Although I’ve been maintaining websites for years about my family, I haven’t had one central spot where all our family links, photos, videos and news is housed. Now, we do! Join me in celebrating the opening of the NEW Krause Family Website – Krause’s Korner!!
Watch this video to view what the networked student of the 21st century looks like. We should all be working towards using the vast amount of resources the web provides us. This video outlines a few tools such as RSS, aggregators, and social bookmarking to help organize and share tools and links.
From YouTube: “The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.”
WSD’s eToolBox Wiki has been nominated for the Best Educational Wiki in the 2008 Edublog Awards, aka “The Eddies”.
To brag or not to brag, that is the question. It took me a few days to decide to post this shameless self-promotion, but you know what, why not? I’m proud of the nomination and I work hard on the eToolBox. I deserve it! 
Please click the image to vote for the eToolBox.
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/
Although jibjab.com has a lot of other things such as jokes, e-cards, funny videos and so forth, the absolutely most fun element of their website is the “starring you” videos. Now, in the spirit of the holidays, you can delight in the dancing of festive elves – with the faces of your friends and loved ones!
Simply upload photos, “cut” out the faces to fit the elves’ heads, select the type of dance you would like to humiliate your friends with and voila – a cute little video clip that will amaze your relatives and put a smile on your face.
No more bah humbug … check it out yourself – it’s free!
Here’s a sample of my family (my son, sister, nephews and me) doing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” Disco!
http://www.animoto.com
http://education.animoto.com
Animoto is one of the coolest slideshow/video creation sites out there. You upload your images, add text, choose or upload music and Animoto mixes your images to the music in one very cool video. What’s even better is that Animoto has teamed up with the education world and is offering its full-access pass to teachers and students. This allows you to create full-length videos (past the 30 second limit of the regular free site). Think of using it as an alternative to Power Point presentations or use them as a part of a larger project. Students seem to like the ease of use and fast-paced nature of the final product.
Check out the one I just made. It took about 5-10 minutes to put together and another 10 or so for Animoto to mix it.
Voki allows you to create your own online speaking persona (avatars). You can customize everything about your avatar – from eye shape to background scene, and everything inbetween. Then, you can record your voice or type in text and have it read to you in different accents and languages. Have students create their own avatars for many different projects and assignments. Have them take on the persona of a historic or fictional character, use vokis as a personal introduction for a project, have them retell stories through vokis.. the possibilities are endless! Once the voki is created it can be emailed, saved, and posted on any website that allows HTML code – Moodle, wikis, blogs, etc.
Check out the voki I made below for the purposes of this post. It took me less than 5 minutes to make!
**Cross-posted to wissahickon.ning.com**
Simply put, Skype can be used to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime, via text, voice, or video. If the other person has Skype, it is free. Otherwise, there is a small fee to call land-lines and cellphones.
I use it ALL the time with my Personal Learning Network (PLN) to collaborate, communicate, and share. I also use it at Wissahickon to communicate with teachers who have questions and need a quick answer. I have even shared it with my family and my father in Florida uses it (on his MacBook!) to show me the sunset in the Keys. Very nice indeed – for free!
For instant help… here’s a direct link to the User Guide: http://www.skype.com/help/guides/
Feel free to add me… my username is dianne.krause
I have started blogging posts like this on my district’s Ning, but it is a private environment only open to employees of the district. So, I thought I’d cross-post them to my blog as well, why not? Who knows, maybe someone reads this blog and benefits from it! If so, here you go, my first Cool Site of the “Day” (in quotes because it’s not really daily)
A cool site on which you can have all your favorite websites, available from any computer, just 2 clicks away. A perfect solution for people who want their bookmarks and favorite sites accessible and easy to find.
From their website:
Think of it as a speed dial to your most used web sites
If you’re like me, you might have hundreds of links stored in your browser’s bookmarks, spread across multiple folders and categories, but you may only have a dozen web sites that you frequently access on a daily basis. The few tech-savvy computer users might use comprehensive start pages such as netvibes or iGoogle – complete with gadgets and widgets…what ever they are! Most of us are on the run, and just want something simple and easy to use. Here is the good news, you’ve found it here with only 2 clicks!
To take the Tour on the website go to http://www.only2clicks.com/tour.php
Or view the Video Demo (2 minutes)
** Many thanks to Michelle Krill (@mmkrill) for the Tweet that inspired this post.
I know that there are a lot of interactive whiteboards online, but I came across Twiddla today and thought I’d say a few words about it. Basically, it’s pretty cool. From their site:
“Twiddla is a free, no set-up, web-based meeting playground.
Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more productive than ever. No plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo – it’s all here, ready to go when you are. Browser-agnostic, user-friendly.”
So, I decided to give it a shot and I’ve embedded a Twiddla whiteboard into my blog menu on the left there. Or, you can click the icon below to get to the whiteboard. Check it out if you are interested in seeing what Twiddla is all about.
I wonder if anyone will leave messages on it? Time will tell…
Just a few minutes ago my friend and colleague in the CFF World, Anne Van Meter (@whynot88), pointed me to the website readthewords.com. There, you can do the following:
“Upload a Word doc, pdf, html file (and several other formats) and it will “read” it to an MP3 file! Download the file, embed in website, subscribe to it! Saw it an hour ago and already showed it to French, Spanish, LS, and Geography teacher! ” (Anne’s words from her email to the coach listserv)
Very cool site, because you can pick Spanish and French speakers too, so multiple languages are supported. What a great tool for any discipline, but especially for World Language teachers!!
Here’s my first go at it, in French. Here’s the text I typed in:
Bonjour tout le monde! Je fais un test de voir comment marche ce nouveau site que j’ai trouvé. C’est très facile à utiliser! Tapez le texte, ou collez d’un autre document et voila! Ce site lit le texte pour vous. Et comme vous pouvez entendre, on peut choisir les voix et les langues. C’est fantastique, non?
Here’s “Juliette” reading it to you:
