New Tek - PictureTrail.com

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I have been using numerous online photo-sharing sites based on my needs and their capabilities. I have used photobucket, dropshots, flickr, and lately picturetrail. PictureTrail seems to be my favorite lately, so I wanted to post a quick blog entry about it and what it can do for you.

Not only can you upload photos and share them with friends and family, you can create "flicks" which are animated slideshows of your albums. Their web-based software does all of the work and spits out the code for users to paste into their FaceBook, MySpace, Blogger, etc. PictureTrail flicks has a nice user interface, simple, and easy to follow directions. Here is a recent flick I made for Ethan:

Microsoft's Ad Campaign - designed on a Mac?

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I came across this image (click for larger size) that shows the recent Microsoft Ad Campaign images were created using Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Macintosh. Do you find it to be a bit funny that their $300 million ad campaign was not even designed on their own operating system?

Do you brag on MySpace?

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You have got to go read this article. Apparently, these Kegheadz guys bragged quite a bit on MySpace about how big their company was, resulting in a $320k tax bill. The truth is, they bragged to get higher turnouts to their parties, and they liked making people think they were more successful than they actually were. I guess they didn't have anything else to do while in college...

Tek dads rule!

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Okay, I'm officially a dad as my son is now 8 weeks old. During all of the sleepless nights, my mind tends to wonder off into tek-land as I think about documenting Ethan's latest milestone on the Internet and sharing it with the family.

As a tek dad (that's right, I just coined this phrase at slanginsider.com!), I strive to document Ethan's life with various Web 2.0 apps. This allows me to keep our family members (living abroad) connected to his photos, his growing weight and height, and even share some videos with them I otherwise would not be able to. I have found some pretty excellent resources along the way and I want to share them with anybody who wishes to be a tek dad as well (or mom for that matter!):

Tumblon: do you want to track your child's milestones, blog about them, and share them with your family? If you do, this site is for you. It is in it's Beta form but it still is a pretty good resource. Tumblon gives you the ability to write a family blog, upload photos, track milestones, and write stories.

ScrapBlog: going beyond sharing your photos and videos online, Scrapblog allows you to easily tell your stories and create beautiful multimedia scrapbooks, all online!

BabySpot: FaceBook for babies? You betchya! This site combines all of the precious memories you want to share with your family all into one place. They even have online chat where you can connect with other parents around the country.

Internet Language

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I have witnessed a booming of funny images involving cats on the Internet lately. I can't take credit for finding this myself because all of my middle school students seem to be obsessed with these images and their clever word play. I have to admit, most of them are down-right hilarious and the witty text is not half bad either. The problem is, some of my students are actually mimicking the word play of these images in the classroom. Can these images be that powerful that they create their own spin on slang and teach students incorrect language and grammar? Maybe...maybe not.

image from lolcats.com

Presidential Wordles

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Let me just start by saying I don't discuss politics all that often as these discussions tend to end up in full-blown arguments (even amongst sixth graders!). With that said, I decided to ever-so-tepidly delve into the presidential hopefuls' acceptance speeches and wanted to see a visual representation of their words. I pulled transcripts from both of their speeches and the results are below. Remembering that wordles display words occurring most often in larger print, Obama focused on "change" and "promise" while McCain focused on the "country" and the word "fight." I obviously added the words Obama and McCain to the respective wordles! Just another way of presenting information, pretty cool, huh?

Cyberbullying's impact on children

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We cannot forgot how damaging bullying can be to children. Some professionals believe these effects to be worsened when students are bullied through technology (as kids often are not held back because their hatred is sent semi-anonymously). Examples of cyberbulling include harassment through email, chat, or text message. Cyberbullying has been occurring for quite some time, and as I came across the video below, I was reminded that it is my responsibility to teach my students responsible online behavior. Please watch and share with your colleagues:

New Tek - Wordles

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From Wordle.net, a wordle is defined as:

"...a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

What's that? You want an example, eh? I created this one for descriptors of a teacher. Enjoy!

Die Spammers!

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Score one for the good guys. As internet use continues to climb exponentially, so does the threat of evil (okay, so maybe not evil in the definition of the word, but who really likes SPAM?). Spammers kill inboxes by flooding them with useless emails trying to sell replica watches, pharmaceutical supplies, and other random items that most people peg as scams. The problem is that it only takes a few gullible people out of the billions that receive their spam messages to click and buy. This is what keeps them in business. It's scary to read that their computer network was sending 10 billion emails a day, and raking in $400,000 a month.

Homecoming, Faith, and Rays

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I didn't get to see it, but the Faith football team had a great come-from-behind Homecoming win Saturday night. It's good to see teams coming from behind to win games, and it is even better when it's YOUR team.

On a similar note, I am inspired by the young and gritty Tampa Bay Rays who clinched the Series spot last night. I always admire when young athletes hit the major scene and instantly impact their team. Not sure how many will watch, but I'm expecting this World Series to be filled with excitement. My pick - Rays in 6.

Are teachers worth $125,000

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I recently read a job posting from a soon to be open charter school in New York City. The school is looking for new teachers to fill their vacancies, at the salary of $125,000. At first glance, I thought it was a phishing scam or some sort of bait and switch. Analyzing the possibility of making six figures as a teacher, I scoured the internet and came across the school's site and this article in the NY Times.

Turns out this "Equity Project" is attempting to raise the bar and change the national outlook on education. Think it will work?

Blogs banned!

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In 2005, a Jr/Sr High School in Vermont banned the use of blogs in the classroom. The school's principal mentioned that "the decision to block the site from school was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers."

Is this true, or is this simply a way of avoiding the need to teach students responsible online behavior?

MySpace & Facebook...

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Thinking about going to college? Thinking about getting that six-figure dream job some day? Well, if you are, you better start thinking now about your online behavior. Do you think those party pictures on Facebook are really private? Do you think those MySpace comments about your teachers or enemies won't come back to haunt you?

It turns out that as social networking sites become more and more popular, many universities are now warning their potential students about their postings on the Internet. What is the lesson to be learned here?

Cell Phones in the Classroom?

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I came across this blog post about integrating cell phones in the classroom. Most administrators and school boards have bans that prevent students from having their phones on during school hours. However, there is a growing trend among techno-savvy districts allowing students access to their phones outside of the classroom. What about giving them strict guidelines so they can demonstrate responsible use of their phones inside the classroom?

I believe as technology continues to change, as educators, we must change as well. We should be looking for ways to harness the power of these portable devices to increase student learning. Imagine giving your students a project where they must use their camera phone to take five photos of a problem plaguing their community?

You can have students upload these photos directly to flickr and create a slideshow. This slideshow could be imported to Google Docs and your students could create an online presentation for the local City Council. How's that for harnessing the power of the cell phone? Oh, and did I mention that Google Docs Mobile can be accessed on any cell phone with a basic web browser?