Archive for TechFriends(Geeks)

Creating Animations and Video on the iPad using Doceri 2.0

July 14, 2012 Algebra, Distance Education, Doceri, dropbox, education, Evernote, feedback, Group Work, Helping students, Interactive Projects, iPad, iPad applications, Mathcast, Student participation, taking notes, Teaching, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology, videos, writing 11 comments

Can I just start with “WOW”!?!

I got back from ISTE, overwhelmed with all the new and amazing tools and apps I learned about! Luckily the great folks at Doceri let me play with their beta 2.0 version (which should hit iTunes stores soon) and that made for an easy decision for me to start right there.

I get to use the iPad classroom (25 student iPads, 1 teacher iPad, and an Apple TV!!) to teach Intermediate Algebra in the Fall, so my focus at ISTE was to find iPad apps that allow students to create, not just to consume.   I hit the jackpot with the new version of Doceri!!  Not only can I create lessons, but the students will be able to create animations and videos as well, right from their iPads.

Here is a quick video I made using Doceri 2.0:

Link to the video on YouTube

The new version of Doceri (2.0) should hit the iTunes app store soon, and it is a HUGE update!

The new features I am so excited about are 1) it allows you to work directly from the iPad (without needing to connect to a computer), and 2) it now records your pen strokes allowing you to easily create animations and videos directly from the iPad!  INCREDIBLE!   You can even edit your animations and upload your videos to YouTube!

OK, before I get too far ahead of myself (I am just so excited!), here is the new opening screen on the iPad:
(By the way, I did get permission from Doceri to blog about the new version before it hits the iTunes store!)

opening screen

**UPDATE!  Doceri 2.0 will be in iTunes stores July 24, 2012!!!  

As you can see, Doceri 2.0 can now be used from the iPad alone, and even use Airplay if you are presenting (or just use the iPad at home to create a lesson!!!).

Starting a new project gives you a blank screen, which you can change to any color, use one of their backgrounds, or create your own.  They have included many helpful math backgrounds, along with maps, as well as colors and textures.

backgrounds

 

After you choose your background, you can start writing on the screen.  What you see at the top of the image below is the new RECORDING menu!!!  It records your writing strokes.  You can go back and edit them, speed them up, or slow them down.  You can even add stops and new slides to your project.  The record button on the top left allows you to record voice as well (while writing, or narrate even after you are done writing).

recording menu

 

 After recording a video, you have several options for exporting (on the right) to Facebook, YouTube, email, and to your images folder on the iPad.

export options

 

You can also open your recordings on your iPad with any app loaded that will play a .mov file, including Dropbox and Evernote, so you can access your recordings from any device!  (I also have TechSmith’s Fuse app installed on my iPad, so it found that app and listed it as well.)

 

The folks at Doceri created quite a few sample projects to help give ideas on how this new product can be used. Here is a screenshot of one of their videos (of course I chose math, but there are many other types as well):

Doceri Sample

*Once Doceri 2.0 hits the iTunes stores, you can pay for the ability to remove the Doceri watermark, and even add your own watermark.

Here is a link to the video version (I did not add any sound):  math 01 – related ratesDoceriSample

Links to 2 more videos I made using Doceri 2.0

Adding Fractions 2

Solving Quadratics by Factoring

Like the original Doceri Remote app, Doceri 2.0 can connect to your computer to share screens, but now there is a MUCH easier way to connect:

QR code

 If you have an iPad2, just point the camera at the QR code and you are automatically connected!  I tried it and it worked amazingly well.  Once you are connected to your computer, you can use your animations and videos to present a lesson to the class, or create one while you are presenting!

**I am using the term “animation” for those projects that do not contain sound.  All writing into the application is recorded and can be shown as animated or as still shots.   These can only be played from within Doceri.  Once you add sound, then a .mov file is created, so I am using the term “video” for the animations with sound added.

Here is the “official” list of updates for Doceri 2.0 (from Doceri):

What’s new in Doceri 2.0

You can now prepare Doceri Projects on the iPad without being connected to a Doceri Desktop AND you can present without a Doceri Desktop via Airplay. Audio recording has been added to create high quality screencast videos based on Doceri projects. In addition, more sophisticated drawing and authoring tools have been added, as well visual file management, improved placement of project timeline controls for easier presentation, and improved screen update time for remote desktop control.

