Thursday, March 29, 2007
PodCamp NYC
Coming next weekend at the NewYorker Hotel is PODCAMPNYC. Looks like this will be a very dynamic place to be Saturday April 7th. They've changed venue twice to accommodate everyone who has signed up to attend. It's free and you can sign up to, at 
www.Podcampnyc.org. The organizers have done a terrific job. The website is full of wiki pages and blogs to provide for very organic, grass roots changes. Do you want to do a demo or a workshop? sign yourself right up on the web site.
Now its at "The New Yorker Hotel (481 8th Avenue at 34th St)
Click here to get details on a PodCamp NYC discount for those staying at The New Yorker hotel. The Friday and Saturday night gatherings are still at Slate (54 West 21st Street) Register now or read 10 Reasons to Attend PodCamp NYC. "
www.Podcampnyc.org. The organizers have done a terrific job. The website is full of wiki pages and blogs to provide for very organic, grass roots changes. Do you want to do a demo or a workshop? sign yourself right up on the web site.Now its at "The New Yorker Hotel (481 8th Avenue at 34th St)
Click here to get details on a PodCamp NYC discount for those staying at The New Yorker hotel. The Friday and Saturday night gatherings are still at Slate (54 West 21st Street) Register now or read 10 Reasons to Attend PodCamp NYC. "
Labels: ny teacher conference, podcampnyc, podcast conference, podcast for education, podcasting
Saturday, March 10, 2007
NASA World Wind: Zooming in on Earth
I was at a Region 10 (NYCDOE) Technology Liaison workshop on Friday and we were introduced to this terrific open source program. It's lot like Google Earth on steroids! On the left is a screenshot of Mt. St. Helens from the 3d application and a visual of Maximum Temperatures. From their site:"World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara." Go to the website: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html
What's so special? It is truly amazing. Historical data, data is updated every 24-72 hours, layers you can turn off and on that show political boundaries, weather events, pollutants, place names, fires/smoke events from volcanos, all kinds of things. There's even a Lewis & Clark expedition layer with links to a website. People can create their own layers, too, with a little xml programming. Some layers get you close enough to see the cars on the Golden Gate Bridge. There is an abundance of educational opportunities here from all disciplines. All teachers should check this out.
What's so special? It is truly amazing. Historical data, data is updated every 24-72 hours, layers you can turn off and on that show political boundaries, weather events, pollutants, place names, fires/smoke events from volcanos, all kinds of things. There's even a Lewis & Clark expedition layer with links to a website. People can create their own layers, too, with a little xml programming. Some layers get you close enough to see the cars on the Golden Gate Bridge. There is an abundance of educational opportunities here from all disciplines. All teachers should check this out.Labels: educational software, Geography, intructional technology, NASA World Wind, satellite imagery, teaching
Free Software
For PC users: www.giveawayoftheday.com is a site you should check daily. There's also a sister site, http://game.giveawayoftheday.com . Everyday they give
away one software title - free. You must download and INSTALL the software that day. The titles change at 3 AM ET. Now, there will often be software that you will never use, didn't know you needed, or you may already have something similar. But, you never know when they will have something of value for you. In my last post, I talk about FlashSpring Pro.. a $199 program that was the giveaway a couple of days ago - great value to me. The daily giveaway is for software that you would otherwise have to pay for.
away one software title - free. You must download and INSTALL the software that day. The titles change at 3 AM ET. Now, there will often be software that you will never use, didn't know you needed, or you may already have something similar. But, you never know when they will have something of value for you. In my last post, I talk about FlashSpring Pro.. a $199 program that was the giveaway a couple of days ago - great value to me. The daily giveaway is for software that you would otherwise have to pay for.Since this post is about free software, let me add a few more sites here. www.tucows.com has been around for at least a decade. It's got a great search engine and lots of downloads for freeware, shareware, demos and other software, for both PC and MACs. Another aggregator is http://www.simtel.net/ . GNU - http://www.gnu.org/ - is all about FREE SOFTWARE.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project. For a directory of software by categories, go to http://directory.fsf.org/. Here you will find links for some popular freeware like Audacity (audio editor), GIMP (photo editing) and Celestia (visual simulation of Space). Google has some of their own, like Picasa for simple photo editing (http://pack.google.com/intl/en/product_info.html?picasa), and Google Earth (http://pack.google.com/intl/en/product_info.html?earth) .
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project. For a directory of software by categories, go to http://directory.fsf.org/. Here you will find links for some popular freeware like Audacity (audio editor), GIMP (photo editing) and Celestia (visual simulation of Space). Google has some of their own, like Picasa for simple photo editing (http://pack.google.com/intl/en/product_info.html?picasa), and Google Earth (http://pack.google.com/intl/en/product_info.html?earth) .
Labels: free software, GNU
PowerPoint to Flash Converter
www.giveawayoftheday.com offers a different software application every day for free on that day only. This week I hit the jackpot with FlashSpring Pro 2.0 - it converts PowerPoint Presentations to Flash! 
I was starting to research this kind of software and there is was FOR FREE!! (It's $199 and $120 with Education discount.) Read all about it here.
How did it work.. ALMOST perfectly.. I was able to convert my USA MOVIE to a flash file. This software solved 2 problems for me. 1) PowerPoint doesn't embed MP3 files and this does. and 2)It makes the file non-editable (protected). I had to alter the transition timings to compensate for the conversion lags.. but for simpler presentations, it was flawless. You can watch my USA People & Places movie to see the results. There's another (shorter, no sound) presentation here. This is a much better solution than zipping up your presentation with your audio files. The user doesn't have to download anything (assuming he/she has Flash player installed - and almost everyone does).
What it DOESN'T do.. convert your internal links :( if they are on a Master Slide (and so many are)You're presentation has to be linear. There are other converters on the market - some are a lot more expensive. (Maybe one of these preserves internal links? Will have to research later on.) Anyway, this one works pretty well if you ever need one. There's an upgrade coming soon that WILL convert links on masters slides! It's expected next month.
Educational discounts are available - see FAQ for details on company website - 40% off.
Labels: embedding MP3 files in powerpoint, flashsping pro, free software, giveawayoftheday, powerpoint, powerpoint movie conversion, powerpoint to flash converter
