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Blog retirement

Since I'm at a new school, I have a different set of responsibilities and no longer have time to keep up this techblog. Since I'd rather not do something at all than do it half-way, I'm going to retire this blog. Besides, there are many people out there who do it much better than me. Here are a few of those people:
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
http://www.makeuseof.com/
http://teachers20.com/
http://www.networkworld.com/community/ashley

BUT, I am keeping my delicious bookmark account. It's a great way for me to keep sharing all those great websites & tools out there, but much less time-consuming than writing an article about each one I find. So, let me share that account with those of you who follow the blog:
http://delicious.com/pamelalibrarian
All of the resources from this blog have been bookmarked on my account!
There are links to great techblogs there too.
Thanks for reading up to this point!
I still have and will always have my bookblog: http://www.hillbookblog.blogspot.com/
And I'm still active on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/pamelalibrarian
and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pamelalibrarian

Digital Sticky Notes

You know how I love organizational software.
I previously used Microsoft OneNote for my digital sticky note needs. It was really cool. It was called a "side-note." All you had to do was click or press a certain key for a small note to pop up & you could write on it & keep it handy right on your computer. You could have more than one & resize them as needed. Then it stopped working. It worked again for a while, then stopped again. Ok. I can still use OneNote for other things, but certainly not for side notes.

So when I saw this program, I was excited to have my digital sticky notes back! Stickies is the name of the program. It's totally free. Plus, your notes can stay on your screen - even through shutting down & rebooting! Wow, OneNote couldn't do that! (and you can customize the font & colors of the stickies. I made mine pink)

The author of the program has quite a sense of humor. He notes here how the program is simple, but does exactly what you need it to do & no more
"Stickies will never support animated dancing figures, or play "Greensleeves". They are instead yellow rectangular windows onto which you can put some text notes. Once created, they will stay on screen until you take them away. Just like a real sticky piece of paper. "
That cracked me up. Now if only I could find those dancing fingers! (j/k)
Love it!

Tikatok - Story Making

Tikatok is a site where kids can create their own stories, upload their own pictures and create a book! It's all free unless you want to print copies of your book. Printed copies are about $20.
I think this would be a very cool way to get kids more interested in writing. You don't have to have your book printed to really enjoy it. They show books online & you can scroll through them. Click on the picture below to see a sample book about how the site works. Explore the community, read other books ~ it's very cool. I see a lot of potential here for kids in the classroom as well as at home. (I would've totally loved this as a kid!)

One True Media

For another movie/slide show maker like Animoto and Slide.com, check out One True Media.

Wow! So many ways to customize your show. For a sample show from the teacher who introduced me to this site, Ms. Hewson, click here.
Think of how you could use this like she did to showcase her students and also how your students could use this for projects!

Internet Radio

I didn't feel the need to use Internet radio. I had my Satellite Radio, after all. But then they stopped including it for free with your subscription, so I needed something else. I listen to music A LOT. I listen while on my computer, at work, walking around the house, running; so really the same ole, same ole iPod list was gettin' old too fast. Even with adding new music every now & then, it got old fast. I don't feel like paying for 20 -30 new songs every week. So, when I saw the listing of radio options that are piling up in the Blackberry apps list, I thought I'd give a few a try. Here's my summary, so far. (By the way, these are all available on the computer or your phone. And these are all FREE!

I tried Slacker Radio first. I like this one. You can select from one of the preset stations or create your own. As songs come on, you can tell it whether or not you like the song or the artist. You can block artists or songs or favorite them. It becomes intuitive and begins playing more songs you like. I had a lot of fun with this. You get to skip songs you don't like (but only 6 per hour per station, unless you upgrade to the pay version). It did a pretty good job of picking songs I liked. It was better when you selected a artist & go from there. When I started with a station (a genre), it was less accurate at picking good songs.
There was something funky with the sound every now & then. (I'm listening on a Blackberry Curve 8900 - could it be something with that? Perhaps this would not happen to you?) I tried different headphones to see if it was me. I'm not sure what it was - but that was the only glich that got me to look elsewhere.

