English-Chinese Dragon Dictionary

When we were in Philippines, some Chinese teachers asked if there was one that was available on the Mac and if possible free - Dragon Dictionary

We finally found one, pretty decent in terms of the number of words provided and also having the ability to provide hanyupinyin. You even had an option for simplified Chinese and that was useful. The “start speaking” option would have been most useful IF it was able to pronounce Chinese but does not. It only says out the meanings for the English word you would have typed in.

Download it here.

YEP: the iPhoto for PDFs

I had reviewed this many months back when it was out in the first draft versions (which meant it being free).

I thought it was great since I had so many PDF files all over the computer in my partitioned harddisks. Somehow, I lost the software along the way and when I wanted to use it again, the website showed an updated version that was no longer free!

Jr had thankfully pointed out that he had it and also insisted that it was on the website if you scroll right to the bottom. I tried…. but I found it again on versiontracker (hooray!) and here it is again for everyone. It’s very useful when you can tag your PDFs and then also be able to present them very quickly. I noticed especially in universities that this is useful. In the 1to1 classrooms, I am only about now trying to introduce this.

Have you found it useful in your own way? Let us know!

Download it here (scroll and look for version 1.1.2 which is freeware)
Another download site

Mac Shortcuts

I keep getting asked for notes on shortcuts whenever I do Mac OS Beginner Courses. I keep saying, great way to make use of that lazy arm by your side and rather than reach out to use the mouse, why not use simple shortcuts? I actually challenged someone a couple of years back and it was quite amusing to see the person using the mouse when a neutral party gave the task to do (like copy, cut, create new folder, duplicate, save, quit, move the window behind the active window you are using, etc) So anyway, click here for all the shortcuts you can use.

If you need to change some of them on your Mac, click SYSTEM PREFERENCES > KEYBOARD & MOUSE > KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS. Have fun!

Cn3D for Biology

For a while there in 2003/2004, we did quite a bit in Bioinformatics and one such event was the Biohackathon that was held with 40 top scientists from around the world. Some of those involved came from very distinguished institutes such as the Whitehead Institute where Jr and Ad had a chance to visit.

While doing sessions with secondary school students on Bioinformatics, one simple software was Cn3D. This is a helper application for your computer that allows you to view 3-dimensional structures.

The structure for the DNA (Double Helix)

You can download structures here from NCBI’s (National Center for Biotechnology Institute) website. This is a database website maintained by the NCBI and there are other databases you may be able to search. These are PRT file formats that can be used to show the structures. Cn3D simultaneously displays structure, sequence, and alignment, and now has powerful annotation and alignment editing features.

Students would use this to visualise the structures on each of the computers and teachers could explain the structures. You may be able to rotate the images and as a 3D representation gives a more realistic feel to how a virus is like, etc. Some teachers were providing classes with a series of structures where students had to identify them, analyse them with a given set of questions to answer.

The website has an excellent tutorial as well.

Download the software here.

Widget for LTA Cameras in Singapore

For those of you living here in Singapore and before Leopard comes out with a way to capture web content on Dashboard, here is something that allows you to press F12 (Dashboard) and install LTA cameras. With this, you get a chance to view the traffic conditions on the roads at another one time. Cameras are updated every 5-10 mins.

I got a teacher talking about this and being able to do a simple project on analysis and asking kids in class which expressway they felt had the most traffic. Got them started on where was where in Singapore. Now that is of course some form of social studies I believe but they then went on to explore how heavy the vehicle count was. Now each of it is a picture, not a video so kids did a simple visual count (whatever was clear).

Once you have downloaded the widget, you get a chance to select the LTA (Land Transport Authority) camera.

After that, the picture comes out and it’s a really nice piece of software. I now have that installed on my system and sitting in a car, with my 3G phone, I can access the images and validate that against the traffic advice on the radio and traffic boards.

Tried it and best when going to JB, Malaysia and figuring out the traffic at the Causeway or Second Link!

Click here to Download

Little Geometry

So this is one of the software that really got me interested in thinking how best to use it. If you have ideas, do let me know!

This is a software that is a freeware that is a set of geometry tools. With it, you get a chance to launch a 4 different tools, namely a ruler, a protractor and 2 set squares.

When I first saw it, I figured it’s great for the younger students when they are attempting to teach basic concepts of angles and other geometric properties. But as I was speaking to some teachers, they started some other examples where this could be integrated with exercises given by the teachers for older students to learn more advanced geometry. This could also be the case with geography and map reading.

Download Software Here

Camp@Apple 2006 Singapore

So this was where we last did an awesome session with educators in Singapore. A whole group of 40 came together from different schools each wanting to find out more and they sure did in 5 sheer days of technology planning!

Our next session would be up and coming in June of 2007. Watch out for it!

Camp@Apple 2006 Philippines

This was the camp session successfully done in 2006 with a whole lot of educators from both elementary schools as well as universities.

First post on Mac Academia

Welcome everyone who’s here. This will be our site to find out about the latest tech stuff in the classroom, reviews and all kinds of tutorials that you may want. Give us your comments and feedback!