Audacity – Audio Editor

April 18, 2012 10:10 pmLeave a Comment

Audacity is such a great tool and it has so many applications when integrating technology into the classroom. I am amazed that the program has been available for year and yet some teachers have never hear of it. Feel free to share the resources that you find in this episode of Two Minute Tech Tips. The links below will take you to an interactive page that will let you choose individual sections of the training video, a downloadable .wmv version of the video, and a simple handout that can be used during training or just by your side until you get comfortable with the tools.

Check out the links below to see how others are using Audacity in the classroom.

Keri-Lee Beasley – 10 Great ways to use Audacity with students

 21st Century Educator – How can you use sound in your classroom

Ways your students can use Audacity

A great Livebinder by Laura Ann Griffith with Audacity links

 

 

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Two Minute Tech Tips – iBooks Author

January 20, 2012 3:32 am1 Comment

 

Apple is ready to shake up the education world again with their newest software released today, iBooks Author. Prior to today’s release those wishing to create their own ePub for iBooks had to create content in Pages, Apple’s very powerful word processing application. The process is very much the same now as it was in Pages, however now you have the ability to add different types of media (images, audio, video), a photo gallery, 3d images, interactive media, and html code. As if that was not enough, you can now embed quiz questions that will allow for self-assessment of the presented content. And it all runs from the iPad. How awesome is that?

Also, with an Apple ID you can register for an iTunes Connect account and download the iTunes Producer software. The combination of these two will allow you to upload your new iBook to Apple’s servers for distribution.

Apple’s promo page:
http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks/

Gizmodo does a great job at explaining the many features of the new software here.

Get some basic help from Apple here:
http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/

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Two Minute Tech Tips – Wordle Advanced

January 14, 2012 12:40 am1 Comment

Thanks for visiting the site. This is our second video on Wordle which shows some of the advanced features of the Web 2.0 application. In this episode we cover how to group phrases together so they may be identified in a word cloud. We also take a look at weighting specific words for specific sizes as well as selecting a specific color for the words buy using the HTML hex code.

 

In order to choose the best color for your word cloud you will need to know what HEX code corresponds to the color you want. The links below will take you to sites that will allow you to match the color to the HEX code. Once you have the proper code you can copy and paste it into Wordle based on the example given on the website.  Good Luck!!

 

 

216 colors from VisiBone – http://html-color-codes.com/
Great HEX code resources from W3Schools – http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colors.asp

If you can’t find the color you are searching for in the links above a Google Search of custom HEX colors may help.

NOTE: We will be cross posting Two Minute Tech Tips on TeacherTube and Vimeo in the next few weeks to help with schools and teachers that have YouTube blocked in their schools.

Click here to view this video on Vimeo

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Two Minute Tech Tips – Wordle Introduction

January 3, 2012 10:32 pm1 Comment

One of the easiest to use Web 2.o sites I know is Wordle! It creates word clouds for the user that highlights most often used words in a body of text. Wordle offers a fun and engaging way for users to find main ideas and details to make it easer to understand the important concepts in a body of text.

The image below was created at  Wordle.net with the above text. By just looking at the image what do you think are some of the important items in the paragraph?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are so many ways to use this great FREE resource to engage students. Follow this link to view 52 Ways to use Wordle in the Classroom.

In the next episode of Two Minute Tech Tips we will look at more advanced features of Wordle that allow you to customize your word cloud for specific applications.

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