Mind Maps with Freemind

This is a mind mapping software that is useful to allowing planning, storyboarding and many other uses. Mind-mapping learning activities enable students to create a visual representation of the relationships between ideas or things and offer an intermediary step between the web of information in the brain and an expository representation of that information. The brain makes sense of the world by discerning and creating patterns; in the same way, learning happens when students perceive and construct patterns.

Freemind is a free software built on Java that runs really nicely. With this, in the classroom, mind mapping can be used at any point for students to clarify and expand their ideas; specifically, it can help them access and record prior knowledge; brainstorm; organize, develop, and edit their ideas; apply concepts; or summarize and review readings and notes.

Download it here.

Put PDFs together? PDF+PDF

Most of you using a Mac would know it is easy to creat PDFs. Anytime in an application, if you want that document, image or file as a PDF, you head to your menubar, click on File and select Print. You will get the PDF option on the bottom left hand corner and you get to save it as a PDF file.

Now what if you have a few PDF files and you want to combine them into a single PDF? Here comes PDF+PDF and as a widget! A very simple widget that looks like a chalkboard.

All you need to do is select the PDF files, click on copy and then launch dashboard and press CMD+V to paste. Drag the files into the correct position with the pages in front right on top as a PDF. When you are done, click “=” and a new PDF file would be created for you!

Download it here.

Drawing with ArtRage! Now Version 2

Whenever we do demonstrations for different types of software, this comes up for Digital Art. Well, if you do have a tablet like the one from WACOM, it’s great as you draw, slide a picture under your tablet screen and trace and for me, I love it best when I can to pull up that screen and scribble away like I would on a clear piece of paper. I then save that as an image.

I was asked to help draw something for the church recently and managed to quickly whip out a logo for the church digitally. I didn’t realise how easy it was to use it with all the pencils, markers etc and the ability to angle your medium and pressure as well. Best of all, it’s a free software. You can pay a bit and get more advanced features.

If you were to try to teach a concept, you can also use J’s recording fucntion on a screen, iShowU (which I will talk about in another post) or SnapzPro. In terms of Art, does the ability to record a student’s drawing process allow a teacher to better his technique or critique it? Or are there ways where one can draw a biology diagram and be able to have that recorded as a learning object (animation)?

Download it here.

Bulletproof SubEthaEdit

While reading A’s post on SubEthaEdit - Yes, it is very true that immature users (meaning almost everybody) of SubEthaEdit can just do a select-all and press delete. Pretty much deletes everything, really. Until Applescript comes to the rescue.

Try SEEA (as in SubEthaEdit Archive*) from http://web.mac.com/juniortan/iWeb/Public/SEEA.html to auto save SubEthaEdit documents in timed saves. The next time someone deletes everything, you are cool.

* yes, as A knows, I suck when it comes to naming the stuff I write

Mosiac Images? MozoDojo

A few years ago, in a National Education project in one school I supported, they wanted a big huge montage that was the picture of Singapore’s skyscrapers and made up of the faces of all the students and teachers in the school. There were a few on the Windows platform but not one that was free. Chanced on MozoDojo and this did the job, FOC! Free! Yeah, we like that! And it worked just fine, quickly piecing it together with the right colour coordination!

1. Take your photos and have it all in a folder
2. You could use iPhoto to batch change any image parameters
3. Launch the software and identify which is your main photo and where your “mosiac” photos are coming from
4. Click on Compute and you are ready to do your mosiac montage

J knows this best! He’s done one up of his son at high resolution and even got it printed at a commercial printer that then had it mounted! Nice!

Download it here.

How do you read Blogs? Shrook?

We have all heard about blogs. Some of us blog. Some of us think it’s taboo to blog. I recently did a poll of 8 teachers I was working with and 1 out of 8 blogged. Not bad! But generally, I get the feeling everyone reads a blog by web surfing into that page. You don’t really know whether there is an update on that page, you probably have it as a bookmark and when you have really nothing to do or just to take your eyes off marking assignments, you click and see if there is an update. As I am blogging now, my wife has just informed me that our family blog is now going to hit the 600th post! Amazing! And we actually have an active audience reading and I find this most conducive for a learning classroom.

So things to find out:
1. Do you know that you can search in Google under BLOGS and you might just find your name there on someone’s blog?
2. Do you know that there are different blog web systems? Most people are used to Blogger. I am using a different one called WordPress.

I will talk about blogging one of these days with text, video, mobile blogging, etc but for now, it’s HOW you read them. Boils down to something called RSS. You might have seen it. We make use of that and in different applications (called RSS Readers), it will display all the blogs you want to see and whenever there is ANYONE who posts something new, it turns up automatically and it indicates it (as if there is a new email that has arrived!) That is so convenient, like when you are a teacher and trying to read a student’s blog. I know a teacher who has her students do reflections in a blog and she has to read them one by one and she can never tell if the page is updated. Here’s a RSS Reader to the rescue! SHROOK.

It is a free reader and I like this one as it is simple and quick to use. In the case of the teacher, she found her kids doing so much more than pen and paper and she can see in her SHROOK if there is a new posting and she can group it in the application as each class. Brilliant!

Download it here.

Collaboration with SubEthaEdit

Before I start on Google Apps and Docs in a new post, let me first talk about SubEthaEdit. This version that we have started using is version 4 and it is free for non-commercial use. It is a really useful application since it allows everyone to to fire it up as a document and you can type away, even in Chinese (unicode). Using Bonjour (a form of network within a local area), the document can then be shared with another person with a computer and the typing turns up real time on everyone’s computer.

What is amazing for this application is the ability for a central person to take control (aka teacher) and then share out this as a document to groups of students and you can decide whether a person gets a chance to just read it or to type and together as a team, students are able to collaborate on a research/study topic.

I find this very useful when we are going to work on proposals and project reports. I start off with chapter headers in a document and I then share it out. Different team mates have charge over a single chapter and we then review the sections together.

Do note that this is however a software that is for the more mature student as the younger ones tend to like to select everything and press delete and of course everything is whipped out from everyone’s computer!

Download it here.

Mac OS Grapher

Some of us have used this before in the older operating systems before OSX came about. When I started exploring Grapher in OSX, I started clicking around and found this to be a really awesome software. Having it in the Utilities means it is usually ignored and 4 out of 5 Math teachers I have spoken to who use a Mac do not know about this!

This is a great software both teachers and students can use. I’ve started using it to chart out equations very quickly and be able to have that into documents.

As I started exploring with another teacher, we started trying to draw a graph and we were then able to differentiate the curve, find the tangent, root, local extremum and inflection point. For students who had basic understanding of drawing curves already, this was a way to draw up a family of curves, find the intersections and also be able to animate the whole learning! I found that most exciting for a teacher who was keen to do simple learning objects that were animated and could be placed in LMS for students to learn.

I am trying to create a manual for users to use Grapher. If you are keen, email me at maceducation@mac.com!

P*mp Your Calculator!

At first glance, the built-in Calculator in Mac OS X is simple to use, but devoid of calculus and other functions. There is a very obvious but usually unknown way to enhance your Calculator:

From BBC Motion Ga…

There are many options available, including RPN (Reverse Polish Notation, I believe… :-)), Programmer mode, etc

From BBC Motion Ga…

BBC Motion Gallery

Need a place to find high quality video? One of our latest eureka’s is BBC’s Motion Gallery widget for Mac OS X Tiger and above. A comprehensive, if not legendary, historic record with over 700000 hours of content. Caveat: Do check with the website to see if the clips you need are royalty-free (many are). YMMV.

From BBC Motion Ga…