Do you need to send or share large files???

More and more I run across email systems that have file size restrictions for sending attachments. While this may be good for email traffic, it can present a challenge when users want to share large files, such as "giga-pixel" images from the newest digital cameras. The good news is that FREE online options are available.

Of course, before you attempt to send any large file, it's always good practice to use a utility to compress the file (or folder). On the Mac, this is easily accomplished by "zipping" the file or folder:
1) Click once to select (highlight) the file or folder icon
2) From the File menu, select Create archive of "selected_file"
3) The archived file is created, (look for "selected_file.zip")

If the compressed file is still too large for your email system, check out: Openomy.com, dropload.com or yousendit.com. (credit and thanks to the wonderful "techtips" posted by Miguel Guhlin).

Of these, my favorite is YouSendit.com, a free service that's as easy as 1-2-3:
1) Pick who you want to send a file to (anyone with an email address - and multiple addresses can be entered).
2) "Browse" to select the file on your computer (up to 100 MB in size) -- it can be music, photos, documents, or anything. Your file will be stored by YouSendIt without ever filling up your recipient's mailbox.
3) Click the Send It button. YouSendIt will automatically email your recipient a link to your file stored on the YouSendIt server.

* Files automatically "expire" in 7 days.
* No sign-ups, no passwords required, although signing up provides additional features.
* Advertising supported (this is why it is free).

Another company, 4shared.com provides a 1 GB virtual drive (with individual file size limits of 50 MB). Once loaded, you can set files to be public or private. Note that if you do not login for 30 days, your account and all files are removed.

AP Government Review Goes National!

Adlai E. Stevenson High School Government teachers Andy Conneen and Dan Larsen are taking their Advanced Placement Government Review Show to a national audience on Sunday, May 6. After hosting the country’s only AP Radio Review show on WAES-FM (Stevenson's local radio station) for the last four years, the “2Regular Guys” will take their radio review to Chicago-based WLS-AM 890. The nationally syndicated radio program “Beyond the Beltway” with Bruce Dumont will team with the Stevenson teachers and dedicate its entire program on Sunday (from 6 to 8 p.m.) to helping prepare students for the AP Government test on May 7.

The program also will feature Stevenson seniors Michael Levine and Megha Shankar, who will help a national audience of students prepare for the exam by discussing the political news of the week -- and explaining how the current issues relate to exam topics such as federalism, separation of powers and executive authority. Vanessa Lal Steinkamp also will be an in-studio guest.

Students can contact the show with questions about exam topics by calling 800-723-8289, by emailing BTB@museum.tv, or by joining the online review community at http://citizenu.org. Students will find an excellent online U.S. Constitution Review guide on the blog, and each Friday, these "2Regular Guys" publish the CitizenU podcast, available through iTunes at: pcast://feeds.feedburner.com/CitizenU

Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont is a live, weekly program that takes America's political pulse and provides a fresh and balanced perspective of national politics. The program is produced every Sunday night from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. The radio version of Beyond the Beltway is heard on more than 60 stations from coast to coast. The audio also is streamed live every Sunday at http://www.beyondthebeltway.com.

Would you agree or disagree?

The issue is "badges." What is your opinion?

For a quick, free and easy method of soliciting opinions on a web page or blog, check out http://polldaddy.com. Create an account with nominal info, and you have one mighty tool! But wait, there's more! For each poll you create there is an associated RSS feed. The feed contains an hourly update of your poll results. Drop the RSS into your browser toolbar (this works in both Firefox and Safari) and watch the numbers come in.

Viewing websites without a live connection?

What's the best method for displaying webpages in a presentation, when you don't have Internet access?

This question was posted on a recent listserv. There were several suggestions offered, including taking screen shots, or saving the website as an archive. Some of these may be helpful to you as well.

A simple method for showing web pages offline, is to print the website to "PDF" and use Adobe Reader's "full screen mode" or Preview's "slide show" to present the various pages captured.

I was quite fond of the feature in Internet Explorer for the Mac that allowed users to save a website as an archive for later viewing, or to create a snapshot of the page using the "Scrapbook" feature (is this feature still available in the Windows version ?). In my current version of Safari (2.0.4) you can save as a web archive from the "File" menu:

However, you don't have options to be able to archive more than the current view. (In Explorer you could specify how many levels of "followed links" should be included). If you save it as a web archive, all the graphics are saved and links continue to work as long as the destination webpages are available. Web archives are especially useful for pages that might not be on the web for long, such as receipts.