Screencasting with Doceri

  • Create a live screencast as you present, or create, edit and perfect your project in advance and add an audio voice over later
  • Choose to save audio or delete and re-record without impacting your Doceri project
  • Videos may be shared via YouTube, Facebook or email and/or saved to the Camera Roll and any app that responds to video

New Drawing and Authoring Tools

  • New line tools (with snapping), geometric shapes (rectangle, ellipse) arrow tool and a new pen tool with realistic ink flow
  • Easy access to six user-defined favorites from the available drawing tools
  • Place photos from Camera Roll, Photo Stream or another application at any point in your project
  • The new lasso tool allows you to cut, copy, move and paste drawing objects
  • Choose between patterns, colors or create custom backgrounds on any slide in your project

Direct Controls for Keynote and Powerpoint

  • Launch a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation and use Doceri’s one-touch controls to advance your slides
  • Annotate over Keynote or Powerpoint (or anything shown on your desktop), creating a multipage Doceri project while keeping your original presentation file intact

 Completely Revamped File Management

  • Doceri files can now be stored on the iPad Duplicate, merge projects, and transfer to and from your desktop
  • Combine, resize and share screencasts to Facebook, YouTube, Camera Roll or email with a simple drag and drop
  • Full implementation of cross application file sharing allowing “open in” function to copy files in and out of Doceri 
 

New “Insight” into Teaching with Technology!

April 9, 2012 CPS Clickers, education, Future Tech, Insight360, insight360 clickers, iPad, iPad applications, Mobi, Teaching, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology 2 comments

Introduction to the Insight 360 system by eInstruction

I have been using eInstruction’s Mobi, MobiView and CPS Pulse clickers, along with their Workspace software now for several years.   At times, having to open different programs to run the clickers with the Mobi was a bit challenging, and sometimes I found it difficult to set up questions ahead of time.   All that has changed with the Insight360 system.

As you can see in the photo, the hardware that has replaced the Mobi and Mobi View looks exactly like the Mobi View (still with the touch screen- yay!), but with new software and menus.   The new software also run the Insight360 clickers and makes it seemless to use them in your classroom!  HUGE improvement!

The old Mobi and Mobi View can still be used with the system as student Mobis, which is great.   The new Insight 360 system makes it very simple to split the screen and allow students with a Mobi (or Mobi View) to write on the virtual whiteboard from their seat, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to use the old hardware!   You can even update your old CPS pulse clickers to the new system easily, rather than having to purchase new clickers!   *I prefer these clickers over other systems I have seen because they work extremely well WITH the Mobi (they are not just stand alone clickers).   From anywhere in the room, I can access live data coming from the clickers (my students) to make immediate decisions about how to change the course of my classroom instruction, and the system works with any software on your computer – like Powerpoint, anything on the internet, or even the Workspace software from the Mobi generation.  So teaching with this system does NOT tie you down to only one application to teach from on your classroom computer.

The best feature (OK, one of the best) is that now you can run the Insight 360 application from an iPad 2!   This frees up all existing Mobis or Mobi Views in your classroom to become student Mobis!   As you can see in the image below, they even went as far as to make a case to house the iPad to give it the look and feel of a Mobi!

 

I just started this week to use my new Insight360 system, so more information and photos to follow, along with opinions from my students on how they like learning from this new system.

The new  Insight360 is a finalist in the 2012 EdTech Digest Awards Program for the Cool Tool Ward!   EdTech Digest Awards 2012

To learn more about the new Insight360 system from eInstruction, you can visit their website.

 

My Student Hyperstudio Projects

December 18, 2011 education, HyperStudio, Interactive Projects, Math Projects, Mathcast, Software, Teaching, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks) Comments Off on My Student Hyperstudio Projects

Student Hyperstudio5 Projects

The final project I had my Math For Elementary Teachers do for the course was to create an interactive Hyperstudio Project.


The projects are too large to be viewed well inside my blog, so I have created a website to house them. The website is best viewed using Safari if possible, if not, just ignore the browser warning, as I have used a beta version of Hyperstudio to export them into HTML5 .

I have many of my student’s projects posted on a THIS WEBSITE.    Enjoy!

 

Learning to Write His Name!

December 9, 2011 Assistive Technology, Autism, iPad, iPad applications, Livescribe, Livescribe, livescribe smartpen, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology Comments Off on Learning to Write His Name!

My Autistic Great Nephew: Update #2:

I heard back from my niece last week about how her autistic son is doing with the Livescribe smartpen and his iPad.

If you have not seen the earlier part of the story, click here.

The story left off where my niece was going to her son’s school for the IEP meeting…

She told me about how much he loves the sound dots and that every time they get a new book he gets so excited to “dot” it!  He brings her everything he owns with writing on it so they can put a sound dot on it.
Then she shared the sad news with me that they did have her son’s IEP meeting, but it was very frustrating.  “They don’t want to use any technology. They also don’t think it is a good use of time to attempt to teach him the alphabet. So we’re just going to keep working on it ourselves”

Lucky for her son, she did not give up!  I got this update from her last week:

“Exciting News!
Last week (her son) started writing his name on the iPad!
This week I got a letter home from the school saying they are willing to try to incorporate using his iPad into his academics at school. My hope is the next step will be for the instructors to start using the (smart)pen so that they can give him lessons that can translate into home use.”

