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.

Kristy: Word Cloud Maker - Wordle.net

http://www.wordle.net/ is another one of my favorite things. This is really fun to let the students use in the classroom. From writing about things you are grateful for around Thanksgiving to using it as a tool to describe yourself, a character in a novel, or almost anything you can think of, the end result is always cool.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. If you type a word in more often, it’ll make that particular word larger than the others. You can change your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and colors. You are allowed to print the clouds out or save them to the Wordle gallery to share.

Kris: Alternate Banner

Here's the page banner I wanted to use, but Kristy had other ideas.

I don't see the problem. Everybody loves Queetar, right? Oh well.

Kristy: Photo Editing without Photoshop

I recently discovered the website http://www.picnik.com/.

I absolutely love this site. You can use many of the features for free, and you can preview the features that only premium members can use. I went ahead and paid the $25 for the year’s membership. It was money well spent.

In addition to simple editing like fixing exposure, cropping, resizing, or removing red eye, Picnik allows users to easily remove blemishes, shine, whiten teeth, add fun text, add frames, or do special effects and collages.

It will allow you to save the edited image to your computer, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, or other websites. You can even make slideshows.

Listed below are some of my Picniked images.

This is a photo of my niece, Lilyana:

I did no retouching to the image itself. I just added a frame and text.

This is a photo of me with my nieces Aubree and Kayna:

This photo had exposure issues, and we added a frame. It was cold in Colorado.

This is a before and after photo:

I used Picnik to airbrush, add highlights, make me thinner, whiten my teeth, change my eye color, and remove shine. Then I used the before and after frame available in the application.

Cool stuff. Of course, I just gave away my secret...

Kristy: Fonts, fonts, and more fonts

To those that know me, it’s no secret that I like using alternate fonts to the standards. Due to that, I love the following websites: http://www.dafont.com/ and http://www.kevinandamanda.com/fonts/ which offer a plethora of free fonts for download and no account needed. (There are many free font websites out there. These are just a few of my favorites.)

Thanks to http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/tutorials/how-to-use-a-cute-font-for-your-blogger-post-titles.html I was able to use a favorite font of mine as my new Blogger post title font.

For those of you that don’t know offhand how to install a new font, the process is actually pretty easy (but also easy to forget). There are many web resources out there if you search for “How to install a font”, but here is a pretty good tutorial with some screen shots of the process: http://www.kevinandamanda.com/scrapbook/fonts/download-and-install/.

There are also resources out there that allow you to create your own font. I was able to create one for free back in early December, but that company has changed domains and now charges $10 to make your own handwriting font. Even if you pay though, it’s still fun to have your own font. It costs $9 to do it at http://www.fontifier.com/.

There is also http://fontstruct.fontshop.com/. FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks. Even if you don’t want to make one, you can still download these fonts.

Happy Fonting.

(Yes, I realize that font isn’t intended to be a verb.)