Your Mileage May Vary

I really thought I had already discussed this but I couldn’t find it in my archives, so here goes. Scott and Cindy are teaching video recording class currently, which has led to some discussion about about what kind of video equipment is best for teachers. There are many different opinions, but these are the items I would suggest.

1. Canon ZR800 or Canon ZR900 Digital Video camera - I like these for two main reasons; they are cheap ($249.00 Suggested Retail, cheaper online) and they have a microphone input, which is important if you want decent audio quality. The built in microphones on video cameras just aren’t that good, especially if you are filming for National Board Certification. These cameras are both MiniDV, which I still consider the best choice for digital cameras.
2. Audio-Technica PRO 88W wireless microphone system - It’s the cheapest wireless microphone system available (between $100 and $175 dollars). Wireless microphones allow you to move around freely while your camera records your audio. It’s the only way to effectively record a teacher presenting to her/his class. One piece attaches to the shoe in your camera, the other the teacher wears.
3. Any tripod - Got to have something to mount your camera on so you get a nice steady picture. Plus your arm gets tired holding up a camera for long periods of time. You can get one for as cheap as $12.00.
4. Lots of batteries for your wireless microphone - These things eat nine volts.
5. Good lighting - professional lighting is probably cost prohibitive, but even lights from Home Depot or Lowe’s can be a help.

There was a Professional Development session on podcasting today, and that led Cindy and I into a conversation on the easiest way for people to get their podcasts hosted online and syndicated. I told her about Liberated Syndication and she encouraged me to blog about it. Liberated Syndication or LibSyn is a very affordable service that both hosts your podcasts and creates the RSS feed needed for others to use iTunes or other clients to subscribe to them. It works fine with existing blogs as well. They don’t charge for bandwidth (how much others download your podcast), instead basing their prices on how much you need to upload each month. Their basic service, which runs $5.00 a month, has a 100 MB monthly storage quota, which they indcate is sufficient for a 30 minute weekly music and talk podcast. And if you lower the audio quality you can increase the frequency of your podcasts. That’s a lot of service for $60.00 a year.

New versions of Microsoft Office are being installed on computer worldwide now, as Microsoft has released Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Macintosh. These new versions offer radically overhauled user interfaces, and most importantly new file formats. The default format for files created with these applications is based on XML and is not compatible with older versions of Office. You will see file names ending with x (such as .docx instead of .doc). So colleagues who are using other versions of Office may not be able to read files you share with them. If you have Office 2007 or 2008 you can always choose to save your documents in an Office 2003/2004 format for the convenience of others who have not yet updated. But if you are still using an older version of Office you have options as well if you receive a .docx or .pptx file. Microsoft has a Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats to allow Window’s users to use your older version to open the new files. And just this week Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit released the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0 which will convert the new files to versions compatible with older versions of their software.

iPresentee is giving away a selection of their high quality visual objects for use in applications like Keynote, Powerpoint, iWeb and others. I am no fan of clip art, but these are very cool and classy icons that can be used to spice of presentations without making it look cheesy like most clip art does. And heck free is free. Check it out at the link below.

iPresentee Keynote Objects Free Sampler

This blog post appears to be a couple of years old, but it is still very cool. What we have is a graphical representation of the blogosphere. Really brings home the enormity of the whole thing. I mention this by way of introducing some new members of the blogosphere. The participants in the 2008 Memphis City School’s Tech Camp have all started their own blogs. Check them out below.

• Amanda Bass - Egypt Elem.
• Elisa Brock - Craigmont High
• Laura Smith - Downtown Elem.
• Leann Dowty - SouthSide Middle
• Angel Jackson - White Station Elem.
• Freda Neely - Germanshire Elementary
• Monica Campbell - A. Maceo Walker
• Suzanne Garverick - Downtown Elem.
• Serita Abraham - Sharpe Elem.
• Latonya Taylor - Manassas High
• Jake Farrell - American Way Middle

Photo Credit - Cindy Putnam

We’re not talking about a monotone delivery here, but rather the presentation style. We post regularly here at Edtechteachers.com about effective use of presentation software like PowerPoint and Keynote, and this article from the Wired How-To Wiki entitled “Make a Presentation Like Al Gore” has some great tips on what to do and more importantly what not to do when creating a presentation.

