Is there an alternative to Google?

I just read a post in TechCrunch by V. Wadhwa highlighting some of the problems associated with "googling" in the wild. It seems that spam and advertising seems to rise to the top everytime, contaminating the results. I've found that depending on the topic, a Google hunt can be quite a safari expedition! You have to be quite ruthless in filtering out the commercial sites with a series of "minus this" and "minus that". And I always have the sneaking suspicion that I've just eliminated the perfect site by doing so! Wadhwa offers a solution in the form of Blekko. (Here's the complete article.)


Here's how Wadwha describes it: 

"Blekko was founded in 2007 by Rich Skrenta, Tom Annau, Mike Markson, and a bunch of former Google and Yahoo engineers. [...] In addition to providing regular search capabilities like Google’s, Blekko allows you to define what it calls “slashtags” and filter the information you retrieve according to your own criteria. Slashtags are mostly human-curated sets of websites built around a specific topic, such as health, finance, sports, tech, and colleges." 

A quick look at the site makes me want to explore this "new" search engine. Might be a good addition to the research toolkit!

iPhone app for "on the fly" translation

Introducing "Word Lens" for the iPhone
http://questvisual.com/

I usually prefer to review apps that teachers can use directly in the classroom with kids, but I couldn't pass up blogging about this one. True, not every kid will arrive with an iPhone, but the newest iPods and iPads will soon have cameras ( so this app could be used by more than just phone owners.) In some ways, watching this app in action is like watching magic!

Word Lens translates from English to Spanish and vice versa "on the fly" via the camera. You see the street sign "magically" switch languages right on your phone screen. Although the dictionary is limited to two languages for the moment, this app has tremendous potential. Each language "pack" costs $4.99, and I imagine more languages will be available soon. I would love to see a version that works with Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. 


While the translation is not perfect, I think it leverages the tremendous power that smartphones are placing in the pockets of many of our students.

Storybird - an easy, fun storytelling platform

Today I read a post in the School Library Journal by Christopher Bell talking about an online storytelling tool called "Storybird". 


As the Storybird site explains, they "are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print. Read them like books, play them like games, and send them like greeting cards. They’re curiously fun." Christopher Bell agrees. (Here's a link to his blog post: LINK.) One of the great features is that you get to choose from a range of very nice artwork to build your story. Students get a very professional looking product right away. This allows more focus on the storytelling part of the task. A nice feature for the parents of budding authors is that the final version can be printed as a coffee-table book. (Perfect gift for Granny!) The only thing lacking is an embed feature and the nifty flash page flip found on other sites. (Although, this does make it more iPad friendly.) With a screen capture program, you could even record the student's voice as s/he narrates and flips pages, and then the resulting movie could be shared with others.



Storybird Quick Tour from Storybird on Vimeo.

Read URLs in another language: a translating bookmarklet

While machine translators are not foolproof, they can certainly help bridge some of the communication gaps for the user. I've tried the Google bookmarklet by translating a page into French (which I speak) and, guess what: it's not too shabby! Your beginning ESL students will thank you. Simply visit the page below, and find the appropriate target language button, and drag it to your address bar. So easy.

http://translate.google.com/translate_buttons

"Add a translation browser button to your browser's Links Toolbar to translate web pages or pieces of text with a single click. While surfing the web, if you find a piece of text you'd like to translate, select the text with your mouse and click the browser button. If you want to translate a whole web page, simply click the button."


Try it right now by clicking HERE.

Determining Readability - with just one click!

So you have a class with a range of learners (who doesn't) and you are trying to differentiate your instruction by choosing a range of reading material for the project your students are working on. You know that you can use something like EBSCO to search for articles because it will give you the lexile reading level of the articles you find. But what about articles on the internet... is there a way to determine the reading level, easily? Why yes there is. I happened across a site called "Read-able" (The Readability Test Tool) which allows you to plug in the URL of a page you are considering and it reports back the readability using a number of different metrics. Their motto: "Let's make the unreadable readable."

As they say on the site:

The Readability Test Tool takes the text on your web page and gives a score for the most used readability indicators.

• Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease
• Flesch Kincaid Grade Level
• Gunning Fog Score
• Coleman Liau Index
• Automated Readability Index (ARI)

You can even get a bookmarklet to drag to your address bar so that you can easily (one click!) get a sense of the page. This is a great tool, well worth checking out.

Add text-to-speech to your browser

vozMe lets you add a speech synthesis bookmarklet to your browser. Select any text as you browse, click the vozMe button in your browser and you will hear the text in a somewhat mechanical Irish accent (male voice). This is a great way to add accessibility to the browsing experience.  Putting the bookmarklet on your classroom computer browser 's menu bar means a student with some text challenges could have the page, or part of it, read to him/her. With some discrete earbuds, no one else needs to hear!

See this link to install the bookmarklet. (Choose from a female or a male voice.) The resulting mp3 can even be downloaded. The voice has a certain "Stephen Hawking" quality, but is sstill quite usable.

"Forms" - an easy way to collect data!

One thing I'm using more and more is the "Forms" feature in Google docs. (You will need a gmail account.) This feature allows students to fill in a record (ie. a line, or record) on your spreadsheet using a webform. Students can't see the completed spreadsheet, but each time s/he fills the form in, the data gets added to your Google doc. 




How can I use it?
You could use this to collect survey information, write a quiz, as a pre-test to find out what your students know, to collect "quickie" book reviews, as sign-in sheets, for journal entries, collecting anonymous tips, etc, etc.


There are some great ways to play with the data once you get it, (graphs, charts, etc) and you can export the data into an excel doc for even more options.


