Academic Earth makes going to college easy

I ran across one of the best sites I’ve seen recently after reading about it an article.  The site is called Academic Earth and this is how they describe themselves:

We are building a user-friendly educational ecosystem that will give internet users around the world the ability to easily find, interact with, and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars.  Our goal is to bring the best content together in one place and create an environment that in which that content is remarkably easy to use and in which user contributions make existing content increasingly valuable.

The colleges you can visit include the most pretigous in the United States.   Here’s a list:

• Berkley
• Yale
• Harvard
• MIT
• Princeton
• Stanford

The lectures are great and users can rate the lectures after watching.  I have never been one of the YouTube types that can sit around watching videos on the web all day, but I literally spent an hour (56 minutes to be exact) today listening to Paul Brown at Yale discuss Sigmund Freud.  I learned more in 56 minutes than I can remember from my entire college psych class and found the whole thing very enjoyable.

So in addition to giving you something useful to do during your free time, what else can Academic Earth be used for?  Just think of the opportunities this gives many of our students.  Not all of us are able to go to Yale or MIT, but viewing lectures from some of the worlds greatest professors gives us opportunities we may have never gotten otherwise.  This is just another example of how education is becoming more accessible.  You’ve probably heard of California’s Open Source Textbook Iniative or MIT’s Open Courseware project.  Academic Earth is another one of those great free resources to add to the list.

Text to Speech just got easier

Most of us are probably familiar with products that turn digital text into speech.  Programs like Read&Write Gold and Kurzweil are feature packed applications that will not only read almost any digital text to you, but also provide numerous other supports such as advanced spell check, word prediction and more.  Other programs, like ReadPlease are basic (but free) and allow you to copy and paste any text in and have it read out loud.

The only major downfall to these programs is that a student must be sitting in front of a computer to use them.  Having one computer with text to speech capabilities doesn’t do you much good when 15 kids need it at the same time.

To help remedy this, there are several products out there that allow you to turn text into an audio file (typically an mp3 or wav file).  Once created, students can listen to it on their portable mp3 player, cd player, or even their computer at home.  Granted, this isn’t always as effective as being able to see the text as it’s being read out loud, but it does work for many students.  Surely you’ve seen all of the earbuds hanging out of kids’ ears haven’t you?

Before I list some options, I should mention one concern I consistently get is that not all students have the mp3 players.  This is true, but according to a recent report specializing in tracking the use of digital music and digital music players, over 70% of respondents ages 12-17 already have some type of portable music player.  This is up from 54% last year.  What’s more is that not all portable media players are as expensive as iPods.  A recent search on WalMart.com showed a 2GB video and audio portable media player for under $30!

Now that that’s out of the way, how do we turn text into audio files?  Well, there are really 2 ways: a software application (or one feature of a software application) and a web site.  Let’s look at each…

On the Web:  These websites allow you to paste digital text in and they will automatically create the audio file for you.

• Vozme.com
• HearWho.com (only free for limited amount of text)

Software Applications:

• Read&Write Gold – Contains a “Speech Maker” feature that turns text into a wav or mp3 file
• Text to Speech Maker
• Other options – a website containing several low cost text to audio programs

If you know of any additional programs, especially free programs, be sure to post in the comments section or send me an email.

Removing Shortcut Arrows

OK, so this post doesn’t really have much to do with educational technology, but it solves an annoying problem.  In Vista, if you have a shortcut icon on your desktop there is a huge arrow that attaches itself to the icon to show that it is a shortcut to another location.  One way to fix this is to edit your registry, but that’s never really recommended unless you are an experienced user and aware of all the risks.  Instead, download the free Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover by FXVisor.  You can download it from http://www.frameworkx.com/ or PC World.

After installing, simply open the program, choose no arrow and log off.  Once you log back on you’ll see that you no longer have a shortcut arrow on your icons.

Free Learning Styles Inventory

One of the first steps in creating a Universally Designed classroom is to complete a learning styles inventory with your students.  This gives you a better understanding of how your students learn best, which in turn should effect the way you deliver content.  My personal favorite free online learning styles inventory comes from Learning-Styles-Online.com.  Not only does it provide information on how you learn best, but if you are an educator it allows you to create an account so that after your students complete the survey it will build a classroom profile for you.  This is much easier than calculating and putting together a profile manually.  

