Rants of Jeff: Solutions

Ultimate Pen

2008-11-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

Draw on top of any software application - great for making screencasts of training videos.

Ultimate Pen

Interactive Online Whiteboard

2008-11-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Pretty smooth web 2.0 board...check out the video and if you like, sign up...

DabbleBoard Video

Seashore

2008-07-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

Macintosh port of GIMP type image editing program that doesn't require X11.

Seashore

Blabberize

2008-06-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Make a Blabberize at blabberize.com

uStream

2008-06-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

Live and Broadcast TV coming your way - can anyone say "Convergence"...

uStreamTV

scribd

2008-05-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

Scribd is a great online storage solution for pdf, doc, ppt, jpg, etc., type files. Upload them to your free account, which includes unlimited storage, the file is converted to flash and you can directly link to the file URL or embed in your web page/blog.

http://www.scribd.com

2008-05-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Got to be getting and using this tool, and RSS feeds in general - like the kids say, email is only used by adults.....;-)

Google Reader

Picasa

2008-05-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

Great online photo organizer and integrated with Google Apps....

Picasa

Blogspot and Blogger

2008-05-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

My favorite blooging tools...;-) This site is built on it.

Blogspot or Blogger

Firefox

2008-05-30T16:12:00.001-07:00

The best overall web browser going - although, for some reason, I still think Safari is sleeker....;-)

Firefox

Skype

2008-05-30T16:10:00.001-07:00

Great on the web and beyond - A/V across differing computers, countries and the like, all through the internet and free.....

Skype

Voice Thread

2008-05-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Might want to keep your eyes and ears on this new Web 2.0'ish type of application. Very interesting with audio, pictures, text, drawing, etc., in a collaborative and shared environment.

Voice Thread

NVu - Web Publishing

2008-05-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

A very robust web publishing tool.

NVu

Poll Everywhere

2008-05-30T16:00:00.001-07:00

You got to love this puppy - let students vote or take tests with cell phones - just like texting your vote to American Idol.....;-)

Poll Everywhere

Audacity

2008-05-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

Free, nice sound editor and recorder.

Audacity

Free Mind

2008-05-30T15:56:00.001-07:00

Very powerful mind mapping, open source program.

Free Mind

Jott

2008-05-30T15:05:00.001-07:00

Start bringing the cell phone into the classroom with this application. Great voice to text conversion - send via email, post live to a blog - imagine the possibilities.

Jott

Google Earth

2008-05-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

Good solution for multiple uses - good educator following and support.

Google Earth

Sketch Up

2008-05-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

Sketch Up from Google is powerful and engaging. Visually gifted and certain types of autistic children are really grabbing hold of this program. I'm hopeful that someday our CTE architectural programs will evolve to Sketch Up and SketchUp Pro.

Alice

2008-05-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

Alice - a great 3D programming experience for all levels of students - released by Carnegie Mellon.

php Surveyor

2008-05-29T17:22:00.001-07:00

phpSurveyor is an open source and on line surveying tool, run under Linux and Unix environments. In use by many Arizona schools, the tool is robust in functionality. It can provide the security of "tickets/tokens" for one time use and secured respondents, and handle question types from multiple choice, ranking, matching and the sophistication of branching (complete list of question types). Results are instantly available to the administrator or author of the survey, or results can be downloaded in a spreadsheet format.

You can take an on line demo of phpSurveyor to see it in action. An interesting application of the tool is that it can be deployed in an automatically graded test mode to students.

Open Office

2008-05-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

Open Office is a Open Source product, initiated by Sun Microsystems, and features the full suite of Microsoft Office type applications, including; word processing, spreadsheets, and slide shows. However, Open Office is free. Applications within Open Office can save in a format that can be directly opened in Microsoft Office, be it used in a Macintosh, Windows, or Linux platform.

While covering the basics of Microsoft Office, Open Office also includes database, drawing and mathematical equation functionality. The software is very robust and enjoys a wide following of users and developers.

I regularly use Open Office and its derivatives, and would be glad to show you how you can significantly save annual fees, without losing functionality in your environment. Open Office currently runs on the Windows and Linux platforms. The new Aqua (non-X.11) version of Open Office (3 Beta) for Mac OSX is out and it's sweet.....;-)

Squid Guard

2008-05-29T17:18:00.001-07:00

Squid Guard is a free, fully functional version of web filtering software for K12 enterprises. With the advent of CIPA (Children's Internet Privacy Act), K12 organizations need to filter web sites to be eligible for E-Rate funding. However, software, such as web filtering is expensive. For example, Paradise Valley Unified School District is saving approximately $70,000 each and every year by using the Open Source web filtering solution, Squid Guard. Do the math schools and school districts, it adds up fast.

Deployed on top of the Squid Proxy Server, Squid Guard comes with a pre-defined set of "black list" sites (sites that are blocked due to questionable content). Additional blocked sites can be added, and "white lists" (sites that can be let through to particular schools) are also available. By capitalizing on the subnet of your network, a fully customizable version can be deployed, resulting in applicability of sites for grade levels and VLAN's.

Squid Guard is robust, stable and scalable for various sized organizations. At PVUSD, a CD image of the installation and configuration settings are maintained for disaster recovery, resulting in but a few minute disruption should a hardware failure occur.

Wikipedia

2008-05-29T17:07:00.001-07:00

Wikipedia - the mother of all online, collaborative projects (MySpace notwithstanding). With the speed at which intellectual capital is developing and being shared, it's about the only way I can keep up with getting an understanding of new terms and concepts. It is built on top of a Web 2.0 technology, using open source Wiki's. The world participates - I even wrote some of the content.... When there, search Project Based Learning and look for "21st Century Project Based Learning - iPBL".

Del.icio.us

2008-05-29T17:06:00.001-07:00

If you haven't used "del.icio.us", you should. It's another one of those absolutely wild, collaborative, Open Source solutions out there. Keep your bookmarks from whatever computer you're on and they're always available to you. Subscribe to other's bookmarks - create structures to share amongst groups.

My list of Bookmarks.....enjoy....

Moodle

2008-05-29T15:56:00.001-07:00

If you don't have an Open Source, Content Management System (CMS) - get one. The ability to link common web resources, take online quizzes, entire courses for distance education, the list goes on and on. By utilizing Open Source, the advantages are very obvious. The CMS provides the shell, and you and your teachers provide the content.

One of the most popular systems out there is Moodle. With its start in post-secondary, it is quickly gaining popularity in K-12 as well. The uses are actually quite variable. I have deployed in K12 for distance education of over a dozen courses, successfully used the system for hundreds of throusands of online tests (with grade results automatically provided), hundreds of common web links, etc..

Moodle is supported by robust developers and new revisions with new tools are being constantly updated. As one of the most popular systems at NECC 2006, I give it a big thumbs up. Drop me a note if you want to discuss further, or need some help getting it set up and running in your school/district.