by Kate Olson on February 3, 2008
Just have to share :-) Here’s a link to my first screencast that I actually used with a friend tonight. She asked in our IM chat if I knew how to put a link in a blog post (she’s starting to blog with her 7th graders) and I said, “Yay, I get to try a Jing screencast!!!!” So, I did a screencast, learned lots of Jing-lessons as I went and produced this: My first edublogs-related screencast. I am well aware that it’s not perfect, but it was such a neat experience. We were both sitting in our living rooms and I could help her with something she needed to get done right then for school the next day. Happy sigh……………..I love learning and sharing new stuff……………..
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by Kate Olson on February 3, 2008
A quick recap of a tip I learned today when working with screenshots - thanks to @lisibo for the inspiration!
I’m working in moodle creating a course right now and was having the HARDEST time trying to figure out out to get a screenshot with Jing of a right-click menu (or anything related to a mouse-click), since you have to use your mouse to use Jing, therefore losing the image of what you are trying to capture. If you doubt me, just try it! Here’s what I came up with after tweeting a call for help and receiving help from @lisibo:
1) I right-clicked on the object, put my mouse where I wanted it, then did CTRL-PrntScrn
2) I opened up PowerPoint (working in Microsoft Office 2007) and just did CTRL-V (paste)
3) Using the cool picture features in PowerPoint ‘07, I was able to resize and crop the image and THEN grab it and edit it with Jing.
4) The image was then ready to embed with Jing!
Here are some examples:
It took a few more steps, but I think that the images really add to what I’m trying to convey, especially since many people learn best visually. Who knew this issue even existed? Surely not me - until I started working in moodle and the wild world of online course development!
by Kate Olson on January 28, 2008
The title says it all.
***I’d like to give credit where credit is due - my post yesterday, Here’s Your Evidence - Part 1, was completely inspired by the following:
- A conversation with Eric Brunsell about the value of Personal Learning Networks in pre-service teacher training
- Carolyn Foote’s post Keeping It Real about “personal learning networks and how to move them into the professional practice of teachers”
- Jabiz Raisdana’ post Irrelevance. I especially like where he states:”I think this is a good place to start. Our classrooms, our students, our world is changing, and as teachers we are here to prepare kids to face a world many of us our refusing to understand. That not only seems silly, but selfish. We owe it our students to be a step ahead of them at all times and guide them through this information superhighway.”
***I received a tweet today from 2 members of my PLN (@dmcordell and @dswaters) alerting me to a new publication from edublogs - a magazine! It would be cool even if it didn’t mention my blog, I promise :-) Also mentioned are my blogger friends Vicki Davis and Sue Waters! I’ll be reading this magazine as frequently as I do the official edublogs blog (The Edublogger) - daily.
***I recorded my first screencast today using Jing (remember, I just found this tool this past weekend!), and it made me realize just how difficult it is to record quality audio without ummm, well, and ok, especially when trying to fill space while pages load……..best feedback I’ve ever gotten on my “teaching voice”. What a great tool for pre-service teachers - maybe I would’ve done better if I’d had it back then! (I wanted to include the screencast here, but for some reason it’s not appearing correctly when I embed the code from Jing, possibly too large (5.3MB)? Probably better that way………)
****I was asked to be a featured writer on TheApple - a really neat online community for teachers. Here’s what their “about” page says:
TheApple.com : Where Teachers Meet and Learn via kwout
“TheApple brings members of the education community together to support and advance the profession. TheApple provides resources to promote careers in education, while fostering a community with exclusive benefits where information about the education community is provided to the education community by the community itself.
In 2008, TheApple joined with Monster Worldwide (Nasdaq: MNST) to accelerate growth and to improve the career and educational opportunities for our members. Monster’s vision is to bring people together to advance their lives, which is a perfect fit for TheApple. To learn more about Monster, visit monsterworldwide.com.”
I’m really excited about being a part of TheApple community and having my writing featured there!
Lots of fun stuff happening today, but probably the best was my hour with my English Language Learner and Learning Disabilities keyboarding class - we used a really fun game called Fowl Words to practice their typing and word-building skills. Nothing beats 6th graders getting excited about chickens laying golden eggs for extra vocabulary points………………
