Kristy: Audacity

How dare I enjoy part of a professional development, right? Regardless, I did. I already played with Audacity once, but I got to play in it again for a few hours today.

Audacity is a free audio editing download. If you haven't played with it before, you may want to consider doing so.

Here's my (rather lame) creation, but you get the point.

Kristy: Clustrmap

I think I have already explained that I'm fond of widgets, but this one is extra neat. Clustrmaps let you track the visitors to your website, blog, or wiki. I love how it isn't just a counter, but it tracks the locations of the visitors. Fun stuff!

Kristy: VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a tool I learned about during the Blogs, Wikis, and Web 2.0 book study I completed that Kiki Evans facilitated. I loved this book study, and I especially loved VoiceThread.

I finally got around to finishing a VoiceThread introduction to the author of this blog, me. The blog's other contributor - my husband - is interlaced as well.



Here is a VoiceThread I used in my Business Management class. The complexity of the questions progressed throughout the assignment, as it was the first time I utilized this tool in the classroom, and I was trying verify the students understood how VoiceThread worked and I was trying to inform the students about various business concepts. I was afraid to lose someone.



I personally prefer keeping VoiceThreads moderated, because it allows you to check for accuracy before accepting a post, checks for appropriateness, and keeps the students from hearing one another's answer just to cheat.

Kristy: acapela.tv

I’d never seen acapela.tv (http://www.acapela.tv) until today, but I already love it. It’s this fun website with a bunch of premade movies that you can put a string of text into and it turns your text into a new movie.

For an example, see here:



Another example of how it could be used in a classroom to introduce a new topic or unit is here: Introducing Vocabulary

It takes seconds to create a great product, and you can even choose your accent!

Kristy: Favorite Travel Sites

Those who know me know I love to find a travel bargain. I’ve been asked many times what sites I use, and I have to admit that there are a lot of them. Different sites have different bargains, and I usually check them all.

I’ve included many of these sites here in this comprehensive list:

Flights:
Airfarewatchdog.com - an airfare compiler that posts both advertised and unadvertised flights and notifies you of travel deals. You can also sign up for emails about flights from your preferred airport or flights from one airport to another. They’ve also created this handy travel engine comparison chart: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/4771853/chart-how-airfare-alert-sites-compare/?source=facebook

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch - I love this site too. It’s a great way to find the best prices for certain flights. If it asks, you can just log in as a guest.

http://www.seatcounter.com/ - helps you figure out how many seats are left in a flight class

http://www.kayak.com/
http://www.travelocity.com/
http://www.expedia.com/
http://www.dohop.com/
http://www.yapta.com/
http://www.farecompare.com/
http://www.orbitz.com/

Trips:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ - great for travel advice, things to do, and finding highly rated yet inexpensive hotels

http://www.independenttraveler.com/
http://www.travelocity.com/
http://www.expedia.com/
http://www.orbitz.com/
http://travel.yahoo.com/

Cruises:
http://www.cruisecompete.com/
http://www.cruisecritic.com/

Happy Travels...

Kristy: ebooks galore

Ever since Kris got me a Sony eReader, I’ve been entranced by ebooks. It’s amazing how many free ebooks are out there for the taking. Perfectly free and legal downloads. Of course, there are a great many for purchase, but you can also get some of the newer releases free from the library too.

I’ve found a lot of educational resources free in ebook form too. Amazing Web 2.0, Digital Storytelling, and Hippo Has the Hiccups are just a few of the recent ones I’ve discovered.

Now, chances are I'll never completely replace tried and true books. There is something about turning the pages and seeing my progress that I love...

Kristy: Wonderful World of Wikis

It took me a while to really jump on the wiki bandwagon, but I'm so glad I finally did. Wikis are so useful in the classroom. It's amazing how many uses there are for them. Not only is it good to have your students learn to responsibly publish content on the web, but it's a great collaboration tool.

Just recently I had my webmastering students create avatars, vokis, and animoto videos and publish them to a wiki. The results were amazing! They also had a discussion on there. I really wish I could share this, but I had to keep it private due to FERPA. (A few students used their photos in their posts but didn't get their parents to sign the proper forms.)

My BCIS students have been creating SuperHeroes or SuperVillains for a PowerPoint project, and they have shared their characters on this wiki:
http://themccoybciswiki.wikispaces.com/. It brought up so many opportunities for positive discussion, and the students are loving the project. There is so much animation in their voices as they compare their Supers and plot out their storylines.

I made this wiki for Kris for our 6th anniversary:
http://kmsquared.wikispaces.com/.

Since you are able to lock the pages, you can often treat your wiki like a blog.

