Website of the Week: LogoType Maker (Gr. 6-12)

LogoType Maker – Create & customize your own logo images

LogoType Maker is a free, Flash-based web tool with an impressive archive of fonts, graphics, and templates for making logos and rich titles. Simply type in the text for your logo, then click the Generate LOGO button. If you don’t see one you like, click the Refresh button in the top-right corner of the page to generate a new list. When you find a logo close to your liking, click on the blue double gears icon to enter the editor tool and tweak the logo until you have exactly what you’re looking for.

INTEGRATE:

• This is a great tool for students when creating digital content for a project. One of these logos could be easily inserted into a presentation, enhanced podcast, iMovie, blog, or any number of other digital projects to give it a personal touch.

MLTI Minute: Text Substitution

MLTI Minute Podcast

Episode 163: Text Substitution

This podcast will show you how you can program your own text substitution and apply it globally to most Apps. installed on your Apple computer. The example in the podcast shows how to program the Mac to convert “LOL” automatically to, “That was quite a humorous statement.

This is a 3 minute video podcast, with audio directions provided as a guide and screencasting to provide clear visuals of the setup and configuration process.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Google Apps Tip – Right Side Chat Lab

Have you ever driven a car where the manufacturer put everything (headlights, wiper blade speed, cruise control, etc.) on one control arm attached to the steering column? Talk about not having enough elbow room. I was experiencing the same thing with all of these gadgets running in the left-hand column of the Gmail interface; I was feeling claustrophobic.

Luckily, there is a Lab available in Gmail that will take the gadget with the biggest potential foot print, Google Chat, and move it to the right-hand side of the window: Right-side Chat. Labs are small add-ons to your Google Apps to enhance or add efficiency to your Google experience. You access these add-ons from the Labs tab in the Gmail settings window, or follow the Google Support article by clicking here.

Website of the Week: Find That File (Gr. 6-12)

Find That File – Search for content by file type (Gr. 6-12)

Find That File is an Internet search engine designed to help users find content by media file type. For example, let’s say you would like to find an audio recording of MLK Jr. “I Have A Dream” speech. Simply enter your search criteria into the text box, then use the filtering tools on the left-hand side of the screen to filter the results into specific file types (mp3., wma, .m4a, etc).

INTEGRATE:

• This could be a valuable tool for students who are looking for specific types of media to include with their project presentations.
• This service can be made even more powerful when paired with a file conversion website like Zamzar.com If you find the right type of media but it’s in the wrong format, then you can use Zamzar to convert the file to a format that does work for you and your computer.
• See Richard Byrne’s review in his blog Free Tech4Teachers.

Website of the Week: Is It Just Me?

Down For Everyone Or Just Me – Check if a website is up or down

Have you ever found yourself trying to get to a website, not being successful, and wondering why? Have you asked yourself:

• Did I type in the address correctly?
• Is my browser not working?
• Is my network down?
• Is the website down?

Well, now you can at least answer the last question by going to DownForEveryoneOrJustMe. Just go to the website, copy-&-paste the URL of the website you’re trying to access into the text box, and click the “or just me?” link. The service will attempt to access the website in question from their computers and let you know the results.

Google Apps Tip – Speech2Text w/Chrome

Google Translate

Working with a student where there is a language barrier can be a very frustrating experience. Both parties are smart, knowledge, and communicative…but they just don’t understand one another. Enter Google Translate, which provides the simple tool of converting text from one language into that of another (there are currently 63 to choose from). Add Google’s web browser, Google Chrome, to the mix and you now have a simple yet free speech-2-text utility. The system can only handle short phrases at a time, but that can be enough to help student and teacher bridge the language gap and begin building and understanding.

Directions:

• Go to/download the Google Chrome web browser
• Go to translate.google.com
• Set the From: box to your language and the To: box to the language of your partner.
• When ready, press the microphone icon in the bottom-left corner of the box to begin recording (red arrow below).
• When you finish speaking, Translate will convert your speech into the text of your language, then translate it into the other language.
• NOTE: Once text is entered, both boxes come with speakers that will prompt Google Translate to speak the words aloud (blue arrows below).

This American Life Episode #449: Middle School

I just finished listening to an episode of This American Life from NPR on the topic of “Middle School.” The topic was requested by who else, a middle school student who listens to the podcast. The entire podcast is available online as well as the individual segments. I just thought it was interesting to here from actual students about what they thought of middle school. It made me wonder what our students would say if they had been interviewed, and that we are not alone in the triumphs and challenges that we face everyday.

• Listen to the Episode
• Subscribe to the Podcast

PBS LearningMedia

PBS Learning Media – Fostering Classroom Innovation and Student Engagement

PBS Learning Media is an online platform created to help teachers “re-imagine classroom learning” and integrate rich multimedia into lessons and activities. Currently there are over 14,000 resources available and can be filtered by grade level (Pre-K to 12+), subject (8), media type (document, audio, video, etc.), language (5) and accessibility (text, audio description, display transformation, etc). Create a free account on the site to save/share content. Access to the complete multimedia database requires a school subscription.

Below is an interview with PBS president Paula Kerger who talks about PBS Learning Media (2:02):

 

Website of the Week: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – An informational database (Gr. 4-12)

This site is chalk full of information, maps, lesson plans, timelines and multiple databases including slaves names, ship names, voyages and more. A definite asset to any student doing serious research but with enough diversity in materials and oversight to be helpful to those looking for a brief overview of the topic.

Thanks to TeachersFirst for sharing this find.

Website of the Week: Mission US

Mission US – A Revolutionary Way to Learn History (Gr. 4-8)

Mission US is an interactive online experience for students to learn about US history. Students start with Mission #1, “For Crown or Colony?” about the steps leading up to the Revolutionary War. More missions are forthcoming, so check out the ABOUT section for updates on their release. The site uses roll-playing as its delivery platform, asking students to step into the shoes of, in the case of Mission #1, a 14-year-old printer’s apprentice named Nat Wheeler. NOTE: An account is needed to use the site, but students do not need an email address to register.

INTEGRATE

• I’m a big fan of roll-playing as a way to get students to interact with the content being studied, so whether the roll-playing happens in the real world or a virtual one is fine by me.
• If you and your students enjoy the first mission, please make a point of contacting the site and letting them know. The more feedback we give them the more missions they will hopefully create!

Thanks to TeachersFirst for sharing this find.