TECH Picasa

Picasa automatically brings up the pictures are saved on your computer. In order to work with or edit a picture you simply double click on it. You then have the ability to crop images, use red eye, filter images, or even add text. One of the things i though was interesting was that you could press a button and Picasa would only show you pictures with people's faces.

One feature i thought was really great was the ability to create a collage. For the most part you could only create a collage based on templates they already had in place, however, it is still a great feature, as you can move your pictures around to the carious locations that you want them. In picture pile you can move picture around to any where you want them, however there is no way that i found to bring pictures to the front or back.

Another feature that i thought was cool was was the ability to use your pictures to make a movie. You could add transitions between pictures, add text, and even add audio to the movies. Once your movie is done you can even upload the movie to youtube right from Picasa.

Over all i found Picasa a little difficult to navigate, but once you know what you are doing it is a great site for editing picture and even making fun things with them. Below are the pictures that I edited. The original is first and then the edited one.

TECH game-based learning

For this section I choose to look at a couple of Macro games.

The first one that I looked at was called Fitocracy. This games links gaming with fitness. The mission of the creators was to make fitness more fun, and a more addictive experience. I choose to look at this game in depth and so i did set up an account. When signing up for an account, it asks you to give your weight. The reason for this is so that different quests and achievements can be created just for you. Don't worry, they are not going to post this. It also asks you do check what your inteseted in the fitness for such as cardio, weight loss, strength, or group training. It even gives the option of adding friends so you can encourage one another, or even compete against each other. There is also the option to join various groups that allow you to make new friends and discover new workouts, for instance i joined three groups, swimmers, couch to 5K, and Nah, I'll take the stairs. Finally, it gives you the ability to follow expert  on fitocrats that will keep you motivated in your workouts.
The point of the game is that you workout in order to level up. You input workouts, for instance, i did a work out at the pool today that I was able to input and i earned 227 points. I also input my workout for monday at the pool. The website is designed to be very encouraging. You also have the ability to schedule a workout. Simply choose the date you want to schedual your work out for, so i want to schedule a workout for tomorrow, so I would go to Wednesday July 18 and schedule a work out. The site then sends you an email with the details of your work out. The site allows users to see who on the site has the most points. You can even challenge your friends or people in groups, and interact with people in your groups to talk about your successes and even learn new workouts.
This game would be great for a PE class, as it adds the gaming experience and the competition that some students may find lacking when dong typical workouts. There is obviously a certain amount of honesty that has to go into it, but if you can keep your kids hones this is a great game. It is also available to get on your smartphone, so the students can take it with them everywhere.
This is a game that I will continue to use.

The second game I looked into was not as in depth. I looked at chore wars. Chore wars lets users earn points for household chores. This gets kids motivated to do usually mundane chores such as taking out the trash, or washing dishes. Only the Dungeon master, or the person who set up the account to create chores, others can only claim them. While this game is obviously most useful for the home environment it could also be used in classrooms.  Students do various things like clean their desk, pick up papers, pass out paper, take out the recycling, etc. in order to gain points. The teacher could then set in place a reward system for students as they earn points. Chores that are urgent can be put up as quests. Quests double that XP and gold of a normal adventure. This game is a great way to make anybody, kids and adults, more excited to do chores.

TECH iPad Apps

For the TECH part of todays lesson I looked at a few different apps that are present on the iPads we use in class.

Th first app I looked at was called 3D Brain. This basically gives students the ability to go in an look at a virtual brain in 3D, they can move it and turn the brain to see it from different angles, and even add click a button that will label the various parts. The app gives the ability to look at the brain as a whole or in pieces such as just the frontal lobe, or even just the brain stem. There is even a button that allows students to get more information about the particular part of the brain they are looking at, some even include case studies about it.
I really like this app because it gives students the ability to explore the brain, both as a whole and in pieces without having to worry about taking things apart and putting them back together like with plastic models. This app could be very useful in the classroom when discussing the anatomy of the brain, as each students could have the 3D model right there on their desk and they could manipulate is as they needed to. It would also be a great feature for studying outside of the class room, as it provides labels for each part.

Another app I looked at was called Your world. What I really liked about this app is that it combines a game with the learning. Basically, there is a globe and then at the bottom there are various countries. The student have to try and figure out where on the globe the countries go and then put them there. I liked that it wasn't all well known countries, even in the limited version there were countries that even I had no idea even on what continent they should go. The app provides hints for this reason. I assume that in the full version, all of the countries are present.
This app would be great in the classroom for learning world geography. While, at times it is like putting a puzzle together, the students really need to know where the countries go. This could be good as a review, or even as the beginning of a lesson so the students can see just how many countries there are, and how difficult it can be to know where each one it.

