TLP Blog

Virtually everyone has heard of YouTube by now and millions of viewers who go there daily attest to that fact. And although there are oodles of quality video there, finding the good stuff becomes a bit of a task. I have listed below a few alternates to YouTube that educators and students might find more valuable. If you give one a try and form an opinion, please let us know by leaving a comment.

Snag Films
What is great about this site:
All of the movies on Snag Films can be embedded into a blog or into a learning management system.
Dozens of NOVA and National geographic films are there and for free.
It is committed to providing the world‘s most compelling documentaries.

Teacher Tube
What is great about this site:
It is an educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners.
TeacherTube community members are a major part of the evolution of the site.
The service is free for everyone.

School Tube
What is great about this site:
SchoolTube provides students and educators a safe and FREE media sharing website.
It contains only moderated and teacher approved videos.

DotSub
What is great about this site:
It is a browser based tool enabling subtitling of videos on the web into and from any language.
Anyone has the ability to translate video content into multiple languages via subtitles rendered over the bottom of the video.
There is nothing to buy and nothing to download.

Woopid Video Tutorials
What is great about this site:
It has thousands of FREE video tutorials for PCs, Macs, and tons of different applications.
You can have tutorials created for you by Woopid.
You can create bundles, which are collections or groups of related videos.

If you’d like a starting point for searching for free technology solutions for teachers and students, a good place to start is with Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers at freetech4teachers.com.

Educause Live! offered a free session today, and you can watch the archive!
What it’s about:
In the past decade, the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools for sharing and creating knowledge, coupled with the creation of open-access journals, databases, and archives across the web, has begun to redefine the concept of “openness” in higher education. Advocates of the open-access campaign argue that free, virtual access to scholarly works and research advance scientific discovery and lead to faster knowledge dissemination and richer research collaborations, throwing open the doors that once restricted knowledge sharing and exploration. Critics of the movement have doubted its economic sustainability and raised concerns about its impact on peer review. Regardless, open access requires a new examination of campus copyright and publishing policy. Join us as we discuss the strategies and definitions behind open access and its implications for campus IT, librarians, administrators, and policy offices. To view the archive, click on this link.
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/ThrowingOpentheDoorsStrategies/185876

Podcasting is a route many professors are taking to provide supplementary lecture material for students, however to many, this process is still a bit fuzzy. The article, Podcasting Your Lectures 101: Recording, is a good place to begin reading about the basics of recording lectures or other content to further engage students with content.

For those teaching at CSU, Chico, the university provides every instructor with the Wimba Podcaster which is built into Blackboard Vista. This product is fairly simple to use for both faculty and students and requires little equipment to create content. If you would like to learn more about the Wimba Podcaster go to the TLP website or contact Ann Steckel in TLP at X6780 for a consultation.

Want More?
Go to the article, Podcasting Your Lectures 101: Recording

The TLP Website, The Wimba Podcaster Tool

“While there are still some educators who dispute the importance of technology in the classroom, there is no dispute over the fact that technology is here to stay in schools. Whether you are one of those tech-savvy teachers who can’t get enough of technology news and ideas or you are a teacher just learning to embrace technology in the classroom, these blogs offer a wealth of information straight from teachers and other professionals in the education field themselves.”

This blog lists some excellent resources ranging from Technology in Education to Special Education and Assistive Technology. This resource can be found at: Online Courses.org

Here is an exemplary use of Second Life. Please take a moment to watch the video.

The California Legacy Project at Santa Clara University is dedicated to preserving California’s unique culture through books, radio productions and now through the virtual world of Second Life, using machinima to visualize the writings.

This fourth episode feature Kevin Hearle reading “Dickens in Camp” (1870) by Bret Harte.

For more on The California Legacy Project, visit http://www.californialegacy.org

If you are thinking of personalizing the icons used for files, folders, and other elements in Vista, Icons Etc is a great place to look. Once you find the theme you like, click into the set and save the thumbnail images to your computer. (Creating a folder on the desktop called “Vista Icons” might be a good place to save them.) After you collect the necessary icon, enter your Vista course, and in the Build tab, click the action arrow to the right of the icon to be changed. Select “Customize Link,” “Replace Icon,” and browse for the correct icon saved to your computer.

More about Icons Etc:
Icons Etc offers 107,553 free icons and clipart stock images for web design, application design, graphic design, and many other purposes. Click on the Browse All Tags tab in the menu to browse all of tags in alphabetical order. Go to the top of the sidebar to Browse By Category (Icon Style) or scroll down and Browse Icons & Clipart by Most Tags (In descending order).

• 10 people can edit a Presentation at the same time.
• 50 people can edit a Spreadsheet simultaneously.
• 10 people can edit a Document at the same time.
• There is a limit of 200 combined viewers/ collaborators for all of the different Doc types.

View the Presentation
Go straight to the Voice Thread site

About Voice Thread:
What is a Voice Thread? A Voice Thread is a new technology that allows you to upload PowerPoint files, picture files, movie files and more to the Voice Thread program. Once files are uploaded, users can record commentary by either plain audio or webcam. You can also type in text and use the doodle tool. Students are also allowed to interact with the presentation in the same way as the teacher. Great for collaboration! Best of all, a Voice Thread subscription is free.
Go to the Voice Thread in Higher Ed Site

This session will demonstrate examples of simulations that use a mixture of web technologies, social networking and virtual worlds.

Date: June 11 Time: 10:00 am EDT Place: Online – Sign-up Here
If you can’t make the time, sign-up to get an email with a link to the recording.
Presenter: Dr Liz Falconer, Manager, E-learning Development Unit & Manuel Frutos-Perez, Deputy Manager, E-learning Development Unit, University of the West of England

This session will demonstrate examples of simulations that use a mixture of web technologies, social networking and virtual worlds. In particular we will discuss in detail a simulation that enables groups of law students to work as partners in simulated law practices in a virtual town that supports a range of casework.

We will also showcase an accident investigation simulation built in the virtual world Second Life where groups of students can experience an accident scenario, investigate it, design safe systems of work to deal with the case and work collaboratively on accident analysis and prevention.

Register Here:
http://www.horizonwimba.com/company/events/1617-she—simulations-in-higher-education

The next SL Education Roundtable  (SLER), will take place
on Tuesday, May 12, at 2:30pm SLT *at the CHSSSouth Amphitheater, on
Montclair State CHSSSouth.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Montclair%20State%20CHSSSouth/129/158/22
and will focus on students in SL.

Margaret Michalski has coordinated with a few students to join the group to talk
about their experience in SL.

If you are on Facebook, please join the SLER group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44078263753&ref=share

Be sure to check SLER on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/groups/sler/

Transcripts of meeting from 11/25/08 to present:
http://homepage.mac.com/jessid/slroundtable/090414.html

Transcripts of meetings priort to 11/25/08:
http://sler-transcripts.wikispaces.com/

*UPCOMING SCHEDULE* (subject to change) with all meeting starting at 2:30 SLT

- May 19th – Administering your Second Life
- May 26th – Future Guest and Meeting Planning
- *June 2nd – SPECIAL INTERVIEW. “Our Engaged is Not Their Engaged: The
Myth of Undivided Attention” with special guest Harry Pence (SL: John2
Kepler) Emeritus Distinguished Teaching Professor of Chemisty at SUNY
Oneonta*
- June 9th – Increasing our Ranks
- June 16th – Virtual Worlds other than Second Life
- June 23rd – Are we our Avatars?
- June 30th – International Perspectives
- July 7th – SPECIAL. TBA
- July 14th – Dealing with Non-Virtual Worlds Issues.