My favorite website for this is WikiSpaces since they have the free educator wikis that allow for removal of advertisements and allow pages to be made private without the fee.

It's so very easy to create and contribute to a wiki. If you haven't tried it you should.

Kristy: Stock Photos and Tutorial Links

I have to admit, I haven't done way too much on my school blog sadly. It's just because I'm such an avid fan of Moodle and utilize it. I thought it might be confusing to have the students visiting my website, Moodle page, wiki, and blog. Regardless, I do have a lot of wonderful links on my school blog at the moment.

Needing free (or mostly free) stock photos? How about Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, or HTML tutorials? Visit Mrs. McCoy's Blog-ful of Links.

Kristy: GoAnimate

Thanks to a recent bookstudy I participated in, I've discovered a great new website called GoAnimate. There are a lot of fun animations already existing that you can browse, you can make your own animations, and you can have students make animations.

Here is one I created for my webmastering blog to introduce the concept of Web 2.0 to students. I recorded my own voice to use in it, and you can have four different layers of sound at once. I think I'll use this next year as part of my Open House speech or even with students at the beginning of the year to introduce some rules.

GoAnimate.com: Mrs. McCoy Web 2.0 by Kristy@fb

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com.

Here is one created by the creator of my Book Study about another great Web 2.0 tool called WallWisher:

GoAnimate.com: Wallwisher by Dovewhisper

Kristy: Widgets

I remember the days when the widget was an imaginary item. Those days don’t really exist anymore. There are widgets for websites, blogs, and more. Widgets are real now, and http://www.widgipedia.com and http://www.widgetbox.com/ have really embraced the concept.

Here’s an example of a widget you can grab:

Kristy: Pho.to photo options

I’ve recently discovered a great website. http://pho.to/ offers some easy photo editing tools, but it also has some great frames for photos. I’ve been playing with their photo presentation widgets today. It’s seriously a fun website for photographers or wannabe photographers (like me).

One of the fun photo options:

More fun photos:





A presentation widget of my Project 365 for the month of January:

January Project 365

A different presentation widget of my Project 365 for the month of February 2010:

February Project 365

Kristy: Stixy - online creation collaboration

I recently discovered Stixy.com whenever looking up information on Wallwisher.com. I’ve used Wallwisher in the past to create a webpage where students (or people invited to your URL) can add their own posts to a webpage you started. I used this in Webmastering for students to claim the person they wanted to do their Black History Month project on, and we used it with our TLC Club to try to come up with a name for our teacher crafting group.

But I got frustrated by the limited functionality of Wallwisher, as you couldn’t really do more than post text up on the wall and many of the entries would overlap.

Stixy is like Wallwisher, but it has more options. You can create webpages for a variety of reasons. You can add appointments, documents, photos, or sticky notes to the page. You can customize color, font, font size, and font color, and you can move the posts around. The originating publisher can also choose whether or not to allow others to add to the page and what permissions to grant visitors.

Here is a Stixy page I created:


Simple and practical.

Kristy: Homemade Technology Jewelry

I’m really rather lucky, as Kris made me homemade computer jewelry for Christmas.

Here is the bracelet he made of my name:

Here are the earrings he created for me. The keys are opposites of each other.

He also made this pendant and bracelet.

Everything is really easy and comfortable to wear. It’s all light-weight and he filed all of the edges so that nothing is scratchy.

I think the computer art Kris made me (to be featured later) and this jewelry top the list of my McFavorite Things.

What's a VoiceThread anyway?

Kristy: Animoto Photo Slideshow

Animoto.com is a fun way to create slideshows to music without any hassle. You can make 30 second ones for free, or you can pay for the unlimited account. Animoto is pretty awesome and allows educators to apply for an Animoto for Educators account. It gives you and your students a free code for 6 months of full access for no cost!

How it works:

Step 1: Upload Photos. It'll tie in to online applications (like Facebook or your online photo hosting sites) or allow you to upload photos from your computer.

Step 2: Choose your 30 second music clip. You can choose from an assortment of songs arranged by genre or upload your own.

Step 3: Publish and save, embed, link, or email your video. Voila!

Here's a quick one I threw together from my first month of my Project 365:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Here's one all about why I love the letter T:


Here is one that I made for Kris as an anniversary present for our 6 year anniversary:

Kristy: Cool Text, Buttons, and Logos

A great tool for making your own neat text for websites, blogs, or anywhere you can place a photo, cooltext.com offers easy to use tools to make some really flashy or classy items.

Here is a quick logo/image I made:

Here is another:

Each of these took less than 2 minutes to make.

You can also make buttons for websites or blogs:

Enjoy!

