When one thinks of presentation software generally, the thought tends to drift immediately to PowerPoint, within the MS Office Application Suite. While one agrees that PowerPoint has its merits, it is not the beginning and end of all presentations: there are various other applications available which can do an similar or an even better job of presenting your work. Mashable.com gives a whole list of alternatives that can be used and these include Google Docs, Ajax, Thinkfree and Zoho. (The full list can be accessed online at http://mashable.com/2008/02/16/forget-powerpoint-online-presentations/). One such free, web based presentation application is Prezi.
Prezi is a web-based presentation application and story-telling tool. Instead of using the traditional slides which come one after the other, Prezi gives the user a single canvas which can be filled with words, pictures and videos. The user can fill up the canvas as he or she desires; then, one has to create links from one “item” to the next, to create a free-flowing presentation. The result is a non-linear presentation, where users can zoom in or out of a visual map. The end result can be quite stunning visually. Prezi also allows multiple users to work on the same presentation (by email invitation), making it an excellent collaboration tool.
Web 2.0 has changed the way that ordinary people look at the Internet. In the times of Web 1.0, the Internet was read-only, static, authoritarian: and most importantly, it was only the people whoknew how to who could upload and share their information online with others. This has of course changed with the advent of Web 2.0 and a more collaborative, user-generated content web. Along the years, a number of online media depositories – some of course more popular then others – have sprouted on the Internet: for example, YouTube and Vimeo for online video sharing; SlideShare for presentations and documents; Picasa and Flickr for sharing photos, etc. The list is ever-growing, and the trick is to find something that not only works well for you, but, in the case of educators, works well in the classroom as well. Today I am going to take a look at Issuu, an online service that allows for realistic and customizable viewing of digitally uploaded material, such as portfolios, books, magazine issues, newspapers, and other print media.
Continue reading Online Publishing: Issuu on Teachers and Computers…
Every day, thousands, if not millions of people all around the world, update their own personal pages and blogs. This of course results in unumerable amounts of new data being uploaded onto the WWW. Data which, sooner or later will be searched for in Google or Yahoo, by all those who require it. Out of all the millions of searches performed daily on search engines worldwide, what determines which results are listed on top and which are relegated to the bottom of the search?
Continue reading Tags and Tag Clouds at Teachers And Computers…
When a person creates his or her own personal Wiki, be it for personal or for work use (for example, having a classroom wiki so that both students and parents will be able to access their work from anywhere), it is important to start updating it regularly and keep it interesting for the site visitors. A Wiki can be seen as a sort of template which can be filled up collaboratively; it is alive and dynamic and ever-changing. Unlike a Blog, a Wiki can have several pages, and each page can have its own individual layout. Usually the first page is called ‘Home’; that is where you write your introduction – the scope of your Wiki – and then you can have a series of pages linking to that home page.
Continue reading review on Teachers and Computers, by Amanda R. Debattista
Children of all ages love comics – cartoon character strips, which usually tell a story, often humouros, and sometimes with a hidden message or two. Comic strips are often found in newspapers and magazines, and more recently, online. They can be a a way for teachers to convey a message to their students a bit differently, and in turn students can be encouraged to express their thoughts and emotions more freely. Web 2.0 technology offers teachers and students the possiblity to create online, embeddable comic strips and books easily and effectively. One such comic-creation platform is ToonDoo, which can be found on http://www.toondoo.com…
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Project work in the early years often involves children expressing themselves through pictures and drawings rather than through prose. Students may be asked to collaborate together on a particular drawing, and send it to their partners in another school or indeed another country, so that they (their partners) may also be able to work on it. In such cases, conventional paint packages such as TuxPaint and KidPix may not be altogether adequate. Enter Sketchfu, the online collaborative sketch/doodle maker, which makes collaboration not only possible but user friendly and fun, even for the youngest of learners. Sketchfu is an online (cloud) application, and can be found online on http://sketchfu.com.
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We have all heard of , seen and read Blogs – you are reading one right now! – and Blogging has become a fast hobby for many. You might have a favourite Blog which you like browsing through regularly, or you might have even tried your hand at Blogging yourself. Now there is a new way in which to express yourself: Glogging, as in Glogster – Poster Yourself!
Glogster is a digital poster creator, and allows expression of opinions, feelings and ideas, in a way that wouldn’t be possible with the use of mere words. Rather like Blogs, it allows users to use an online medium in order to communicate with the outside world – but instead of text, users use graphical representations, photos, audio and videos to reach their audiences.
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