Next, I tried Pandora. It has similar in features. But rather than choosing a station, it asks you to name an artist or song that you like - then it starts playing songs it thinks are similar. I couldn't believe it. From that moment on, it played song after song that I not only liked, but loved! Then after a while, I wanted to try another genre. So I entered another artist & again, it played song after song that I loved. The cool part is setting up different stations depending on your mood.
By the way, it also has the 6 skips per hour per station, like Slacker. But I found that I need to skip way less, since it picks such great songs. You can also bookmark songs. And there is no funky stuff going on with the sound, like with Slacker.

The other radio app I tinkered with was Flycast. This is an app that plays radio stations who stream their programming through the Internet. I was interested in this one for AM radio. There a few programs I like to listen to in the car. But for whatever reason (my geographical location, the amount of interference, etc.), I don't get the best AM reception driving through the small towns that I frequent. But I am able to get them trough Flycast crystal clear and again - free! Now I can listen in the car to the AM radio programs that I want using my phone. (the volume is great on the BB 8900, btw, with headphones or not.)
It has FM stations from all over too. But the AM feature is what I need & enjoy.

There are around 50 radio apps on the Blackberry apps list I use. There are far more online.
In fact, I've heard* alot of great things about this one:
Blip.fm (click here for more about how you can stream Blip.fm through your iphone or ipod touch - way cool!)

More:
Last.fm
Live365
Shoutcast

*thanks to Jeff Johnson for the link and info about blip.fm.

You choose what works best for you & have fun listening to the music you like.

Google Time Line

Wow! If you like history or just like playing with timelines - check this out!
Google News Timeline

When you first pull it up, it will give you the current week. But you can also enter in any week of your choice. I kept putting in older dates to see how far back it would go. I went all the way to the 1700's.
Now it that wasn't cool enough on it's own, you can tell it to use more sources for the timeline. It defaults with Time & Wikipedia. You can add other sources such as newspapers & sports sources.

For the classroom, this would be a great way to show your kids what was going on during a certain time period when you're studying a topic in well, any subject! You'll love it!

More cloud computing - with Adobe Buzzword

Adobe has its own version of cloud computing*, like Google with Google Docs. It's called Buzzword.

*Also called Office 2.0 but in education, I think we like the term "cloud computing" better.

You can file share, create PDFs, have web conferences with screen sharing. It's a nice clean looking program. People say that it looks more like a desktop application than other cloud programs. Here's one review. Here's another.

I've mentioned Zoho before. They seem to have added a lot more features since the last time I visited. I wanted to check in and see if they've improved. I really like the layout and all the different functions! Here's a more detailed review.

From what I've gathered, these programs are great for cloud computing, but with lengthier more involved projects, your desktop software may be the better choice.

I still like GoogleDocs for school use, since so many districts are getting domains within Google to use for their students & staff. But really, any of these are great ways to do computing at school & at home without having to worry about a flash drive (kids are notorious for losing stuff, right) or email yourself.


If you're looking for a way to collaborate, I really like these programs for that. In a classroom, a teacher can open up a document & the kids can collaborate together either in a lab setting or using one computer & taking turns. There are a lot of possiblities.

Remember Everything with Evernote

Ok, sign me up for anything that promises to help you REMEMBER EVERYTHING! Ok, maybe that's slightly extreme. But this looked cool. I'm always a sucker for organizational software. I use Microsoft OneNote (totally love it!) and Outlook ~ especially the tasks lists & post it notes. In fact, I really need to organize my organizational software, so it's not so confusing! Ha.
So I downloaded Evernote to my Blackberry (it also works with iPhone & your computer). Then I took some pictures & wrote some notes. Now, here comes the cool part. I then logged onto the account on my laptop & all the notes I took were right there in my account! Woah. Normally, you have to synch your BB to your computer to get that! But this is instant.
Other perks:
*It can read handwriting within images! (so you can search for words within your pics)
*Email or MMS notes from your phone into your account
*Clip entire web pages and save all the links and contents
And that is only the tip of the iceberg!

I'm off to organize some more!

Search Engine Fun & also searching for kids with ASK Kids & Yahoo Kids

There are so many new & great search engines out there. I thought I'd spotlight a few.

Leapfish is nifty because you can search several places at once. And it uses the current top search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN. Rather than having to choose whether you want to search pictures, news, sites, blogs or answers, you can search all at once and Leapfish shows you the results in little boxes. Here's what the first page looks like. Go on, try it. Click on the picture to go.

