Fun Use of Technology in Classroom

Writing workshops FOR ADULTS from 826 Michigan

826michigan proudly presents our fall series of How to Write Like I Do workshops for adults:

Saturday, October 31, 1-4pm—Stephen Elliott, (!!!!), author of seven books including the just released true-crime memoir The Adderall Diaries, presents: Writing from Experience. Attendees will discuss how to use their own lives as jumping points and framing devices for their stories, both fiction and non-fiction.

* Stephen Elliott will also be at 826michigan on Thursday, October 29 at 7pm. He’ll read from his new novel and answer questions. This event is free to the public, so please come!

Thursday, November 5, 6-9pm—Jim Ottaviani, Eisner-nominated author of eight graphic novels about scientists, most recently T-Minus, presents: How to Write with Pictures: Scripting Graphic Novels. Attendees will discuss how the graphic medium has progressed, how to tap into its particular strengths, and how to get from idea to script to an effective collaboration with artists and editors.

Thursday, November 12, 6-9pm—Jeff Meyers, lead film critic for Detroit’s Metro Times, and editor of the online publications Metromode and Concentrate presents: A Crash Course in Screenplay Structure. Attendees will discuss the basics of screenplay structure and constructing an effective logline.

Thursday, December 10, 6-9pm—Mark Maynard, local blogger and Marketing Manager of the University of Michigan’s Office of Tech Transfer, discusses making a name for yourself in the blogosphere.

Click here to read more.

Google Wave Explained in 2 Minutes

Have you heard about the latest and greatest thing from Google, Google Wave?  Many people have but don’t really understand what it does.  The demonstration videos are rather lengthy, so I decided to post this unofficial YouTube video some fans created.  It’s a brief explanation of what Google Wave is and why you will want to use it (presented in a rather funny way).

TeacherTube: A YouTube for Educators

A new site for educators, TeacherTube, takes the sharing, production, and community-building aspects of YouTube and offers an educator’s version. According to TeacherTube’s founders, “We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners.”

The site officially launched in March 2007 and is slowly but surely gaining popularity. I’ve been sharing it and working with teachers in various districts to learn to take advantage of this kind of opportunity. What a great place for us to upload short instructional videos — or long ones; there’s no limit on size files or video length.

OS X Intro

New to the Mac environment?  Want to touch up your skills on OS X?  Take a look at the following tutorial.  Originally made for a Visual Communication Technology course at BGSU (an updated, edited version for U of M will be made available soon), this PDF will take you step-by-step through the Mac operating system.  Simply download the file and open using Adobe Reader (do not open using Preview).  It will open full-screen and will guide you through Apple OS X.

Please visit our wiki to download the tutorial:

http://g333.pbworks.com/Computer-Basics

Teaching Through the Flu Prep Workshops!

These workshops will introduce faculty and support staff to the various technological solutions recommended in the LSA Teaching Through the Flu web guide (http://bit.ly/LSAFlu). Participants will learn about various ways to handle posting lectures or media, communicating and collaborating online, collecting and distributing files, delivering live lectures over the internet and conducting tests and quizzes online. Check the workshop sessions below, or follow this link for workshop registration!

A Tale of Two Screencasting Tools: Screencastle and Screenr for Twitter

Screenr

“Screenr.  For Twitter.”  I do realize how ridiculous that sounds (I mean, just say it out loud).  However, for those of you who are frequent tweeters, or those who think you might become frequent tweeters if you ever find a use for it, Screenr might be just the kind of add-on you need.

Twitter has amassed a variety of add-in type services designed to allow you to stretch that 140 characters as far as you can.  For instance, what if you want to add a long link to your tweet?  Use bit.ly or Tweetburner.  What if you want to share images?  Twitpic.

And now you can even do short video tweets using Screenr.

§pecial Çharacters

Ever want to use special characters in a document, blog post, or tweet?  I’ve got just the website for you.  CopyPasteCharacter.com is a simple website that allows you to click on any of the available special characters (they are copied to the clipboard automatically) and then paste them into whatever you’re working on.

There are also a few extra features to this site.  If you want to copy more than one character at a time, either hold “alt” on a PC or “option” on a Mac and click on as many characters as you want.  They’ll all be copied to your clipboard so you can paste them in any application.  The website even works on the iPhone, so all of you mobile “tweeters” can easily add smiley faces and snowmen to your posts.

The Social Media Revolution

The eLearning Technology blog has an interesting video up about the Social Media revolution that has overtaken much of the world. Some of the interesting statistics posted included:

2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction

1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

I don’t think it’s quite news to most people these days that the changes in the way information is sent, sought out and digested has major implications for the way instructors teach and the way students learn, but I do think that often we don’t fully understand the scope of just how large Web 2.0 really is.

The World Digital Library

The World Digital Library makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.

Items on the WDL may easily be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information.

Navigation tools and content descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Many more languages are represented in the actual books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other primary materials, which are provided in their original languages.

The World Digital Library