How does it work?
Go to google docs, create a spreadsheet, and then build a form that will "sit on top of" the spreadsheet. Once you have finished composing your form, you can get a link to email or put on a website, or even embed the form on a page you have created. If it sounds complicated, it's not. Just spend some time with the videos listed below and you'll be a forms "expert" in no time.


Here are a few video tutorials:


Getting Started with Google Docs Forms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgerB9MeJoc
Going Paperless with Google Forms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zABy2ri_kTI&feature=related
Google Forms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZEjmxTvR4k
Using Google Forms to Create a online Quiz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzgaUOW6GIs
Self-grading google forms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVqLaYHVXJM&feature=related

Google Doc Viewer

Sometimes, when I've found a great presentation that I'd like to share with students or teachers, the only option seems to be to point them to the site with the PowerPoint download link. 


Unfortunately, this means a less-than-ideal browsing experience that forces the viewer to leave Firefox, download the PPT, and open a separate  application in order to view the content. Just the other day I was reminded of the power of Google Docs viewer. 


Google has provided a nice little page that will let you paste in the URL of the PPT in question, and the form generates an email link, a snippet of html to paste the link into a webpage, and the embed code to place the slide show into an existing webpage or blog post.


Check it out: this is a handy little tool!

http://docs.google.com/viewer

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Arkive: endangered animals

"With the help of the world’s best filmmakers, photographers, conservationists and scientists, ARKive is creating the ultimate multimedia guide to the world's endangered species."

The videos and images in this searchable visual database are perfect for animal research projects. Videos can also be embedded, downloaded and linked. 

http://www.arkive.org

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Screencastle - another screen casting site

A few days ago I reviewed Screenr, a webcasting/screen capture program that works in tandem with your Twitter account. While Screenr is easy to use, the lack of an email address is a problem for younger students or classes wanting to share a project.

Introducing ScreenCastle. This web-based program allows students to record a project (i.e. Slideshow with audio, a story, a news item, etc) and immediately make it available on the internet. ScreenCastle gives you a URL to view, as well as an embed code to put on a class website. (Using a DownLoadHelper, a Firefox plug in, you can even download it in avi format, but this is not a option provided by the site itself.)

Important: Make note of the URL generated.  Although no account or email is needed to do the recording and publishing (so easy!), students must make a note of the URL that is generated (ie copy into a Word document) because there is no other way to find the uploaded video after the fact.

As I mentioned, you can also get embed codes too, but you need to get these at the time the video is uploaded, or there is no way to recover the code.

The sheer ease of use makes this an interesting web app to use in the classroom.

Math Game Site: Manga High

Games have always been a great way to interest students in material. Teachers have used games for review, introducing a topic, or for practice. While there are a great many Math games sites out there, Manga High has some very slick flash games that are sure to intrigue your students. While the creators of the site want you to sign your students up as members of Manga High, visitors can play a selection of games for free. Prodigi, Algebra Meltdown, BIDMAS Blaster, Ice Ice Maybe, Pyramid Panic, Flower Power, Transtar, Save Our Dumb Planet: each game introduces and practices some aspect of the Math curriculum. (Note: these are flash games and wont work on an iPad - maybe an android tablet will!)


http://www.mangahigh.com/en_us/games/

Adding AV tutorials to your website

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and a video can be even more valuable! When you want to explain the "how-to" of a strategy or lesson, or...whatever, Screenr can be just the ticket, This great little web-based app will let you  capture (screen and audio) a short (5 mins max) video tutorial that you can post to Twitter, embed in a blog or send to Youtube. You can even download the finished video as an mp4, and archive it for future use. The steps are easy to follow and you'll be pleased with the results.

Below, I've posted a demo I made on how to access our district online databases via a school library catalog. (BTW, the yellow "glow" around the mouse in the tutorial is courtesy of http://www.2point5fish.com/ and their mini-app "Mouse Locator",  for the Mac.)

Embed Comic strips!

I was asked recently if there was some way to make a comic strip and then embed it on a blog or webpage. As with almost every web-based application out there, embedding has become the de facto standard for sharing content. Why would you have to save your work as a text or image file, download it to your desktop, and then log on to your target destination, and finally upload the particular content item. Embedding allows me to create once and then re-use, re-use, re-use to my heart's desire.

While there are a number of comic creation sites, only a few have the same appeal as ComicLife, and Pikistrips certainly fits the bill. Creating the strip is quite easy: pick your layout, upload pics or choose from Flickr, add speech bubbles, save and share. So easy. I've pasted the embed code for one of my samples below.


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Titanpad is the new Etherpad

For those of you who used Etherpad with great success, its "demise" was a big disappointment. Piratepad appeared as a great substitute, but some people were put off by the "Pirate" in the name, and the fact that it's hosted by the Swedish Pirate Party. 

However, I recently stumbled across Titanpad, which gives all the same functionality, but without the "pirate" designation. So if you have been giving Etherpad a rest, come back and give it a try as TitanPad.


(You can check my description of how this Web 2.0 tool can be used here: <LINK> )

Flipboard for iPad

Welcome back to another school year. Since I've recently acquired an iPad, some of my posts will include links to useful, intriguing or educational apps I've been using. This week I'd like to point you to "Flipboard". This app styles itself as a "personalized, social magazine" and I must admit I am pleased with the look and feel of it.

After downloading from the App Store, I have the option of signing up to my Facebook and Twitter feeds along with tweets from a number of news and lifestyle sites. The end result is very much an idiosyncratic take on themes that are important to me.

What's really nice, is that the feeds are laid out in a magazine format, with slick page flipping action. It makes my Twitter feed a delight to peruse!