This presentation probably won’t make a whole lot of sense as it is heavily dependant on my narration, but for the sake of interest here it is. If I get a chance I’ll produce a narrated one at a later date.

Most of my colleagues and myself are members of a social network known as LinkedIn. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, LinkedIn focuses much more on the network than it does the social. Primarily a tool for business networking, you post you resume and other information online and connect to people you know or have business relationships with. It’s useful for reconnecting with people from schools and employers from your past, as well as seeking consulting positions or looking for a new job. There is a nice mobile version for iPhones as well. If nothing else it helps me keep up with how many years I have until retirement. Check the article below.

At Social Site, Only the Businesslike Need Apply - NYTimes.com

Also here is my Public Profile if you want to check out what they look like.

Since the new version of the web browser Firefox (Firefox 3) went live today, I thought you might enjoy viewing this screencast I ran across which highlights its new features. Mozilla was attempting to break a World Record for downloads today witha special “Download Day“, and as a result their servers have been pretty hammered. So downloading is slow. Might be advisable to wait a day or so until the hubbub dies down. But watching the screencast can get you fired up in advance.

Firefox 3 New Feature Screencast

Update: Here’s a nice article from Lifehacker on some Power User tips for FF3.

I am a big fan of Blue’s Snowball USB microphone for podcasting. It works without drivers for both Macs and PCs, and can be used to record audio for an individual or a group. Perhaps it’s only drawback is that it is a bit large to carry around in your bag with your laptop. Now Blue has rectified that slight deficiency with its new Snowflake microphone. Also a driverless USB model, this one is small, and can clip on the screen of most laptops. This is one piece of equipment you won’t mind carrying around in your bag. And it’s cheaper to boot. I can’t wait to pick mine up.

I absolutely love this new blogging tool I ran across yesterday. It is a Firefox Extension called Dashblog. You can grab screen caps from any web page and then annotate them with text, drawings and arrows. Then you can automatically post to your blog directly from the Dashblog interface. Very easy and convenient. Other tools such as Jing do similar things, but Dashblog allows me to do it all without leaving my web browser. Highly recommended.

BTW this post was done with Dashblog.

I ran across an intriguing new searc engine today called Viewzi. Now there are scads of search engines on the internet, and most offer little you can’t get from Google. But Viewzi is somewhat unique in that it is a visual search engine. You type in your search term, and are presented with choices for what type of search you wish to perform. There is an Album View (searches Amazon Music and Last.FM), 3D Photo Cloud View (searches Flickr), Web Screenshot View (searches Yahoo), Basic Photo View (searches Flickr and Riya), 4 Sources View (searches Ask, MSN, Google, and Yahoo) and many others. The results are displayed in a variety of visual ways. Pictures in rows or a cloud, web screen caps of sites, etc. You can scroll through them and click on the ones you wish to visit. It makes searching almost fun. See the Web Screenshot Search for Edtechteachers below.

Stealing a little more of Scott’s Google Earth thunder. Now you can tour Walt Disney World in 3D with Google Earth. Check out the official announcement at Google’s blog. Also get information at the Google Earth Blog and Google Blogoscoped. There is also a video demo here (embedded Youtube video, not available behind MCS content filter.) This would be a great resource to introduce Google Earth to younger students, as Disney World should be a motivating and interesting topic for them.

Photo From Google Earth

We love Google Earth here at EdTechTeachers, so I was really excited to see this fun Google Earth activity at The Tech Savvy Educator. Google Earth is a free program available from Google that allows individuals to access advanced geographic and mapping information, resources and activities. It’s a fantastic educational tool and this blog entry demonstrates a great example of how it can be used. See the activity and instructions at the link below.

The Tech Savvy Educator » Google Earth Scavenger Hunt

Well school’s out and you may find yourself needing some decent internet so you can get started researching next year’s lessons or just shopping at eBay. Luckily today Starbucks has launched free wi-fi internet at its stores, replacing the paid only service previously provided. As you might expect however, there is a catch. You have to have a Starbucks gift card, register it online with Starbucks, and use it twice a month. These small hoops however will grant you two hours of free wireless internet a day. More info is available at the link below.

Sign Up for Starbucks - AT&T Wi-Fi