Newspaper Generator adds Engagement to Activities

I just finished doing a session on using technology to motivate writers and came across this cool website. It’s called the Newspaper Clipping Generator. It’s purpose is to generate what looks like a newspaper clipping out of whatever you have your students write. They can choose the title of the newspaper and download an image of the completed product to print off and hand in or include in their blog or website. It does have a couple of shortfalls, namely it’s inability to show the full text of the newspaper title or the article itself. But then again it is a clippings generator, not an entire newspaper generator. My colleague, Lisa Shaw, mentioned how this is a great strategy for teaching students how to generate leads for feature articles.

Podcasting and Podcatcher Options

For those that aren’t aware, a podcatcher is a software application used to collect and play podcasts. By far, the most popular podcatcher is iTunes. However, not everyone wants to rely on only one software application. In addition, there are many schools or entire districts that do not allow the use of iTunes. So what exactly is a podcast and are there options for those wanting to subscribe to podcasts other than iTunes? That is what this post hopes to answer.

To start with, a podcast is simply an audio or video file that is syndicated, which means people are able to subscribe to it using a podcatcher. Why would you want to subscribe to a podcast? Let me use an example that I think will help. Imagine there are 5 podcasts that i am really interested in. They are on various topics, maybe Spanish lessons, technology, financial information, music, and math strategies. All of these podcasts contain great information, but it is a time consuming task for me to visit each site every day just to see if a new podcast has been posted. If I find that there is a new post, I then have to download and store it somewhere before I can listen to it on my computer or on a portable media player like an iPod.

Now let’s look at using a podcatcher, such as iTunes, to make this process more efficient. Instead of visiting each site everyday, I only visit it once. While there, I find the feed information for that podcast (usually by clicking on a link that says “subscribe to this podcast”). I take that link and copy and paste it into my podcatcher (if using iTunes go to Advanced – Subscribe to Podcast) and viola, I am now subscribed to that podcast. I do the same with the other four sites and now every time I open my podcatcher it searches to see if any new posts have been made. If so, it automatically downloads and organizes them for me. Is that cool or what! iTunes also offers an extensive list of podcasts you can search and subscribe to without ever leaving the application.

So moving on, are there other podcatcher options than iTunes? The answer to this is yes, but you may need to spend some time exploring the options to find which works for you. Below is a list of a few options you may want to try:

• Doppler
• gPodder
• Juice
• MediaFly
• myPodder
• NewsFire (mac only)
• NIMIQ
• PrimeTimePodcast
• QuickNews (for PalmOS)
• RSSRadio
• SmartFeed (for Windows Mobile)
• ZiePod
• Zune (Microsoft’s Version of iTunes)

I figure this list will do you for awhile. I personally use iTunes, but if I didn’t I would probably give Juice, MediaFly or ZiePod a try.  If you have tried one of the options above feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Using Jott as a Writing Tool

I know that I am not the first, and will surely not be the last to do a post on Jott, a free web based tool to convert speech into text, but I still feel the need to mention it here for my readers.

So what exactly is Jott, and how can it be used in your toolkit of Universally Designed activities for students? Well, to access Jott all you need to do is go to www.jott.com and setup an account. Once setup you will receive a verification code to use when you call 866-JOTT-123. After dialing the number and entering the code, you can choose to Jott yourself or someone in your contact list (which you can create after signing up for an account). To Jott is simply to speak a message. Once spoken, you can set up a reminder to go along with it if you wish. When finished, Jott will sent you an email or text message with the text of that voice note. How cool is that! You can use Jott to send yourself reminders while driving in the car, create lists, and even add dates to your Google calendar or make a blog post.

So how can this be used in Education? It just so happens that a colleague and I did a session titled “Ugh, I Hate to Write!: Innovative Ways to Use Technology to Motivate Reluctant and Struggling Writers” yesterday. A major component of it was using services like Jott to motivate writers. For example, one critical part of writing that is seldom done these days is writing to learn. These are the kind of things students do to help digest information. They are not graded, and the main audience are the students themselves. Activities typically seen in writing to learn activities include writing breaks (stop talking for 2 minutes and let students write what is on their mind), exit and admit slips, brainstorming or clustering, drawing and illustrations, write arounds and much more. So imagine next time you want your students to participate in a writing break you allow them to call Jott and speak what’s on their mind! This not only increases engagement, but is also much more accessible for students who may struggle with writing due to cognitive or physical disabilities.

