Technology at its Best!
Her Blog
On Day Three, I had the opportunity to conduct two different presentations:
- 24/7 Virtual IT Professional Development: Co-presenting with Carol Mortensen & Lorena Olmos (Room 18D), and
- Developing Technology Cadre: Successes and Challenges: Presenting with Shelley Smallwood (Room 18C)
The experiences I have obtained from both presentations were unique, reflective, and meaningful. Many of the attendees were impressed with how our YISD teachers and administrators implemented best practices in utilizing web pages, podcasts, virtual professional development portal, department directory, and the like. I felt good as to how I was able to share the great works and products our teachers and students have been developing, and why technology integration should be embedded seamlessly in the core content areas.
Aside from being able to present on this day, I was able to visit the floor exhibit and discover current technologies that were presented by different vendors. Likewise, I was able to attend a few more concurrent sessions that focused on what they anticipated to be the next level in Web 2.0 tools, the impact of these tools on technology skill growth, and using these tools to support our special population of students.
When I arrived in Austin, TX, the weather was absolutely beautiful and I felt the immediate excitement from fellow attendees who participated in the TCEA 2009 Conference. After dropping off my bags at my hotel room, which I shared with Lorena, I headed out to the conference center to register together with the YISD group. Day One was filled with figuring out the fastest route to get to the conference center by walking and avoiding areas where traffic will most likely be bigger in number. I also had to prepare myself from figuring out how to carry all my technology gear, particularly my DSLR camera, as I walked up and down the hilly roads of Downtown Austin.
On Day Two, I was ready to refocus on my objective. My goal in this conference was to focus on Web 2.0 tools. Now, you may wonder what Web 2.0 tools are and how these tools can be implemented effectively for technology integration. According to Howie DiBlasi, who was one of the astounding presenters I have witnessed during my entire 4-day stay in Austin, our students are part of a generation where more complex tools are developed and introduced to them frequently. They have immense knowledge on how to create blogs, text hundreds of messages with their cell phones, twitter short phrases or brief sentences among friends in order to share what they are currently doing, produce audio or video podcasts in a few minutes, chat endlessly, and the like.
Some of the sessions I was able to attend included the following:
- 8:00 - 8:45 What is Web 2.0 and What’s in it for me? (Room 18C)
- 9:00 - 10:45 Keynote Speaker: Lisa Ling (General Session)
- 11:00 - 11:45 Vroom with a Voki (avatar; Room 14)
- 1:00 - 2:30 Lost in Cyberspace: Teaching Brock to Search (Ballroom G)
- 3:00 - 4:30 Web 2.0 Create - Communicate - Connect - Collaborate (Ballroom G)
The experiences I have obtained all throughout the first day had been very meaningful and very productive. The various presenters have shared many thought provoking ideas and interesting views with regard to the present and future implementation of web 2.0 tools in changing our outlook towards our educational system. It is quite exciting thinking that our students can look forward to a more interactive and collaborative way of learning!
Here are some interesting and fun ways to edit and enhance your photos using some of the free Web 2.0 apps available online:
Picnik
Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects
SmileBox
Create amazing greeting cards, scrapbooks, slideshows, birthday cards, and more using your photos, videos, and music with Smilebox. Email, blog or print.
Your Deal: 11 top-selling Mac apps for $49.99 instead of $631.65, a savings of over $581.66! Purchase the Back-to-School bundle now and you’ll be the immediate owner of LightZone, Contactizer Pro, MacJournal, Bookends, Norrkross Movie, Mellel, DEVONagent, Periscope, Alarm Clock Pro, HookUp and Kameleon. All licenses are full licenses with normal upgrade paths.
As stated on Boinx website, FotoMagico is a photo presentation software for professional photographers. Indispensable for the digital imaging workflow in the 21st century, FotoMagico let your photos shine. Turn your pictures into a story with a few simple clicks and present it in high resolution. Share it on your website or burn it to DVD. FotoMagico is the perfect companion for your iPhoto or Aperture library (Pro-Version) and uses the newest Mac OS X technologies. As easy to use as your Mac, FotoMagico helps you to impress your audience.
NewsBlog
Posted by Stefanie Olsen
For the last four months, Howard Chau has been developing a mobile application that’s designed to alert people to their next calendar appointment, factoring in data like the person’s physical location and traffic conditions en route to a meeting.
In the next two weeks, Chau plans to submit the GPS-based application, called Mappily, to Google in the hopes of winning its Android Developer Challenge, a developer contest with $10 million in total prize money. Because Chau only stands to win tens of thousands of dollars in the first round of the challenge, the money would just be gravy.
“It’s really a way to get seen,” said Chau, the 26-year-old president of Cupertino, Calif.-based Mappily, which employs three people.
Chau’s plight is part of Silicon Valley’s new contest within a contest to create the hottest new mobile technology.
CapeCodToday.com
Posted by Susan Spencer
It’s funny how an Internet post can lead you down a whole new path. An out-of-state visitor on an online forum described a beautiful spot he discovered on a hiking trail along the West Reservoir in Harwich. He described where to park, roughly how far to walk down the Rail Trail before heading off on a side path and which way to follow the winding trail. At the targeted spot, there would be a small container holding a log book and trinkets hidden among the brush.
The forum poster was talking about geocaching. Geocaching is a worldwide treasure-hunt game in which small containers, called caches, are hidden and their navigational coordinates (that’s latitude and longitude) and a few other clues are posted online at geocaching.com. Other geocachers search for the caches by plugging the coordinates into their handheld GPS receiver and following the trail. Geocachers log their finds both in the cache and online, and if there are trinkets in the cache, they may trade one from the cache with one that they brought.
A new discovery shared by a colleague, Alex Reyes, that features Mac applications. These applications look very promising and interesting since it can create and edit photos and videos, make fantastic slideshows (amps it up!), builds interactive banners (like a flash pro!), and organizes videos (cool!).
Here are the various applications offered by Aquafadas:
When you get a moment, check it out!
As I was trying to transfer videos with more than 4 gigs to an external hard drive (160 gigs), I got a 1309 error. I thought it was a simple glitch in my Mac computer since my external hard drive still has tons of space. I tried transferring the files again, but to no avail. So, I went on the internet to conduct some research. I found a site that contained conversations among techie geeks like me who have encountered the same problem. Their conversations sent out good information, but there was no solution yet to this problem. Click here to acces the forum discussion.
What I am trying now is to import my videos in iMovie to see if I can compress the size to a more manageable one without over maximizing the limited space I have left in my hard drive. As of this time, this is how small the size of my hard drive space:
Should you know solutions to this kind of error, kindly post in the “Comment” section for the benefit of the readers. I woud surely appreciate all the help! Thanks!
As a Windows user, I have been skeptical about Apple computers since the earlier versions of their Macs were not at par with Windows ‘98 and 2000. I was one of those who wanted productivity done through Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I did not have time or desire to learn the simplicity behind Clarisworks or Appleworks especially when Microsoft Office can basically do everything I want, productivity wise.
Then came Apple’s renewal of their Macs and it was a huge change that created a significant impact in the field of education and the consumer industry.
