Mulit-Media Project:Screenr

Web 2.0 Tool:  SCREENR!



     I experimented with the awesome, simple to use, and FREE Web 2.0 Tool, Screenr!  It is an application that records video and audio.  Anything that is on your computer screen can be recorded.  All you do is type in http://www.screenr.com/  and you can get started. It has a quick one-minute tour of how to use the application if you'd like.  First, Click RECORD on the top right of  the screen, then put the Recording Frame wherever you want it to go.  You can adjust the size of the frame as well.  Next, choose the microphone you want to use, then click RECORD!  Another cool feature it has is that you can pause it if you need to.  When you are finished then you click DONE!  You can add a message at the bottom to describe your video. Next you click PUBLISH and then you have many choices of where you want to place it.  You can publish it it on UTube, Facebook, Twitter, you can embed it into your Blog which is what I did, or you can email it.  LOVE Screenr!!
     Using this tool in the classroom would be so much fun!  It would be a useful tool to explain basically anything.  The teacher could step by step show the students how to use an unfamiliar program such as Google Doc, Spreadsheets or Picasa and record it then post it on the teachers blog.  Also, the teacher could show and explain assignments using Screenr. When the students go home they will have an example of how to do their assignment.  It would eliminate many the excuses of "I didn't hear you" or "I didn't know we were supposed to do that!" and also saves time for the teacher having to have those conversations or having to repeat herself over and over again!! The kids could use it for projects to teach other students about something that they learned for a project or speech. It would also be helpful for teachers to keep tutorials on file of programs that they use infrequently and maybe need a quick refresher before they need to present it.  My 3 kids loved using it for our gerbil race.  They thought it was pretty cool and wanted to watch it over and over again!  Super quick and easy to use!

My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools

Component 1

Web 2.0 includes many free tools and applications to use on any computer. These tools can help you in managing your pictures, creating exciting lesson plans, you can send audio and visual links full of information such as projects, seminars etc.  Web 2.0 tools has a bookmarking tool that you can put all your favorite links onto for quick retrieval and because it is web based you won't ever lose them even if your computer goes down. With Skype you can talk with and see friends and family or have conference calls free of charge all over the world.  Pretty amazing! The cool thing is that it is web based so you can have access to all of it wherever you are, from any computer. I have included some of the tools and their links below:

Blogs:             Blogger-www.blogger.com/ 

Photos:           Picasa -picasa.google.com/ 

Whiteboard:   Skrbl- www.skrbl.com/

Video/Audio:  You Tube-www.youtube.com/ Click link for a You Tube Example: Steve Jobs
                      Yodio-www.yodio.com/ 
                      Skype-www.skype.com/

Google Docs:  Docs-docs.google.com 
                       Sheets-docs.google.com/spreadsheets     
                       Presentation-docs.google.com/presentations
     
Bookmarking:  Delicious-delicious.com/

Tech Support:  Teamviewer-www.teamviewer.com/
                        Drop Box- http://www.dropbox.com/

Assessment:     Google Forms-www.google.com/google-d-s/forms/

Social:              Facebook-www.facebook.com/               
                        Twitter -twitter.com/ 

Component 2

Tiny URL

tinyurl.com

For Reviews and Testamonials click below: (not super helpful but the only one I could find)

review/testamonials

Tiny URL is a basic, easy to use, free service.  It creates tiny URL's to replace thelong ones that sometimes break when sending them in an email.  It never expires and won't break in email posting.  All you need to do is copy and paste your long URL in the designated spot and hit the "Make Tiny URL" button and a new smaller URL is automatically created.  You then copy and paste the smaller URL wherever you want it to be.  It's that easy!  You can also preview the link before you copy and paste it.

Ways this tool can increase teacher/student productivity:

• confidence in knowing that the receipent of your link will receive the entire link intact
• fast and easy
• smaller link looks more professional, clear and precise
• can use it when posting blogs for students or parents
• able to use it when sending info to students for projects or papers
• can basically use it whenever you need a smaller URL!

Google Docs Group Project #2-Picasa

The purpose of this project was to explore Picasa and Picasa Web finding ways that we could utilize its features in our future classrooms.  Below is an example of a collage made in Picasa and a link to the assignment.



Collage made in Picasa



Click Link below to view Picasa and Picasa Web Album Assignment:
Google Doc

After exploring and using some of it's features, I am growing to love Picasa and Picasa Web Albums!!

I even hope to use it for my personal photos to create albums and send photos to family.  I've never used this program before so everything was new to me.  I do enjoy editing pictures and making albums but don't have a lot of experience doing it.  The programs were pretty easy to use and figure out on my own but my aunt had a little experience with using it as well so we thought it would be fun to work together exploring it's features. 

This tool could be useful for editing classroom pictures and creating an end of the school year memory album. With the face recongnition feature it would be simple to group each students picture together for  individual albums of class activities for parents to see. Students could create collages for projects or reports.  It is a fast process once you are familiar with the program and would save time and money because you don't have to print out many different pictures.  I also like the amount of control that you have being able to choose who sees what. 

I contributed to the group by exploring the program and learning how to use many of it's features.  I used Picnik to edit some of my pictures and created a collage to see how it would work, it's pretty cool!  I also made a web album.  I used Google Docs to answer each of the assigned questions as, adding a link to my collage and to my web album as well.