Thursday, June 23, 2011

Slideshare for Teachers

Welcome to the Slideshare where you can upload your presentations (powerpoint example), documents and videos. There are also other features like finding good information from different topics, make  Slidecasts (presentation with audio) and Zipcast (live presentation of slideshow).

I use Slideshare finding quick information from new topics and also new presentations on social media. I also follow some top names on Slideshare and embed presentation to my blog.  You can make different kind of searches from presentations like most views, latest and favored, most downloads, browse by category and filter by type (presentations, documents, slidecasts, videos.

Part I tutorials presents basic use of Slideshare, Part II show how to make Slidecasts and Part III presents Zipcast in action.



Part I - Basic use of Slideshare
Slideshare Tutorial





Slideshare: Why should you use it by Amit Ranjan


SlideShare 101
View more presentations from Amit Ranjan

Part II - Slidecast

Slidecast Tutorial




Slidecast tutorial: Creating a Slidecast


Part III - Zipcast

Introducing Zipcast by Rashmi Sinha

Introducing Zipcast
View more presentations from Rashmi Sinha

Zipcast Tutorial


Monday, June 20, 2011

Google Docs for Teachers and Classrooms


This post presents Google Docs use in the Classroom. Google Docs is excellent collaboration tool for teachers, school development and classroom use. Basicly its about collaborative planning and writing, sharing information, working simultaneously with other students or teachers, and in my opinion it should be used on every school.  

I use Google Docs nowdays in writing project plans when network of schools apply funding for projects. We use Facebook closed groups organization and innovating the creative writing process and then write whole application in Google. Some of our student use it in planning school projects.  Lets take Google Docs in everyday use in schools. First there is a tutorial from Josh Stumpenhorst  how to use Google Docs.  There are also  lots of examples Google Docs in classroom.


Using Google Docs 101 from Josh Stumpenhorst @stumpteacher





Google Docs in the Classroom by Melanie Wiscount

Google Docs in Classroom

Google Docs in Classroom


Thursday, June 16, 2011

Flickr for Teachers and Classrooms


This post presents basic use of Flickr and some practical ideas for use of Flickr in classroom. I use Flickr in mainly two ways, first saving my family pictures safe place and keep them private and second find free Creative commons pictures for my presentations with students or other teachers. More information on creativecommons.org. You can also share your pictures, join groups, collaborate with other users. This photo found in creative commons search: Kids in school / classroom. Link: School children at a floating primary school


School children at a floating primary school, Prek Toal Wildlife Sanctuary.  Picture by Tajai















         If you havent sign in yet, take a tour in Flickr and see what is going on there. 
First two tutorials presents basic use of Flickr and the rest gives ideas how to use Flickr in classroom.

               Introduction on Flickr

How to use Flickr: 10 Steps in Two Minutes 



U Tech Tips Presents: Flickr - Photo sharing





                Flickr In Classroom


 Using Flickr as on online classroom - case study



Flickr in Classroom by Nicledndimed




Flickr in art teaching

 




If you want more Flickr tools:


Wednesday, June 15, 2011

New features of Prezi and Prezi for Ipad

My first Prezi post How to make a Prezi - Rookie to Pro in 20 Minutes presented basic use of Prezi and second one Prezi part 2 - in Classroom gave some ideas for using Prezi in School.  Todays post presents some new features of Prezi and use it with  Ipad.

In Interview Peter Arvai CEO of Prezi talk about Prezi Meeting, which allows people to edit and work on the same Prezi presentation together, in real time,  on different computers. From building43



 

Better lines and arrows, image cropping




Instuructions from Prezi Blog http://blog.prezi.com/

You can use arrows and lines to make your prezi story easier to follow. Based on your feedback, we have updated this feature.
How to draw straight lines, resize and bend lines and arrows:
1. Draw a line or arrow and double-click it.
2. Drag the control points on one of the edges to resize length / move edges on the canvas
3. Drag the control point at the center of a line or arrow to bend it
4. Set the thickness of lines or arrows using the Zebra’s middle ring
Also, you can save a lot of time by cropping your images right in prezi without using any third party editors to set up your photos before loading them to your prezi.
How to crop images:
1. Double-click on an image to see the four control points.
2. Drag control points to select the part of the image you want to keep.
3. Hit Enter or ESC to crop the image; or, click anywhere outside of the image to crop.



Customize colors, fonts, drag and drop files!





Prezi + Ipad





More Prezi for Ipad



Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Prezi part 2 - in Classroom

My first Prezi post How to make a Prezi - Rookie to Pro in 20 minutes  presented the diffferent ways to make good presentations with Prezi. This post gives you some ideas to use Prezi in Classroom.

Prezi Meeting in the Classroom by Zoltan Radnai



Prezi by Paul Hill:  Thoughts on using Prezi as a teaching tool




From Tom Barret: 13 interesting ways to use Prezi in the
More Prezi in Classroom:

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Social bookmarking part 2 - Diigo in Classroom

Diigo is good tool also in classroom. Theacher can use problem based learning metodhs - students can decide their research problem and find individual and collaborative information. Also Diigo is good tool for all kinds of projects to find reliable information. In first video tutorial you find examples of teaching literature with help of Diigo.





Second example is a great speech from  Elisabeth Crispino using Diigo with 5. graders
 Really interesting!  