A third app that I looked at was called quick graph. This app is allows students to input equation that they are graphing and then it graphs it for them. They can even graph equations that are already in the library, to see what they look like. This app basically works the same as the graphing feature on a graphing calculator, however as someone who has used a graphing calculator for years, this app is much easier to use, as it allows you to have more than one graph on the same screen. Also this app has the ability to graph on a 3D plain for high mathematics. Something that is not easy to do on a graphing calculator or on paper. It even has a button that allows the students to easily email the graph to themselves to use for studying or completing homework if the iPad must stay at the school.
This app would be great in high-school math classes for graphing as it is much easier to use than a graphing calculator, and had more graphing abilities.

TECH Finders Keepers

Delicious is essentially an online bookmark page. . Adding links is easy to do by copying and pasting the link or you can add a button onto you tool bar. With this button, all you have to do is when you find a site you want to save, simply click the button and it brings up a box for you to give more information on the site, and then simply save it. You can also search  keyword and brows through sites that other people have bookmarked. This allows people to expand their search to site they may not know about or have found on their own. Delicious is a great way to share helpful sites. I simply looked up "math lesson plans" and was given a whole list of links that led to websites that contained wither full math lesson plans, or helpful activities to do with math students. There were over 200 results for this search.

Google reader uses RSS or Really Simple Syndication to bring things that people want to hear about together on one page. Websites publish a list of updates called feeds. Users can subscribe to these feeds, so whenever that website adds new content it will appear in the users google readers. The article shows up with only a small portion that can be read, however by simply clicking on the title the user can view the full article. Users can also tag articles that they like so that they can more easily find them again later. Users can also sort feeds into folders. they may have an entire subscription feed in a folder, or simply one article. It is simple to do. This could be very useful for teaching, as if there are certain sites that provide good articles on teaching or maybe you want you students to keep up with a certain website, you can subscribe to it, and then both the teacher and the students will have easy access to the content of those stories without having to search for them.

The library thing is basically and online card catalog. You can make a library of the books that you own, or make a wish list of books that you want. Users can search for specific books or the can search by author or even just by a key word. The books may even link users to a sight were they can buy the book, and there is palace for users to review the books or even have conversations about them. Users even have the ability to add books that may not already be not he website. This would be a great thing for teachers to have, as students can get on, and have a full list of books that the teacher has in the classroom. This would be a great resource to use to discover new books in about various topics. The students could use it when dong research projects to find books that may help them. Of course, they would then have to find a library that also had that book, but it could be a great starting point.

TECH Gmail, Google Calender, iGoogle

I have only been using Gmail for a few months now, so although I am pretty good with the basic features, i have not actually had the chance to look into some of the other feature Gmail has to offer. For instance, I learned today that since my iPad that I use in class is connected to my Gmail account, all the notes I take on my iPad are saved to the notes section of my Gmail. Gmail also has a chat feature, which, if you choose, you can save all of our chats to your Gmail as well. Gmail also gives users the ability to prioritize their inbox, so mail sent from a priority person would be at the top of the list. Gmail also allows you to sort you contacts list into various circles such as family, friends, and acquaintances. One of the other things that I just learned about tonight is Gmail's task feature which allows the user to basically write a to do list. You can even add details as to what a certain task requires and can check it off as you finish each task.

Next I took a look at Google Calenders. I have used Google calenders a little at my internship last summer, however, I did not use them enough to fully understand what all could be done. Basically, i know that they can be accessed and edited by anyone who the page is shared with. Google calender gives the user the ability to set up a monthly calender, a weekly calender or an agenda for the day. One of the features i really liked about Google Calender was that no matter where you input an event, it will show up on all the other calenders. So if I input an event on the day calender, it will also show up on the weekly calender and the monthly calender. And vice-versa. You can also import another calender into your own, so for instance, I could import my friend Hannah's calender and see when she works and when we both have free days. Or I could import the calender of the Colts season and have all of their games placed in my calender. You can also print any level of your calender easily.