In Firefox, (version 2.0) users can save as "Web Page, Complete" which save the whole web page along with pictures. This choice allows you to view it as originally shown, but it may not keep the HTML link structure of the original page. Firefox creates a new directory where the page is saved to save pictures and other files necessary to show the whole web page.

iCab, an alternative web browser for Mac, also allows users to archive web sites as many levels deep as they would like.

And, one feature I love in Apple's Keynote program (part of iWork 06), is the ability to insert a "web view" of any website in your presentation.

The nifty part of this is that you can opt to have the view "update automatically" whenever you revisit the presentation (so much better than a screen shot that has to be taken over and over as the website changes), and if you have a live connection, the image can act as a link to the site as well.

If you know you won't have a live connection, be sure to remember to turn it off while your connection is still live, or you will see a blank page during your presentation. The caveat to this is you are unable to scroll down the actual web page, so you are limited to what is viewable when you visit the site -- however, you can "position" the view further down the page.

Finally, there are software applications designed to capture websites such as WebWhacker for the PC, and a $12 shareware application that looks interesting for Mac users called DeepVacuum, available on the Apple downloads page: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/internet_utilities/deepvacuum.html. The description states, "Allows users to download: complete single pages, entire sites, ftp catalogs, link lists from a text file, pictures, music, clips, and more."

Free "411" Information!

Have you seen this from Google?
http://labs.google.com/goog411/

Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Using this service, you can:

• search for a local business by name or category.
  You can say "Giovanni's Pizzeria" or just "pizza".
  
• get connected to the business, free of charge.
  
• get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
  Just say "text message".
  

And it's free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. They're fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.

How About a Fresh Six-Pack!?

Once upon a time, not very long ago, I published a Tuesday Six-Pack -- a weekly "pick of six" websites or tips for integrating technology into education (which has now evolved into this blog). After school last Wednesday, about a half dozen educators joined me in viewing the "Staggeringly Great Things Mixing Media and Google Earth" webinar from the good folks at Discovery Education, and presented by Hall Davidson.

Here are some new links that may be helpful if you are looking for ways to integrate Google Earth into your teaching.

1. http://kmlphotos.metaltoad.com
Allows you to place Flickr photos into your Google Earth placemarks

2. http://googlelittrips.com
From Apple Distinguished Educator Jerome Burg, this website "recreates the journeys" of characters in literary works such as MacBeth, Candide, The Grapes and Wrath, and more. Click the "Downloads" link at the top of the website to download the Google Earth files.

3. http://www.archive.org
Public domain videos, sound clips, photos and more for your Google Earth placemark files.

4. http://www.findsounds.com
Locate sounds around the Earth, and create "placemark" scavenger hunts.

5. http://googleearthusers.blogspot.com
A resource for learning to use Google Earth

6. http://discoveryeducation.typepad.com/media_matters/
Hall Davidson's blog -- the webinar PowerPoint presentation and resources can be found here.

This 9 minute movie from "The Infinite Thinking Machine" website, named "Calling Planet Earth" is a great follow up to the webinar!
http://www.infinitethinking.org/2006/10/itm-1-calling-planet-earth_10.html
In this video you will learn from students, teachers, and the folks from Google. The video can be downloaded in quicktime for later viewing, and there are valuable links on this page for items mentioned in the video.

Discovery Education has three more webinars planned for this month:
April 11: "unitedstreaming 24/7"
– Lance Rougeux

April 18: "Widgetizing the Builders"
– Steve Dembo

April 25: "Do You Have the Audacity to Podcast?"
– Jannita Demian

You can register for these and participate on your own at:
http://tinyurl.com/2a36al

New Features and Settings on Flickr!

I presented a session titled "My Friend Flickr" at both the January NICE mini-conference and as a breakout session at IL-TCE. I've recorded both sessions, but have only posted the NICE audio file so far. Please visit my "handout" page which will walk you through using Flickr in education.

Great news for educators...
On March 22, 2007, Flickr rolled out content filtering, allowing Flickr users to flag their images as they upload them, and to also set "viewing" and "searching" preferences. I'm happy to report that my account has been reviewed as "Safe" by the Flickr staff -- which according to Flickr, means I am "good at moderating my own content."