Kristy: Tagul - the interactive word cloud maker

Earlier I spoke about Wordle, which generate word clouds from text to generate a customizable word cloud. The newest word cloud generator is Tagul, which allows you to create word clouds with words that function as hyperlinks.

Below you’ll find my first Tagul cloud. All of the words were pulled from somewhere inside of this blog.

Kristy: Digital Posters

Digital posters are fun, and they can easily be made using www.glogster.com. Even better is http://edu.glogster.com/, which allows you to register as a teacher and have up to 200 student accounts under your name.

Here’s an example of a poster I’ve made to explain an assignment to students: http://kerplode.edu.glogster.com/edit/posterize-your-favorite-class/

Here’s a screen-shot if you didn’t want to click on the link:

Here is a wonderful example of a student Glogster of the Skeletal System: http://cbrannon.wiki.hoover.k12.al.us/Skeletal+System+Glog2

Here is a wonderful tutorial on how to use Glogster as created by Traci Blazosky: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgqwv5cr_127g7nqc8fm

There are a lot of options for this one. Happy postering.

Kristy: Motivators

A really fun website is http://bighugelabs.com/motivator.php. This website allows you to make a motivational-style poster in about three minutes. Upload a photo, supply a headline and short text, and you get something like this:

Super easy to do. Put one in a PowerPoint, make your own classroom posters, or students could even make one. There are a lot of possibilities here.

Kristy: Windows Dancer

Okay, so maybe it isn't a favorite thing. (In fact, we uninstalled the program.) It's just something that made me laugh.

See the video below:

Kristy: Printable Reference Guides for many things Technology

http://www.customguide.com/quick_references.htm has developed some seriously wonderful, and free, visual handouts for those needing a quick reference guide for all things Microsoft, Mac, and Adobe.

They even offer these guides for multiple years.

*The 2007 guides are available for those now transitioning from Office 2003 to Office 2007.

It has lots of print screens, and it does a fairly good job of explaining the ribbon system, as you can see from this picture:

The CustomGuides available for free include:

Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Publisher, FrontPage, InfoPath OneNote, Outlook, Project, SharePoint, Visio, Office 2007, Windows, and Entourage
Internet Explorer
Mac Appleworks 6
Apple Mac OS
Adobe Acrobat
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
Flash
Photoshop
Photoshop Elements
Computer Training
ECDL
IBM Lotus Notes
QuickBooks
Mozilla FireFox

Kris: Building a Rock Band Double Kick Drum Splitter

With Guitar Hero, hooking up a double kick drum is easy: just plug 2 pedals into a headphone splitter. Rock Band is trickier.

In Rock Band, the controller registers a kick when the circuit closes (pedal is pressed down) but can't register a new kick until the circuit re-opens. That means that if you still have your right foot pressed down on the pedal, the circuit remains closed and it doesn't matter what you do with the left pedal. It will be ignored until you completely lift your right foot.

I found a schematic on the web for this controller mod. The purpose of the mod to acknowledge a closed circuit (pedal pressed down) but immediately re-open the circuit even if the pedal stays down.

It's a 5V system which can easily be run from a 9V battery and a 5V regulator. I first built it on a non-solder breadboard to test it out. Now that it works, I eventually intend to solder it properly and mount it in a project box. It's temporarly housed in a cardboard box.

All parts except the 74HC14 Hex Inverter IC can be found a Radio Shack. The 74HC14 can be found online at several electrical component sites for about 25 cents. Since you have to purchase it online, it's best to buy everything online to save a few bucks. Radio Shack is a little expensive. In total, I paid around $20-$25 for everthing needed.

Required parts:
(1x) 74HC14 Schmitt-Trigger Hex Inverter
(4x) 10k ohm Resistor
(1x) 120 ohm Resistor
(2x) 10 uF Capacitor
(1x) 2N3904 NPN Transistor
(1x) 5V Relay (Normally-Open, Non-Latching)
(3x) Diode
(1x) Mono 3.5mm (1/8") Output Jack (Male)
(2x) Mono 3.5mm (1/8") Input Jack (Female)

To power it, you'll need:
(1x) LM7805 Voltage Regulator
(1x) 9V Battery
(1x) 9V Battery connector

To construct it, you'll need a PC board or breadboard and jumper wires.

I couldn't find mono inputs, but you can buy stereo inputs and just use the one active lead.

Temporarily, the board is mounted in a cardboard box that I had laying around. The end result is about the size of a Wii controller, but it can be housed in a much smaller box if soldered to PC board.

Word of warning: If you buy a mono extension cable to use as your male output jack, test it to see if it is tied to ground internally. Mine was, so I had to cut apart the connector and sever the connection so it wouldn't be constantly closed.