 



More information on Diigo in classroom:
Dig deeper with Diigo by Jennifer Dorman 
Three Uses of Diigo in the History and Language Arts Classroom
Using Diigo in Classroom by Steven Yuen
Social Bookmarking in Classroom by Steven Anderson
Student Learning with Diigo







Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Social bookmarking - Diigo for Teachers

After using actively Facebook and especially Twitter with TweetDeck I had huge collection of great education technology links in my Twitter favorites-file. Problem was that it was impossible to find any specific topic or link. Then I found Diigo and my over thousand links transferred to my Diigo-library. That was the beginning of my social bookmarking career.

Social bookmarking is about to save, store,share and group bookmarks on the Internet online. There are many others like Diigo, example Delicious. But I use Diigo, so today I present some fantastic possibilities what Diigo offers. To teachers who dont want to use Facebook or Twitter and be in social networks,  Diigo give tools to get information from whole Diigo community anonymously. There are also networking possibilities, but its up to you, share or not. I use Diigo mostly when I need to find new information, save my Twitter favorites. Best thing is, that my links are always with me. There are many other ways, example using in research, find information on topics from other users, make research groups from same topics,  bookmark web pages online.

I share this topic to posts. In this post I present through tutorial how to use Diigo effectively. Next post presents different ways how to use Diigo in education and classroom.


This first tutorial Social Bookmarking: Making the Web Work for You opens up concept of sosial bookmarking and use of Diigo




 Shorter version of Diigo presentation.




More Information: Diigo tutorial page by Jennifer Dorman

Next post: Diigo in education and classroom

Sunday, June 5, 2011

How to make a Prezi - Rookie to Pro in 20 Minutes

Lesson starts, clock is ticking, after 20 minutes you know how to make excellent Prezi presentations.

Presentation tool Prezi is coming little by little use of teachers. Learning to Use Prezi is easy, just check these tutorials and examples and you are real pro in 20 minutes. 


What is Prezi?




You learn move, rotate, zoom, path, scale, add text, pictures and text

 




Learn more from frames and grouping



Example tutorial: Prezi Editing: Ice cream for everyone!



Lesson is over, its time for homework!

Homework:

Manual for Prezi
How to create a great Prezi by Adam Somlai-Fischer
More Prezies

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Facebook in marketing and branding school

In Voionmaa upper secondary school are 540 students and most of them are athletics or really active in sports. Because of large interest in sports and health, there are influence our marketing and branding school.


What makes Facebook so good communication tool in school community?
Almost every student has a profile, in our school about 95% use it. Its easy way to share comments, pictures and videos - just what students like. Their also want be part of communities and because school is so big part of their life, school community in Facebook really works even among former students.

Our most used marketing channel is Facebook together with our website.  We have simple marketing principles: In marketing terms our Product is quality general education;  Extra services – what more you get – friendship, community of student, who are active in athletics, interested in health, active learning projects; Image We provide student an active, sporty community, where students feel safe to learn and meet friends in good  atmosphere– new students become a membership of Voionmaa School Tribe. 
We are documenting all the events  in pictures and videos to our website and Facebook. There are also principles of documentation: Entertainment- for your senses,  Esthetic(visual look), Educational (learning is also fun, student can participate), Escapism– moment away from reality,   experiences of participation. Wy try to link all those elements on documentations.
We make 2-4 new videos from our school with MovieMaker and use lot of mobile videos. Our Head  engineer:) Jarkko Sairanen is also in Twitter. Here is one presentation video from Voionmaan upper secondary school. with translation.
Welcome to Voionmaa upper secondary school, next year you are studying somewhere. How do feel studying school,  where basic teaching is good, but there is something else going on. . .There is chance for sports training for everyone, training places are beside the school, studying with project based learning, teachers are challenged involved projects, you are most welcome here, to Voionmaa

Using Facebook for marketing events

Voionmaan upper secondary school Big High School Union held in December 2010. We wanted to get together our current and former students which are in our Facebook community. One important motive was also strengthen the whole Facebook community face-to-face event. Our primary target were old students last 10 period.
We used all kind of promotions, but the effective one was videos of teachers, made by teachers. Also old students made their on videos and invate their own class to join. All videos  were shoot by mobile, easy and quick and impression of reality. Teacher-videos connect their experience, old memories of favorite teachers, the good high school times (dont we all miss it:). There were about 20 teacher videos and all had same message in different personal ways - come and meet old students and teachers once again in 17.12. 2010.


Here is one example from our sport and health science teacher - we have great hockeyplayers in our school. Quick translation: "ok, former and current students, its a game day, celebration day 17.12., it doesnt matter, are you coming through center, or sides, be brave, come straigt to goal area, in 17.12.
Mobile promotion video from our teacher Mika Lievonen. Another seconds from our former students,  gymnactics group called Akrobatmanboys, who were also perfom in event. Translation: "Do you want to see more, see you in 17.12. Gymnastics mobile video 

We had 400 old students Big High School Union and feedback was really positive, their honered the community memory and membership We also made the deal, that their would come when needed to tell about their studies and professions in our councellor club almost held in every week. We published some after event videos and here is one minute from Acrobatmanboys performing (total gymnastic presentation was 25 minutes) Acrobatmanboys


For teacher working with Facebook in school community is emotional and fun, rewarding to show all kind of talents students have, different from normal work and its just so esthetic to document a life of  enthusiastic young learners.