"Safe" is one of three filters that can be applied to pictures. The other two filters are "Moderate" (some photos may be considered offensive by some people) and "Restricted" (for photos that are "unsuitable for children, your grandmother or your workmakes").

Flickr now provides a way to only search for "Safe" photos too! You can choose a "safety level" that applies to any site-wide searches you perform while you are logged in, and which can be adjusted on a per search basis using the the advanced search page at: http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/ -- note however, the content filter selections only appear when users are logged in.

The Best Experience You'll Have All Summer!!

I know it's only Spring break, but now is the time to begin planning your summer and investigating your options for professional development. The Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) will again be offering summer seminar/workshops at various locations (a few will be held at Stevenson).

Also of note...
I am very excited to share that the Western Illinois University College of Education is taking their popular summer workshop on the road! "Summer Experience--North" is coming to Stevenson High School on Thursday and Friday, August 2 and 3!

Summer Experience is two fun-filled, theme-oriented days of hands-on technology integration sessions geared toward K-12 teachers, and sponsored by Western Illinois University's Office of Partnerships, Professional Development and Technology, in the College of Education and Human Services. Attendees receive quality professional development on a variety of current and emerging technologies that can enhance student learning.

For those of you wishing to travel to the campus of Western Illinois University, their dates for Summer Experience are, Wednesday and Thursday, July 25 and 26, 2007. See: http://www.wiu.edu/otep/summerexperience/ for details. Registration will open soon.

Finally, Apple Distinguished Educator, Lucy Gray has posted a comprehensive list of summer opportunities.

So much to learn... so little time!!

More on Wikis...

In my previous post I invited readers to visit a wiki that was created for connecting the learning of those who attended IL-TCE. If you haven't yet considered using a wiki for your classroom... think again.

Why wikis? A wiki used in a classroom setting could provide an archive of lessons, and a long-term forum, as an archivable and searchable conversation among all members of the classroom — teacher and students. Students may expand on topics as they see fit, and teachers may guide the discussion where needed. It is a “many to many” technology, where knowledge is created for the benefit of all.

Check out Stuart Mader’s list of wikis in education at http://www.ikiw.org/category/wiki-uses/ and Mark Wagner’s online tutorial/presentation on wikis in education presented at the fall "K12 Online Conference" at: http://k12online.wm.edu/WikiWhileYouWork.mov

Thanks to two great companies, wikis are FREE and EASY for educators!

http://pbwiki.com, where creating a wiki "is a easy as making a peanut butter sandwich" (actually making the sandwich takes longer). If you set up your page in the education” category, it will be ad-free.

If you would like to help spread the word, pbwiki provides "Presenter Packs" which includes a free t-shirt, PowerPoint files and giveaways. See details at: http://educators.pbwiki.com

Just before IL-TCE, I had a great conversation with Ramit Sethi, PBWiki co-founder, about some of the new features and enhancements just released for PBWiki. Listen to this 9-minute phone interview!

http://wikispaces.com, will provide an annual “ad free” subscription to educators at no cost (regular $60 per year) Sign up at: http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers. Adam Frey, co-founder of Wikispaces.com, presented several Spotlight sessions at IL-TCE.

I hope you will explore using wikis for your classroom. Remember, you are in control of who can add, edit or view the content. Wikis can be made public or private for your classroom. If you'd like to learn more, or have some guidance in setting up your classroom wiki, I hope to be presenting a summer workshop through ICE. Stay tuned...

Following up on IL-TCE...

A mere two weeks ago I was presenting and attending the Illinois Technology Conference for Educators (IL-TCE). For those who were unable to attend, there are many resources available online. Both the Thursday and Friday keynote speeches were live-streamed and are now archived for your viewing pleasure. New York Times Technology columnist, and an all-around sincerely funny fellow, David Pogue, provided a great kick-off! Also available online are many of the presenters' handouts!

Kudos to Stevenson teachers Laura Brown, Andy Conneen and Dan Larsen for sharing their classroom success stories! Since our district was able to loan some of our laptops for the conference workshops, we earned a set of conference passes. We are sharing our discoveries and experiences from the conference using a wiki. Drop by and see what we have learned!

Sail on John!

One of the major reasons I began this blog, was to share innovative ideas and discoveries supporting education. My intent was to use this space in place of my "Tuesday Six Pack" of Technology Tips, which became a bit too time consuming to maintain as a webpage.