Pretty amazing stuff!!  I am so glad he has her to advocate for him.  What a great thing for him to be able to write his name!

The Livescribe smartpen and his iPad have made a huge difference in my great-nephew’s ability to learn the alphabet and start to learn to read.

Amazing!

 

 

 

The Future of Educational Games – Sifteo Cubes

October 27, 2011 Algebra, education, Future Tech, games, Sifteo Cubes, STEM, tactile learning, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology 4 comments

The future is NOW!

I came across an article a few weeks back on some amazing new technology for games and educational apps called Sifteo Cubes.


*image taken from the Sifteo website

I could see potential without even touching them!   I ordered a set (they come with three cubes) and they came right away. Within the first day I knew I had to have all six cubes, so I ordered a second to get down to the business of seeing what the full set could really do.

Right now there are not a lot of apps for the cubes, but anyone can download the Sifteo SDK and create their own apps for the cubes.   I think I have found a couple game programmers who are willing to work towards creating some educational apps that I have in mind to reinforce fractions and algebra concepts.   These cubes will be really amazing for math!

I created a short video of some of my favorite apps so you can see  how the cubes work.

If you decide to get a set, please write me and let me know how you plan on using them.

 

GlogsterEDU Projects for Students

October 15, 2011 education, Glogster, GlogsterEDU, Google Sites, Interactive Projects, Livescribe, Livescribe, Math Projects, online tools, Teaching, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks) One comment

CREATIVE ONLINE PROJECTS

Next week my students in my Math For Elementary Teachers class will be creating a Glog:  an interactive, online poster.   GlogsterEDU will allow them to create their Glog for free and publish it to their Google Website for the class.

I just finished creating a new Glog to show a few uses of the Livescribe smartpen in the classroom.  I plan on using this as an example when I teach them how to use GlogsterEDU.

Link to the Glog if you cannot see it above.

I will post some of their work when completed!

 

Getting Organized

August 13, 2011 Algebra, Camtasia, education, eInstruction Interwrite Workspace, Flash, Flash, Helping students, Interactive Projects, Livescribe, Livescribe, Lumens DC265 Ladibug document camera, Math Projects, Mathcast, Mobi, MyScript, Teaching, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology, Training, videos Comments Off on Getting Organized

ADDING MY VIDEOS TO THIS BLOG

I have heard from several people that they would like to see some of the educational videos I have created.  I realize there was a pull down menu at the top of my blog for it, but I never actually organized the content I have created in the past.

In the past 6 months I have had to wipe both my Mac and my Windows machine (long stories), so some of my videos are now “lost’, but luckily YouTube still has a small collection.

I finally got organized today and separated my videos into categories.  If you look along the top of my blog, you will see a category called “Animations/Videos” :



Most of my videos fall in to four categories of  “How-To” videos, “Educational Teaching Videos”, “Flash Animated Tutorials”, and “Livescribe pencasts”.  I will be adding some Animationish videos after this Fall when I have my students creating some.

I created the “How-To” videos to teach others how to use software or hardware.  Here are the categories I have in that section:

I plan on adding more videos to this section in the near future, so some of the categories do not have any links yet.

The next main category I have been creating videos for is in “Educational Teaching Videos”.  These are short videos I have created for my students to introduce a topic we are studying in the class.

As you can see when you look through the Educational Teaching videos, I was trying out several types of hardware/software to see what worked best.   I used the eInstruction Workspace software for a “whiteboard” in some videos, and recorded and edited with Camtasia studio.  In other videos I used a Lumens HD Ladibug document camera.  I found the document camera to be better for me when I am actually needing to record working with actual objects like base ten blocks and fraction circles.   I will hopefully be making more videos using these this semester. I will try to keep up with posting them here so I don’t lose them again!!

Most of the tutorials/lessons I have created for my students in the past year are Livescribe pencasts, but I find when I need the lesson to be more visual, a video is better.    My livescribe pencasts are organized by topic on THIS PAGE.  I have quite a few pencasts collected there.   When I had to wipe my computers, I lost all the original pencasts, so for now I cannot change any of those pencasts into PDF’s to download.

Lastly, about six years ago I started created Flash animated tutorials to help my students in my Math For Elementary Teachers classes better visualize the math they will be teaching. I strongly believe visualization is key to understanding!