The above is of course only one example. I can see students using Jott as an organization tool, a method for delivering admit and/or exit slips to teachers (remember that students can Jott to teachers and other students, not just themselves), brainstorming, and to take notes among many other things. Have an idea for using Jott? Write it in the comments section below.

CAST, Google Introduce UDL Editions

I was just forwarded a link from a friend of mine to the new UDL Editions by CAST website. According to the press release:

Wakefield, MA, April 23, 2008—In partnership with Google, CAST today celebrated World Book Day by introducing two new online literacy tools that provide robust, embedded learning supports for readers at all levels. UDL Editions by CAST are world literature classics presented in a flexible online interface that supports and engages novice and expert readers alike. CAST Strategy Tutor offers adolescent readers customizable mentoring and support as they conduct Internet research and read websites.

In the limited amount of time I had to experiment with the site, I found it very user friendly providing you are familiar with Texthelp’s Read&Write Gold toolbar. You can choose from 7 books and be provided with 3 levels of support on each book depending on student specific needs. These levels are as follows:

1. Maximum Support – “Stop and Think” prompts are multiple choice. Highlighting critical features, models, and hints available. Immediate feedback on responses.
   
2. Moderate Support – “Stop and Think” prompts elicit constructed responses and text revisions to explore author’s craft. Highlighting critical features, models, and hints available. Immediate feedback on text revisions only.
3. Minimal Support – “Stop and Think” prompts offer strategy choice and open responses. Students are guided to highlight and collect key elements in the text, thus actively highilghting critical features for themselves.

Give the site a look when you get a chance. The address is http://udleditions.cast.org. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Anytime you can get organizations like CAST together with companies like Texthelp and Google, you can expect great things to happen.

Markup your PDF Documents

Most of you probably know what Adobe PDF documents are. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, they’re those aggravating documents you receive from time to time that you can read, but cannot edit. They require you to have special software (Adobe Reader – free and standard on most PCs) to open them. The good thing about these documents are pretty much the same as the bad thing: you cannot edit them. Why is this good? Well, many people, including publishers use a PDF file so that end user (i.e. you) cannot modify the content. Businesses may also use them for policy and procedure manuals, forms, contracts and more. They also come in handy when you want to make sure your document looks the same to everyone. Have you ever opened up a word document that required you to edit parts of it just so you could make sense of it all? If the creator used a PDF document instead, no matter what setting the end user had, the document (including images) would look the same as when it was first created.

The bad part of not being able to edit is also quite obvious. What if there is a mis-spelled word or you don’t like the way something reads. Maybe you just want to bold or highlight certain portions for your records. These simple functions cannot usually be done.

Now however there is a free program that gives you the best of both worlds. PDF-Xchange viewer is just that. It allows you to add your own markup to any pdf document and save it. This includes adding highlights, circles, arrows or even sticky notes. And don’t forget, it’s FREE! There are premium versions that let you do more like create your own pdf documents, but the viewer will serve your basic markup needs. If you need to create a pdf document there are free alternatives to that as well, such as Cute PDF Writer or PDF Creator. These programs allow you to create a pdf document by choosing them as your printer.

Converting YouTube and other Video Files

One of the more common tech questions I’m asked when it comes to video is how to save YouTube videos onto your computer. There are several resources out there that allow you to do this including extensions for your internet browser, websites, and other applications, but one of my favorites that was recommended by a colleague (simply because it requires no installation and can be used with any computer with internet access) is the website Zamzar.com.

Not only will Zamzar allow you to save YouTube videos to your computer in various formats, but it will also allow you to covert other files like .doc and .pdf files. To use it, simply go to their website (www.zamar.com), upload a file, choose what you would like to convert it to, enter your email address and click convert. When finished you will be emailed a link that will allow you to download your file. If instead you want to save a YouTube video, simply go to www.zamzar.com/url and past the url of the video into the “Add url” box. Click Add url, choose what format you want to covert it to, enter your email address and again, you will be sent a link to download the video in its new format.

The shortcomings of this site is that conversion can take a few minutes and you have to enter your email address instead of being taken directly to the download. However, not having to install any software or have any tech skills whatsoever for it to work is a huge plus for many users.