However, today, I have no grand discovery or innovation to share. Instead, I want to use this space to honor a colleague -- John Mundt.

There are certain people that come into our lives and leave a "mark." You know who they are... special people who, in part, define us ... because we are different after having known them. Sometimes they are relatives, friends, teachers, co-workers, neighbors, etc.

John was one of these.

John was the network guru at Stevenson High School until he "retired" in 2003 and went to work as the network administrator at Hawthorn District 73 in Vernon Hills.

One of John's recent email signatures read: "Be not simply good, be good for something." -- Henry David Thoreau. John was more than good for something.

John taught me many things. We once co-taught a workshop on how to set up an email server. I was somewhat knowledgeable about email clients, but didn't have a clue about servers. John provided the learning I needed to appear credible as we shared the podium.

I loved working with John! He had a brilliant mind and was a stellar master of the vernacular. I was continually popping open the dictionary to look up words he used (such as frabjous and aegis). John was certainly not pretentious... he gave credit where credit was due. And, with John, you always knew where you stood.

John was honored for his many contributions to education at the 2005 Illinois Technology Conference for Educators. He was an active presence on a variety of listservs, always sharing his experiences and expertise.

Born in Wisconsin, John was a true "cheesehead" and Packer fan. He was a paddler, and shared great adventure stories.

Yes, John was indeed special.
John passed away yesterday at the age of 60.

Sail on John!

Setting the standards for the future? Refreshing the NETS.

As reported in eSchool news, ISTE (http://www.iste.org/) has released a draft of revised technology standards for students.

ISTE (the International Society for Technology in Education) first issued its NETS (National Education Technology Standards) for students in 1998, which, according to Don Knezek, ISTE's chief executive, identified skills and knowledge for using the tools of technology. According to ISTE, "More than 90 percent of U.S. states have adopted, adapted, or referenced ISTE's NETS in state department of education documents."

The proposed "revised" standards shift the focus to the skills and knowledge that students need to "learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital society … to produce and innovate” using technology. ISTE also notes that renewal activities are essential "within an evolving learning landscape, a connected global community, and a context of emerging technologies."

ISTE has put out a call to the educational technology community -- add your voice to the NETS*S Refresh Initiative! Click here to access an online survey

View a pdf of the draft here.

Podcasts! Podcasts! Get Your Podcasts!!

Have you discovered podcasts? Have your students? What do you know about Podcasts? Such as, did you know that Podcasts are basically audio files 'delivered' via the Internet? And, that you do NOT need an iPod or iTunes to listen to a Podcast? (Of course, having an iPod or other MP3 player, allows you to download and listen to the audio at a time convenient for you!)

One of the pieces in the Podcast puzzle is how folks go about "getting" Podcasts. You can easily click and download audio files from a website (but you have to first find the website, and then locate the links to the audio files). However, using a program such as Apple's iTunes (available for both Mac or PC), you can choose to subscribe to a variety of Podcasts (audio content produced on a regular basis), and each time you open iTunes, the most recent Podcasts download into your computer -- for FREE!

What's on your Podcast list? My favorite 'listens' come from educators such as Wesley Fryer, Bud the Teacher, Women of Web 2.0 and David Warlick. And now, Apple Distinguished Educators have begun a new Podcast channel... the Conference Connections, which promises to have a lot of great content coming. Conference Connections debuted last week with 15 episodes recorded at the Florida Educational Technology Conference. This is great for those unable to travel to education conferences! Kudos to the ADEs and the conference speakers who have agreed to make their presentations available online.

So, listen up, and check out the Conference Connections:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=213440691

Hey... I created a Widget!

I made a widget this week to countdown the number of days until the IL-TCE Conference!

Widgets are pretty cool. They are small web-based "windows" that work with Mac's OSX Tiger Dashboard, and can be used to display snippets of information, such as stock prices, airfares, weather, or provide quick access to utilities like the dictionary or calculator. And, when active, they float over what is on your screen. On the Mac, you can bring up widgets by clicking the Dashboard icon on the Dock, or by pressing the F12 key. On the new "Mighty Mouse", the tiny scroll button, when pressed, activates the widgets -- teachers in the lab often are surprised when they press this while scrolling and the widgets pop up!

What if you wanted to create a widget, how would you go about it?

