NoteShare

Okay! We have recently gone crazy over an awesome software for the researcher, writers, educators and pretty much everybody else.

It’s hard to describe NoteShare. It is a digital scrapbook, outlining tool, multimedia respository and collaboration tool all rolled into one.

You can create journals of learning, reflections for action research, curriculum/subject content, lesson plans. Type in your text, drag and drop anything (files, links, whatever), and organize them into your workflow.

NoteShare really comes into its own when you work collaboratively. You share out a NoteShare document, and people on your network (or the Internet) can open your document too. They can peruse and edit (if you allow them to), and very importantly, when you turn a page in your document (on your machine), their pages turn too!

I am currently prepping for a seminar next week, and you should be able to guess how I am working the seminar discussion points/notes/presentations!

NoteShare is from Aquaminds

Web 2.0

I have been delivering quite a few trainings/seminars recently about Web 2.0 and why we need to seriously consider integrating it into our pedagogies, our curriculum;

Below are some links if you would wanna try them out:

What is Web 2.0?
O’Reilly’s version
YouTube’s version

Web 2.0 Links:
GO2WEB2.0 – Complete Web 2.0 Directory

MySpace
Facebook
COCOMMENT
emokOO
mynoteit
Shadows
SecondLife

Geocaching, anyone?

I recently bought a small bluetooth GPS receiver. 32 channels, 20+ hours battery life, technically (on the documentation, at least) no Mac support. To my surprise, getting it to work well on the Mac was just a matter of pairing it and downloading the latest version of Google Earth. It cost me SGD140 (kind of an Apple staff price from the distributor), but all in all, a decent GPS solution for the Mac. Warning though, tempting as it might be, try not to drive with a MacBook Pro open on the passenger seat and incessantly checking on the route taken

http://www.qstarz.com/products/bt-q818.aspx

From For Macademia

Fun video contest for your students

(from Maxx at the Apple Distinguished Educator website)

Here’s your chance to engage students in a fun video contest involving the hot band “Modest Mouse”.

Direct the Next Modest Mouse Video
Modest Mouse is giving you the chance to make their new video for the band’s second single, “Missed the Boat”. The winning submission will become the official video throughout the world.

The band has shot performance footage of the entire song on green screen from multiple camera angles. You can download performance footage and other digital assets to make your own video using Final Cut Studio.

Enter the Modest Mouse “Missed the Boat” video contest.

http://www.modestmousemusic.com/video/

Exploring the Services menu

Kinda hidden, seldom seen, is a useful Services menu under the application name of many applications. Here’s one example - the Summarize tool. Select any text in Safari, preferably a looong text page, and go to Safari -> Services -> Summarize. An application called SummaryService will launch and you can conveniently move a slider to select your summary size. I go to wikipedia a lot, and this tool helps me read quick summaries…

From For Macademia

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.