USF COE Laptop Initiative Blog

I have found some very good resources over at TappedIn. One of them is this ePortfolio tool that can be used by students to post artwork, photos, or anything they want to share with other people. It’s free.

I found this blog entry showing how one school is using Skype to bring a homebound student into the classroom. What a neat idea. It could be done with iChat as well.

This is my first post using a new service I found called IMified. It’s a great idea. I already spend some time chatting each day, so why not use iChat or any other IM client to post to this blog whenever I find a great website or service like this one. I’m really excited by how easy this is to use. It supports most of the major blogs (Typepad, Blogger, and my favorite WordPress). You can also use it to connect to Google Calendar.

I didn’t know Textedit could speak! You just have to go into the Edit menu and look for Speech, Start Speaking. I think I will use this during my workshops when I want to get people’s attention.

I am very excited about this site. I found out about it through the Kidcast podcast I subscribe to. Innertoob allows you to create markers within your podcast, but the great thing about it is that the content you add to these markers is accessible by search engines. I will be posting some more about it as soon as I get to try it out.

The same people responsible for Innertoob have also created Crowdabout. This is a flash application that allows people to insert audio/text/video comments into your existing podcast and turn it into a conversation and make it more interactive. Again, I just found out about these two sites so I have not had a chance to give them a full trial yet.

iWebMore allows you to include HTML code from Google Video, Flickr and other websites in your iWeb sites.

Today I have two utilities that will make using a dual boot computer much easier:

•  Apple Mouse Utility: this was designed for using a one-button mouse under Windows.  However, the cool thing about it is that it allows you to use the Control +  Click shortcut you can use in Mac OS to right-click in XP.  To use the utility, save it somewhere on your hard drive then place a shortcut to it in the Startup folder. This is much better than having to do a Shift + F10 each time you need to right-click.
• DoubleCommand: this extension allows you to remap the keys on a Windows keyboard while you’re in OS X. I used it to make my Windows key work as a Command key, and the Alt key to function as the Option key.

This is a great little utility that allows you to quickly change your sound input or output on the Mac.  I’m always switching between my headphones and the built-in sound on my iMac.  Using SoundSource makes the task much easier.  The application sits in the menu bar, right next to the date, etc.  A pulldown menu allows you to switch either the input or output with just one click (no need to open the System Preferences).

Link

I usually write only about Mac applications, but since a lot of people have dual boot machines (or have two machines), I thought I would mention that one of my favorite Windows programs just got even better.  Picasa (as close to iPhoto as you can get on the PC), has added a bunch of new features:

• Labels are now called Albums.  They work the same way, but there is an album called screensaver that is automatically created for you.  Any images you drag to that album will become part of your Windows screensaver.  Nothing spectacular (the Mac has been able to do this for a while), but a nice addition to the program.
• You can create a movie with a bunch of photos and Picasa will use the Album title and description as the title of the movie.  The movie includes the “Ken Burns effect” a la iMovie, but you don’t have as much control over it.  I hope they continue to improve on this feature.
• You can now geotag images with Google Earth from within Picasa.  I will be using this feature quite a bit to add location information to my images.
• I have not had a chance to test this out yet, but it looks like you can send images from your PC to a Tivo using Picasa.  I have the Tivo Desktop installed already, so maybe I’ll give this a shot later this week.

Need to create a quick map with markers and notes?  Then TinyMap is the way the go.  You can easily add waypoints (markers) and points of interest (notes) to your map, then when you click on Save you get a URL you can use to share the maps.

This can be used in history classes to have students trace historical events (Columbus’s travels, Crusades, etc. are just a few ideas that come to mind).