The Flash animated tutorials are housed on a separate area (outside of my blog).   They are organized by arithmetic topic:

For example, clicking on the “1/3” would take you to the fraction tutorials, and the “2” will take you to the multidigit whole number operations.  This type of tutorial takes me a lot longer to create, so I do not have many in some areas (like decimals).   Instead, I am starting to create more interactive tutorials using Hyperstudio.  To see a few of those interactive tutorials, CLICK HERE.

These are still a work in progress, but I promise to continue adding here so check back!

 

 

New Livescribe Connectors For OneNote and Google Sites!

August 3, 2011 Connect, education, Evernote, Facebook, Google, Google Docs, Google Docs, Google Sites, Livescribe, Livescribe, Livescribe Pencast Player, Mathcast, OneNote, Teaching, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology 4 comments

*Image taken from the Livescribe Facebook Page.

I downloaded the latest version of Livescribe desktop to try out the NEW connectors.   Livescribe just added Microsoft OneNote and Google Sites to their list of connectors!   Download the lastest desktop at:  http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/starthere 

connect
brought to you by Livescribe

Here is a screenshot of a Google website I created.  You can use the launch-line feature and write the words “Google Site” (the pen recognizes the words you want pretty quickly – or you can make a short cut like “sites” for it)

 

Every time you sync a new pencast to Google Sites, it creates a new webpage on your site and embeds the playable pencast on the page.  You can rename and edit the page any way you would like after the pencast is uploaded.    What a great way to share a test key or answer student questions so all students have access to it!

The other new Connector is for Microsoft OneNote.   I have read a lot of feedback from folks REALLY wanting this connector.   Since I use Evernote (a LOT), I haven’t really played with OneNote, but this gave me the perfect excuse to crack it open and start playing!

After syncing your pen using the OneNote Connector, when you open up Microsoft OneNote you see two things:

1)  A rough screen shot of your pencast, and

2)   An embedded Pencast PDF file that holds the entire pencast (includes both synced audio and animation)

If you double click on the PDF file in the upper right, it opens Adobe (10 or higher) and shows you the actual animated pencast.   This pencast is still in your OneNote notebook, but can also be shared with others.

The PDF pencast comes with a player that allows you to play, stop and scrub through the pencasts as you want.

You do not have to use launch-lines to use the connectors – they also show up in a menu on the left side of your Livescribe desktop:

 

All you need to do is sync your pen and then drag any “page” from your notebook onto one of the connectors – and you are done!

I already use the other connectors all the time, now I have even more choices to make my life easier.

I am looking forward to being able to create a Google Website that houses all the pencasts I upload for my students, so I can just post the link to the website for my students, rather than having to embed each new pencast I make manually.    This update for Connect is extremely helpful for me and will save me a LOT of time this semester!!

Loving all the new updates from Livescribe as they listen in on what their users really need “now”.  I can’t wait to see what is next!

 

 

Mapping my Syllabus (again)

July 31, 2011 education, iPad applications, Math Projects, mindmapping, MindMeister, Mindmeister, Software, Teaching, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology One comment

I am rewriting a blog post from a year ago…

Last year I used a mindmap of my course syllabus to show them an example of mapping out something.  They will be mapping out at least one unit and bringing in new resources to share with the rest of the class this semester, so I decided to update my MindMeister mindmap to go with the new syllabus

Here is a link to the actual mindmap if you cannot see it above.

I will also be creating several other project samples for the students using the course syllabus – stay tuned!

 

Did I mention that MindMeister has an iPad app?!!

 

Screencaptures by TechSmith for the iPad!

July 26, 2011 education, Helping students, iPad, iPad applications, Mathcast, ScreenChomp, Teaching Online, TechFriends(Geeks), Technology Comments Off on Screencaptures by TechSmith for the iPad!

While reading through posts on Google+, Facebook and Twitter by my PLN, I came across this valuable new FREE app for the iPad!   I use TechSmith products (Camtasia, Snagit and Jing) all the time on my laptops, but always wanted to have the same functionality for my iPad.  Not only did TechSmith follow through, but they made it FREE!

Opening up the ScreenChomp app, you see a blank whiteboard.

They have given us 12 colors to choose from (but I would like to see a slider for SIZE of the pen at some point in the near future!), an eraser and a record button – yes ScreenChomp will record a video of you writing and speaking at the same time!

When you save your file you have the option of saving it to the “cloud” by hitting the ScreenChomp.com button or sharing it on Facebook.

After saving your screencast, you have three options for sharing:   You can copy the link, email it or Tweet it!  Here is a link to the actual video I just made.   I need to find a way to embed the video without having to go through another application. Suggestions?

I think this will be a GREAT way to answer student questions from my iPad!  I just have to create a quick screencast on my iPad and then send it to them.   Can’t wait to try it out!

 

 

 
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