Finally I looked at iGoogle. iGoogle is basically a personalized homepage. I actually already had an iGoogle page, but i don't often use it. One of the best features about iGoogle is that you can personalize it to fit you personality and needs. You can add gadgets to the homepage that interest you, so for instance I have the weather for my hometown on my iGoogle homepage. Gadgets are easy to add and remove and there are a number of different Gadgets to choose from such as news, sports, games, facebook, Gmail, to do lists, and you can even have your Google Calender on your iGoogle. There are a variety of ways to make your iGoogle personalized whether it be just for your own personal use, or if you would want to create an iGoogle page that could be used as a homepage for your classroom. iGoogle would be a great way having everything your students may need right on one page. It's very easy to use, however it should be noted that iGoogle will only be around for about another year, so teachers and individuals should not rely to heavily on it at this time.

TECH basic browsers

I have had quite a bit of experience working with firefox and safari, so in dong this assignment I choose to look into Google Chrome, Sea Monkey, and Sunrise. In comparing these three browsers i opened them all up at once to see the differences and similarities.
Just looking visually at these three browsers, there are quite a few differences. For instance, visually Sea Monkey looks similar to Internet Explorer. It has a favorites menu right on the screen as well. A couple of things that are interesting as far as actually using Sea monkey is that to open a new tab you must go through a couple of different menus. Also, it only has an address bar, but no search bar. However, the address bar works as a google search bar as well. I also thought it was interesting to note that there was a print button right on the tool bar of the page.
Google Chrome visually looks similar to firefox. It automatically opens up in tabs, and has an easy button for opening up new tabs. It does not have a favorites bar right on the screen either. it does have an easy button on tool bar/address bar for bookmarking pages however. It only has an address bar, but no search bar. However, once again the address bar works as a google search bar. There is not really a tool bar on the page, however there are a couple of basic buttons like the refresh button and customize button on the address bar.
Sunrise visually looks very similar to Safari, with a few differences. The first difference being the Sunrise opens up already in tabs, with an easy access button for opening more tabs. Once again, it does not contain a google search bar, but instead the address bar works as a google search bar. The address bar doubles as the tool bar containing buttons for the home page, history, bookmarks, and others that I will talk about later. When the browser opens it has the favorites screen to the right of the browser screen. Which can be made larger or smaller or taken off completely. The favorites are also easy to add and delete. Some of the extra tools that Sunrise includes on the tool bar are a screen capture button, a button for switching between different browsers that you may have open, a button for sending a report for something suspicious, and the ability to change the language right form the main tool bar. Sunrise seems to me to be the most user friendly.

TECH keyboarding

The website http://freeonlinetypinggames.com/ provided quite a few various games that students could play to improve their typing. They also had games for various age levels from smaller children just learning their alphabet, to older children who are learning to type fast. My partner Elise played a game called Farm Defender were kids simply typed one letter, this would be for students just learning their alphabet. I played a game called Alburn's attack, where students have to type words at a fairly quick speed in order to keep the attacking enemy away. This game would help improve students typing speed more than accuracy.

http://typingclub.com/typing-qwerty-en.html provided an activity for students to learn typing focusing on only two letters at a time, with a review for the whole row. Students type these two letters in various patterns, copying what they see on the screen. The website provides feedback based on accuracy and the amount of time taken.

The website http://harald.ist.org/index.php?site=neu&page=invaders&lang=en offered a game that is great for getting students aquatinted with the keyboard and where letters are located. The goal is to type the letters on the invading spaceships before they reach earth. They must be typed in order, and the closer to earth they get the faster they get to speed is also an issue.

TECH Macs

I have been using computers for about seven years. I mostly use a mac however I also know how to use  a PC.
Since I regularly use the Mac OS operating system I listened to how to use more specific features of the mac. I listened to and learned about voice over. This feature allows people who are seeing impaired or blind to navigate their computers. This video gave instructions in how to turn on the voice over and how to use it. This feature will tell the uses what they are pointing to or clicking on. Although I often work with a mac I did not realize that this feature even existed so it was very interesting to learn about.
I also listened to the video about speech recognition. This was another feature that i have never worked with, however it is very interesting and useful. It allows users to speak to the computer in order to navigate it. This feature would be very helpful for someone who may be multitasking or not well at navigating manually.
Finally, I listened to how to turn written text into speech. This application would be good for if someone would like to hear something that they have written read to them. It would also be good for those people who may not be able to read a web page easily, they can instead have the computer read it to them. Along with this I learned how to save the spoken text to itunes. Again this could useful for saving speeches and such that you would like to listen to, or have other listen to. This would allow the user to sink the text speech to their ipod so that they could listen to it anywhere. This was another feature that I did not realize existed so it was interesting to learn about, and something that I would like to play with on my own to learn more about.