FOR KIDS: Most of you have probably already heard of Ask.com. But I revisited their kids site & it's pretty neat. Here's what the main page looks like. Kids just type in their search term...


And with a basic search like "cats" they get a notecard-like summary at the top, which is a nice ovearl snapshot of the search term. Plus, they get a section where they can choose from many different images...


And probably my favorite feature is the ability to narrow or expand their search! This is something you usually only find in databases. So the librarian & teacher in me loves this feature, so that we can teach kids about searching effectively.

Plus AskKids just looks really cool, right.

Here's the main page AskKids




One final search engine spotlight. Yahoo has a great site for kids that includes a search engine. Their parent page assures us that they have real live humans reviewing all of their content, so it's safe for kids. When kids use the search engine, they get results from the Yahoo site, from the Yahoo directory (formerly called Yahooligans), and from the web. It sounds like the search and all of the content is safe for kids. They also have some great info on Internet safety for parents to help teach their kids to be safe online. Plus, there isn't a way for kids to communicate through this site - in case you're a parent worried about that. Wow, this could've been a post all by itself!
Anyway, this will be my son's homepage on his new laptop. It gets my vote!

Free Website Creators

Remember the day when you had to learn complicated software to create a website?
Well those days are over. People often ask me about creating websites, so I thought it might be helpful to show you a few places where you can create a FREE and EASY website.

The first one is Microsoft Office Live. Microsoft Office Live has several things going on. Live Workspace is their cloud computing section (like GoogleDocs & Adobe Buzzword). They also have Live Spaces, which is their blog software. But what you're looking for is the Office Live Small Business, which is the website creator. You don't have to be a "business" either to create a website. I have a website through them, and I enjoy working with the program. Here's what I like:
*It's very easy to build a site.
*Lots of templates - not a huge amount, but enough for my purposes
*You can choose your own domain name for free
*You can create several email accounts associated with the domain name
*You can upload docs, pics, videos etc (For videos, you will prefer to have an embed code. If you want to upload videos that aren't hosted elsewhere-you will need to do a little more legwork - it's possible, but not super, super easy)
*There are a few reporting functions to see who is visiting your site
The only drawback I've seen so far is the fact that it doesn't mesh with WordPress. Microsoft has its own blog (Windows Live Spaces) within the software, but I didn't really like that. It does allow Blogger blogs to be imported.
I originally thought you couldn't import your own banner on a website, but I've seen sites where this has been done, so appears to be possible.
I've seen some really beautiful websites created through Microsoft Office Live.

The next FREE website creator is Webs.com. I created a site through webs.com back when it was called Freewebs.com. It served my purposes back then, but if they hadn't upgraded, I would've easily outgrown this program. They now have many more templates, more flexibility and frankly the sites look great!

They have a neat community feature too. You can allow your friends to upload videos to your photo or video album. You can add a forum/message board to your site. You can easily add widgets, polls, RSS feeds, even your own store that accepts payments. Overall, these upgrades look fantastic! The all new Webs.com appears to have everything you would need in building a site.

Next is Wix.com. Wix seems to have all of the features of Webs.com, but uses Flash.
Here's what they're saying about it on their site "High quality fully customizable designs
Go beyond Flash templates. Find all the graphics you need on Wix.com.
Loaded with tons of designs, media items, effects, and animations."
Sounds awesome - especially since it's free!
There are many, many more free websites out there. Here are few more to check out:
Weebly
Yola
Homestead

TeachersRecess

At first glance, you might assume that TeachersRecess is just another webiste with gobs of teacher stuff on it. It's not. I mean, it does have gobs of teacher stuff on it, but it's so much more. It really is a social network site for teachers. Here are the details:

• It's free to join.
• You can create a profile - like on all the other social network sites.
• There is a file cabinet full of uploaded lessons in every subject area.
• There is an exchange where you can buy & sell teacher-y stuff.
• It has a bulletin board to post questions, comments and events.
• You can chat in real time with other teachers in the teacher's lounge.

It looks like fun and it does have a lot of great lessons. You can browse the lessons without signing up, if you want. I think you'll be surprised at all TeachersRecess has to offer. I'm not thrilled with the name, though. It doesn't roll of the tongue easily.
For a quick tour click on the owl to the left.