The first step is to figure out what makes up a widget. The Apple website is a good place to start. The Apple Developer Page has a tutorial to make a basic "Hello World" widget.

Basically, widgets are a combination of html, images and some special Javascript files, all "packaged" together. Control + click on the widget's icon (in your "House" > "Library" > "Widgets" folder) and you can "Show Package Contents." Once the package is open, you can edit and view the html file in a web editor/browser.

My IL-TCE Countdown widget (available on the ICE website) is a reworked version of the "Christmas is Coming" widget, originally created by Jonathan Gardner of Gardner Designs,. Jonathan graciously replied to my email, and granted permission to publish this!!

How "green" is your car?

File this under "Your Tax Dollar$ at Work"... from the U.S. Dept. of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, this website provides Gas mileage (MPG), greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution ratings, and safety information for new and used cars and trucks. Compare vehicles side by side, find your car's Energy Impact Score, get tips on gas mileage, investigate the best and worst MPG vehicle ratings, link to local gas prices, and more. Visit: www.fueleconomy.gov

How geeks show they care...

... is the byline of GeoGreetings, a website that creates a message composed with "letter shaped" images (roofs of buildings for example) from Google Earth's satellite imagery. Type up to 40 characters and copy the url into an email to send your message. And, to make it easy for others to access the link, shorten it using "tinyurl.com" -- so instead of the 53 character link of: http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?zdCW33*D+cuUhiZi, Tiny URL shortened my greeting to: http://tinyurl.com/y6gctk -- see what message the surface of the earth holds for you!

My best "find" of 2006!

Ureka! For more than a year (well, not steadily, but off and on), I have been searching for a convenient and economical method for converting certain files (specifically created by Microsoft Works, Microsoft Publisher and Corel's Word Perfect) to PDF. Being a Mac user, I have had little, if any, success in viewing these -- until now.

While I was researching and preparing for several sessions I will be presenting at the NICE Mini-Conference on Jan. 27, and the IL-TCE (Illinois Technology Conference for Educators) at the end of Feb., I landed on the Technology & Learning's Podcast Archives -- which sadly seems to have halted production in Aug. 2006. Texas educator Miguel Guhlin's entry on Feb. 13, 2006, a PDF Primer, lists several web-based conversion programs, including a free Online PDF Converter from Neevia: http://convert.neevia.com. Miguel writes, "While this online PDF converter has a 1 megabyte limit per file--which may limit you if you have a document that has lots of images -- you can convert from a wide variety of formats (easily over 50) to PDF. Two nice features is that it allows you to add a watermark image of any text you enter on multiple pages. It also enables you to encrypt your PDF document."

Using the Neevia converter, I was able to view several student papers created using Works, and a club flyer created with Publisher. This is one helpful tool for those of us supporting educational technology!

Happy Holidays!

Here's a little holiday "freeware" treat for Mac users called SantaSnaps, created by iClip developer John Casasanta for the Cocoa Duel charity programming competition, with graphics and program icon created by Adam Betts.

SantaSnaps a Photo Booth clone with a holiday twist, and works with your external iSight camera if you don't have one of the new Intel Macs with the built-in iSight. Launch SantaSnaps, select a Santa beard, glasses, and hat, then position yourself behind the props. (Requires OS 10.3 or higher). Cheers!
http://macheist.com/SantaSnaps/SantaSnaps.zip

Comment from Manolo

Get Firefox... how do they do it?

Firefox 2.0 is now available. Their website states this version is "now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better."

I updated my version last week and I am experimenting and enjoying some of the improved features. My favorite discovery happened yesterday when my computer was shut down unexpectedly. Once I restarted and launched Firefox, I was presented with a message asking whether I would like to resume browsing the page(s) that were open before the shut down.

This feature is called "Session Restore" and is explained on their "new features" website: "Session Restore: Losing your place while you’re doing things on the Web is a pain. Now, with Session Restore, if Firefox has to restart or closes when it comes back you’ll pick up exactly where you left off. The windows and tabs you were using, the text you typed into forms, and the in-progress downloads you had running will all be restored. You can even set Firefox 2 to always restore your previous session instead of loading a home page, so you’ll never lose your place again." What a concept! Read about other new features at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features.html#experience

There are also more than 1,000 add-ons for personalizing your web browsing experience. Check out: https://addons.mozilla.org/

Download your new version at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Enjoy!