporate this tool into your teaching.

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Would you like to use a free chat tool in your classes?

Meebo offers a chatting widget that can be embedded in your ANGEL classes and other media, such as Facebook. I use Meebo in my classes, and I also signed up for the Meebo Notifier. So, whenever I am logged onto my computer, I am notified at the bottom of my screen that a message has been sent to me. I don't even have to be logged into ANGEL!

There are several color combinations to choose from, so you can customize your Meebo widget as well. Contact your course manager for assistance with embedding Meebo now!

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YouTube and Creative Commons

This is really exciting news for all of us who use video in our classes!

YouTube has launched a new program that offers Creative Commons licensing for your videos, AND a Creative Commons video library (with 10,000 videos).

Go to the Creative Commons blog for more information.

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Searching the Web

If research is required in your class, you can count on your students using the Web. Do they however, know how to efficiently search for information?

Most of our students are familiar with looking up small bits of information on the Web and just aren't aware of how to narrow down their search results. Commoncraft has produced a short video that could really help your students with their research. This video demonstrates different techniques for researching the Web, is only three minutes long, and very informative.

Commoncraft is a company that focuses on taking a variety of topics and explaining them in three minute videos. They also produce custom videos for other companies, but they have a online repository of videos for evaluation.

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